Yes. If you are watching massive battles in gameplay videos for the first time and wondering to yourself, "how the hell could I control this" than this post is for you...There are 8 reasons why this game is very easy to play:
1. Zoom – have you ever played a game and wished you could just pull out to see the ‘big picture’ without feeling restricted. SINS allows you to pull back as far as you like, allowing you to see as many units, structures, planets, or solar systems as you like! There is no separate map or mode. Just point and zoom
2. Icons – Every faction in the game has its own unique icon, up to 10 players, plus NPC units. At the beginning of the game you can pick a custom icon out of a large selection. When you are zoomed in close the icons appear above ships, planets, and structures so you can quickly tell who is who. When you zoom out so far that your unit can’t be seen in 3D, an icon of the unit (in your player color) appears in its place. You can do everything with these icons as you can with the actual 3D unit.
3. Color – When you are up close in battle you can see colored stripes, lights, and exhaust that help you tell enemy units from your own. You also have the option of viewing all enemies as red , friendlies as blue , and yourself as green .
4. Empire tree – while it may be a new concept to games, the empire tree is basically just a controllable navigation tree on the left side of your screen, sort of like windows explorer. It allows you to see which ships and structures are at which planets. You can expand or close the tree to your personal preference. You can select any unit or planet in the tree and give your orders without having to actually be there! There are some fancy advanced features that will make your life easier too – stacking similar units, a search function (for those pesky ships that get lost) and a ‘pin’ button that lets you choose what you want to keep in the tree.
5. Alt – Press ‘Alt’ on your keyboard and you’ll get a ton of extra information on anything you see on screen – Health bars, rank, planet names, a tactical grid, the range of your weapons, and lines to show you where your ships are moving and attacking.
6. Low Micromanagement
a. Auto-attack – any unit that can attack and also auto-attack with the click of a button. The unit AI picks targets intelligently based on the ships role, so you don’t need to worry about micromanaging every single ship the whole game.
b. Auto-abilities – ships and structures know what they are supposed to do, if you order them to do so. Your colony ship with go ahead and colonize, your scout will auto scout, and your siege ships will siege a planet. Capital ships have powerful abilities, and you want to be careful which abilities you want to automate in battle (so you don’t consume all your antimatter).
c. Fleets – grab units, click the fleet button and just command the fleet leader. You don’t have to worry about everyone; they’ll stay together AND perform their duties intelligently in the process.
d. Control groups – Select some ships, press CTRL and any number. Use that number to control the group.
e. Queuing – You can’t research and build everything at once, but you can give the orders ahead of time!
f. Moving in 3D – this is not near as intimidating as it looks. Just move as you would in a standard RTS - the game can handle the up and down for you. It isn't hard to get lost because you can always zoom out and see the big picture. Also, you can easily set multiple paths for your ships to follow.
7. Streamlined InterfaceWho wants to play a game with a third of the interface dominating the screen? We did everything possible to keep the UI sleek and intuitive, so you could have more space for combat!
a. There may be a lot going on in your empire, but there is plenty of warning for key events. Vocal alerts and large event buttons warn you when your empire may be in trouble or experiences an important milestone. At the top of the screen, a large flashing research, diplomacy, or pirate button will let you know if your research is complete, if a player wants to engage in diplomatic relations, or if bounty is placed on your head! Portraits of other players will also flash on your screen when they have an offer for you. Planet and ship icons will flash red when they are under attack.
b. The UI is context sensitive, so you only see what is relevent to what you have selected. If you can’t purchase a ship, a little icon will appear over the button to tell you want you need (ie. A research icon for 'research required' or a coin for 'credits required'.)
c. You can easily learn about anything in the game by just hovering over it, and reading the ‘infocard’ which pops up in the bottom right corner of your screen.
d. Single and Multiplayer games can be saved whenever you like. Single player games can be paused whenever you like.
