Sins of a Solar Empire

Multiplayer & Gameplay

As you might expect from the lack of a single player campaign, Sins of a Solar Empire is, at its heart, a multiplayer game. It's this aspect that has been tweaked to near perfection during its extensive beta testing period and the real reason most people will buy the game.

It’s possible to host or join LAN games, but the main method of online play is through Ironclad's own network, the imaginatively called Ironclad Online or ICO.

There’s a map designer included too that lets you design your own maps, but don't expect to be able to adjust every detail. Basically all you can edit is the map size, number and type of stars, and the number and type of planets around each star. There are additional items that you can change such as number of players per star system, neutral colonies and phase lane length, but that's it.

By taking out all of the minutiae editing, Ironclad has emphasised the ‘set it up and jump in’ nature of online gaming – it's not as though there's a galactic equivalent of a hill or buildings to gain a tactical advantage. This game is all about trading, building up your resources, researching enhancements, building up your fleet and attacking only when you're ready to: RTS-type rushes will fail every time.


Once you've joined an online scenario, the game plays exactly as it does in single player mode. There are no special online games, no capture the flag, no control points. The aim of the game is galactic domination, pure and simple.

The fact that Sins spent so long in beta testing shows. Getting online is a breeze as is searching for the kind of game you want. Once online the game plays as smoothly as a singleplayer offline game and while there is the odd glitch, they're very rarely game stopping. Because of the long length of some of the larger scenarios, it's even possible to save an online game and restart it later.

In short, it's obvious that a lot of thought and tweaking has gone into producing this game, something that other developers might want to try.

One area where the game falls down is with regard to pirates. Pirate attacks start early on in the game and often – it's not unknown for pirates to attack every five or ten minutes. Pirate fleets are often too large to cope with early on in the game, and you'll usually find yourself defending planets and replenishing fleets when you should be exploring and researching. Also, rather than pirates attacking those players that have a bounty on them, whichever player has the highest bounty receives all the attacks.

Conclusion

Stardock and Ironclad are to be congratulated on many levels. Not only have they successfully created a game that merges the best parts of RTS and 4X games, they've also managed to create a game that doesn't require you to upgrade your PC to be able to run it. What's more, Stardock should be praised for not including any copy protection with the game. In their own words, the idea is to "reward customers for buying the game rather than inconvenience them with intrusive copy protection".

It's hard to find anything to criticise with Sins. The close-up graphics aren't cutting edge, but then I doubt anybody would spend that much time zoomed up close anyway. Having lower-quality graphics opens up the game to more players, which is a good thing given the online focus.

The tutorials are too short as well and terribly lacking in detail, but I suppose as long as you spend some time playing the singleplayer scenarios before jumping online (which everyone will do anyway), you should be able to survive beyond the first five minutes. Pirates are an annoyance if you're being attacked but do serve their purpose in keeping other opponents occupied while you expand your territory and forces.

I'm not saying that Sins will appeal to all players. If you like your action fast and hectic or you feel the need to micromanage all of your troops, then this game isn't for you.

If, however, you like the idea of building your empire slowly and surely and attacking with tactics rather than rushes, or you'd prefer to win hearts and minds rather than battles, then I would seriously recommend taking a look at Sins of a Solar Empire. The depth of the game is virtually unrivalled, and online play adds an extra dimension to that depth – it's always better to conquer a human player than a computer player!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a galaxy to conquer. Just remember to address me as "Lord Flibblebot, Ruler of the Galaxy" on the forums.