Master of Orion, the turn based strategy game which is my favorite game of all time after UFO/XCOM, has no campaign or multiplayer. Neither did it's sequel. It is still superior to every game released since, other than maybe SINS, with or without a campaign. XCOM had a sandbox campaign which was nothing like what we call 'campaign' today.

It's a 4x game in an rts engine, not an RTS game with 4x elements. I am sorry you are dissapointed, you got the wrong game. I have already spent and enjoyed more hours playing this game single player than I did in Company of Heroes, World in Conflict and CnC3. Those games needed a campaign as the skirmish/mp is rather shallow. This game dosn't need one. You make your own story. I know a lot of you young'uns don't know how to do that.

A campaign in this game would probably feel like the campaign in Galciv... lame and tacked on regardless of good fiction and effort put in (Sorry stardock!). Sandbox is where it is at.

As for the MP problems, they are valid and although I can host a game, my dad cannot. though I've been into the lobby and post patch I am getting a warning as well. This kind of flaw IS unacceptable and reminds me of my inconsistant COH online experience, which upsets me so much because it is such a good game, just like this one. That said, I've never played a new game so much without a crash so I will withold judgement for a patch... or two if they are lucky.

Sorry for bad grammar, It's lazy o'clock.

Honestly,i rather have no campaign than a half ass campaign like those in Dawn of War:Dark Crusade or Unreal Tournament 3.

Anyway,i havent got the game yet and i have a question.I enjoy playing Homeworld and the usual RTS like Dawn of War,Company of Heroes and Universe at War.

Is Sins of the Solar Empire suitable for a RTS fan?I have been looking for a decent space RTS since Homeworld 2.

Sins is a very different game than HW2, but there are certainly many HW2 fans that are playing the game right now.  Sins is slower paced and could feature multiple 'HW' sized battles at the same time. There is much more emphasis on the empire building - building structures, trade routes, diplomatic relations, research, playing the black market, and placing bounty on your opponents.  That being said you still get your huge combat goodies - but on a larger scale. Comparitively speaking I would consider HW more of a real-time tactical, and Sins a real time strategy/4X mix.

God, no single player campaign.

and yes, there ARE that many multiplayer games going at the same time usually. I've never looked for other players - my friends are already there online we get going right away.

RTS games LIVE for multiplayer. You can play a campaign once. How many times can you play multiplayer? OO exactly.



Hey Cheese, I remember you from the DoW forums... Sins will probably be a little slow paced for you, its a great game but its closer to GalCivII than Homeworld II.

If you like empire building though you'll probably enjoy it... games aren't short though. Personally, I recommend picking it up even if you don't like games like this, 1st cause if you ever WILL enjoy a game like this, it'll be sins, and 2nd, becauses I believe in encouraging the Game producing community to release non-drm games

And did you stop to think that none of these games are even remotely similar to SINs? Maybe I missed the open ended gameplay, and massive play environment in those aforementioned titles; not to mention a campaign attached.



I definitely thought this statement was amusing.

The nice thing with a Campaign mode, especially a well written & scripted one, is that it helps to get people in who might be scared by the almost vertical learning curve of the Skirmish mode. The tutorials are a bit forced : "This is a tutorial", they lack any real character.

If you want to get fresh people playing a 4X / RTS hybrid chances are you want to tap into the pool of RTS players, especially the more casual ones who are coming from a C&C or Dawn of War PoV.

There's more reward and emotional investment in finishing a campaign too, rather than just finishing some skirmish mode map. The varied skirmish maps are a step in the right direction, it's just a bit of a pity that a few weren't interlinked to create campaigns to introduce us to the races (both their game mechanics and the races 'personalities').

I love this game, having a ball at the moment, but its a bit of work to get in to and it'd be nice to have a bit of background on each race, something Starcraft, C&C and Dawn of War do pretty well (best part of C&C3 for my money, the actual game mechanics are the same-old, same-old).

