And so...the Steam sale begins.

[chemical_art]

Sins is a good RTS if you like space combat.

It has a few elements of 4x but by no means is it one.

It is, however, the game of choice if you want a game where you build and command a starship armada. A quarter of the fun is the inevitable "giant space fight" where hundreds of ships duke it out.

[BobTheJanitor]

I want to like Sins, but it never quite works for me. I think it's just too much RTS and not enough 4X. In all the ways that it is good, it is a lot like AI War. In most other things though, I just find myself aggravated that it is not like AI War. I like zooming in on the ships and watching pretty space battles, but that's about the high point of it for me. Outside of that, trying to deal with 4X elements like a research tree and improving planets and building and upgrading ships turns from enjoyment into aggravation when I have to do it while a constant real-time threat is looming. I like to take my time and think in my strategy games, and I don't really like being caught flat footed looking at a research screen when an invasion suddenly wrecks one of my outlying colony worlds.

[Hearteater]

Why is Sins 25% and a daily deal?  I went there to get it for 75% so I could at least play the game everyone complains about and join in.  But I can't justify it at that price.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Why is Sins 25% and a daily deal?  I went there to get it for 75% so I could at least play the game everyone complains about and join in.  But I can't justify it at that price.

Because Rebellion JUST came out of BETA recently, there would be a very disappointed player base (myself included) who would feel cheated if it came out any cheaper right now. We have this problem with a few other games right now, we don't need to add to it.

[Hearteater]

Then I must be confusing this with another game.  This is brand new and not that game from like 2-3 years ago that everyone complains about?

[Coppermantis]

Sins Rebellion came out recently, there is a Sins that is older though I believe. Never played either personally.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Then I must be confusing this with another game.  This is brand new and not that game from like 2-3 years ago that everyone complains about?

Yeah, Rebellion is a new release, idk anything about prior versions.

[Hearteater]

Yeah, looks like I was thinking it was Trinity.  Ok, so anyone have any knowledge of:

Sins: Trinity?  That's 75% off and I know I considered getting it when it came out but ended up passing, is it worth checking out now?

Galactic Civilizations II  Ultimate Edition: 50% off and looks tempting.

Any comparison of either to MOO2 and/or Space Empires IV/V would be wonderful.

[BobTheJanitor]

SoaSE Trinity would be the one that I was talking about. It is pretty, but their particular mixture of RTS and 4X just doesn't do it for me. Your mileage may vary, of course. If anything, I would say get Trinity since it's 5 bucks and if you decide it's the game for you then get Rebellion when the holiday sales roll around, as it will surely be much cheaper then.

[tigersfan]

Yeah, looks like I was thinking it was Trinity.  Ok, so anyone have any knowledge of:

Sins: Trinity?  That's 75% off and I know I considered getting it when it came out but ended up passing, is it worth checking out now?

Galactic Civilizations II  Ultimate Edition: 50% off and looks tempting.

Any comparison of either to MOO2 and/or Space Empires IV/V would be wonderful.

I own (and have owned for quite some time) both Sins (the original) and GalCiv II. Unfortunately, despite trying to, despite wanting to, I wasn't able to really get into either. GalCivII's SP is.... HARD. Once the Dread Lords come into play in about the 2nd or 3rd scenario, the difficulty level goes up dramatically. The other issue I had with the single player campaign, is that in each scenario, the tech tree starts over, and you start from scratch each time, which made it not feel like a string of scenarios tied together, but instead it felt more like the same game over and over again just with a steep ramp-up in how hard it was.

Sins... meh. I can't really explain why I didn't like it, but, I just never could get into it.

[chemical_art]

Sins is a RTS with 4x elements. Me, I like juggling multiple things at once however not having things be a twitch fest. So for me it works. If you like taking your time in decesions, or want a twictch fest, Sins won't cover either.

Sins rebellion came out in May I think. The 25% discount was limited to orginal sins owners who also bought beta. This is the first Discount iirc for the general public.

[Mick]

Yeah, looks like I was thinking it was Trinity.  Ok, so anyone have any knowledge of:

Sins: Trinity?  That's 75% off and I know I considered getting it when it came out but ended up passing, is it worth checking out now?

Galactic Civilizations II  Ultimate Edition: 50% off and looks tempting.

Any comparison of either to MOO2 and/or Space Empires IV/V would be wonderful.

I own (and have owned for quite some time) both Sins (the original) and GalCiv II. Unfortunately, despite trying to, despite wanting to, I wasn't able to really get into either. GalCivII's SP is.... HARD. Once the Dread Lords come into play in about the 2nd or 3rd scenario, the difficulty level goes up dramatically. The other issue I had with the single player campaign, is that in each scenario, the tech tree starts over, and you start from scratch each time, which made it not feel like a string of scenarios tied together, but instead it felt more like the same game over and over again just with a steep ramp-up in how hard it was.

Sins... meh. I can't really explain why I didn't like it, but, I just never could get into it.

I found GalCiv2 to be much more fun if you just play straight up games and completely ignore the campaign scenarios. The scenarios do not seem to be balanced very well at all, and furthermore some require you to play in a very specific way (which is not very fun).

Sins feels like AI-War-Lite to me. It's pretty to look at, but you don't have to think nearly as hard (which can sometimes be a good thing).

[chemical_art]

I can't really draw a comparison to ai war and Sins. Its like comparing apples to oranges.

In the sp mode, unless you play on the highest difficulties, the AI is on somewhat an equal footing then you. Meaning if you get a resource edge early on it translates to an advantage to you as a player. While on AI war you are meant to be exponential weaker then the ai on any difficulty. So any comparison I feel is simply not true due to they being different games.

[keith.lamothe]

GalCiv2 was a lot of fun for a while.  It's not an eternal gem like MoO but it's worth a try.

Though right now if I took the time to sit down to a space-4X it would probably be endless space instead of GalCiv2.  Not that ES is the best space-4X out there by a long shot, it's just the one I'm more recently acquainted with and it was pretty fun.

As others have said around here, there really aren't any really good modern space-4X's out there.  GalCiv2 doesn't break out of that, but it's a decent game.

[zebramatt]

For complete clarity:

Sins vanilla was released in 2008.
Sins Entrenchment expansion was released in 2009 - that added star bases and better defensive options.
Sins Diplomacy expansion was released in 2010 - which added, well, diplomacy.
Sins: Trinity is simply the name for vanilla and the two expansions in one package, as it was released on Steam in 2010.

Sins: Rebellion was released this year and is a stand alone expansion which splits the three races into six, adds massive titan units and nippy corvettes, and brings the graphics engine well up to date. Steam only.