8. Learning more
a. Tutorials – The game comes with some great tutorials to get you started. They explain all the controls you’ll need to know to play the game (Basic Gameplay, Basic Logistics, Advanced Interface, and Advanced Logistics)
b. Tips – Random tips will display whenever you load the game.
c. Forums/Chat – How many forums do you know of where developers hang out and answer your questions and actual implement your ideas into a game? Our commitment is more than a great game, it’s a great community. You have skilled wingmen(and women) in our publishing team, our beta testers, and many others ready to help you learn the game. Once the game is out, you’ll also be able to chat in ICO (Ironclad Online) where you can meet friends and coordinate your games.
d. Manual – The game comes with a hefty 80 page Manual. While it doesn't cover EVERYTHING, it will give all the necessary skills to play effectively. You'll probably enjoy the backstory as well If you ordered the game online you can find your PDF manual in your game folder: Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\Sins of a Solar Empire\Manual.pdf
one thing that i am having trouble with is the black market. The controls for selling crystal and metal at your own price is really confusing, but really tempting at the same time. I have never been able to figure it out.
Thanks in advance,
You want to call this easy??? i am light green. I was like.. what the f... Oh it was against 3 computers on hard. oh and uh i won with zero casualties. i like those star bases , nice update. I had 10 capital ships all around lvl 9.
take a look:
The empire tree is nothing new. In ye olden days the games were just 2,3 & 4 - 2D colored icons with a "tree" to the side. That's how I play this game 90% of the time... for half a day.
This game is very easy to learn and control. The only thing I had to do was switch pause to spacebar ala' NWN so I can thumb it quickly.
Usiing the # button then holding shift and selecting more units to add to the overall selection then pressing ctrl# again to quickly grow the group is great.
Also don't forget the ability to have units auto move to a certain location after being built. That's not new either but darn convenient to have a steady stream of replacement units come in to keep fighting strength up. Combine that with my previous statement.
I to love this game, but the AI is a little dissapointing, as is the "current" diplomacy system (The constant demands are a real pain)
Why would another race/civilisation demand something to improve relations when they're in the process of bombing one of your planets? hehe
Also, the AI never seems to build more than say, 3-4 capital ships, even on "Unfair" mode.
If the AI doesn't build more than 3 or 4 capital ships, that's probably to the AI's credit. I played against a guy last night who started out by building four or five capital ships and a smile crossed my face since I knew that I could just pump out Illuminators and take them down.
The AI for this game is pretty decent if not good as far as computer AI goes, but until computers gain real sentience, AI will always be limited. Adam, if you think the AI is a little disappointing, have you considered playing the game in online multiplayer against human opponents? You do have a choice! Just click the "Ironclad Online" button, register an account, choose a player name, and come join the fun. You'll get to enjoy playing more challenging, more suspenseful, and more fulfilling games, and you'll get to enjoy having human allies to coordinate teamwork with and also camraderie, and who knows, you might even make some online friends. So, come online and discover what the game is like when your opponents and allies aren't handicapped.
As a total beginner and a pensioner who should know better I find this game fascinating, especially with no pirates active, and am now on my fifth attemprt to survive more than an hour. However desprte working through the tutorials several times I am still strugging to understand fully the following:
Why can I not always colonise a planet that is colonisable?
I get a message not enough slots (is it tactical or something like that) available to create more ships. How do I get more?
More research needed but no options available on research updates.
On development tree if an icon is coloured and I click on it a 1 appears top right and if I click again 1 appears bottom right but nothing seems to happen to change anything. What is happening here?
It is not always obvious what research/actions/developments you need to do to move on to the next level.
Age of the Empires was never so complicated! Any help or pointer towards useful info gratefully received
johnfh- there are no levels to sins, so yeah, age of empires doesn´t really connect to well. When you open the research menu and click on something to research, a 1 comes up and a yellow bar will begin to travel across it showing that it is being researched (takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 2-3 minutes, depending on the technology). You need to research ice colonization for ice planets and volcanic colonization for volcanic planets (can´t remember their exact names). To create more ships, open the technology/research menu and one of the tabs will be for ship slots. You need to "research" more ship slots for your maximum fleet size and for more capital ships. I haven´t played sins in a few months so if some of this is kinda sketchy I apologize. But this should point you in the right direction.
to play, yah this game is easy, but too be good at, theres a huge learning curve
Hello.
