New Guy

Probably. If the version at the bottom say 1.0, yeah you have quite a few patches to get. If you registered your game or still have the key you might be able to get the latest version from the Stardock store.

You're now three expansions out of date so a lot of stuff you may read about may not be in your version of the game. :p Most of the player base is now on the stand alone Rebellion expansion.

Thanks GoaFan77.

This was a new sealed game, but I have not been able to find a key. Product version is 1.1.6.5

So I'll check for updates.

One more question:

The game seems to assign faction randomly.

Is there a way to pick the faction that you want to play?

Thanks

Scartch

There should be a sort of question mark button that says random when you are setting up a game. Hit that to change your faction.

Thanks very much. That works.

Scartch

I think that is the latest build for the original Sins. Didn't know they were still selling the original though. Wow.

Sounds like he bought it a while ago, but didn't install it until now.

Didn't the original Sins get to version like 1.2s or 1.3s? I think Trinity was 1.34 at least before I got Rebellion.

Thanks Guys.

Spent two days with this sim set on medium, locked ai, no pirates.

Weighted too heavily in favor of the ai enemy in most scenarios.

Got to colonize one planet before a gazillion enemy wiped me out on Home planet. (for the fourth time)

Uninstalled.

Adios...

See ya, but just FYI Medium AI gets no bonuses or penalties. You weren't losing due to "weights".

Thank you, but I don't understand.

Set the Planets On "medium". Don't recall "medium ai".

Don't recall anything about bonuses or penalties in the tutorial. Deleted the manual , so I can't check.

Tried minimum planets, unlocked ai, three times with pirates, once without. Small fleet size.

These three losses I chalk up to being inexperienced.

Last time, on medium planets, locked "teams", no pirates, small fleet .

Actually got to colonize one planet and enjoying myself. Then the enemy ai hit like a swarm of red locusts. Left me thinking what "small fleet" actually meant.

Not dumping on you Goafan77, just trying to explain my position, as you were kind enough to give me some help. Which, by the way was very much appreciated.

What I've played in the past:

Homeworld. Probably on "medium" Very well liked.

Total War: Rome, Medieval 2, (hard battle, medium diplomacy) Napoleon.

Battle of Britain 2. Combination strategy and sim.

Cheers!

What he means is that the normal AI difficulty does not cheat and has no special advantage over a human player. It starts with one homeworld just like you do and has to earn all its money normally.

Small fleet size is 75% of normal, while large fleet size is 125% of normal. However, you can upgrade your fleet size up to 8 times, so unless you're approaching that 8th and final upgrade you just need to purchase more upgrades to counteract the smaller fleet size setting.

My big concern is that you're not expanding very quickly. A homeworld is a very good planet, but on its own does not produce nearly enough income to fuel an empire. However, the other side of the coin is equally important: any planets you don't colonize can be easily taken by your enemy, and then they will use those resources to produce even more military units against you. By expanding quicker you not only gain more resources for your own fleet, but prevent the AI from claiming those resources and will prevent them from growing so powerful.

The problem a lot of new comers to Sins has is over emphasizing research and turtling.

With Sins early game is about expanding out from your homeworld. You might research only a few key technologies in the first phase of the game (Ice, Volcanic, maybe an offensive like Long Range Frigates or defensive tech like Starbases).

What you don't want to do is sit on your home world building up defenses and queueing up research.

With your starting credits you can build a capital ship and many light frigates and immediately start colonizing the nearby asteroid and then the nearby ice/volcanic. Once you have a 2-3 planets colonized you should be watching your scouts to see what's nearby. 

From there you might continue colonizing with a slow research geared towards economy (primarily you want trade ports) or look more towards a combat footing which means building ships with minimal supportive defensive structures. If you do want to build turrets, a couple next to 1-2 repair bays on a border world should be your initial focus.

Once you hit more of a mid game stride you can start unlocking more advanced units. Carriers are your likely focus here with heavy bomber support. I'd stay away from Heavy Cruisers unless you managed to get a robust trade economy going.

When it comes to weapons tech upgrades it's really not worth the research cost for the 5% bump unless you've built a substantial amount of units to support that upgrade. For example research tier 1 lasers when you only have 10 Light Frigates may not be worth the initial investment compared to building another Light Frigate.

Indeed, and it should be noted that the laser upgrades are by far the cheapest damage upgrades for their faction. The other damage upgrades are right out to lunch and totally unaffordable for an early-game empire.

That said, I would make two exceptions to the advice that upgrades should be avoided. The hull upgrades affect all your units and the first 10% is pretty inexpensive, so it's significantly better value than everything else on offer. The second exception is Vasari Phase Missiles. Hands down the best weapon upgrade in the game. You still want to churn out lots of Assailants to put those phase missile upgrades to good use, but it's one of the few techs where researching the damage upgrade preemptively is justifiable because it's just that good.

You are all quite right.

I thought the best course was to build a supporting base before exploring.

Evidently Sins requires a different style of gameplay over that which I had developed.

So, I reinstalled. (Crow is an acquired taste.)

Starting with medium "Planets", unlocked "Teams", and unlocked "Pirates". (unless anyone strongly disapproves)

If things get to be unraveled, I'll just save it till I can figure things out.

I greatly appreciate that you guys came in with your advice.

Will give it my best shot and report back. (but not to whine)

Scartch

Wow!

What a difference.

Been able to colonize an ice planet and an asteroid.

Also, was able to defeat another ice planet from an outfit that didn't like me. This is an enemy of my allie. Hope that allies treat you better in this game than they do in Medieval 2.

