Well, I figured it's about time I gave some feedback about my overall Sins experience (read: post for once). I've been playing off and on since Beta 2, but with the arrival of the Vasari (and nothing else to play while I await Christmas), I've been playing quite heavily on the Sins Beta 4 Single Player (sorry, I've never been a big online person).

Let's get started, shall we?

(Now, I'm going to be honest and say that I haven't taken a whole lot of time to lurk these forums and go through exactly what everyone else has said about Sins up to this point, so if I say something that's been posted to death, please excuse me)

First things first, Sins of a Solar Empire has been reminding me over and over again of Galactic Civilizations 2...just in Real Time...and less on the cartoons but at the same time, some of the features have been watered down a bit below my liking. As a whole though, that isn't a bad thing by any means, I liked GalCiv 2 and I'm really enjoying Sins and just hope that in the end with some polishing this becomes a 4X game that I'll be playing to death over the next upcoming year.

Also, a thing to note is I've played exclusively as the Vasari up to the point of writing in Beta 4 (I haven't taken the time to see the changes in the TEC, sorry. Don't hurt me >.<)

Here I am, with my lowly fighter, Colony ship and Pioneer Ship and an entire galaxy in front of me- oh the possibilities. As anyone who's played the beta knows, that's all it takes to get the ball rolling. I'd say that the general gameplay and operation of the game is pretty simple but with the added layers of depth for a player to investigate further. Sins, although intimidating at first, is as far as I'm concerned a game that anyone willing to invest the time in a good match, can pick up and play. It's fairly intuitive if you've played any other strategy game and the pacing is, general, not too fast or too slow. Start off small, claim a few planets, get some resources, do some research, get some bigger guns rinse and repeat until you've dominated the universe? Easy, right? Wr- well, actually, it is...

Honestly, through my matches that I've done it has become fairly evident that the smaller the map, the more difficult the game can be because as I have found out, everyone and their cousin hates you right off the bat. Now, being the evil alien empire is all fine and dandy and those lowly humans should have reason to fear me but seriously, why is it that all the pirate raiders in the galaxy know exactly where I am and find me the most interesting target within the first 5 minutes of play. While the pirates aren't exactly the largest threat out there, I have just found it rather odd (and somewhat annoying) that the pirate raid ratio for all of my single player matches have literally been between 3:1 to as high as 10:1 compared human to AI (which, in my average map I choose Random-Medium with two other empires in the mix. It's my own preference that all the races shouldn't be crammed together fighting over 4 planets because that's not how I picture epic space battles, but I'm off on a tangent).

This brings me to my first general gripe about the gameplay, which is the sorry state of the AI in general. The pirate raids are all too predictable after the first time around (seriously, fortify the first planet they raid once your infrastructure is stable early on and just fortify that one world...it's the only one they ever attack) but not only that, I've noticed other odd things going on with the AI as well. Planets are left untended (I literally constantly come across planets that are without even the most basic of extractors regardless of difficulty) and attack patterns are predictable (not only that, they give every single one of their attacks away as well). Now, strictly speaking since this is a Beta much of this may already be different, but in the current state it is rather frustrating at moments to have the pirate AI and enemy AI both striking at the same one planet over and over and over again until I get my fleet of one or two capital ships and 6~8 fighters in place and then it all gets quiet.

Another thing that I haven't quite understood between the balance between Humans and AI so to speak. I notice time and time again that it seems that the AI's entire strategy consists of researching, perhaps, three or four empire upgrades (which exactly, I'm not positive because I haven't investigated) and then dumping the rest of their funds almost exclusively on crew space upgrades because that seems to be about the only thing the computer does- produce capital ships. I mean, seriously, the sheer number of capital ships that the AI can throw at you gets ridiculous and I theorize that they accomplish this feat is by, as I said earlier, not tending to their planets. My midgame stats that I glance at if I have to leave a game early clearly shows that while the AI doesn't produce that many credits, the amount of crystal and metal is usually higher than mine because, clearly, they spend it almost exclusively on their fleets. Not on planets or research like a human player would, but specifically on their fleet. This is the biggest flaw so to speak in the single player game design. My personal strategy with the Vasari is to create a moderately sized fleet early on (one that will suffice at repelling any early skirmishes between the undoubtedly two to five enemy capital ships and countless fighters that they throw at me time and time again) and then work almost exclusively on my Imperial tech tree until I hit nine labs, which I believe many people can guess why. Strictly speaking, you only need, perhaps, three to four planets to work your way to nine, and once you've done that you can create a very sound infrastructure very quickly. This brings me to my next topic, R&D.

