Uh, what version did you buy? Trinity is an expansion, so if you bought the trinity version it comes with it. If you just bought he original Sins that came out years ago, no of course it is not free.

As for updating, you update your game by registering it with Stardock. Though I'm a bit unclear on what the procedure is for older versions of the game.

Yes, Entrenchment and Diplomacy were expansions to Vanilla Sins. Trinity is all 3 rolled into one...

Okay, I think we need to back up here and explain the history of Sins here.

It sounds like the game you got was the original Sins of a Solar Empire (a link would be good to know for sure). That was released several years ago. It was successful enough to prompt two "Micro Expansions", Entrenchment and Diplomacy, originally sold for $10 each. As they were expansions they needed the original game to be played. Like many games, there was also a gold version, called "Trinity" that included the game and both expansions for those totally new to Sins.

However, Trinity did so well they decided to make a full fledged "Stand Alone" expansion to Sins called Rebellion. This is the most recent expansion, and is a digital only steam works game. It includes all the content from the previous expansion, plus many new features, and is thus the entire "Sins Experience".

In all honesty, if you want the expansions, you're probably better off just buying trinity or preferably rebellion. Trinity is sometimes on sale for less than the cost of getting both of the $10 expansions, and Rebellion includes all of that so it does not matter if you have the base game or not (though you can get $10 off as a previous Sins owner, but Rebellion has occasionally been on sale for less than $20 so again, which is cheaper than the $10 off coupon).

So I say play the game you got, but keep in mind that it is a very old version, and if you like the game look to getting either Trinity or Rebellion. I think most people here play Rebellion but trinity still has some old timers or steam haters sticking to it.

i've downloaded the updater for trinity but it cant find my game, any suggestions?

Hiya folks.

I seem to be having the same type of trouble as the fellow above me. I bought a retail copy of the trinity edition yesterday and am trying to update it with no joy.

I've registered on gamestop, have looked at countless threads and emailed stardock support but as yet nothing seems to be working. I'm pretty sure that I must be missing something so any help that anyone can offer would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Gargabee, Gamestop has said that they will no longer except new Sins retail keys. If that has not changed, I believe you need to use Stardock Central now. 

Maybe I'm just really new to all of this, but how can I do such a thing (download a full install of vanilla)? Without having to buy the game a second time, if at all possible.

*Edit: found the right pages, but somewhere along the line of the years I've failed to get MP to work, I must've already registered the serial with some other account, ICO or otherwise. No solution.