Vinraith

[quote]Ron is similar to the Civ games, in that nothing is to scale. The scale is what gives Sins its epic feel, while the gameplay mechanics of RoN are more like a 4x game.[/quote] Heh, yeah, that scale thing has always bothered me in Civ. Honestly, games where everything is pretty much to accurate scale are quite rare, Sins is rather unique in that regard.

[quote]I likewise apologize for anyone who read my inaccurate initial response to this comment during the few minutes it was up. I misread the post and reacted too quickly.[/quote] I actually see what you were reacting to now more clearly, I said "No, I believe the ships in the demo are the whole roster" when I meant it was the whole TEC roster. That was my bad, and if it gave a false impression about the game it genuinely wasn't intentional. Are you able to edit responses, because that

[quote]1. Are there more ships/buildings/upgrades in the full game. In the demo there were only about 15 ships and 3 ship types (frigate,cruiser,capital), are there more ships and goodies in the full game or is this it? The demo is missing 2/3 of the ships in the game and each race has a unique variant of a specific ship role type, it isn't a simple art swap. [/quote] If I somehow inadvertently gave the impression that it [i]was[/i] a simple art swap, rather than a case of many of the s

[quote]See, I'm amused that they gave it 60%, and yet the review factors add up to give 72.5%.(See the bottom of the page)That was the first thing I calculated after I read the review. Apparently the reviewer does not know how add and divide.[/quote] On the reviews page it clearly says: [quote]Know that the overall score is not an average, rather a number that the reviewer feels is appropriate. [/quote] This is a standard disclaimer, you'll find the same on IGN or Gam

If there were a way to do such a thing, this would be the wrong place to ask. Why would the developers tell you how to avoid buying their game?

Looking over it I'm actually rather impressed by the site. I'd never heard of it before this thread, but the hit/miss ratio in their review archive is better than most of the big name reviewers. It's worthy of a bookmark and is worth consulting in the future before purchases, IMO. As to the "review factors" most game sites give overall scores that are not strict mathematical sums or averages of their subscores, find something else to nitpick because the site is criticizing your beloved

[quote](BTW, Ascendency 2 is in development. Hopefully it will be even better than the original)HOLY CRAP FRICKIN AWESOME! I still have my original copy of Ascendancy and that just made my day, where'd you hear this?[/quote] It's been in development for more than a decade, and even if they ever actually finished it it's going to be an MMO and thus of no value.

[quote]Thats not at all what the original post said. 'Hamlets' (wtf, this is a space game not a fantasy farming sim) [/quote] What he's describing isn't a space game at the start, read the post again.

[quote]So the economic and technological aspects of the game drive players heedlessly into the map, gobbling planets up left and right and tearing away as many resources as they possibly can and pumping them into huge fleets. After several hours of this incessant buildup, conflict becomes almost inevitable. Meanwhile, all of our saved up effort has been left over, too. Resource gathering is simple, research is simple, everything is simple. It seems like the game is saving our time and consid

[quote]Waiiiit... I think they just brought out a game like that! Its called Sins of a Solar Empire! Its totally awesome, you should check it out![/quote] Your copy of Sins lets you start in prehistory, build cities on your planets, and develop into a space faring empire? Neat, I must have gotten a bum copy.

[quote]Scale IS a large part of 4x[/quote] Not really, lots of folks play 4X games on small maps. There's nothing fundamental about a 4X game that demands a 300 star map (or a 300 city map in the case of Civ/RoN). Exploration in both RoN and Sins is basically the same, build some scouts, put them on auto explore, and forget about them. Huge maps in RoN are pretty big, anyway. Sins can obviously scale to an unlimited extent as long as you have the PC to handle it, so no other game is goi

[quote]RoN was basically Age of Empires with more ages and the conquer-the-world mode on top. Which isn't to say it wasn't a great game (I was in the beta and liked it quite a bit), but considering it was largely just a standard RTS with a turn-based world map layer added on top to string the 'levels' together, I don't think RT4X would really fit there.[/quote] What 4X elements do you see Sins having that RoN lacked, out of curiosity, other than perhaps scale? I honestly can't think of

This is a great idea, and would add some tactical depth without overburdening the player with micro.

