Sins of a Solar Empire

[Hunain]

Just finished another scenario, took 6 Hours, what are your times people?

[Dreaming]

Eternity.

In some ways it reminds me of imperium galactica. That was good except the AI was nowhere near this....

The interface seemed a bit nicer. There was a drop down menu which had the different research trees and so you could quickly select research in real time rather than having to read the descriptions.

I guess you get used to it

[Dreaming]

1h13mins for the small 7 system 1v1 scenario, vs. normal. both randoms. I ended up as psychics and him vasari.

Our planets were next door to each other, colonised the mine planet, didnt bother with the ice planet this time - built a small fleet of the little frigates with a carrier cap ship, went to his system, got the pirates to attack his mining system so he sent his fleet in, meanwhile we took out his 4 mines on his homeplanet whilst bombers took out his missile defence turrets (does the AI spam them or what?!). His fleet came back but by this time I'd researched enough economically that I was loaded, so had enough ships to take his fleet out. Eventually the planet was mine, but he'd colonised the ice planet to the bottom, so I just slowly moved down through the systems one by one until I won.

It just goes to show an early economic advantage and especially the pirates early game can make a massive difference. Not expanding meant I had enough money to build a fleet to cripple his economy - so although I'm not maximising my economy (which is what you do do in games like generals... you can just build an army anywhere if you have the credits) I damaged his enough for it not to matter.

[Richdog]

Gaaah im finding making serious credits a fricken nightmare! :S

[Hunain]

Gaaah im finding making serious credits a fricken nightmare! :S

Are you developing all planets as soon as you get them? Plus try building trade ports, they seriously make your credits fly

[Hunain]

Today I just captured 3 planets and paid attention on my finances and resources, I ended up earning 20 credits / second, 3.8 Crystal / sec and 2.7 Metal / sec (nothing special about crystal n metal but the credits were really rolling) I had a big fleet of max capital ships, all upgraded to minimum level 3, Two Kol battleships (TEC) at max, level 10 xp, two at 6 xp, and 178 Cobalt frigates, 36 something Javelin, and a few Garda...I took them to the capital planet of the other side (TEC as well), My fleet died only one capital ship survived to retreat, can you imagine? They had lots of Hobshuka yada yada repair frigates and a hell lot of carrier cruisers with fleets of bombers, my fleet couldnt handle the small bombers, destroyed all the capital ships but got done later by the bombers and frigates.....crushing for me ...

[TiG]

I've completed a 10 all vs all on Unfair difficulty without issue now. 7.5hrs game time over several days. Dreaming, just one thing I don't understand with what you are saying is that given you are expansionist and you are playing an AI, its exactly the thing i'd expect a human player to do to you.

Losing a planet in this game is nothing tbh. I lose them all the time, planets come and go its not by any means an important thing. As for fleets yeah getting big fleets is required at the level of unfair. You need that kind of level of stuff to beat down the enemy fleets.

Its very rare for me not to have #1 in the rankings for cap ships all game, Its very rare to loose one even in the chaos that is the huge fights.

I prefer the Cruisers to massed cobalt frigates tho.

TiG

[byteblock]

Finally got round to downloading this game. Enjoying the small amount of time I've played on it, probably take me ages to get the hang of it, which is always half the fun.

[Dreaming]

I've completed a 10 all vs all on Unfair difficulty without issue now. 7.5hrs game time over several days. Dreaming, just one thing I don't understand with what you are saying is that given you are expansionist and you are playing an AI, its exactly the thing i'd expect a human player to do to you.

Losing a planet in this game is nothing tbh. I lose them all the time, planets come and go its not by any means an important thing. As for fleets yeah getting big fleets is required at the level of unfair. You need that kind of level of stuff to beat down the enemy fleets.

Its very rare for me not to have #1 in the rankings for cap ships all game, Its very rare to loose one even in the chaos that is the huge fights.

I prefer the Cruisers to massed cobalt frigates tho.

TiG

The problem was that there wasn't an effective defence vs. the planet destroyers, they had high damage and high armour so could whip in and take out your planet, and then run away. It just broke the game balance a little bit - I compared it to something like catapults in your standard strategy game taking out your town centre despite your defences, then running away.

I found the patch readdressed some of the balance issues though. I've found rather than expanding rapidly, the best way is to slowly build up, or at least find a planet you can reinforce perhaps beyond your borders whilst you can build up your systems, and use that one as a defence point.

Other problem being, ships dont actually travel across a planets gravity field or whatever to hyperspace, they just hyperspace to one point, change direction, and hyperspace to the next one. But apparently if you colonise a forward planet they won't run past it.

I suppose it's what you would expect a human to do... but at the same time, it makes the choice between attack and defence very crucial. If you decide to attack early, you can cripple their economy and win (as the AI loves to try). You get benefits of being able to simply fly round defence turrets, and quickly warp from system to system, not to mention the relative speed those planet attacking cruisers can take out a planet and stop it bringing in resources. But this leaves you open to a similar attack.

Pirates are crucial in the early game as it gives you an extra fleet (not to mention depriving them of it). I can't find a good way to play this game my typical expansionist strategy though. I've tended in games to build a fast mobile defence force and then not bother building defences but simply branching out economically. Then when the attack comes, start building en mass while the skirmishing force holds them at bay. Even against humans it works because they can't cope with the vast resources I can throw at them (I'm beaten by very early game rushes on occasion though), but this game completely flumoxes them because a small fast mobile fleet, even against only 1 target, can take up to a minute to kill it.

[Ciber]

I just got this game toady and it's very absorbing indeed. I can see myself losing many hours lol.

[Jay]

CustomPC gave it a good review in this months issue (issue 56)

[pauldarkside]

CustomPC gave it a good review in this months issue (issue 56)

Just read their review online. It pretty much follows the scores listed over at Metacritic. I just hope the game gets the sales it deserves to encourage more development; GalCiv got 2 stonking expansion packs and if that's anything to go by then we're in for a treat.

[TiG]

You have to build defences tho Dreaming, it doesn't work out that you shouldn't.

~250 Cash, 70 metal, 30 crystal for 3000 hp, compared to a frigate for 300 cash, 55 metal with about 800hp (inc shield)

A single defense turret can deal with about 4 frigates, 2 can deal with about 7. Its an essential part of the game.

TiG

[Richdog]

To be fair though the Planetary defence aspect should have been handled completely differently... it strikes me as a tad silly that Gauss guns and Hangers are the only means ofprotecting your planets. They could have supplemented this with Missile Stations, Ion Cannons etc all with different upgrades. Other than soaking lots of damage the Gauss emplacements are pitiful... if a small scout ship runs through my defences it shouldn't survive 4 or 5 hits from a huge gun meant to be capable of forming planetary defence and then carry on it's merry little way.

[Jay]

I agree that some of the ships can take way to many hits

[Jay]

This game is too hard... I have yet to win one map. their graph is always higher than mine in the end and they controll about 5 fleets at once where I can only really concentrate on 1 at a time. They seem to start with more resources becuase I quit right a t the start to see the graph at its way higher than mine within the first few seconds

To be honest its a bit stupid really.