Sins of a Solar Empire II

[Isgrimnur]

[Blackhawk]

Giggity.

[El Guapo]

So what separates Sins of a Solar Empire from other epic space 4x games?

[hepcat]

For me, it was all about the three dimensional RTS aspects and the great tech tree. I'm definitely interested in this, even though I passed on the last GalCiv entry. That video has me salivating.

[Isgrimnur]

[Pyperkub]

So what separates Sins of a Solar Empire from other epic space 4x games?

For me, what I remember is that it was a lot about the maps and combat. It was a non-twitchy RTS with 4x elements, not a straight up 4x game, but you did have to pay attention to your fleets and use the special abilities in a timely fashion, and you could have some fantastic space battles (which you could slow to a crawl and just watch cool effects/battles, or speed up to get it over with), but also, the star lanes made for good chokepoint battles. The pirate faction was also fun in that way - finding the pirate base definitely had a "here there be pirates" vibe to the map and your strategies, and being able to buy the pirates off to attack your enemies was fun, but there were also some balance issues with the Pirates that could make them annoying and it was good to have an option to turn them off.

I played it far more than any other space games like it (Homeworld, GalCiv, Stellaris, Endless Space). It had one huge flaw - it was 32-bit, and had 32-bit memory issues which made huge maps rather unplayable. this one's 64-bit.

This may get me back to PC gaming, if my rig can handle it (edit - yup! pretty easily I think, even tho I have a hard ceiling for my graphics card, as my motherboad is so old it doesn't have the PCI bandwidth to handle the nv30x+ generation and it tops out at the 20x generation).

YOu can see from the specs that this is probably more CPU/RAM dependent than GPU:

System Requirements

Minimum:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 v1607+ / 11 (64-bit)
Processor: 4-core Processor (Intel Core i5 5th-generation or AMD Ryzen 2x00 series)
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: 3D Video Card w/2GB VRAM (Nvidia GeForce 950 / AMD Radeon RX 450)
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 20 GB available space
Additional Notes: 1920x1080 minimum screen resolution

Recommended:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 11
Processor: 8-core Processor (Intel Core i7 9th-generation or AMD Ryzen 3x00 series)
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: 3D Video Card w/4GB+ VRAM (Nvidia GeForce 1060 or AMD Radeon 580)
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 20 GB available space
Additional Notes: 1920x1080 minimum screen resolution

[baelthazar]

Wait... has SOASE2 been available for pre-order/Early Access on Epic for over a year already (as of 10/27/22 according to Epic)?!

At any rate, I am super excited about this.

Now, let's resurrect Sword of the Stars and I'll be happy!

[Blackhawk]

I'd agree with the others - it was a really well designed, well balanced 4X game with controlled battles (sort of like Total War on the surface), with great aesthetics. It was one of those games where I would queue things up and then just enjoy watching - a little like Homeworld.

[Dogstar]

This always had some challenging fun moments -- frantically trying to repair your star base and rebuild your defense after the last assault while watching in dismay as an enemy fleet jumps in... with a Titan. Or watching your longest-serving fleet vessel turn so slowly to flee, as you desperately try to preserve all the experience it accumulated... The factions were fairly well balanced from what I recall, save for the one that allowed you to build 2-3 starbases per system, which served effectively as a star route block/fleet destroyer option.

[Daehawk]

Loved both SoaSE and SotS. But preferred Sins. Played it a very long time. Even made and uploaded my own maps for it. I enjoyed finding a bottleneck system and fortressing it up to close off that route so i could concentrate on other others of my empire.

[Blackhawk]

Also, this thread has caused me to reinstall.

[Tampa_Gamer]

Great, SoTSE and SoTS I (not II) are my goto games for 4x space strategy light. RTS/Pausable to give orders, great UI and distinct factions. More or less a remake of the older Conquest Frontier Wars (which I still have a copy of play from time to time). Great that it got a facelift and core changeout to x64.

[Daehawk]

I loved Frontier Wars. Played it twice but its been forever. I also loved the Star Trek games in the series Armada.

[Pyperkub]

This always had some challenging fun moments -- frantically trying to repair your star base and rebuild your defense after the last assault while watching in dismay as an enemy fleet jumps in... with a Titan. Or watching your longest-serving fleet vessel turn so slowly to flee, as you desperately try to preserve all the experience it accumulated... The factions were fairly well balanced from what I recall, save for the one that allowed you to build 2-3 starbases per system, which served effectively as a star route block/fleet destroyer option.

