Piracy is the best way on Earth to ensure that people stop making things you enjoy. That's really all there is to it, support what you like or people will stop making things you like.
I'm going to miss Iron Lore, they did damn good work. Very interesting read, thanks Brad.
Graphics are important to the RTS crowd, which is driving the bulk of sales for Sins. You made it look like Homeworld, so that brought a certain built-in fanbase along for the ride. Add to that the GC2 customers that you've served so well and who will buy most anything you put out (myself included) and you've got some excellent sales numbers. How's word of mouth, though? It seems like there's a fair amount of negativity over on the Sins boards, and I know I myself am not particularly happy with
I wouldn't play the game without them. They're designed to shake up games that have stagnated and, generally, that's exactly what they do.
What Divine Wrath said, keep improving that AI til my sorry ass is forced to play on Normal or below. :D
Sins is not a detailed strategy game, it's an RTS with some very light 4X flourishes thrown in. Based on what you say you want, you'd be better off with Lost Empires. Are you aware of Gal Civ 2, by the way? It's a fantastic 4x turn based strategy game with plenty of detail.
Sins Forums
It's not you, the UI's just terrible. The game's actually much less complex than it looks.
[quote]Oh ok...and I am guessing there were never Hero units before wc3? [/quote] Of course there were, but that's really beside the point. Here's how heroes worked in WC3: You have a hero, they have four skills unique to them, one of which they can't level in until level 6 (that's their super ability). Their maximum level in the others is one half the current level of the hero rounded down, which means you can't just level in the same skill every time. There are neutral enemies scatter
Someone never played Warcraft 3. Those are neutral ships, they exist principally for you to kill them with your capital ship thus gaining experience and levelling it up (a process known colloquially as "creeping").
Rise of Nations is a better analogy than Warcraft 3 (being something of a TBS/RTS "hybrid" that's mostly an RTS itself), actually, though the cap ship system is [i]straight[/i] out of WC3 so I understand the comparison. There's nothing in this game, at least nothing good, that hasn't been done at least as well in RoN, WC3, or both. Over all I tend to think RoN does far more justice by the Civ series than Sins does by Gal Civ. I know which one I'll still be playing a year from now, and it's not S
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is probably the best available IMO (and it meets all your requirements). HOMM V has its charms as well. Disciples II is a great looking game and has some neat ideas, though I find the gameplay a bit lacking. The Dominions games have an excellent reputation, but are profoundly inaccessible and (in my opinion only) not enough fun to warrant the effort one has to put into them.
Buying it doesn't automatically imply liking it, especially since there's no demo. I for one regret having dropped $50 on the Collector's Edition, and have already uninstalled and shelved the game.
A mini map would alleviate the constant need to zoom all the way out and then all the way back in again, which is part of what's wrong with the interface IMO. I'm not a fan of Supreme Commander for the same reason. The game is paced for certain sized systems, so less planets, while nominally an option, doesn't actually improve gameplay. And the empire tree, while a good fleet management tool and an adequate building tool, is not particularly practical for tracking anything else. It lac
I finally pinned down a description that, for me, sums up this game: It's Rise of Nations in space with too few factions, too many planets/ cities, no mini map, no strategic campaign, even worse diplomacy, and a lousy interface. That's what's really been bugging me all this time, it's very similar to a game I've already played and like better. It's certainly worlds prettier than RoN, but that's secondary at best. Damn it took me a long time to figure that out.
It's really just an RTS, and it plays like it. That means you explore, exterminate, and expand (so its 3X) but then that's what you do in every RTS on the market. The other one is exploit, of course, which you can do in any game with a diplo system. Considering how terrible diplomacy is in this game, I always play with that off, so we're left with exactly the same 3X gameplay you'd find in any RTS on the shelf. I bought into the 4X line myself, expecting something with considerably mor
[quote]My personal belief is that there are people with addictive personalities...my personal belief is that it's not an addictive personality so much as a repulsive society. the world out there is crazy, full of inhumanity and despair, and the people in it can be vindictive, petty, judgmental and small. a lot of time it's simply easier and less painful to stay in and keep to yourself, but that doesn't mean i think it's a good idea to do so.[/quote] Some of us just find other peopl
TBS is the only way to go. Sins is a fairly run of the mill Supreme Commander/Homeworld hybrid and doesn't represent a revolution in much of anything, I think Jvstin likes RTS's a lot more than he thinks he does. Regardless, any MoM follow up needs to be turn based (or at most real time in the vein of an EU2, but really what would be the point of that?)
If you have to make a campaign, at least make a non-linear one.
Sins Forums
The AI's not very strong and the single player diplomacy system is lousy. I mostly play single player and I regret having bought the game at this point, you'd be smart to wait, at least until they release a demo and you can try it out.
Yes, the game is astronomically nonsensical, which does have a way of killing the immersion. The proportion of habitable to non-habitable planets, the proportion of rocky worlds to gas giants, the sheer volume of planets around starts, the total absence of moons, it's all kind of a mess. It doesn't really matter to gameplay, of course, but it's a weird design decision that kills a lot of the immersion of playing a space game for me. As to the interface, try LazySumo's Minimal Interface
[quote]Yup, it should.[/quote] Thanks for the answer, in that case I'll probably buy it once it's up.
I'm in no way troubled by the lack of a campaign, I never play story based campaigns anyway (and usually only buy RTS's that have strategic map campaigns these days, as I vastly prefer those). However, because the diplo system is so bad, the SP utility of Sins is more limited than it should be.
It playes a great deal like a slow paced Supreme Commander in space, with a bit of Homeworld and some very light 4X elements thrown in. It's got a steep learning curve, especially if your background is solely in RTS games.
[quote]i remember watching on the discovery channel, or one of those, that in space there is no air acting on the ship. So, the size of the ship would not matter on maneuverability. To turn you would need an thruster or engine or some sort of blast to fire off to make the ship turn[/quote] Air has comparatively little effect on acceleration in a properly built aircraft (the main impact is to dictate shape, so shape is not a significan issue in space craft). Newton's Second Law
[quote]I should be able to get it out today.[/quote] Will a TGN copy of BoB work with a boxed copy of SotS?
GalCiv2 Forums