Hi, I wonder if I could get an official reply. I've so far only played this game on a friend's computer... I've played, I think, 4 games so far and I think the game is generally well-designed, if a bit lacking in one or two areas.
One of my major concerns is the AI and future support. Is it Stardock's goal with this game to continue to support the developer in making patches and upgrades later on, like you do with Galciv? Or are you taking the more standard, "get things generally working then cut the developer loose" approach, considering this isn't actually your own in-house project?
I would like to see the AI get smarter and smarter in the future. Right now it's better than many RTS AIs, but it pales in comparison to Galciv2, to say the least.
The AI:
-almost always immediately retreats if you destroy its capital ships, regardless of any other considerations
-Has questionable attack priorities and doesn't like to take risks, regardless of what the payoff or stakes are
-Only ever attacks one target at a time
-Uses only two standard attacks, "raid planets with bombers" and "send everything with an engine at their fortress world guarded by their entire massed fleet"
-Rarely builds defenses
-Researches rather slowly
-Almost never attempts to seriously defend more than one location at a time
-Only ever has one fleet
-If cornered, just accepts its fate and waits for you to destroy it, rather than trying to make a comeback
etc
I notice a lot of people saying "defenses are useless"... apparently these people haven't found what I have, or else either they or I am doing something completely wrong. I've found that if I build 6 fighter bases ringing a planet, then a fighter and bomber in each,, with another ring of 6 gauss guns just a little farther outside that ring, I am completely immune to almost any attack, and I rarely even lose a single turret or base. As in, I might lose one base in an entire 5 hour game. For added security there's still enough tactical slots left to build a planet shield. At the very least, you'll be completely immune to pirates.
I understand that this is a slow-paced game (by necessity), and I understand that the AI needs to make sure it doesn't lose its entire fleet because they're very expensive to rebuild.
Sins is a really excellent game, and with a little more work on the AI and interface I think I'd have a hard time choosing between Galciv and Sins when I've got free time.
As a side note, please consider changing the game's font... It's hard to read at high resolution, let alone when you've got something like dark-purple on a black background... A more standard Verdana or something, while not looking so "cool" is a hundred times more readable. I thought Stardock was all about gameplay, not compromising over the cool factor of a font of all things.
The thing that makes me a loyal fan of Stardock isn't the quality of the games or even the scarcity of decent strategy games in general nowadays, it's the fact that you don't do the standard "EA Approach" with development, where you make something to appeal to the largest crowd, make it work on at least 20% of the customer's computers, and then discard it and work on the sequel as if the original never existed. I'm not the only one who feels this way and I hope you take that into consideration when deciding how to handle future support for SoaSE.