Taking your advice to put in tactical hardware in the outposts surrounding my home planet.

Many thanks for your help.

Your suggestions should go into a slot for a sticky.

I was going to give up on this. Now I'm having a blast.

Yeah, I'll probably get my butt kicked, but at least I feel like I've got a shot.

Thanks again.

Scartch

Yup. Whatever the normal AI player does, you can do too. Only at the hard level does it start to get some extra little advantages to keep up with human players.

Sins has a bit of a learning curve, but awesome, glad its going better.

If you started out as allies you should both be at +10. The AI doesn't really go out of its way to destroy you once you become friends. The thing is I don't remember how the original Sins handled allied victory. So maybe after you defeat all other enemies they might betray you because the game might think there can only be one winner. If its locked teams you will probably get a victory screen but if you keep playing your ally might instantly go to war with you because you're the only player left

Also if it doesn't go well for you, since you are playing the original Sins, I believe you can just disable all the AI on a map and just play by yourself to learn the game, if you want to figure out what all the units and research do. Leave the pirates on and you can get a little bit of defense experience too. 

Keep on going until you hit actual enemy players. It is far easier to take a planet from the militia than a real AI player. Just get the first 2 population upgrades and build the extractors on each planet you take. As needed lay down some research labs for basic early ships and colonization tech. Beyond that, do not be in too big of a hurry to max out your planets. Once all the planets have been taken by you or the AI, then you can sit back, turtle and develop if you want. Much easier to defend against an enemy of equal size than one 3 or 4 times larger than you. 

Hi GoaFan77.

Glad I reloaded and gave it another shot.

I didn't start out with an ally. It just developed by giving money and developing trade. So far so good.

Sins certainly has a steeper learning curve then my prior strategy games. A lot of thought must have gone into it by the Stardock people.

I will most likely want to look at other titles by these people.

Many thanks for your advice.

Scartch

Good for you for hanging in there Scartch, kudos.

The game does indeed have a super steep learning curve, but you'll love it once you've figured out all the moving parts.

Best of Luck!

Thanks suavesamaritan.

Right now I'm getting my butt kicked by two enemy.

Lost an ice planet for not paying attention to loyalty.

Happily I've played long enough to discover the worth of the game, so I'll soldier on.

Cheers!

Loyalty drops when you're under the effect of hostile culture. The easiest way to fight culture is with your own culture. You need 3 civic labs (2 if you're Advent) to research the appropriate structure, and it will produce culture that spreads to nearby planets. You will see that phase lanes become colored with your faction color, indicating your culture dominates. Capital ships can also repel enemy culture, but you want them to be leading your forces so don't rely on them. Culture is most dangerous to small empires (like your's, with only 3 planets) which have limited build space for such structures, and for fragmented empires with many planets that are far apart from each other.

When colonizing and expanding, try to think of the old proverb of the tortoise and the hare. It's okay to move slowly, so long as you keep moving. As soon as you've defeated the militia, start moving towards your next target for colonization (experienced players will actually move on before they've even finished fighting the militia, leaving a rearguard to clean up while the capital ship moves ahead to the next target). Scouting is very important! You want to know the layout of the solar system as early as possible to plan your colonization and head straight for the most valuable or strategically important planets. You always want to watch out for when you're getting close to an AI enemy's territory. Once you get close, you want to start producing military units en mass. It's not uncommon for me to build 3 frigate factories when I'm getting close to an enemy so I can build a massive fleet as quickly as possible, but how many factories you need depends on your income.

Thanks very much for your excellent advice Darvin3.

I abandoned that particular quest when I took a closer look at what was arrayed against me,

My next foray will be more along the lines of your strategy.

Thinking that it takes too long to arrive at the technology to colonize the ice world, so I'll start with the asteroid.

Going back to read again the advice for "beginners post".

Cheers! Back to the fray!

Scartch

If you happen to play bit more and find out you really like the game, i would recommend getting Rebellion edition of the game. Nowadays it shoud be fairly cheap and its so much superior to original Sins IMO. I was always huge fan of original Homeworld (entire HW series, but the first game especially), it was my favourite game ever - not even vanilla Sins changed that. But Rebellion did. Currently you are missing on so much great stuff - starbases, subfactions with their unique techs, Titan class starships....

Sort of ... you don't want to target those planet types right at the start.

The best initial colonization plan is to secure & colonize the asteroids near your homeworld - they're cheap to upgrade with the limited funds you have at the start and will return metal & crystal when the appropriate extractors have been built, however they only return a modest tax income.

After a few of those have been colonized then consider researching the techs that allow ice & volcanics to be colonized.

These planets will eventually support larger populations, so will (when upgraded) contribute more taxes to your economy.

Always remember to upgrade the Civillian Infrastructure on freshly colonized planets to avoid the under-development penalty - 1 upgrade for asteroids, 2 for all the other planet types. Some new players have fallen fowl of that and wonder why their empire is bankrupt.

Thanks Timmy.

Will research Rebellion for sure. Hard to imagine "so much better". I'm having a blast with Sins.

In fact I'll do that when I log off. I'm a little bleary from playing so long.

Thanks New Horizons.

Did start a new game and did as you said.

Presently have home planet, a desert planet, an ice planet, and three asteroids.

And I've held several enemy attacks.

I feel like I'm doing pretty good except:

When I check the stats after I leave a game, it seems like the other teams are doing better in all sections except crystals.

Did neglect Civilian Infrastructure on the asteroids.

Appreciate the heads up.

Cool. Welcome, and have fun!

Thank you sir.