For the record I like this game alot. Here is my rant:
I love Galactic Civs. It is an amazing game. I recently purchased Sins of a Solar Empire to see what Stardock can produce in a RTS space based game. I'm impressed with the execution of the game and game engine, but completely disgusted with the lack of Galatic Civs like features. I want to build my own custom ships and races. I want to save those custom races + custom ships and then set those profles as opposing AI. I created over a dozen races with their uniqe ship designs and abilites. I had "the federation" from the star trek type race/ships all the way to organic looking ships designs and races. I could set everything to random and go set off in a new galaxy of a random size with an unknown number of AI with race/ship profiles I had created. The game is awesome. It had nearly infinite replay value.
Unfortunately the visuals of the game and combat were a let down. After a climatic buildup of forces against uniqe races and ships, I recive a cut sceen of the battle. Lame, but such is the nature of turned based strategy.
OK I understand it is difficult to build ships in real time in a RTS strategy game. This is still no excuse for the lack of content found in Sins of a Solar Empire. I'm curious to know the answers to the following questions.
Why only 3 ship designs? It can't be that hard to say, have 30 or so different skins for the ships?
Why so few race images?
Why is one image only available with TEC ship designs, but not with another? I like the Advant ship design, but I do not like the Advant race pictures. This is bittersweet.
I understand this game is not Galactic Civs and does not have the ability to create your own race and ships designs, but can we at least have more ship styles and race images to select from to get some of that "custom" ability into the game by having a greater number of preset content (ship styles, races ect) options? I don't care about the story. It doesn't matter.
This I am very curious about:
Why not blend the Galactic Civs turn based engine with the RTS engine of Sins of a Solar Empire? Essentially you have a turn based game (Galatic Civs) with the ability to create your own custom ships and races, but upon contact, or battle, of any of the races/players the turn based game goes into RTS al la Sins of a Solar Empire by selecting an option in a pop-up window? This replaces the lameness of cut sceens found in Galactic Civs. Prehaps every time the player enters a solar system the engine switches over to the RTS and exits into turn based?
This has already been done with Clash of Nations: Leaders of WWII. It is a turn based strategy game with the ability to be "present in the battle" where the game then switches into RTS. Unfortunately this game is set in the very lame and overly boring WWII genre. I'm done with WWII games. I've been done with WWII games.
Sins of a Solar Empire has a great RTS game engine. I eagerly await more content. Galactic Civs has a great turn based engine, loads of content and in game modding. I would really like to see Stardock blend the two game engines together to produce a Clash of Nations: Leaders of WWII style space combat strategy game. Why not?
