Is Sins of a Solar Empire worth buying?

[Augustus Lucius Flavius]

I am trying to figure out if SoaSE is a good game or not and since you guys are clearly knowledgeable about this game, I thought you guys could answer me on this.  Also what is the biggest difference between EaW and SoaSE?

[Corey]

Sins is definitely worth buying, and the point of the mod is to make it more worth buying. Multiplayer is especially fun. The biggest difference between EaW and Sins is that Sins is actually a good game, while EaW is shit. Sins basically combines GC and space battles into one continuous mode which works a lot better (you can have multiple battles at multiple planets going on at one time and zoom in and out between them). Sins doesn't have land battles, but EaW's land battles were pretty much unsalvageably bad to begin with.

[Augustus Lucius Flavius]

That sounds cool Corey thanks for the reply.  I think I will use Christmas money on it now, I was thinking about getting it after the mod came out but now I think sooner is better.

[Corey]

You may wanna give it a few days. Steam Christmas sale is on now and it'll almost certainly go on sale at some point.

[Augustus Lucius Flavius]

Ok thanks. I have to wait any way.  My family has a rule that nothing gets bought from October until Christmas just in case someone gets it for someone else.

[Tiel]

Sins is definitely worth buying, and the point of the mod is to make it more worth buying. Multiplayer is especially fun. The biggest difference between EaW and Sins is that Sins is actually a good game, while EaW is shit. Sins basically combines GC and space battles into one continuous mode which works a lot better (you can have multiple battles at multiple planets going on at one time and zoom in and out between them). Sins doesn't have land battles, but EaW's land battles were pretty much unsalvageably bad to begin with.

Without the freeze EaW is a better game. Better pacing, better combat overall, and a setting that doesn't feel faker than the weapon blasts coming from ships (cough, cough).

You just haven't played Sins enough to get tired of it, is my guess.

[Kalo]

Without the freeze EaW is a better game. Better pacing, better combat overall,

[Tiel]

[Revanchist]

Without the freeze EaW is a better game. Better pacing, better combat overall, and a setting that doesn't feel faker than the weapon blasts coming from ships (cough, cough).

You just haven't played Sins enough to get tired of it, is my guess.

They both have their ups and downs IMO. EaW has a good foundation but. I think it got rushed to completion, so it's got a lot of problems (most of which could have been solved by the designers, I feel). It is more laid back and more accessible to the casual gamer, since they can dictate the terms of battle (only one location at a time and such). Also, until FoC came out and Consortium-wrecked everything, there was no individual unit that was really the "best" units to use, they all had their purpose and all could be used in multiple ways.

SoaSE has a more polished gameplay feel to it, and is much less choppy than EaW. A more advanced gamer can enjoy the feel of really playing as a leader, having to split their time between battles on multiple fronts as well as R&D, planetary development and fortification, as well as keeping enemy worlds spied out and forming alliances/hiring out pirates for hits. Overall it is a much more complicated game mechanics-wise, and can be overwhelming at first. However, my main problem with it is that the ships are all stuck in pre-disposed roles. It can make the game a little too cookie-cuttery unless playing against a human. Also, very few people are willing to spend aeons to play a multi-system map (where strategy and tactics reach their full potential).

One thing that both games share: the TR team will make them betterer.

[Corey]

You just haven't played Sins enough to get tired of it, is my guess.

I've played Sins for ~3 years before modding it for personal enjoyment, and since modding it have played it quite a bit as well, modded and unmodded. I got EaW when it first came out, played for 3 months, haven't played unmodded since the first 3 months it was out (save for about a week when FoC first came out and I played that unmodded). I haven't played EaW for personal enjoyment, modded or unmodded, since 2008. So no, it's not that I'm burnt out on EaW and haven't had the same amount of time to get tired of Sins. I've never liked EaW.

[Tiel]

I've played Sins for ~3 years before modding it for personal enjoyment, and since modding it have played it quite a bit as well, modded and unmodded. I got EaW when it first came out, played for 3 months, haven't played unmodded since the first 3 months it was out (save for about a week when FoC first came out and I played that unmodded). I haven't played EaW for personal enjoyment, modded or unmodded, since 2008. So no, it's not that I'm burnt out on EaW and haven't had the same amount of time to get tired of Sins. I've never liked EaW.

Then say that instead of declaring it a piece of shit all around because it doesn't suit your personal tastes. The game isn't perfect, to be sure, but imo it's miles better than SOASE; having played since the original.