One of the strongest points that Sins already has for it is the asymmetry of the races. At the surface they all seem all too similar and even the stats at the end of the game paint the races like that but even with only two available in the beta so far, it's clear that while their basic structure may be similar, it's the unique abilities that set each unit apart from its counterpart in another race's storage. I can't say that I exactly like the research and planetary development as it is right now, only because it seems like there are too many spare points floating around here and there but at the same time, I don't really dislike it. It works and it is intuitive. It's just why should the basic logistic structure be 3 points? Shouldn't it be one? I mean, I know that in the early betas it WAS one and it was still a bit weird then. Maybe it's just the distribution right now that makes the system seem off-balance. I mean, extractors are free (no complaints there) but then labs are three and every other structure is four points. I feel that the system needs to be streamlined a bit because there are just so many hitches early on because of the many things you have to juggle. I've been thinking about having the Labs set to two points, the basic shipyard and trade port at three points and then the Culture center, Resource center and Capital Yard at four. Why?

Well, I look at it this way- the research tree at the moment as so many limiting factors. Early on it is labs and crystals. Later, money, crystals and labs still. Towards the end I could say money, but I'm usually producing so many resources that it is a matter of clicks to alleviate that. Knocking one point off of the Logistic cost would lessen the strain on the player but you would still be reliant on what should really be the key: the resources. Labs should still be costly early on resource-wise, otherwise the tech tree would be too easy to climb, but it shouldn't mean that you have to force all your planets early on to be devoted only to researching because the labs sucked up all your points and you can't use your precious resources on both upgrading all of your logistic slots and infrastructure so that you're still able to produce money. The tactical side of the planetary development hasn't really ever been too much of a problem, so I don't have much to say on that subject.

As a whole, I feel that the planetary development costs are a bit steep, especially early on. The first level research should be tweaked a bit so that the development as a whole scales better as your empire does. The crucial logistic, infrastructure and fleet upgrades all can be just out of reach because you're short such and such resource.

I'm going to take a step aside here and talk specifically about one part of the Vasari tree right now- when I first looked at the Imperial branch, I noticed the Raiders Xenophobia tech and that immediately sent my mind off. See, the impression the Beta gives about the Vasari is that they would be the xenophobic enslave and cleanse kind of evil empire but when I saw the Raider Xenophobia tech, I had to say I was honestly disappointed. Sure, it may help...maybe. I honestly haven't noticed its effect which is why I feel it could be scrapped and a different branch put in its place.

Branching from the first upgrade to the rate of culture spread:
Discrimination (0/2):
Hostile Fleets in your territory where you have either (I haven't really worked it out) have the cultural majority or the Allegiance is 50% have their shield/health regeneration reduced by 5%/10%
Above it
Hostile Intent (0/2):
reduced by 15%/20%
Xenophobia (0/2):
Reduced by 25%/30% and/or Have their firing rate reduced by 5%/10%

I figure that culture would probably make more sense and that these would be all at the upper end of the tree considering it would give you a considerable edge fighting at home, but that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, wouldn't the popular support mean that you should garner the so-called home field advantage? I felt like this fell more in line with the character image of the Vasari as of now.

Speaking of planets, that's another thing that I'd like to speak about. This may be nitpicking, but I really want to see more diversity in the planets. I know that the limitation on the art for each planet may be in part due to the fact that it is a beta, but statistically the planet types are all the same and that tends to make the whole drive to explore more of a "meh" deal because the beginning tends to play out almost exactly the same way with the random generation. You start on a Terran planet. The two closest jumps will be normal asteroids. Perhaps this isn't a bad thing, but it is bad in my opinion that the two asteroids are exactly the same. Same population capacity, same logistic, even the same viable resources. Perhaps, instead of one base stat for each planet class, there could be a several and it shuffles them as you come to a planet. Everyone shouldn't be racing to the Ice worlds because they know they're the crystal hotspots or to the Desert worlds because of their logistic superpower. Variety is the spice of life- Galactic Civilization proved that with planet "class" system. Planets of the same type weren't necessarily the same value- some terran planets were clearly better than others and I think it wouldn't hurt Sins by any means to have a similar (albeit perhaps not as in depth) system in place. This would also fix another thing that irks me in that there are so many asteroids all over the place. Seriously, maybe one large asteroid here or there, but it shouldn't be the main thing in the galaxy. Where are the smaller planetoids? There could be small terran worlds or ice worlds in the place of some of the black blobs floating out there just to mix things up.

