Craig Fraser Craig Fraser

Is it easy to play?

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Is it easy to play?

from Sins Forums

Yes. If you are watching massive battles in gameplay videos for the first time and wondering to yourself, "how the hell could I control this" than this post is for you...

There are 8 reasons why this game is very easy to play: 

1.     Zoom – have you ever played a game and wished you could just pull out to see the ‘big picture’ without feeling restricted. SINS allows you to pull back as far as you like, allowing you to see as many units, structures, planets, or solar systems as you like!  There is no separate map or mode. Just point and zoom  :) 

2.     Icons – Every faction in the game has its own unique icon, up to 10 players, plus NPC units. At the beginning of the game you can pick a custom icon out of a large selection. When you are zoomed in close the icons appear above ships, planets, and structures so you can quickly tell who is who.  When you zoom out so far that your unit can’t be seen in 3D, an icon of the unit (in your player color) appears in its place. You can do everything with these icons as you can with the actual 3D unit.

3.     Color – When you are up close in battle you can see colored stripes, lights, and exhaust that help you tell enemy units from your own.  You also have the option of viewing all enemies as red  :( , friendlies as blue  :) , and yourself as green  :D .

4.     Empire tree – while it may be a new concept to games, the empire tree is basically just a controllable navigation tree on the left side of your screen, sort of like windows explorer.  It allows you to see which ships and structures are at which planets. You can expand or close the tree to your personal preference.  You can select any unit or planet in the tree and give your orders without having to actually be there!  There are some fancy advanced features that will make your life easier too – stacking similar units, a search function (for those pesky ships that get lost) and a ‘pin’ button that lets you choose what you want to keep in the tree.

5.     Alt – Press ‘Alt’ on your keyboard and you’ll get a ton of extra information on anything you see on screen – Health bars, rank, planet names, a tactical grid, the range of your weapons, and lines to show you where your ships are moving and attacking.

6.     Low Micromanagement

a.       Auto-attack – any unit that can attack and also auto-attack with the click of a button. The unit AI picks targets intelligently based on the ships role, so you don’t need to worry about micromanaging every single ship the whole game.

b.      Auto-abilities – ships and structures know what they are supposed to do, if you order them to do so. Your colony ship with go ahead and colonize, your scout will auto scout, and your siege ships will siege a planet.  Capital ships have powerful abilities, and you want to be careful which abilities you want to automate in battle (so you don’t consume all your antimatter).

c.       Fleets – grab units, click the fleet button and just command the fleet leader. You don’t have to worry about everyone; they’ll stay together AND perform their duties intelligently in the process.

d.      Control groups – Select some ships, press CTRL and any number. Use that number to control the group.

e.       Queuing – You can’t research and build everything at once, but you can give the orders ahead of time! 

f.        Moving in 3D –  this is not near as intimidating as it looks.  Just move as you would in a standard RTS - the game can handle the up and down for you. It isn't hard to get lost because you can always zoom out and see the big picture.  Also, you can easily set multiple paths for your ships to follow.

7.     Streamlined Interface
Who wants to play a game with a third of the interface dominating the screen?  We did everything possible to keep the UI sleek and intuitive, so you could have more space for combat! 

a.     There may be a lot going on in your empire, but there is plenty of warning for key events. Vocal alerts and large event buttons warn you when your empire may be in trouble or experiences an important milestone. At the top of the screen, a large flashing research, diplomacy, or pirate button will let you know if your research is complete, if a player wants to engage in diplomatic relations, or if bounty is placed on your head!  Portraits of other players will also flash on your screen when they have an offer for you. Planet and ship icons will flash red when they are under attack.

b.    The UI is context sensitive, so you only see what is relevent to what you have selected.  If you can’t purchase a ship, a little icon will appear over the button to tell you want you need (ie. A research icon for 'research required' or a coin for 'credits required'.)

c.    You can easily learn about anything in the game by just hovering over it, and reading the ‘infocard’ which pops up in the bottom right corner of your screen.

d.   Single and Multiplayer games can be saved whenever you like.  Single player games can be paused whenever you like.