[tlmiller]

Unmodded, I'll play EaW every time over SoaSE.  Honestly, I bought it, played it for about 2 weeks, then other than a multiplayer game with the mod team, I haven't touched it since.  Every faction has mostly the same tech tree with just a few differences, to me just makes it no fun to bother playing.  And the models don't inspire me, but instead fill me with a sense of "meh".

That said, unmodded EaW is still a horrible game, tons of issues, but at least it's fun, this is where for me Sins falls flat.  It's just not fun.

[Corey]

I've given multiple reasons why I think it's a poorly designed game, and Sins in much better. It's not just about being "my taste" any more than anyone not liking any game has ever been more than "their taste" or you saying "without the freeze EaW is a better game" and saying other things without adding "in my opinion."  Me saying it's shit is the exact same as you saying it's "miles better than Sins." Obviously its my opinion, I'm just using different language. You're comparing two things, I'm saying that EaW on its own is bad. But ys. Like everything everyone has ever said about the quality of a game, it is an opinion. And in my opinion, the poor game design choices made in EaW are the same ones that have resulted in Petroglyph consistently failing with every game they've tried to make since which isn't a Star Wars game.

1. EaW has terrible pathfinding. Nothing can fix this, it's a fact. This has nothing to do with personal taste unless your personal taste prefers things going to a different place than you told it to, or not going anywhere at all.
2. EaW has terrible targeting. Anything above a certain size (VSD in base game) starts to have issues because it's got a bunch of different entities trying to do a bunch of different things, and their targeting algorithms were not designed properly to utilize hardpoints.
3. Everything added by FoC lacks counterplay. Sabotage was a terrible system you could do basically nothing about. Superweapons in both EaW and FoC can only be beaten if you have the appropriate paper at the right time to cover their rock, and it's not even just that it's harder without it, it's just impossible.
4. Factions can't really be made that distinct. They by necessity are pretty much just reskinned versions of each other, the most you can do is try to have different emphases on unit types, which is something you really only see in mods. The biggest differences in the base games are the things that make the Consortium just frustrating to have exist. The factions in Sins are pretty similar, but the differences are bigger than in base EaW and the tools exist to make them far more different in mods than you can in EaW.
5. EaW tries to do too many things separately and as a result fails at them all individually. The biggest appeal EaW ever had is that it's s Star Wars game that does this and allows people to play all the different aspects, but none of those aspects are really well done, and the disconnects make them incomplete. If it wasn't Star Wars, people wouldn't like it. Universe at War was just the land aspect with a global campaign like EaW's GC, and the land battles were done much better but it was *still* sub-par for an RTS.

[Augustus Lucius Flavius]

My biggest problem with EaW is that it should have been much grander in scale like Thrawn's Revenge.  This is supposed to be a galaxy at war for the first time in a thousand years, land battles should have been slaughter fests along the lines of WW1, space massive fleets smashing each other to tiny pieces.  SoaSE seems to have that grand scale in space.  Star Wars has so much promise but stupidity has caused it to miss on so many occasions.  Battlefront, Republic Commando, TIE fighter, and Rouge Squadron were genius but left to rot.  EaW could have been added to that list with a sequel that went through the EU like TR but instead its funding was cut for Clone Wars.  I believe the TR team has a right to call EaW a piece of crap simply because they did for free what a company was supposed to do for a crap load of money.

[Settra]

Ooo, Sins and EAW shitting contest again, let me get my popcorn.

[Revanchist]

Ooo, Sins and EAW shitting contest again, let me get my popcorn.

I'll bring the soda!

[tlmiller]

I like cheesy popcorn if you have any of that!

[Revanchist]

I like cheesy popcorn if you have any of that!

You like that stuff? I prefer my popcorn like what you get at the movies: LOTS AND LOTS of fake butter with LOTS AND LOTS of real butter drizzled on it.

[Corey]

Enough about popcorn, try to stay on topic. If the next post isn't somebody trashing one of the two games I've devoted 8 years of my life to modding I'll be pretty upset.

[Revanchist]

Enough about popcorn, try to stay on topic. If the next post isn't somebody trashing one of the two games I've devoted 8 years of my life to modding I'll be pretty upset.

Can't...hold...back...any...longer: I love both games! I cannot trash either of them because they both are fun in their own way! Besides, as long as we can play as the Empire on either game all is good, right??