I realise a lot of people are coming from the 4X point of view too but this is such a great game with great mechanics its a pity that its let down a bit by lacking a bit of character which even 3 short story campaigns might have provided.

i find it more grand strategy than the more action based rts's.

it's about the grand decisions you make, what ship to build when. how to use your logistics and tactical slots cuz you don't get enough on the biggest colonies to build one of everything. there really is alot to do. as far as tactics in combat it seems more with what i mentioned above. what ships to build and where to put them and when. alot of this has to do with the ai too. right now it does seem a little easy no matter which type or difficulty level. if it attacked more then those decisions would need to be made that much quicker, which would help with the strategy side more, cuz you might have to deal with them sooner and have less time for all the research and building colonizing you seem to now.

garrett

First of all:
The error message you get when hosting is bugged. It will show up even if everything is fine (I believe it's because that if it detects a single insignifcant mismatch, even at your ISP, it will show up). There isn't ANY information about this ingame, so this leads to a huge numbers of players not hosting because they think they haven't managed to fix their setup. Which brings me to my next point.

This online client is one of the worst ones I've used in a long, long while. I've been playing online since games first went online, so I have a fair amount of games to compare with.
Example:
Any online client worth its salt would atleast have a news section, where something like "The error message is bugged, please disregard it as we fix it, but make sure to open your ports/turn off firewalls" would be.

I'm fine with a game not having a singleplayer mode, Team Fortress 2 is a great game. However, if it's not going to have a singleplayer mode, then the online part must be even better than what you can expect from a RTS with singleplayer at release. Personally, I'd like to see a campaign mode to this game, but as I said, it isn't mandatory.

Having the ability to play a skirmish vs an AI is such a basic gamemode (I can't think of a RTS type game that hasn't had it, even counting from the Warcraft 1 days), that having that as the only mode working well enough at release is FAR from good enough. If your personal preferance is to play alone versus your friends or an AI, then fine, but don't come here and say that a game doesn't need anything else after release and two patches. I personally hate playing the same old predictable AIs, which always can be exploited in retarded ways.

I completley agree with OP, this game lacks in both singleplayer and multiplayer, and it's a damn shame because the game itself is awesome. Hopefully, they will revamp the online part as fast as possible.

Oh, and theres only possible to play a game in singleplayer or multiplayer mode. Either you play alone, or you play with others.

I'm still not sure how people figure that fighting through some linear missions, being constrained to attack certain planets, or being forced to follow the story of some character is necessary.

I mean, how would it be structured in such a game? And why do people keep mentioning C&C and HW as examples? Those games play almost nothing like SINS. Of course those games need a campaign to maintain interest, since you do nothing but fight on slightly different maps.

A single-player campaign, when done well, can be extremely useful to new players as an introduction and walk through of all areas of the game - introducing slightly more features in each scenario and letting a new user get used to the ideas that make up the game. They can also be used to give purpose and structure to a game.

Tutorials are inherently bad for this (as are the ones in Sins) as they do not allow you to play with the elements of the game and get used to them within a valid context before you have to use them. The current tutorials tell you how to do the basic things, and then when you need some time to play around with the things you have been told about, you are forced to exit the tutorial. Needless to say that being dumped into a game and then looking blankly at the screen with no idea at all about what to do or how to do it is not good and something that a carefully scripted campaign can help solve.

Lots of people seem to be knocking campaigns in general, but I bet the majority of people who buy games actually play through the campaigns.

I can't comment about the multi-player issues as I don't play multi-player.

Because these are the sort of gamers a game this good should be appealing to?

I'm not saying its necessary.

But it'd go a good way to explaining a lot of the fairly subtlities of the game to the more casual gamer who is trying to get into this. Its called cross market appeal. Rather than just getting the hard-core who are going to buy this anyway and pore through the forums to see how things like Armour, Culture and Extractors work (top of my head examples), it makes sense for things like that to be introduced via something other than a dull and mechanical series of tutorials (which don't mention these anyway as far as I know?).

