Dirty Sanchez's Guide for Sins Noobies
Sins is an awesome game and it's captivated me for 3 years, but I only play it in online multiplayer people v. people (PvP) games. Here's some advice from a heavily experienced pro player.
First off, Trinity is not a game in itself, but a collection of the original
Vanilla Sins (released in Feb 2008) and its two expansions,
Entrenchment (Fall 2008) and
Diplomacy (Feb 2010). So "Trinity" is just a fancy of way of saying "Sins Complete" or "Sins and its two expansions in one package."
Regarding the
Pirates, they were somewhat of a joke in
Vanilla and
Entrenchment and mostly served as capital ship food. (Your fleet kills them with your capital ship present and your capital ship gains experience so that it can level up and become stronger.) At best they were annoying. For the
Diplomacy expansion, the Devs put them on steroids and now they are severely overpowered. Most people who play Diplomacy in single player have them turned off for that reason (see Game Settings button in the game setup screen). They will get nerfed in the upcoming patch. So, for now if you're going to play Diplomacy, just turn them off.
My advice is to start out by playing
Vanilla where the focus is on ship-to-ship and fleet-to-fleet combat. Learning to do this well is an essential skill. It also reduces the complexity since you'll only have two tech trees (not counting the easily understood Fleet tree) to learn, Military and Civic. You can play with the Pirates on here if you like.
After you feel good about Vanilla Sins, move on to
Entrenchment where you'll get to learn all about starbases and improved defensive fortifications. The lessons to be learned here are how to use starbases properly, when and where to build them, and how to destroy them in addition to their abilities and strengths and weaknesses. You can play with the Pirates on if you wish. Entrenchment also adds another tech tree for your to learn, the Starbase/Defensive Fortification Improvements tree. Entrenchment also adds the Quickstart option which you'll probably want to use once you get up to speed. (With Quickstart, at the beginning of the game you start out with your metal and crystal extractors already built, two scouts, your capital ship factory built, and your home planet population and thus planet income fully upgraded. It shaves a couple boring minutes off the start of the game.)
Then you'll be ready for
Diplomacy. Diplomacy was primarily aimed at the single player crowd that plays free for alls (FFA) against multiple AI opponents, adding the ability to more easily manipulate the AIs. I don't know how well it all works. It also introduces the Envoy ship which allows you to form military and economic pacts with another ally. Note that Diplomacy includes everything that was in the Entrenchment expansion.
For Diplomacy you will want to play with the Pirates set to Off, at least until the next patch is released.
In online multiplayer, 90% of all Diplomacy games play like Entrenchment except there is a Faster speed setting (which we use) and you have to research the ability to give credits and minerals to allies. Sometimes a few players will make the pacts.
---------------------------------
Sins has a learning curve and there's a lot to learn. Once you know the basics then you'll be ready to start to learn Micro and Macro strategy. So, start out with Vanilla, then go to Entrenchment, and then move up to Diplomacy.
Also, it's very important to play each race and to learn each race's tech trees, strengths, and weaknesses. There are 9 combinations of strategy and tactics that you need to learn since your approach will often depend on what race you are and what race you are fighting.
Essential Reading: Raging Amish's Unit Comparison Guide
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/319926
Chart of Armor and Damage Multipliers. (I don't think this is completely accurate and perhaps not up-to-date, but it gives you some idea of the mechanics involved with how the ships counter one another.)
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tL2s8xxE429nFYEvV2MfjQg&gid=0
If you're wondering how you access the three versions of the game, just make Desktop shortcuts of the three individual .exe's which you can find in your main Sins folder (probably in Program Files ---> Stardock Games ---> Sins of a Solar Empire).
Sins of a Solar Empire.exe
Sins of a Solar Empire Entrenchment.exe
Sins of a Solar Empire Diplomacy.exe
Sins Discussion Forum
Also, be sure to visitg the Sins discussion forums and the Strategy forum:
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/
Replays of Diplomacy Pro Games
It might also be instructive to watch replays of pro player games. Here are some download links:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20026677/Wild_Crazy
http://www.filefront.com/16604915/5v...1-2010.record/
http://www.filefront.com/17208598/Ha...lomacy.record/
http://www.filefront.com/16544859/Lo...lomacy.record/
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20323501/Good+5v5+pro+game.zip
Here's a thread with a summary of the "Wild and Crazy Epic 5v5 game" along with installation instructions. (I played in that game under the name "Haywood Yablowme".)
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/405557
How do I watch a Sins replay?
If you've never watched a replay before, first you need to have the current (non-beta patch) version of Sins Diplomacy installed. Download the file and put it in one of your replay folders, preferably
Record-Multiplayer. You can find it in your
Sins Application Data folder. Instructions on locating it can be found in this thread:
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/363325
Once you have the file, load up Diplomacy, make sure that all of your mods are disabled, select Single Player, and then "Watch Game". Scroll through the different replay menus until you find it.
One last note,
those replays only work on
Diplomacy v1.011. (At the bottom right of the screen you'll see what version of the game you are on.) So, when the next patch is released (soon), if you install the patch you won't be able to watch those replays unless you have a duplicate Sins folder for Diplomacy v1.011).
Online Multiplayer PvP Advice
Once you've learned the game, the real fun is online multiplayer PvP. (I don't think you could have a game like that Epic 5v5 with just AIs; the AI is actually very silly and has no sense of real strategy or tactics.)
Vanilla and
Entrenchment are on a separate server from
Diplomacy. (On the Vanilla/Entrenchment server you cannot see Entrenchment games if you are on Vanilla and vice-versa.) Your best bet as a new online player is probably to start out playing other people (or people against AIs) on Vanilla or Entrenchment because you're more likely to find newer players.
The real action is on Diplomacy where you can find the 4v4 and 5v5 PvP games, but you'll also face off against the pro players. Once you have a solid grasp of the game and can whip the AI, then you might be ready to start learning the pro-level PvP game. You'll have to take your lumps and play at least 50 games against other people to get up to speed and be able to hold your own, but it is so very worth it. One benefit is that you can always watch the replays your game auto-records and study the games and especially the pro players. A new guy who sincerely wants to improve and who studies the game diligently can get up to speed and learn to hold his own and contribute to his team in a month.
Mesh Error in Online Multiplayer (Trinity)
If you purchased
Trinity as a single package, it is possible that you may experience the dreaded Mesh Error when you go to play online. It is easy to fix once you know what it is and how to fix it. For example, you might see a game with 7 of 10 players in it and want to join it but find yourself unable to join it. Obviously, those 7 players aren't having a problem so it's on your end. You might get the following error message when you try to join:
"Your Mesh Files Differ from the Host's".
Then you'll get booted out to a blank chat room (not the main Lobby, use Change/Create Channel to get back the chat Lobby).
It's possible that the host is running a game with a Mod on it, but very unlikely, especially if there are many people in the game. More than likely, your installation of the game has three extra mesh files in it which makes your installation different from other people's installations. For some ridiculous reason that no one has ever been able to fully understand, when they packed Trinity they added some extra mesh files and won't delete them with a patch (something to do with permission settings issues I think). This thread tells you how to fix it, especially post number #33.
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/341480
Post #33:
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/341480/page/2/#2670905
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