Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity MBX

Product Details

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity MBX From Jack Of All Games Price: $39.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Ships from and sold by Amazon.com 9 new or used available from $21.59 Average customer review:

Product Description

Take control of one of three space-faring races as you work to establish your dominance of the galaxy in Sins of a Solar Empire. Through a combination of diplomacy, economic savvy, the spread of culture and of course sheer brute force and victory on the battlefield you will establish order

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2304 in Video Games
• Brand: Jack Of All Games
• Model: 708192010837
• Released on: 2010-02-09
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP
• Format: DVD-ROM

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Customer Reviews

IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU END YOUR TURN... This is an EXCELLENT game that takes the galaxy civilization games a clear step further. Open-ended like a new science-fiction world and played as a seat-of-your-pants RTS game, this is a very intelligent hybrid that I greatly enjoyed. In effect, SINS is a successful blend of the wonderful Galactic Civilizations and Homeworld series, with a sprinkling of Total War for good measure. This is NOT a turn-based civilization game, so expect a much faster pace. What this means is that while it maintains the characteristics of classic turn-based civilization games (exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination), by relieving from the micromanagement tedium, it allows for an intense RealTime Strategy experience. Now, this probably may not appeal to turn-based purists, but I would advise an open mind: this is a good game. This concept-blending is new, so expect a slow learning curve - it took me a number of ...false-starts to get the hang of it: after all, it plays like an RTS and (although simplified) it still has enough of turn-based features that need to be taken care of. The interface is simplified and informative at the same time, with info trees sliding out only when needed. There are three different factions to choose from (financiers, technologists and psitecs) - yet, their differences focus mainly on research tree-branching and ship designs. What I did not like was that the ships of all three factions are effectively the same and their differences are only skin-deep. What I would have liked to find (and was disappointed to the point of withholding the 5th star for fun) was ship design and building! Remember how much fun was to design our own spaceships (from freighters to battleships) in GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS II? Well, no such luck here. Let's hope they keep it in mind when the next patch gets prepared (up to the latest patch, 1.191, one can customize maps and starbases but not starships yet). Quick and constant exploration is not only encouraged by a necessity if one wants to survive - let alone win. Spaceships built within a solar system cannot travel beyond it, unless using "wormhole"-like singularities. This adds to realism but can stretch your finances to their breaking point - since only locally built ships can be used. Moreover, it makes really hard to locate the strategic points to either built defenses or focus an attack. The AI will constantly be bypassing your planning like the Maginot line - and leave you with such a French feeling... The graphics (of all of backgrounds, planets and units) are very nicely done. I really liked the multiple afterburners tracing through space as a spaceship squadron was dopplering past my screen...And less-than-cutting-edge PC owners rejoice: even 4-5 years old systems can handle this game like a breeze! What I truly appreciated was the realistic scale of things. Galaxies are much larger than star systems, which in turn are much larger than planets, which in turn are much larger than space stations...than spaceships and so on. How is this achieved? Excellent zooming! Supreme Commander was the first game to introduce strategic zoom; however, SINS implements it much better and shows how it should had been done: from a galaxy to a single planet and to a single spaceship, zooming in or out firmly maintains the effectiveness of battle controls by grouping and simplifying the info-tiles as one zooms out. In SupCom, we had to chose between either discerning the units or moving ...info-tiles around the battlefield - not a bad first attempt, mind you. In SINS, one almost never looses perspective: ongoing battles, critical hotspots, or colony revolts are all easily identifiable in real-time. On another note, SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE is a STARDOCK release which, yes, means their specialized installation utility (IMPULSE). Nevertheless, this game hides no DRM or other intrusive security idiocy. Since trust and respect between a game publisher and its customers is a two-way street (and STARDOCK was willing to prove its friendship first), SINS deserves our support. For a price much lower than that of the original game one now gets both mini-expansions (DIPLOMACY and ENTRENCHMENT) as well. ENTRENCHMENT improves the graphics and introduces a number of new bases and weapons upgrades. DIPLOMACY adds more weight to diplomatic options and actions (braking a peace treaty now will cost you dearly!), even making a diplomatic victory possible. So, if you already own SINS you can always get the expansions through IMPULSE for less. In any other case, this is a bargain. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Sins of a Solar Empire This is an excellent game. I am a fan of RTS games, and this is one of the best out there. All three factions play well and are balanced; each have their own strengths and weaknesses. The scale of the game is huge, and the UI does a good job of making it accessible, so that you do not get overwhelmed. The online community, while small, are polite and professional. There is none of the twelve year old mentality there, they all offered tips on how I could improve my skill, and were very welcoming to a newb. The game also get patched fairly regularly, so that it continues to be balanced long after the release. Over all, I highly recommend this game to RTS fans everywhere. My next MOO2 Master of Orion II was one of
my favourite games, and so I'm always looking for the "next" MOO2. On
that front, Sins of a Solar Empire delivers in spades.

Sins plays
in realtime, but it's primarily a 4X game, presenting you with a
starmap and a single planet and sending you off to conquer at a
leisurely pace. Many 4X concepts, such as planet/city building are
simplified down to their essentials - a necessity given the realtime
play, and not necessarily a downside if you found late game build queues
in MOO rather tedious. Although there's no option to design your own
ships, the realtime format means the combat is vastly superior to that
of other 4X space games. Late game battles in MOO2 always devolved into
the same massed gunfire slaughters, but with special abilities,
increased fleet sizes, and a smart AI, Sins manages to keep the fights
going to the end. In one late game fight, my entire Advent fleet ran
into a similarly sized Vasari force, trying to eject me from their last
solar system before I could establish a toehold. The battle turned into a
massive point blank brawl, worlds away from the one sided slaughters I
would have expected at that point in MOO2.

Battles are helped by
the smart AI, which will usually avoid fighting to the death for
hopeless causes, and play a canny game of cat and mouse with you until
it can gain or regain superiority, thus (usually) avoiding squandering
its fleet in dribs and drabs. Even more important is the ship and fleet
AI, which removes the need to micromanage your fleets. Although you can
still take personal control, and do better than the AI, it's not
required, and that's a nice relief from mad clickfests. If you DO decide
to involve yourself in the weeds, rather than just controlling the high
level strategies, many interesting tactical options present themselves,
which is good, because you'll need the edge in multiplayer.

And
multiplayer is where this game blows turn based 4X games away. I play
over direct IP with a group of friends, which makes saving and
continuing (really a must) much easier, since games are much longer than
the norm for an RTS, clocking in at between 4-8 hours. This is not
unreasonable for a 4X game, which can run for days sometimes. The
problem in games like Civ IV and MOO2 was always the end of turn wait.
There's always someone who just HAS to go and check every single
production order across his empire at the end of turn, leaving everyone
else grumbling - and secretly plotting which laggard they're going to
gang up on and wipe out first. Sins avoids this with realtime, and keeps
the action moving when things heat up. It helps that the maps are
varied, highly customizable, and a delight to play. One 3v3 map which we
dubbed "wormhole madness" forced us to fight across a dozen tiny solar
systems linked only be wormholes, fighting bitter "island hopping"
battles against fleets of enemy ships that could suddenly increase to
overwhelming levels as multiple enemies jumped in with little warning.
We had to adapt a whole new set of tactics, and co-operate closely, to
defeat the other team.

So overall, if you're a fan of 4X games, I can't recommend Sins of a Solar Empire highly enough.