Sins of a Solar Empire?

[Zulgaines]

I was spreading the word a little to one of my regular forums and someone asked how this game compares to it... I never played much sins so I don't really know how to answer that question.

[x4000]

I can't help you too much there, as I have also played very little Sins.  Some other regulars around here might be able to give a better answer to me.  But the main thing I know about Sins is that it is heavily influenced by the 4X genre, and AI War is more of a pure RTS game.  In general, the goals and things that are emphasized by both games are really different, too.

[Quitch]

Both Sins and AI Wars are very much RTS games, indeed building, gathering resources and planetary systems handle quite similar. They play very differently though. People will compare because they look similar, layout wise.

[Panzeh]

AI War is a similar game that's a good bit simpler than Sins.

It is, however, purely built for co-op play with the asymmetrical game style that maximizes the strengths of the AI.  Much of the economic development of Sins is gone, but the ship combat is actually quite similar, and it does have a similar map structure.

[x4000]

My understanding was that they call Sins a "RT4X game," rather than calling it just RTS.  So in other words it has much more developed economic, political, diplomatic stuff instead of just a focus on combat.  AI War is more like SupCom or AoEIII, except more complex in many ways.  So it's simpler than a 4X (or RT4X) game, but probably more complex in the deep strategy than your average RTS game.

[Quitch]

Don't be fooled, Sins is an RTS through and through, it's just a long one... and the ship balance structure in Sins makes the AI Wars Bomber > Fighter > Cruiser > Bomber setup look like the height of logic.

[T-Bone Biggins]

Sins has more complex diplomacy, trade, and construction systems in it, AI War just has more unit variance in it. Say AI War you need certain ships to be effective against the other, Sins you need just a big 3D ball of ships to take down one ship. Or toss two big balls of ships at each other and the bigger one wins. Some are long range and are better against defenses, but a big ball still works wonders.