Wargazmo

[quote]Not really. HW pulled it off well.[/quote] Homeworld's awkward interface and camera control was one of the reasons I never got into that game.

Nice guide, I've got a few things to add - When I'm in a FFA game vs a lot of AI I'll try and get one of the AIs to ceasefire. This makes the game much, much less tough to win. Often the "missions" the AI gives you are fairly easy to complete, like "give 1000 gold". Without the ceasefire I find the AI tends to just gang up on the player, with just 1 friendly AI it will not only take that AI out of the game but because that AI will find other targets you'll also get respite from the AIs

Nice builds. Eagerly waiting the Vasaari installment now.

This is the kind of problem that happens with all hybrid games. In the end if you're looking for a pure 4x game then there are other games out there with a lot more depth, and if you're looking for an RTS there are other games with much better tactical combat, better pacing and balance. That said, I think sins has much more potential to be a great RTS game, things like balance and pacing can be achieved with patches. Certainly when I play sins I'm most definitely in RTS mode,

I've played strategy games that try and be full 3D before, and in the end it gets awfully confusing and half the game is spent wrestling with the camera. Yes space is 3D, unfortunately a computer monitor is only 2D. Realism does not always equal fun.

From my experience, no. I had 3 on one planet and the ships took exactly the same amount of time. Although admittedly I haven't actually tried clicking on each individual factory and producing a different unit with each one, so maybe that would have worked, certainly clicking on the planet and building from there didn't make things any faster.

[quote]this game doesn't do nearly enough to prepare you for human opponents. The computer AI is easily beaten [/quote] Welcome to every RTS game ever.

It's fun single player, but Galactic Civilizations 2 is a far superior single player game by the same company and it's very similar. If you haven't tried Galactic Civ yet then I'd get that instead, even if you have then there's a new expansion coming out soon you might wanna wait for.

[quote]Woot! Let's reduce another game to memorizing and then executing the "optimal" build order and using cookie-cutter "strategy"![/quote] Sorry but just about every game is like this, there's only a few viable first moves in chess but that doesn't make it any less strategic or fun.

[quote]So I figure my hatred and disappointment with the game has to be something on my end, becuase everyone else seems to love it.[/quote] Yes it is your end. If you have a problem with the game mechanics or the pace of the game then fair enough, but not liking the game because it's too hard is pretty unjustified when there's a perfectly good easy mode setting, and maps which don't even have pirates at all. First game I played I got smacked by pirates too, you know

With the awesome backstory and lore that they've created I think the game is crying out for a single player campaign. I would be very disappointed if there's not some sort of campaign in the first expansion.

[quote]noThat's not usually what happensPeoples' computers have different speedsSo usually one person loads a lot faster than everyone else[/quote] I guess time to upgrade comps again then :)

[quote]Good question.Don't upgrade your home planet. That's 200 crystal right there Forgot to mention it, will edit.[/quote] But if you want to guarantee the first crystal bid then you won't have time to check the price, you just hammer ctrl-F6 as soon as you start the game. This means it's pretty much a lottery who gets it if both players use the hotkey.

1) Buy 300 crystal. (300 is the most you can buy without it delaying your start due to lack of credits) 2) build cap factory, crystal extractor and increase pop cap on homeworld simultaneously. Queue up your cap ship. 3) Build scout and then another scout when you have the money. Send scouts out as soon as they come out. 4) Queue up your two metal extractors when you have the money (you should hit 250 just before your crystal extractor finishes building) and then

Ok I think I got it now. So culture raises the cap by 10%, but you don't necessarily need the broadcast center in order to get culture, however if you're near enemies you'll probably want one.

Okay so the broadcast center doesn't even raise the allegiance cap, it just increases the rate at which you reach it? So basically unless you're specifically trying to flip planets or are getting owned by enemy culture this building isn't really worth building.

Broadcast center is supposed to raise your allegence by 10% right? This would give you 10% more income from that planet. Wouldn't it just be more profitable to use that logistics slot for a trade center instead? Given trade centers generate around 1.5-3 credits each depending on the size of your empire, which is far more than 10% of any planets tax income.

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet but the reduction in income from planets further out is somewhat counter balanced by the increased income from trade the larger your empire is. The larger you make your trade lines stretch the more income you get per trade building. While I haven't played on huge yet, the large game I recently finished I was at max fleet and had no problem making money. That said, considering the game still can take a very long time to finish even once you

ok, cause I did a 4 player FFA but didn't get any of the achievements. Although I did befriend one of the AIs so that's probably why it didn't work.

[quote]Triple phase inhibitor's jump delay time and have i effect the entire grav well in addition to Kade's above post.[/quote] Just want to say I agree with this suggestion.

Just wondering, with achievements that require you to beat multiple hard AIs, do you need to have all the AIs on the same team or can it be in a FFA?

[quote]Actually, in games like chess, you have to plan and wait for the opponent a lot. And the wait can be excruciating.[/quote] But even in chess there's many places I can go to play a 10 min a side game if I want, both online and off. Even professional chess games last for 3-4 hours max.

dunno why people are against adding this. It's not like the game is forcing you to play against the cheating AI. More options can't hurt, if people want the option of harder AI settings why should it be denied, especially if it can be fairly simply introduced (like just adding a new difficulty setting above hard where the hard AI has more money) One of the things that kept me playing galactic Civ for so long was the fact that the harder AI settings were really challenging. If the

Actually if it was real, REAL time then it would take years to travel to other planets and hundreds of years to colonise them. But that's just being silly. I agree that it couldn't hurt to have faster settings. I mean by all means keep the normal settings but put the faster settings there for people who only have a couple of hours a night free. Saving games is fine but it's always a hassle to have to organise times to finish off games, especially if they're random pic

I agree that the pirates are fairly easy to fend off, but the OP is 100% right in that it's better to let the AI deal with them in the early game, especially the first couple of attacks. Fending off the first few pirate attacks will delay your colonisation strategy, sure you'll gain levels but you can gain those levels by killing neutrals around other planets so there's no real advantage here. On the other hand by sending them to the AI you cripple their colonising and give yoursel