Sins of a Solar Empire: The First of Many Posts on This Game

I'm usually pretty terrible at RTSes.  Against the AI I can manage, but toss me into a multiplayer setting, or even worse, such a place with a rated ladder, and, ha!, no.  Just awful.  Thankfully, Sins of a Solar Empire has a breathtakingly robust single-player set up that I've been enjoying quite a lot.  The game's combination of 4X empire building with huge space battles is great fun, and I'm slowly coming around to playing the thing in real time, as opposed to doing such a game in a turn based setting, so hurray for slipping out of my comfort zone a little bit.  Putting together huge fleets and conquering the galaxy feels so good here.

Up to this point I've leaned heavily towards the TEC.  It has nothing to do with any preference towards research tech, abilities, and so forth.  I just think the ships look cool.  They're giving me a bit of a Babylon 5 vibe minus the big rotating artificial gravity things that Earth capital ships had in that show.  The faction also seems to be good at raking in cash, which has been helpful for building up a fleet at a good clip.

When I first started playing the game, I was woefully slow in getting the ball rolling.  Waffling on what types of research to pursue, what types of facilities to build, and cruising the cosmos with strange ship combinations were the norm for a while.  Since then I've taken the time to mosey on through the Sins message boards, which have been extremely useful for learning more about the game, and read up on ideas about how to tackle the various factions.

Now I'm working on being a lot more aggressive out of the gates as the TEC.  I'll get some basic metal and crystal extraction up, send a scout or two out to see what there is to see in my star system, and then get cracking on my first capital ship.  I'm going with an Akkan to get some early, aggressive expansion happening with a few light frigates as support.  It's proving a good set up for grabbing asteroids and lightly defended planets quickly.

The variety of things to research still amazes me, and I like how what my empire can research is related to how many of a given research facility type I have operational.  It's a balancing act that helps emphasize that Sins is very much an RTS / 4X hybrid.  It was probably this overwhelming level of choice that was the most difficult hurdle to get over when I first started playing this game.  Looking at the sea of new tech waiting to be discovered, it was hard to decide what to focus on, and always tempting to have a little bit of everything.  Now I start with civic research, and then ease into military research once my empire has a good amount of cash on hand.

Ultimately, Sins is about victory through military conquest thanks to its RTS elements, and why not, it's an opportunity to epic battles between huge space fleets.  After playing a lot of MoO 2, and Galactic Civilizations 2 where winning could come through a lot more avenues.  I generally prefer a non-violent approach, opting for becoming Mr. Popular, where all of the other civilizations in the game want to be my friend, or researching my way to a better tomorrow in order to win.  Victory through sheer military might is something I'm not used to, but it's good to get out of one's comfort zone from time to time.  I'll keep on trying to improve at this in Sins, and post more of my continuing adventures in that universe in the coming weeks.