I think a lot of people coming from an RTS POV (or do you not want the game to appeal to this sort of person?) are going to be put off by the steep learning curve and the fact every review I've read has said "Pity it doesn't have a campaign".

Structure-wise a small Risk-style map featuring some scripted maps with various starting resources and conditions (so for example you encourage people to try out things like Broadcast Towers or Extractors and show them how useful they can be) would work.

It'd also give the game a bit of character. As is its a rather dry affair (although the voice work for the Advent goes a long way to showing what they're all about)

But most of the people demanding the campaign did indicate that they needed someone to explain how to the play the game. No, their main issues stem around the fact that since it possesses an intro or that the manual briefly touches on the abstract of races, that it deserves a campaign. In terms of purpose, the campaign, unless well designed, will be series of bland missions constricting the player to simple task, whilst introducing new units slowly. Again, I don't see the real point of this, but
that is merely my own opinion. There may indeed be benefit in instructing players, but again, no one's really mentioned that. They want a story.





Of course, since, as I stated, those games feature infinitely small maps, with a few choke points, and one or two bases. They rarely have multiple fronts, a large,expansive playing field, or give you the feeling that you're fighting a real war; more like you're managing a small battalion. No, you just build a base, and churn out units. Victory comes quick and easy in most of the strategy games mentioned. A story, to retain interest, is necessary when considering the usual bland a.i. and limited skirmish maps. A tutorial, if it so desired, could explain almost everything in relatively short amount of time.


Because these are the sort of gamers a game this good should be appealing to?

Not necessarily, if some of the user reviews are any indication. I've seen some complaining of slow pace, not enough diversity, or the fact that game doesn't possess enough "pretty" explosions. So, even it possessed a campaign, it's doubtful everyone is going to fall in love with it.




I think the play style of the game will affect more people than having a campaign, since having campaign is not the primary foundation of a game, nor will it keep people coming back once it's done.





Hmmm, the IGN review made a good point in regards to this:

"Some people complain that the game doesn't have a single-player story campaign. While I certainly think that a storied campaign would help establish a clearer sense of who each of these races are, what they're capable of, and why they're fighting, the dynamic and unpredictable situations that arise out of the open-ended campaigns are much more engaging than any scripted scenario. I mean, no one complains that Civilization doesn't have a campaign, and I see Sins of a Solar Empire offers a similar, if less varied, approach. The one reason that I think a scripted campaign could have been included is to expand on the rather superficial tutorial."

Again, I could care less if they introduce a campaign, I just don't see why it's so devastating that this game doesn't possess one.

Problems in this game are aweful AI... making singleplayer more annoyance than anything else.

Multiplayer isn't an option for almost anyone with a real life... the pretend 4x factor of this game makes it take 4x longer than any other normal RTS... but it has the same features as most RTS.

There are just as many units and nearly as many "useful" upgrade options in say... Warcraft 3... as Sins... yet unit control actually matters in WC3... While in Sins you basically just sit back and watch... I feel the only "control" I need to use in Sins is warping out damaged ships to repair...

And this "Space" combat game seems more 2d than anything else... at least in many modern RTS hill/height advantage makes a difference... in Sins... and "outer space" my ships are fucking running into eachother.... There is no "Z" in this game.. just X and Y... pretty sad for a "space" game.

When you lose space craft because they're "stuck" on other units and are unable to get around them (as they do not fly up or down.. only left or right)... you realize this very quickly

I don't think I used the word "devastating" once

I agree with the IGN review there, my primary reasons for wanting one are exactly what they mention, replacing the crappy tutorials & giving a sense of identity to the races (especially the TEC who seem a bit of a bog-standard blend of "Generic Futuristic Humans in Space").

Hmmmmm... Some good points.