Fantastic summary. I have one day playing the game, and while it works marvelously, I really hate the pirate raids. Since I still don't know the structures and ships very well, I keep myself distracted from researching because I have to prepare for the next raid. I guess I'm going to try without pirates, but so far they give me (kind of) easy levels, so it's a tough decision.
With pirates I have to micro-manage a lot, which I usually don't.
Thanks for the list!
most people turn off pirates in their games. you can do that by pressing game options on the choose race/a.i. difficulty screen. the pirates r getting a huge overhaul in diplomancy tho so hopefully they come out decent!
Hehe, yeah. I tried playing again with them ON, and used them to my advantage, so I could level up my capital ships, but then totally got outnumbered by my enemy (with "Normal Random").
Oh, well, I guess it's just a matter of practice.
Thanks!
PS: Is it just me, or battles are rather... slow? Capital ships really take time to bring down, then again, I guess that's how it should be, given their sheer size and purpose. Oh, and by the way, there seems to be something wrong with the "Quote" command of these forums. How can I report it?
if u leave a space or press enter after quoting, it should work. or maybe thats just my superstition.
(from the same game options menu) u can set everything to fast so the game progresses quicker. idk wat kind of battle u had in ur game, but with upwards of 20 ships on each side they start to get tense. usually i just set up which ships i want my ships to attack and then leave the battle to take care of some other part of my empire. and i periodically check in on them.
That is completely normal. In late game a battle always takes at least 5 minutes.
I must say I'm struggling with this game. It's easy to use the controls and the interface is simple, but trying to figure out what and how much to build is really hard. I have no idea how many ships to build or how to really expand. I build a few scouts to start and try and tech up, but everywhere seems to be filled with enemy ships. I don't understand how that's possible right at the start! Every planet i travel to is occupied! I play the game on easy to try and get the hang of it and i find that i'm constantly being asked to undertake missions that would be either impossible or totally counter productive. When I'm trying to use diplomacy myself, refusing makes this objective much harder.
I've also noticed a couple of situations that didn't make any sense to me: first a nearby asteroid field had 1 asteroid that i seemed to have control of and two others that i didn't yet i hadn't even travelled there. I sent a diplomacy ship to try and colonise the others after I found i couldn't build on them, but nothing. That makes no sense to me. Then i noticed a huge pirate fleet was attacking my homeworld despite that the pirate timer was still halfway through! How can they attack me if it hasn't run out?
I can't really figure out what i should do, how much i should build and where. Planets seem to have few logistics slots which means you have to expand in order to tech up. That's fine, but when everything is already occuipied it makes it difficult if you aren't a military faction to know what to do. I'm trying to be diplomatic but i don't even seem to be quick enough.
Just some quick tips:
First, start by going through the tutorial 2 or 3 times and then go through it once a week until you've picked all of it up.
For your first few games, play with no more than 2 or 3 AI opponents and set the teams to LOCKED teams so that they won't ally with one another against you (which they eventually would otherwise). Unless you have Diplomacy, it's probably good to always play it with LOCKED teams so you don't get ganged up on.
The ships at the uncolonized planets are militia ships. You need to kill them and they are food (experience) for your capital ships.
Your first capital ship is FREE! The very first thing to do at the start of the game is to order the production of your first capital ship. If you do not play with Quick Start option, then the first thing to do is to order the construction of a capital ship factory and then queue up the order for the capital ship. Since you are new, start out with a mothership--the capital ship that can colonize (Akkan, Progenitor, or Evacuator depending on your race). Choose the Colonize ability for it's first ability. Immediately send it to that asteroid that only has the two militia ships and kill the seige frigate first, then colonize the asteroid and order the construction of your metal and crystal extractors.
You also want to have a couple scouts. Build the scouts and set them to auto-explore (I think you right click the upper left button in the command menu for them so a circle swishes around, indicating that they are now on auto-explore). This way they will not sit in gravity wells and get killed by militia; they will keep moving even if you have not given them specific move orders, allowing you to focus on other things. However, it's good to order them around if you have the time; you can do this even if they are set to auto explore.