Oh and I almost forgot the most important element in its longevity, it had the best AI I've ever seen in an RTS. On the "fair" setting where you and the AI are on an even footing it put up a damn good fight, even 1 on 1. That campaign system was great too.

RoN's probably my favorite RTS of all time. It had an influence system, an interesting research system, it had the same decentralization (that is, lack of "single base" focus) that 4X games have, exploration was terribly important, and it had those all important alternate winning conditions. Most importantly it had that "Civ" feel. To the degree that the term makes any sense at all, I'd say RoN fits the RT4X label at least as well as Sins, though it wisely wasn't advertised as such. It's still i

A performance concession, presumably. I'd think that adding it at this late date would be outside the scope of a patch.

[quote]For my part, I bought it, I'm stuck with it (because Stardock's registration system is such that I can't legitimately sell it) so there's nothing for me to do but try to get the parts of the game that are poor (the AI, the diplo system, the research system to some degree) fixed and to warn others that in my opinion they are well advised to wait for that to happen. Or, you could point them to the demo so they can see for themselves, rather than reading biased (from both sides, to be fair)

1. No, I believe the ships in the demo are the whole TEC roster. There should be 6 frigates, 4 cruisers, and 5 cap ships per faction. Everybody has the same types of frigates (with different artwork), 3 of the same cruiser types (and one that's unique to their faction) while the cap ships are all race-specific. 2. You can turn off the diplomacy system by locking teams at the beginning of the game. This will result in everyone being hostile to everyone else for the whole game. There's been

[quote]We are well aware of the issues you continuously bring up and we've consistantly said that we are dealing with them. This is the first time I have been acknowledged by you guys, that was the goal![/quote] Yup, finally got a clear answer as to my issues of concern so that's that. AI will continue to be worked on, diplomacy will not be fixed outside of an expansion, end of story. I can't say I'm thrilled about the second part, but at least I know what the situation is so t

[quote]Of course. Nothing more is needed. No swaying required. All 9 of them are working on this (and whoever else they pull), in accordance with the communities concerns. All that is left is patience. And I'm certainly willing to wait for it.[/quote] By "sway" I mean "to encourage them to address the diplo problems in a patch." I've been politely instructed to stop talking about that, though, so other than this clarifying remark I'm doing just that.

[quote]Vinraith, how many times do people have to tell you that the Diplo and AI are going to be overhauled before you stop telling them to overhaul it?! [/quote] I'm done. They've made it clear that the AI is being worked on and that the diplo system is not going to be addressed until an expansion, so no further discussion is needed on the subject other than to inform people of those facts. I'm upset about the diplo but hearing about it further from me clearly isn't going to sway them.

[quote]I would argue that watching the battles in Star Wars EaW as ships and the camera zoom around dynamically was more visually appealing than watching two huge fleets sit still and pew pew at each other in Sins, but that's a subjective opinion at best.[/quote] Well, that's not graphics, its visual style. There are a lot more fighters and a lot fewer capital ships in Star Wars, so battles are inevitably going to look more dynamic, it's true. It's all a matter of what you like, really.

Craptons of hangar bays. :D Seriously, a sufficiently fortified world will at least severely damage a fleet trying to run past it. Build lots and lots of bombers.

[quote]Here's a question: How much help is it for all of these myriad threads popping up that do nothing but offer vague, general praise of SD and Sins? Doesn't that also add to the singal-to-noise ratio?[/quote] Since the principle purpose of this site is to advertise the game, those thread qualify as "signal."

I don't see how there can even be debate about the graphics, Sins is definitely the prettier of the two. As to gameplay, the best way to get a sense of that is to play the demo for Sins. It should be immediately apparent whether you enjoy it or not.