I bought it this morning as a gift(great being a grownup).
Anyone else played it? I always enjoyed Moo2, Galciv, Homeworld, and Alpha Centauri...looking for something new.
Most reviews I have read are good.
From what I've heard from a co-worker who plays it obsessively, it's awesome. I can't play it (computer not good enough) but I'm led to believe it's great fun.
There is a Star Trek mod available for this game called 'Sacrifice of Angels 2' I believe...
My younger son played it for a fair bit. He enjoyed it a lot.
Its a great game and the graphics are very nice. The AI interaction is a bit simplistic (not up to Civ 4 standards) but good enough.
Bribing pirates to attack your enemies (or buddies if you want to be naughty) is always funny and zooming in on space battles (which you can micro manage) is vcool.
Picked it up about 2 weeks ago... however I suck soooo bad at it. I keep on getting killed by those pesky pirates. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong lol It looks amazing though. Graphics and stuff. It runs very smooth with high detail in 1600 x 1050 res. Maybe i just need to go to go to a help site about it. . . oh well. I'll spend around 2 hours with each match... then subsequently die (on easy...)
I just go to other planets, I capture an asteroid mining place, then when I go to other planets I get obliterated. Then ten minutes later, those stupid pirates come on around again. I tried bribing them... but then the other team just out bribes me. I'm sure glad I am not in charge of a conquering alien race. ;)
Obvioulsy it depends which race you are but I nomally play TEC, so I get Capitol ship out early (remember the first one is free), get resource then hit the tech tree (after builiding required labs). I get the money then build nice little fleets and start to move around. If poss work on your diplomacy, acceed to the other races demands where poss, start trade deals with them, this buys you time. When you have cash and sufficient fleets to hold you ground you can go on the offensive, trust me you haven't lived until you watch your Novalith cannon take out a planet :dstar
I've got a couple of guides pulled of the web, I can mail them to you if you like, they have some nice pointers for getting started
I didn't have a clue what was going on when I played it! :confused
to be honest its Civ 4 (or any other Civ game) in space. You go about building and improving your empires, defending it, ignoring demands from neighbours, fighting off barbarians, discovering technology, losing track of scout ships or entire fleets. Once you get used to what all the bits on the screen are doing you can settle down and not panic everytime the "one of our ships is under attack" message comes up :wacko
I tend to play co-op against the AI with a few mates and that way we can support each other and more importantly trade with each other.
They are about to bring out the Diplomacy expansion for Sins. This is the 2nd expansion following Entrenchment which was a mod designed to enhance defensive capabilities. Diplomacy has similar processes to Civ 4 to aid you in a diplomatic solution (its not all guns you know, well it is but hey ho). The new expansion will have things such as diplomatic envoys, embassies, a diplomatic tech tree, it should be very cool.
As a side note there is also a very thorough and cool Star Wars ship mod for the game, at distance the ship icons are the same but zoom in to see your nice shiny Star Destroyer, you can also choose the Empire or Rebels as a race instead of the usual 4
Still want to play this game - someday.