When you say "non-Korean paced", is it safe to assume that you don't want something that's an APM-based clickfest like Starcraft? Check this out:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/201290/
You Tube reviews (outdated now, but they give you an idea):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-NSNhgydY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kCEadNSxwI
Why Sins of a Solar Empire rocks!
It's an awesome game, and the online multiplayer PvP is a lot of fun.
It's much more complicated than simply spamming out ships. It's actually a very deep and complex strategy game. In fact, the game is all about strategy and not how many clicks you can enter per minute. The boring aspects of micromanagement have been almost completely eliminated. It really is the birth of a new genre--RT4X or 4x-RTS. What's great is that it's actually pretty easy to manage a large fleet of ships (no selecting only 12 at a time).
One of the primary challenges is to decide where you need to spend your limited amount of resources. Should you "fleet up" and make lots of ships? What kinds of ships and how many of each kind? Should you focus on expanding as quickly as possible at the expense of fleeting up? Should you focus on building a strong economy so that you can fleet up more later or do you need a big fleet right now? How should you counter your enemy's fleet? Should you invest in military research to make your ships stronger or would it be better to spend that money on building more ships? If you build a structure, where exactly should you build it? Should all of the structures in a gravity well be bunched together (so they can be defended by a starbase or other fortifications) or should they be spread out (so that it takes longer for an enemy to travel around and destroy them)? Should you build a structure on the edge of a gravity well where an opponent will jump in or should it be at the far edge (forcing him to traipse across the well to destroy it)?
The other big challenge is actually using all of these ships properly. Should you build defensive fortifications? Should you attack? Should you defend? Can you do something to trick your opponent into making a fatal mistake? In advanced PvP there are actually mind-game components. ("If I keep scouting him at such-and-such a location he'll think I'm planning to attack there.")
The game also has complicated tactical elements. Ships need to be told where specifically to go and what enemy ships or structures to attack and in what order. One class of ships might be ordered to attack a certain class of enemy ships while you order another class to attack a different class that it counters better. Your large capital ships are juicy targets that need to be carefully managed. You might want to focus all of your firepower on one enemy capital ship, for example, and if yours becomes the focus you need to get it out of the battle and to safety, pronto. (Your enemy might follow it out and kill it, which can make for some suspenseful moments during the chase.)
Ideally, you'd like to expand and build a rich economy while also building a huge fleet, but you can't really do both early in the game, and especially not if you have to fight someone early on. You'll end up questioning whether it makes sense to invest your money and resources on, say, four more fighting ships (early game that could mean increasing your fleet size by 20% or 40%) or a 5% increase in metal harvesting. The 5% increase will stay with you throughout the game and pay for itself long-term, but if you die because you needed those four ships to defend yourself, it won't do you much good.
You need to develop a sense of when you need to "peak" in terms of your fleet size--will you have attained the pay off for expansion and economic investment by the time you anticipate fighting? Sometimes you do want to sacrifice having those four extra ships now for the 5% resource increase, etc.
That's just an example; the game is filled with those sorts of considerations. It has a learning curve. Additionally, you need to learn about the three races and all of their ships, starbases, structures, strengths, weaknesses, common tactics, and tech tree abilities. As you become more experienced at PvP you'll be able to anticipate what opponents of a certain race are likely to do.
Is it worth $20? That depends on how much you anticipate playing it and what's important to you. You should be aware that sometime later this year a new stand-alone expansion called Rebellion will be released that will sell for $40. It will contain all of the content from Vanilla, Entrenchment, and Diplomacy, and you don't need any of those to play the new game.
On the other hand, if you think you'd really enjoy the game and don't want to wait 5-8 months for Rebellion, then it might make sense to get it now. Then you'll be up to speed by the time Rebellion comes out and ready for online multiplayer.
The other issue is whether it's worth spending $20 for a game that has low online player counts. It's sad, but there aren't too many people who play it online and many who do only play comp stomps against AI with their friends. So, there's basically a small group of diehards, many of whom have been playing since 2008, who play in the real games, the 4v4 and 5v5 PvP games (on Ironclad Online). There are normally several games every day, but the action is pretty much restricted to a window between 2 pm and 10 pm U.S. Eastern time. Also, it's pretty much one game available at a time. When that fills, you'll have to wait a while for the next game. During the busier times they'll be two or three real games going on at one time, but you could end up waiting half-an-hour.
Is that worth $20? I think it's an amazing and overlooked game--overlooked by the RTS online multiplayer PvP community. It still has me addicted like a crackhead on payday, even after all this time. Of course, I'm a heavily experienced grizzled pro. It's hard for new players to get into it because they're going to get stomped for their first 50-100 PvP games. You have to master it against the AI first (2 or 3 months) and learn everything there is to learn, then come online and start playing people (where there's much more to learn). The AI in this game isn't bad as far as computer AI goes, but it is AI and won't ever be able to play the way a human can.
I hope you'll get the game, but it may or may not be for you, or you might want to wait until Rebellion comes out.
). It's real gameplay footage though, the game is very nuanced and detailed.
Facebook
Twitter