Sins of a Solar Empire
Review
If you love a good 4X challenge this one's for you
by Sergio Brinkhuis
reviewed on PC
Turning them into space wrecks
Battles can be epic, or at least feel that way. There is a cap on how many ships you can construct. You will definitely appreciate this in the later stages of the game. It is not rare to see your ships occupying the same space with three other factions that have brought along much – if not all – of their fleet. Some ships have special abilities and when these are used, all sorts of graphical effects appear on the screen. Sometimes you wish they didn’t because they block your view. At these moments Sins is particularly hard to handle.
Fortunately a lot has been done to help you keep track of things. Each faction has very distinct graphical characteristics. To help distinguish between your own and enemy units in battle, a small shield is hovering over units. When zooming in, these disappear, making it easier to target individual ships. Being able to do that is definitely a perk. I often found myself targeting Capital ships, or ships that could do a lot of damage to my planet. Capital ships can be upgraded and perform special functions such as strengthening the shields of the ships in its vicinity, slowing down enemy ships or even more exotic functions such as dealing the damage it takes from enemies straight back to them. Because of these abilities, managing the focus of attack for your fleet is a paramount for achieving victory in Sins.
Diplomacy and pirates
A fun aspect of the game is the ability to control the non-playable pirate faction. Pirates have their own star system somewhere (you will discover it soon enough) and will raid a faction every so often. You can… ‘entice’ them to attack a particular foe by putting a bounty on their heads. The AI is clever enough to realize what is happening and will attempt to put -more- bounty on your head or on someone else’s. Often the targeted AI will place a bounty on the head of a faction that already has bounty on it, thus minimizing the expenditure it needs to do to avoid being attacked. You won’t always be able to avoid being attacked, but the game gives you tools to feel somewhat in control of your fate, without making it too obvious.
Diplomacy is a bit of a mixed bag. No, let me rephrase that: Diplomacy is -as seems to be the rule for this type of game- lacking. I am sure some of you will feel that diplomacy is working just fine but I would really love to see the day that ‘loyalty’ becomes a factor. You can start trade and form alliances with other factions by investing time, effort and resources but in the end it will all amount to nothing. Your new friend will turn into an enemy usually moments later and all your work will be for naught. Because loyalty isn’t a factor, the AI factions soon see an alliance with you as a burden and will drop it like a hot potato for whatever reason they see fit.
Diplomacy seems to work a lot better between your enemies though, particularly when you get too big for them to handle by themselves. In every game in which I became the strongest faction, I had other factions banding together trying to destroy me. The combined might of their fleets was almost always overwhelming and they were often so successful that it was a little disheartening, especially when one of the attacking factions had been my ally mere moments before.
Research
The research paths are different for each of the factions. Quite a few researchable technologies only differ in name but you will find an interesting handful to be unique to the race you are playing. Many of the similar or shared technologies become available in a different order too. As a result, discovering the right start in the early stages of the game for each faction can be an adventurous experience. There is a good chance that – after playing a few games with each of the factions – you will settle on playing one particular race for all your future games.
Planets can be home to a special ‘feature’. Some of these impact the local economy or production rates, others have an impact on your empire as a whole. Sometimes a discovery is made on a planet without any apparent reason but more often you will have to go out and ‘search’ the planet. This is done in the same fashion as upgrading your planet with structures, so it may sound a little more exciting than it actually is.
Winning ain’t easy
It took me a while to win my first game. Sins is definitely not an easy game and much of that is because of the AI behavior I described earlier. Besides the lackluster diplomacy system, there isn’t much to fault the game for. In fact, it is a wonderfully entertaining game. When you first lay your eyes upon it, it may seem a little deeper than it is but it does deliver the goods nonetheless. If you love a good 4X challenge, Sins of a Solar Empire is a great game that will keep you busy for a long, long time.
9.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