So you've colonized that first asteroid. Now increase the planet population so it doesn't cost your money. Also, it's time to start building some fighting ships to clear out those militias. If you are TEC or Advent you can build Cobalts and Disciples to help your mothership. If you are Vasari then you should build 1 military lab and research Assailants and make some Assailants to help your mothership. (As a general rule, Skirmishers are broken in that they are too expensive in terms of fleet supply and overall cost for what they give you.)
Now, when you're ready to increase the size of your fleet beyond the first fleet supply barrier, you have to find the fleet supply research tech tree and research an increase to the fleet supply, but note that every time you do that, your tax increases and those increases are permanent, so you have to think about whether you really want to do it beyond the first three fleet supply research levels.
Try all of that and let us know if that helped in getting off the ground.
LOL! What difficulty you playing on,i want a fight like that but when i come to fight they just run away.I just have the first one no updates btw.
Stop running You Cowards!
You're still playing v1.00 (or whatever was released on the original SOSE DVD)? You definitely should try updating the game. If you purchase Diplomacy, there's also an option to play against a Cruel and Vicious AI (both of which are insane). The Pirates in Diplomacy were also buffed significantly, making them a real threat. Note that for a real strategic challenge, your best bet is online multiplayer against human opponents.
Im just about to get the updates saw them in the store today. Cant wait to get them.Also i want to get online but it keeps disconecting me, wont even let me get in ,im guessing its that i just need the updates so hope to see you all online soon.
Instead of purchasing a hard-copy in the store (Trinity for about $40), it would probably be less expensive to purchase the expansions over Impulse since you already own the base game. Wait-a-second, do you even know what you have to do to update this game in the first place? (I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a couple hundred thousand players out there who have never been to the Sins website and who are still playing Sins v1.00-1.05 for this reason and who have no idea that online multiplayer even exists or what the Ironclad Online button is supposed to do since they receive errors every time they try it out.)
Here's the story. When Sins was originally released, the first patches (v1.01-1.05) were released as files that you could simply download just like most other patches. However in the Fall of 2008 Stardock introduced Impulse (which is like Steam) and began using it as a form of DRM--you can't get the updates unless you've registered your CD key with it. So, you have to download and install this program called Impulse which you can find here:
http://www.ImpulseDriven.com
You have to register an account with Impulse as well as register your game with it. Then you can update Sins to v1.19 (or v1.191, I forget.) (Yes--it's had 19 or 20 patches.) Once you are upgraded to the most recent version of the game, then you can create an account on Ironclad Online. (The online multiplayer is accessed with the Ironclad Online button and not the Multiplayer button which is for setting up LAN games and direct connect games with friends.) After that you can purchase each of the two expansions (Entrenchment and Diplomacy) for $10 each over Impulse, which will download and install them for you.
I want to download the games updates but parents wont let me so i thought just getting the game in store would be easyer but ill try hopeing to play online soon
Also when i just buy trinity in stores i get all of the expasion packs right there and plus i got enough money right now so i can buy it next time i go out.
I guess you could just purchase a hard copy of Trinity if you like, but it seems kind of silly since you already own the base game. I mean, why spend $40 when you can purchase the expansions for $20? I know, parents, can't game with them, can't live without them. You will have to install and register your game with Impulse anyway if you ever want to play it online because you will need to patch the game. Also, you will want to patch it because the pirates in the first version of Diplomacy were overpowered (maybe you'd like that since you already know how to play) and were nerfed slightly in the first patch. You don't need a credit card to do patch with Impulse if you purchase a hard copy.
Are your parents opposed to installing Impulse (which is benign and can be set so that it does not start at boot-up), or are they opposed to making an online purchase with a credit card? I think Stardock will accept mailed checks from people, too.
Well i think its just useing the credit card over internet becouse of identity theft but you are right about the prices but still im doing what i can here and the overpowerd pirates would be just fine with me even in hard the AI just run and the pirates are the only real battles i get although there small fleets later in game amount up to nothing but i think that the expasions where the more the pirates are bribed the more stronger they are is pretty cool.
But ive known about the online and where to go in response to your later comment ,and saw the website and looked at prices but cant get them plus parents are strict on online stuff its lucky they let me get on the internet at all so im just going to get the trinty expasion in store.
Hope to play with you soon.
it is a good game but it depends on how you play..
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