"Imagine taking two of the greatest space games of all time, the turn-based strategy game Galactic Civilizations II and the real-time strategy game Homeworld. Imagine then merging them into one single game, because that is pretty much exactly what ironclad has managed to do with Sins of a Solar Empire. Sins has the size, the scope, and the depth of a TBS but it all plays out in glorious real time, and it is literally the birth of a new genre." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-NSNhgydY
It's an RTS with 4x elements, sometimes referred to as a 4xRTS or RT4X. It plays slower than Starcraft and it's not a CPM-based clickfest, but it's much much deeper than Starcraft in terms of unit types available and tech trees. The boring aspects of micromanagement have been almost completely eliminated (no need to tell a city to farm such and such a square). It's an RTS for people who don't like CPM-based clickfests. Instead of a focus on average clicks per minute, the focus is on strategy. It's all about the strategy.
Here's a (now old) thread (which is essential reading for any new player though it's no longer fully accurate as a result of various tweaks) that breaks down the basic units from the original game to give you a feel for some of the strategy:
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/319926 Here's a link to the Strategy discussion forum itself:
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/forum/404
It really shines in online multiplayer PvP, which is where all of the deep strategic and tactical elements come out. Of course, with so many different types of units and deep tech trees, this game has a learning curve. Note that it's a sandbox type of game (ala Civilization or Alpha Centauri) and doesn't have a campaign. Generally, online multiplayer PvP games take about 1.5 hours to play (for, say, a 5v5), so it takes longer than Starcraft but it's so worth it when you get a good one going.
Here are some old YouTube reviews of the original game prior to the expansions to give you a feel for it. (Ignore whatever they say about how long it takes to play.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kCEadNSxwI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-NSNhgydY
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Here are two excerpts from the Strategy forum thread analyzing the units to give you a tiny sense of the strategic considerations:
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Heavy Assault
- The big daddy of all the frigates/cruisers. Their health is high. Their shields are huge. They have the most armor besides what's found on capital ships. They do good damage against anything. They're quick, and they do a lot of damage.
- It's possible to have these out in decent numbers by about 30 minutes into the game. You're economy will suck, but it's managable.
- The Counter: Bombers do the job. Oddly Heavy Cruisers can counter themselves. After that, long range frigates with support cruisers is your best bet.
(Whip's tips--try light frigate spam with the damage upgrades to counter them.)
TEC Kodiak Heavy Cruiser
Cost: *****
Health: *****
Shields: ***
DPS: ****
USS: ****
Speed: **
Range: *
Armor Type: Very Heavy
Damage Type: Composite
- Best heavy cruiser in the game. One of the few strengths the TEC have really. All HC's are beasts, but this one's the beastiest. If you have a game where you can skip lrms and go straight to these, do.
- This ship's ability is actually very useful. It gives a massive speed and acceleration boost to the kodiak, allowing it to close in on enemy targets very quickly. Great for getting to long range frigates or helping negate repulse (somewhat). I recommend micromanaging and no setting this to autocast. Manually trigger it yourself when at all possible.
Vasari Skavoras Enforcer
Cost: *****
Health: *****
Shields: ***
DPS: ****
USS: ****
Speed: **
Range: *
Armor Type: Very Heavy
Damage Type: Composite
- I actually really don't like this heavy cruiser. It's the most expensive heavy cruiser, and it takes up 12 ship slots as opposed to 10 for the TEC and Advent. It's a beast. Very tough and best damage per second, but unlike Advent and TEC, upgrading this ship is a bitch. It's first weapon upgrade is a tier 4 tech as opposed to tier 2 for TEC and Advent.
- This ship, however, has something to counter balance that disadvatage. Two abilites as opposed to just one. The first is the tier 6 ability. It will slow down enemy ships making them better targets for aperiod of time.
-. The other abilty is a tier two tech. the ship will shut itself down midbattle and heal 720 some health points in 20 seconds. Very useful ability.
