I recently picked up Sins of a Solar Empire and am wondering if I should purchase Entrenchment for my first playthrough. Will I miss out on anything from the stand-alone game? Basically, I'm looking for recommendations on whether I should play the game by itself for a while, or with the micro expansion immediately. Is it generally accepted that new players should start with Entrenchment?
I would play without entrenchment for a little bit at least. Sins can have a pretty steep learning curve for some people, and Entrenchment can make it just that much worse. All of the skills you'll learn in SoaSE are still used in Entrenchment, and learning to deal with starbases isn't that hard if you are fairly comfortable with managing (and building) a decent sized fleet. However, I should point out that I was playing Sins before Entrenchment, so I realyl have no idea how learning with Entrenchment is like, this is only a hypothesis.
That said, as soon as you are somewhat comfortable with Sins, Entrenchment is certainly a good buy, and most active mods are Entrenchment only now (though I wouldn't want to learn the game on most of them either).
I feel like there wouldn't be much of a difference between learning from entrenchment and vanilla sins. True, entrenchment has starbases and mines and anti-structure ships and such but...
what I recommend for new players (cause it REALLY helps u out) is to start a small map just by yourself, without any enemies, and just go through colonizing all of it. And read what everything does, and pretty much learn the basics. No pressure, no time table, just you and...you. I would go through the tutorials first however, because although they don't really teach you how to play well they teach you the basic things to do when you first start a game. (like the tutorial says, Sins has a quick learning curve but a steep mastering curve)
So Entrenchment or otherwise as a beginner shouldn't really make a difference. Playing a map by yourself, you can practice with the more advanced weaponry and tactics after you've gotten the basics down. But entrenchment is a must buy eventually!
Yeah, I did this too (with the demo actually lol), just try a random map with no AI enemies. You can build every ship at your own pace, colonize every type of planet, and research every research without having to worry about fighting for your existence. I would recommend leaving the pirates on though, they'll allow you to get some combat experience even after you've taken every planet except their base.
Thank you for your responses - all very helpful information. I like to explore the depth of an RTS in a similar fashion to gain an understanding of all that's available to me before diving in. I'll definitely follow that pirate suggestion as well. I guess I'm just trying to gain a clear understanding of the micro expansion model. My concern is based on the traditional RTS with a story-based campaign mode and full expansion packs. I want to make sure I'm not missing any of the experience. For example, if I played another RTS beginning with its expansion, I would gain additional units, maps, etc. but would miss the story and campaign from the initial release. My understanding is that SoaSE and Entrenchment do not work in the same way. I want to ensure that if I choose to start with Entrenchment installed, I won't lose any of the experience of vanilla Sins (i.e. units replaced or "written over" by Entrenchment units, skipped "story" elements, etc.). I've also read that Entrenchment adds many defensive elements to Sins. This appeals to me as I tend to be defense-oriented in other RTS games, and therefore leads me to believe I may have a better experience with those additions on my first playthrough.
While Entrenchment doesn't offer a campaign (Sins doesn't have any story further than what is told in its opening cinematic; the rest is left for you to fill in), the amount of new content in terms of units and abilities is actually similar to what you get in a full-sized expansion pack. The starbases are very detailed and offer a lot of new strategic depth to the game, while the mines and assault cruisers were a nice touch.
Entrenchment adds new content, it doesn't "replace" any old content. Some abilities work slightly differently in Entrenchment than they do in the original game, but those are more subtle.
Entrenchment adds mine-fields, assault (anti-structure) cruisers, and starbases. The former two are used sparingly, but starbases are critically important. Starbases do add a defensive side to the game, but a good attacker (note: the AI is not a good attacker) has so many tricks up his sleeve that they won't stop him completely.
Hazard- Entrenchment doesn't take away from vanilla sins, it just adds more to it. and if u like defense, i would start with entrenchment (really no need to open vanilla sins after that!). When you play with pirates, however, remember that since you are the only one in the map every (i think 5 minutes or so) they will attack u. if u dont place money on urself (and y would u place bounty on urself?) they'll only be small raiding parties, and a single capital ship should be able to take care of them. but just to let u no, expect pirate raids.
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