8.     Learning more

a.   Tutorials – The game comes with some great tutorials to get you started.  They explain all the controls you’ll need to know to play the game (Basic Gameplay, Basic Logistics, Advanced Interface, and  Advanced Logistics)

b.   Tips – Random tips will display whenever you load the game.

c.     Forums/Chat – How many forums do you know of where developers hang out and answer your questions and actual implement your ideas into a game?  Our commitment is more than a great game, it’s a great community. You have skilled wingmen(and women) in our publishing team, our beta testers, and many others ready to help you learn the game.  Once the game is out, you’ll also be able to chat in ICO (Ironclad Online) where you can meet friends and coordinate your games.  

d.    Manual – The game comes with a hefty 80 page Manual. While it doesn't cover EVERYTHING, it will give all the necessary skills to play effectively.  You'll probably enjoy the backstory as well :)  If you ordered the game online you can find your PDF manual in your game folder:  Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\Sins of a Solar Empire\Manual.pdf

688,633 views 164 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
I am growing to love this game. I bought it yesterday and went through the tutorials. I was amazed how fast the maps loaded after the first initial load. The graphics are really nice, sound effects are top notch. I do love the Empire Tree though its taking me some time to get used to the new and intuitive concept. I havn't quite learned what the icons mean but I'm gettin the hang of it. This game is very deep. Congrats on a very well made game!
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
Thank you Krasik.  If you need any help just post away!
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
4. Empire tree – while it may be a new concept to games, the empire tree is basically just a controllable navigation tree on the left side of your screen, sort of like windows explorer.


wait, what?


windows explorer


NOOOOOOOO


Nah, its totally awesome!
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
GREAT summary.. I am tempted to buy but considering waiting for 1.03 and the demo...
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
Boy you touched on a topic. This game is too easy to play. The single player on max difficulty offers no challenge PERIOD. I've played all the great 4X games and am not very good compared to many and yet this game is a f...ing P_ssy. I don't usually swear but honestly this game commits the cardinal sin of 4X games and offers no challenge. I think it's the first in history. Oh, wait for the next patch, blah, blah, blah....
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Would you like some cheese with your whine ntblood? Seriously! This IS a multiplayer game afterall and the game IS getting an AI upgrade. Either have patience or go get spanked online newb.
Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
Oh, yeah, I'm a newb. Spank away. This is not just a multiplayer game. Good it's getting an AI upgrade. It needs it badly. Wonder if I'll still bother playing it by then. I think it should have offered a challenge out of the box. I paid for it and this is a good place to vent a justifiable gripe. I won't as you call it "whine" any more. How long until the patch anyway?
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
There may be a lot going on in your empire, but there is plenty of warning for key events. Vocal alerts and large event buttons warn you when your empire may be in trouble or experiences an important milestone. At the top of the screen, a large flashing research, diplomacy, or pirate button will let you know if your research is complete, if a player wants to engage in diplomatic relations, or if bounty is placed on your head!  Portraits of other players will also flash on your screen when they have an offer for you. Planet and ship icons will flash red when they are under attack.


While most of your post is valid craig, I feel this needs to be addressed so people don't get their hopes up. The vocal alerts are a very poor way to rely on warnings on your empire. I generally play massive team games with allies (AI, no multiplayer, the general populace is too immature to play a game like this online), and my allies messages seem to take precedence over my own. I can't tell you how often I have lost a high level cap ship because there was no audible warning that it's shields were down (at least not until it has 300 health) because my ally was under attack because they were flying through the pirate base and the "big icon" was replaced by another telling me my allies attack force was under attack while it was attacking an enemy planet or something silly like that. Even when I don't have allies, my trade ships keep going into enemy territory and I get messages that they are under attack every 5 secs. I've lost planets and last minute bounty wars because of this too.

Also, the research icon flashes when your researching anything, at least for me it does, not just when something is completed. As soon as I start queuing up research it starts flashing. And I've never seen the "underground" button flash when bounty was put on me, only when a pirate raid is being prepared.

And I personally think the empire tree is cumbersome and the search engine is missing things that should be added (and by should I mean the "duh" type of should), but this last part could just be me.

Other than that though I agree, I like the fleet system, although i would prefer if they moved as one unit rather than just all the other ships following the lead ship like puppy dogs. And the zoom is nice too, I actually find I use the zoom and quick jump (double tapping a control group number) more than the tree.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
I would prefer a scrolling update on the side, so you can see at a glance exactly what important events have occurred in the last few minutes.