One other I remember is a map with a wormhole to a new map, and bringing my Titan and a mobile starbase with my fleet to establish the beachhead! That was one crazy-ass battle that I loved!

[Daehawk]

Dev journal 2

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 8808433640

[Dogstar]

Dev journal 2

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 8808433640

Thanks for sharing!

[waitingtoconnect]

Pirate raiders have departed. That still haunts me haha.

Loved the Star Trek mod someone did as well.

[hepcat]

This is available on Steam. Anyone take the plunge yet?

PCgamer.com gave it a slightly glowing review, while IGN gave it a 5 out of 10.

Where's my gaming sherpa, JZtemple? I need his input!

[jztemple2]

This is available on Steam. Anyone take the plunge yet?

PCgamer.com gave it a slightly glowing review, while IGN gave it a 5 out of 10.

Where's my gaming sherpa, JZtemple? I need his input!

I never played the first one as it didn't appeal to me. I am keeping an eye on this one however.

[hepcat]

Well, if it's not something you normally like, don't get it on my account! You've done enough to help me make informed decisions on games!

[naednek]

Well, if it's not something you normally like, don't get it on my account! You've done enough to help me make informed decisions on games!

maybe you should return the favor and tell him what you think

[hepcat]

Yeah, that would probably be fair play.

[Pyperkub]

I've put maybe 20 hours into the Epic version in the past few months and have really enjoyed it - the hours disappear.

Haven't tried today's update yet. I loved Sins back in the day tho. If you didn't think that was your cup of tea, this probably isn't either, but if you like the idea of a 4x in Space as a real-time strategy, it has layers and factions and interesting mechanics and it doesn't play as a twitchy RTS, but the RTS nature does keep the pressure on you. In single-player you can pause anywhere.

One thing which wasn't quite up to snuff was the documentation of how to do things and what to do. Devs have said that will be there.

here's a link to the live manual...

And it hasn't been updated in months. Ouch.

This steam guide is much better

Sins of a Solar Empire II continues the story of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, as it takes you on a journey of a space strategy in the hybrid format of 4X-RTS. This guide firstly aims at complete newcomers, explaining basic gameplay and features. However, there will be some valuable tips for those who come over from Sins: Rebellion, as the game has received a comprehensive list of new mechanics.

[Pyperkub]

IGN gave it a 5 out of 10.

Note that the IGN review is probably from May-ish, using a build as of about a year ago - they were reviewing the pre(steam) release on Epic, and only the long term build, which hadn't been updated in forever, and their big complaint was that it didn't have the content which released today.

So double-check the date on that review before you use it for a buying decision, it's probably still the pre-release review, based mainly on really old writing...

[Pyperkub]

Here's the PC Gamer review for those curious:

Despite the absence of a campaign or discrete objectives, the individual fights and larger wars still spit out their fair share of novelties. A game on a small, resource-scarce map where every agile ship is precious is a uniquely different proposition to one with multiple solar systems, where each faction begins safely nestled away in its own corner, able to slowly expand and build massive armadas before finally saying "howdy" with a wall of warheads. And then human opponents throw in another wrinkle.

Ultimately, Sins 2 really just wants you to blow up loads of spaceships. But that's OK. Better than OK, really. Because it makes blowing up spaceships an extremely good time.

Sins has never been about the micro, but it would be a mistake to ignore the details. Every vessel in your huge fleet is a complex machine where size, speed, weapons and defensive capabilities define its role and determine what you need to do to keep it alive. Or at least alive for long enough to mess up your adversary a wee bit. The greater the class of ship, the more complex they become. So while you can just let your tiny strikecraft burst out of their hangars and swarm enemy ships, when you're dealing with your cruisers and capital ships—and especially your precious and costly titan—you need to be more hands-on.

The ship AI is reliable enough that composition and big picture strategies can get you far, so you don't have to pick every target and keep repositioning them—unless you notice a bunch of ships randomly trying to blow up a trade port instead of the wall of unescorted drone-spewing support craft. You want some punchy front-liners, some long-range bad boys spitting out missiles from the edge of the gravity well, and some ships with point-defence capabilities to shoot enemy projectiles out of the sky. With just those bases covered, you'll get some wins under your belt—at least on the default difficulty.

[hepcat]

Oooh, thanks!