I find instruction and guidance on the game much more effective than story as I need to see things working in context before I can learn them - tutorials and the manual rarely allow me to grasp how, why and when I need to do something. But as you said, story helps to maintain interest in the early stages of the game (before addiction takes over). A campaign should ideally be used for both.



There is no reason why a game cannot have both a structured campaign with the maps described AND the large open maps that are so desirable.



But does so in a context that doesn't bear any relation to how and when you would use those things (which the current Sins tutorials are guilty of), which then leaves the user scratching their heads when they start a new game and get swamped by everything. And as mentioned in the IGN review that you quoted "The one reason that I think a scripted campaign could have been included is to expand on the rather superficial tutorial."



The only problem with this is that the only people who write user reviews are usually those have have invested a considerable amount of time in the game or are experienced RTS/4X gamers. And these are not the gamers that jonfon was talking about (hope I got that right).



That'll be the day. There will never be a time or situation where everyone loves Sins.

I'm not saying that we should have one (and I'm certainly not demanding or saying that I'm devastated about not having one), but it would certainly make a very nice addition to the game.

Sins is more a RTS than a 4x at times, or you can make it completely making it an RTS, just played against multiple AI players all with locked teams with no allies. On the RTS side of things, it is more of a RTS simply it forces you to consider how to make a fleet together and how to use all you various ships special abilities to attack cohesively. Otherwise, it will be a waste of resources for building all those ships.

The other thing is, there is a z-axis movement, you have to assign it to a specific key under the key binding options.

I will admit, the diplomacy is a bit lacking and there can be more a 4x aspect to the game like introducing an individual planet screen and allowing for more specific structures to be built on planets and managing or morals and consider morals as a resource and such. But that would prolong the game play for a very long time. If people are complaining how long the RTS aspect of the game is already, imagine how long it would take to make everything that is available in a game like Civ to be playable in real time.

i had this feeling in the beginning too, and i realized after like, a few matches, that it DOES matter, quite much actually. just letting your units do their thing may work in some cases, but if your enemy is even close to your army strength, your losses will be big, but if you do control your units properly (though the micro needed is not nearly as hectic as in WC3) you have a clear edge and will stomp them in the ground with barely any losses.

as for (battle-influencing) z movement, what would it change ? except making the game a lot more difficult to control, a lot more difficult to understand (where to position my ships? how to approach the enemy? from where am i most vulnerable? etc.), and simply too complicated in a medium to big sized battle. as for the "running into each other" part, never seen that. ships DO move in z-direction to evade others or simply for the heck of it, or for formations, as are the building placements (at which i actually dislike the random z-value <.<). and if there is a problem with z-movement and ships blocking each other, its that it doesn't happen, and so you cant create a wall your opponent has to break through rather than just fly around. which wouldn't make sense in space though, so its fine i guess.

Did I say you did?



But as he also stated, it's not really necessary.



But int this case, it's probably too late, hashing together a cheap campaign in a patch will be unnecessary, since, most likely, only those who own the game will know of it, and those who purchase an expansion pack will already have owned the original game. So, that leaves only one purpose for a campaign in Sins: Story.



I simply gave you a reason why people play campaigns in the RTS's mentioned. There is little else to do in the singleplayer mode except playing a slew of bland maps, with limited decision making on the part of the player and generally poor a.i.to boot, in skirmish

The open ended RTS' that have featured campaigns were mostly ridiculed for their blandness and constraints. B&W and SC are fine examples.

Empire at War is similar, but most of its missions took place in ground combat, not space.




I thought people were complaining that tutorial didn't explain enough, not that it didn't have some structured story to guide the player. The superficial statement stems from the fact that it wasn't penetrating enough; not explaining key concepts. That's what the reviewer was hinting at.



So you're saying that most 4x gamers would complain about slow pace, lack of diversity (well maybe) and lack of pretty explosions, particularly when looking at the genre as a whole? It's clear that others are interested in the game, sans the campaign.