Great game though, and from what I remember of the GalCiv series, this is only going to be the tip of the iceberg. You'll see. Update after update will address issues and add new content and amazing new features that will blow you away. It's the way they operate. They realease the "basic game" with no copy protection, knowing people will install it on their friends' computers. Then they get hooked, and read about the amazing new content awaiting them if they just pay up and register.
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
Oh, and instead of "searches" in the empire tree, I think it might do well to have something more like tabs. So you could cycle through it real quick and see colonies, or fleets, or scouts, or whatever you as a player have designated.
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks Dinstaar!  Have fun.
Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
Downloaded the game yesterday and I'm anxious to put theory into practice.

Stardock, Brad et al policy of being accesible is a great one and emotes all sorts of confidence in a great product.
Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top
As a gamer I can say that before I got to start playing everyone said hey you should play Vas due to my game style. While they were right I find they have been the hardest for me. What I like is that there is game style all over but to master any of it is a thing on to each faction.
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
The game itself is easy to play once you know how.

I (and a few friends) found the tutorial kind of off putting, as it didn't really demonstrate the game's full capability (i know tutorials in general arn't supposed to but the Sins one just seemed to drain my enthusiasm to learn the game itself).

Mate tried my version on the tutorial and it didn't grasp him at all. He watched me play a normal game and pretty much bought a copy within the hour!


Absolutely loving it now.
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
I just finished my first one, and even though it was on easy, I was didn't expect to win my first game. The AI gave me quite a challenge at the start, but soon I was dominating. I just love how they made it so easy to do stuff in the game. On other games, like Warcraft or Age Of Empires, I used to get slaughtered cause it was so hard to be everywhere at once, but on this game, its easy.
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
Great to hear UberZanfear! Time to bump it up to medium :P
Reply #43 from Stardock Forums Top
I (and a few friends) found the tutorial kind of off putting, as it didn't really demonstrate the game's full capability (i know tutorials in general arn't supposed to but the Sins one just seemed to drain my enthusiasm to learn the game itself).

Mate tried my version on the tutorial and it didn't grasp him at all. He watched me play a normal game and pretty much bought a copy within the hour!


I'm in the same place your friend was. I guess I need to watch a normal game. I have the demo only, and the tutorial seems sparse and/or disjointed. Not quite seeing the big picture yet. I'm mainly a TBS guy (a lot of GalCiv I and II) but some RTS (Kohan and Warcraft III). Are there any narrated gameplay videos available?
Reply #44 from Sins Forums Top
To me, this is really what makes the game. Interface and camera issues have often gotten in the way of good gameplay, and I don't think I've ever seen them solved as well as in Sins.

I think the auto-center on the zoom deserves a little more mention. It worked so easily and seamlessly for me that I was briefly amazed at how the game figured out what I was paying attention to. Having the camera track ships you zoom one confused me once or twice, but I've loved the feature since. The ease with which you can go from viewing a solar system to watching a fighter fly around is phenomenal.

One final selling point for me: the angle of the camera never changes without the user doing to explicitly. Skewing the angle of the camera (when following ships, for example) is common and very disorienting to the user.

My one nitpick would be with the tutorials. While I know tutorials are going to be linear, they did not allow much exploration with the interface. Instead it was mostly "press this button ... now press this button." On top of that, some of the interface elements seemed to be disabled (maybe only while waiting for you to hit OK?) which caused a little confusion later.

A more traditional RTS-style set of missions which progressively unlock content and give you some tutorial-type cues here and there would have served better, even in the absence of a full campaign.

Granted, I bought the game the day after downloading the demo, so I must not have been too put off...
Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
Hi there, im new to the forums and thought id give a lil two cents on my experience so far with sins. I got the game last night and let me tell you its truely a work of art. Though i stand with alot of reviewers on the lack of a stronger detailed learning format for those not familiar with civ/rts style formats, considering im a big fan of both i easily adapted to this game. Im sure alot of would be buyers will be huntin up some quick tips to get started a lil easier so ima just give a quick few:

1.) Have an equal mix of fleet, research and base building. If you neglect to keep the pace with any of these youll get overwhelmed. Also fast expansion will lead to pissing off the ai and getting pirates/enemies on yo butt. Simply put a steady build, not to slow not to fast.

2.) Resource management is easily the biggest pain in this game and ive found a great way to manage it. Credits is the easiest to manage, just upgrade your pop on planets to full to get em out of the negative and get a trade port at each colonized area you got. This pretty much will cover ya. As for metal and crystal, a good piece of advice is locate a volcanic and ice world. Volcanic worlds hold 3 metal mines where as ice holds 3 crystal. These areas make getting refineries worth it.