Another thing that I thought could be expanded on are the newly added Gas Giants. The first time I came across one, I thought to myself, "Awesome! What kind of treasures do these hold?" only to find out that I couldn't even begin to colonize them. Taking a cue from Star Wars, why not introduce something like Cloud City? I mean, a gas giant could be different from the standard colonization in that when you colonize it, instead of immediately having a population you could be given a builder unit and you have to create a kind of Gas Mining platform in the upper atmosphere that in turn allows a small population to grow on the planet. It could function as either a Resource Center or a Trade Port- or both. Just don't give the planet many (if any) Logistic points. It'd be useful, but you couldn't make huge colonies on it and it can be easily lost in conflict if it isn't well protected.

Likewise, why are Gas Giants unable to be colonized and developed but Dead Asteroids can be? Time and time again I find it annoying to have just made my phase jump only to find that the planet at the end of it was literally worthless. They've got no viable asteroids (makes sense) but then they have no logistic capability to boot. And to top it off, when you first colonize it all it does is hurt you because of the underdeveloped taxation. Now I don't see why their shouldn't be dead asteroids in the galaxy, but it does seem like a waste to make them colonizable. At most they're a temporary bulkhead or chokepoint for invading forces if you give them some tactical upgrades. Perhaps, in lieu of Dead Asteroids, there could be something such as an underdeveloped world of sorts- one that when you colonize it requires at least one infrastructure upgrade (read: Terraforming) before you can do anything else with it. That or Dead planets that may have limited resources around them, but the surface of the world itself is useless in its state for one reason or another (hence, orbital stations rather than colonies on the surface).

Another thing I'm going to nitpick about is that while the planetary upgrade says it terraforms the world, it really seems like not a whole lot is going on. If it can be done, I'd like to see the planets actually change their look as you refine the infrastructure and terraform them, like the upgrade says. Desert planets should have patches of green appear, perhaps Savannah-like with water slowly appearing. Icy worlds should reflect an increase in temperature and greenery appear and Volcanic worlds would do the opposite. Some of the underlying characteristics of each world could still be visible, but the planets should look like someone would actually bother living on it by the time it is at its max infrastructure upgrade (and, theoretically, terraforming capacity). Another thing to add to that sense of a living, breathing galaxy could be motion- which I can no doubt guess has been talked about before. I thought that it could be accomplished by having the entire system as a whole rotate around the star. While not exactly real, the phase lanes would be preserved and an autosnap to planet camera system (like the one that already snaps onto double-clicked ships) would make it so players who didn't want a moving galaxy don't have to pay much attention to it but the players who do can unlock the camera for some cinematic observation of their growing empire's galaxy. It's those little touches that make all the difference in the end.

Likewise stars need a little more diversity (it shouldn't be just color that sets them apart- have some that are clearly bigger and smaller than other stars or even consider putting blackholes in the center of a system instead...or between stars as an intermediate jump :3) and need to be further apart. In the earlier betas I actually enjoyed the vast distances between stars- you really got a sense for the huge galaxy you would venture through. And it'd immediately alleviate the problem of having star-systems too close and glitching each other (I literally had a star spawn within about two phase jumps between planets of another star, effectively killing both systems in one fell swoop). And, with the growth of the size of galaxies, it should be easier to achieve the highest zoom out where even planets are replaced as icons. I tend to miss that for quick jumps between world from the furthest away to much closer in the matches that I've been playing in Beta 4- only seeing the planet icons appear once...by accident.

I think I've posted myself out- if I had more topics to speak on, they've completely escaped me now. I think I'll go return to my one star/400 planet match and try to actually find one of the three other races in that big 'ole galaxy. First contact is always fun .

I want to make it clear that I by no means dislike Sins of a Solar Empire, I just feel that there is some polishing that could be done in these last two-ish months.