Again, I never said the campaign is a bad thing. I simply don't understand why people are so devastated (no I'm not talking about you Jon), and feel that a lack of one is ruining the game.

I just want to add for the diplomacy aspect of the game, maybe we can give some of your own ships to your allies or other non-allied players.

use hamachi unti ico is fixed.

Hey,martyr3810.I also remember you from Relic News.Is it hard to adapt to it after playing fast paced games like DoW?

Frankly saying,i have never tried a 4X game or an empire building game before and this could be my first.I have always wanted to try a large empire building game with large scale battles.Sup Com couldnt satisfy me due to it's horrible system requirement.I think Sins could fill up the void since the requirements are low,great support(i know it will be 10x better than Relic) and good graphics.I might just get it after it's release in Aus.The distributors in my home country dont even bother to import this game at all.

No, but the implication was there with the sweeping generalised statement about people being 'devestated' about there being no campaign. Disappointed would have been better.


Unfortunately it would be too late now. However, I wasn't wanting an addition of a campaign to the game in a patch, but trying to point out why there should have been one in the first place.


No. I'm saying that the game alienates a whole load of casual players because of a lack of some way to easily get into the game (which I think was the point that jonfon was getting at).



I don't seem to be getting this across, so I'll number my points.
1) I'm not saying that the lack of a campaign has ruined the game, just that it should have probably had one at release.
2) I am not devastated about the lack of a campaign, and I don't think many people are. I think many people are disappointed about the lack of a campaign, but disappointment is different to devastation.

What the fuck? The brilliant campaigns in Starcraft was a part of the reason why the game became such a massive hit, and the expansion campaigns were loved by the gamers. There isn't much footage of Stafcraft2 yet, but they actually have released some video and information about the campagins there. I get your point, you don't like campagins, I'll write that in my book of useless information, but don't throw out your preferances as facts.



It's not that ALONE that is bad, but it's that in addition to the horrible online console. Do you honestly think that a game like this would be released only for the small targetbase of 4x sandbox freaks? The RTS aspect is bigger than the 4x aspect of the game. Lacking singleplayer, except playing against exploitable AI's (turret placement, and a dumb computer going straight through instead of going around), and a dreadful online experience combined isn't a success.

I don't think the AI is that bad - it needs improvement, but it's not completely incapable of playing the game. Based on Stardock's history and the dedication of the Ironclad guys, I have every faith that the AI will continue to evolve and improve through patches.

Right now, if you want a challenge, play against two or more Hard AIs on a locked team on a Medium or larger map.


It's definitely a longer game than most RTS titles. On the other hand, it's a lot more practical to play multiplayer than most 4X games.

I have a real life, but I'm looking forward to playing some multiplayer at weekends when I get my new PC (I wouldn't take my current piece of crap online).


What's 'pretend' about the 4X elements?

How many Warcraft 3 games do you play on three or four maps at once? In Sins, I can be at war with five or six other empires at the same time, and have multiple battles occuring across different star systems simultaneously.

The only RTS that I think even begins to compare to the depth and strategic complexity of Sins is SupCom, and even that's a lot more limited in scope than Sins is.


The default AI (especially if you group your forces into well-composed fleets) does a passable job. This is important, as in Sins you might be fighting battles in multiple systems at once, and if your forces can't function without constant micromanagement, this would be impossible.

On the other hand, microing can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your forces, especially in tough fights.

The result is, in my opinion, a nice balance between the ability to fight on multiple fronts at the same time, while making the most of the abilities of my forces in close or tricky battles.


I'm afraid you are incorrect. Check the key bindings for the Z axis key (you may have to assign one, but it is there).


being able to tangle up enemy forces by moving into the middle of them strikes me as a perfectly valid tactic. If you don't want to get tangled up, control your fleets' positions more effectively.

So Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2 weren't games, then?