3.) Logistics can be a lil confusing so ill make it real easy. Think of each planet as teching to the next tech lvl. You should put a civil and military research at each planet until you can cap your research. This will cost you 8 logistic points per planet and asteroid which isnt much. If ya try to make "research" planets you will be hurting your economy. As for the mentioned resource worlds(ice and volcanic) these you want refineries at so they might be a good place to skip on research for extra refineries. Again always a trade port at each planet. Also having at least a frigate builder at a front line planet is good to. As for military logistics, its easy to not build em cause you want more ships but lemme tell ya, building them is GOOD. Energy shield, repair bay and lotta turrets are great. Id save some m. logistics for a hanger bay if your enemies are fielding alot of fighters or bombers (i always have hanger bays as fighters btw).

4.) Finally fleets and whats good. Ill start with frigates. Your light frigates are your bread and butter so get used to makin em. The missle frigates are great at killin turrets and light frigates but not good by themselves. Flak frigs i find to be redundant and dont perform there role well. As for siege frigs andanything siege oriented there worth comes into play when you start warring with apposing races. There relativily worthless against neutral planets. Cruisers are a tricky breed considering there more support oriented. I use fighter cruisers to make fighters to defend against bombers and repair cruisers to keep me healthy. Once you tech to your heavy attack cruisers, you can make some very mean fleets. Now battleships you get a very limited number on and each has a very specific role. Take great care on choosing which to make and the role you want it to play. I usually have only one per battlefleet with therest of the ships being cruisers and frigs. A good example of a fleet build i use commonly is 1 attack battleship, 3-4 fighter cruisers, 2 repair cruisers, 6 attack cruisers, 10 light frigs, 4 missle frigs. If im sieging a planet i get 3 siege frigs. This fleet specilizes in destroying ships, not planets or emplacements. I find tayloring fleets to specific roles a strong strategy vs tryin to make em capable of handling any situation. Thatll just make your fleets to big.

This probably aint a good place on the forum to post this stuff but figured id finish my ramble before starting all over. In general when playing this game you need patience, a good mindset of defending choke positions and a good idea of how to manage what should be priority in spending. Hope this helped a bitXD>
Reply #46 from Sins Forums Top
Flak frigs i find to be redundant and dont perform there role well.


Redundant how? They are the best fighter killers available, and more than decent at LRM massacres as well.
Reply #47 from Sins Forums Top
Redundant as follows: First thing is flak ships ai dont perform well. Unlike siege ships and missle ships that perform there role assigned to them, flaks dont aggressivly hunt bombers or fighters they just mull around with the rest of the fleet shooting stuff. Granted they do perform well against lrm's, there worth vs either having more light frigs and lrms is easily apparant. Reason i say this is its damage though good, doesnt protect it from getting severly chewed up. It is a "usable unit" dont get me wrong, but for the starting player flaks do require some micro to be effective making the newer player having to focus on em. What i wrote was just a simple "let the game function without to much micro" starting up deal. If i wanted to write something on advance tactics, id defenitily include flaks as seperate fleets to chew up siege/lsms/fighter cruisers. Id also go over defense fleets, system sweeper fleets etc and what ive found to be overly affective in battle. Thats the beauty about this game that i LOVE, you can micro to your hearts content, spreadsheeting every single detail to a fine tooled machine. On the other hand you can just have a easier approach and let the ai do most of the work and just play the game nice and easy like.
Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top
Though there are MULTIPLE replies, I'll add my two bits because I enjoy doing so, SO HERE IT IS WORLD!

The zoom can be sketchy at some point [Maybe it's just my mouse/ controls?] But that doesnt bother me much. The game overall is awesome, though at some moments I find myself in a slow pitch of building a massive fleet with like a million advent motherships just so I can colonize along the way. But its a great game nonetheless, kudos to all in production team.
Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
Love the empire tree especially, I just wish you'd do one thing (it may be in one of the upcoming patches, in that case thanks). Make it lazy so if you select something, it highlights it in your window if possible so I can keep looking at my fleets without scrolling up every time I select something.
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top
Unlike siege ships and missle ships that perform there role assigned to them, flaks dont aggressivly hunt bombers or fighters they just mull around with the rest of the fleet shooting stuff.


That is their role. They fly around with the rest of the fleet, shooting fighters and bombers that come near. If they try to chase the fighters down... well, trust me that doesn't work well.