Advent Destra Crusader
Cost: *****
Health: *****
Shields: ***
DPS: ****
USS: ****
Speed: **
Range: *
Armor Type: Very Heavy
Damage Type: Composite
- I actually like this cruiser, and I'd call it only slightly weaker than the TEC Kodiak, it's just that I prefer Illuminators over this ship. It's the only frigate/cruiser in the Advent fleet besides the segie frigate that uses plasma as it's weapon. Still, verey strong ship, great against any ship
- It's tier 6 ability is designed to be coupled with Malice. Every ship witihin a certain radius from the heavy cruiser will take 1.5 damager per second. Coupled that with Malice which propogates shared damage, and then it becomes very useful.
Long Range Frigates
-Long Range Frigates are an amazing ship type. One thing I've neglected to mention thus far is damage multipliers. Every damage type in the game has certain damage multipliers against each type of armor. Please see this post by Zyrxil*. He elequently wrote out everything and shows the damage multipliers. I say look at this because LRF's have the best damage multipliers for an early game ship and are actually very strong, fairly cheap, and high in DPS. This makes them the early game unit of choice. *
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/177682 *
-Understand, I said early game unit of choice, but I did not say spam only lrf's. That will cost you the game. When you make only one type of unit, you make countering what you did simple. I can just make the counter to your fleet and wipe the floor.
-Each long range frigate is different enough that I recommend reading about each one. They really are that different.
-The Counter: This is a tough answer. Heavy Cruisers will tear them to shread, late game, but in early game it's not so simple. Since it has such good damage multipliers, nothing is really "great" against it, but it is entirely counterable. Fighters and scouts each do +100% damage against long range frigates. Scouts, fighters, and long range frigates, in some sort of mix, will do the job and are what I use. The simplest answer is a fighter swarm, thanks to the balancing of the game.
(Whip's tip--consider flak frigates and move them right on top, into the middle of the enemy's LRFs. This works great against the TEC's LRMs.)
TEC Javelis LRM Frigate
Cost: **
Health: *
Shields: **
DPS: ***
USS: *
Speed: *
Range: ****
Armor Type: Light
Damage Type: Anti-medium
- The LRM is IMO the worst long range frigate in the game. It just doesn't have the same bonuses that Vasari and Advent have. LRMS have to go through shields and health, and the missiles take forever to get there. I personally don't like the ship, but if you are going to get it, make sure you get the health and armor upgrades in your weapon tech tree.
- One of the few perks is it's better than Assailants in early game and is produced earlier and faster than the Illuminator
-You need numbers with this ship. For every two lrf's Advent and Vasari make, TEC needs 3.
Vasari Kanrak Assailant
Cost: **
Health: **
Shields: **
DPS: ***
USS: **
Speed: *
Range: *****
Armor Type: Light
Damage Type: Anti-medium
- This Long range frigate starts out as the weakest ship in the class, BUT it's the first one to be produced and it needs only a Tier 1 Weapons tech. It's the worst because it's missiles take so long to get there and they're relatively expensive early.
- This ship becomes one of the best ships late game however. Vasari health upgrades are cheap. The armor upgrades are monstrous, though expensive, and the shield upgrades aren't worthless either.
-The best thing is the phase missiles. Bypassing shield mitigation means a mass of these will absolutely annihilate capital ships and any unit with low health but high shields (I.E. Most Advent units)
-The Assailant starts out the worst of all the long range frigates, but becomes IMO the best late game. It's armor gets upgraded by 6 total. It's shields get upgraded 20%. It's health gets upgraded 30%. It's damage gets upgraded 50%. It's lethal against capital ships. I just love it.
Advent Illuminator Vessel
Cost: **
Health: **
Shields: ***
DPS: ****
USS: **
Speed: *
Range: ***
Armor Type: Light
Damage Type: Anti-medium
- Ah this ship has so many advantages. The beams are instant hit, as opposed to taking forever to get there like missiles do. It fires in three directions at once, meaning 3 targes are destroyed at one moment as opposed to 1 with long range missiles.
(Whip's tips--note that this unit has since been nerfed.)
- The only problem is it's a very expensive unit to tech, meaning you are at a disadvantage early. Getting these out quick and early means your economy will suffer. The others can be brought out whenever you want. This one? I'd say wait 20 minutes if you can to bring these about.
- Fully upgrades these will take down Heavy Cruisers. Seriously. With guardians, a mothership, a halcyon, and fully upgraded health/shields/beams,they will. Even without bombers.
