2008 Strategy Game of the Year - Sins of a Solar Empire

Where can others get such coupons?

Dunno. I filled out a Stardock survey a couple of months ago, and lo and behold, on Friday I got an email thanking me for filling out the survey. It included the coupon.

So will preorder people get to play in beta3 as well?

I'm thinking about it. Everything I've read about the game sounds super interesting and I've wanted a game like this for a long time.

Yep pre-orders will get into beta 3, which is Multiplayer!

The last patch of Beta 2 is out today, update via SDC.

Thus begins the countdown to Beta 3..........

There is a so so preview - the preview not the game in the recent PC gamer mag as well.

I keep getting more and more excited about this game, though the first time I heard about it was in that PC Gamer preview.

bumpage!

Beta 3 starts this week! Mmmm multiplayer goodness...

This one will be a lot like GALCIV for me - I keep coming back to it over and over again.

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com...

For Beta 1 and 2 we started this thread off with a very long list of changes between the two. For Beta 3 we're going to forego the crazy long list since there are far too many to list. Instead what follows is a list of major features that you'll find in the initial release of Beta 3. You may notice some overlap from some items that made it into the last Beta 2 update, but it's all been tweaked regardless. The vast number of unlisted changes are things everyone can discover when Beta 3 launches in a few days.

Please check back here for future changes to Beta 3 as we make updates after release.

Version 0.80.xx (Beta 3 - Multiplayer Technical Test)

* Multiplayer: Support for up to 10 players over LAN or Ironclad Online (ICO). Many gameplay features won't be available during Beta 3 as we are testing technical issues, but it'll still be very cool.
* Custom Scenarios: 14 custom maps designed for various single-player and multiplayer play styles. Play special maps designe for quick skirmish games, 1 vs. 1, 2 vs 2, Free-For-All and more! Each custom map will require its own unique strategies. A couple of examples:
o System of War: Each faction is backed into a corner and must decide whether to fortify their homeworld, launch a quick assault upon a neighbor, or race to establish a foothold in a large nearby solar system. The wrong move could spell disaster!
o Gateway: In the Telos system, a Terran planet known as Gateway controls the only jump lane to the star and its resource-laden neighboring system, Xi. The faction that holds Gateway controls the future!
* New Artifact / Planet Exploration System: Players can spend resources to have planetary scientists survey a world's geography, indigenous wildlife and core industries to determine how best to exploit its natural wealth. Doing so many yield planetary benefits or powerful artifacts which give your empire global bonuses.
* New Environments: Space anomalies, gas giants, minor planetoids and more will factor heavily into your tactical decisions and your overall strategy.
* Pirate Base: Featuring all new pirate ships and new behavior, the ominous Pirate Base is a force to be reckoned with! Pirate targets can now be strongly influenced by the economic savvy player through new additions to the Bounty system.
* Plus lots of minor improvements: Lots of new upgrades to the Culture system, including intimidation effects by powerful capital ships; improved research mechanics; new music tracks and music selection system; tons of new art; lots of new UI improvements including the new Smart Zoom-to-Cursor Camera; incremental AI improvements; tons of rebalancing; lots of optimization (should perform better than ever - even on low-end machines); lots of new minor gameplay elements; plus a huge number of fan requests.

sweet, so is Beta 3 out today?

less than 24 hrs, and according to the developers its best to do a full install instead of an upgrade...

New Patch today!!!!

Version 0.83.xx (October 2, 2007)

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com...

Sins of a Solar Empire info posted on games for windows site, includes minimum requirements!

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US...

Also a post from the Stardock CEO regarding going GOLD soon, and how well they worked with Ironclad the Developer!

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com...

Been waiting for this game for a while now, the beta is fun, but I want the darn SP game!

Wait a Collector's Edition of the game!? Err I need to change my pre-order! Only 3 more weeks before the game comes out!

Edit: after reading that post by Brad, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Why can't all games have publisher/developer relations like that!?

The game has gone gold according to Blues News.

Additionally, the game will have no form of copy protection:

Sins to Have Zero Copy Protection

The previous material I have seen on this game got me very interested. The fact that it will ship with zero copy protection has made this a day one purchase for me

I've been having a blast playing the beta and the latest previews have got me extremely excited for this one.

I was about to pre-order the collectors edition for the extra $5 but they wanted $15 in shipping and handling because they would have to mail me the box. No thank you.

That is great news! I wish the best for this great game and its developers.

Now I cannot wait to get the game!

Very interested, and now it's close enough I can finally start getting excited! It was difficult to get very worked up 8 months ago. I've been saving some stardock tokens, so I'm all over this

Dr._J wrote:

The previous material I have seen on this game got me very interested. The fact that it will ship with zero copy protection has made this a day one purchase for me :)

It's a Stardock game so it would have been a surprise if it did contain copy protection.

Ok can anyone tell me how this plays: I know it's a 4x game, but is it comparable to Gal Civ or more like Space Empires?

Edit:Nevermind, I found some Links to game play.

Its like Homeworld esq battles, meets COH in space, lol...

Its more RTS than 4x, it has elements of 4x, research tree, upgrading planets, trade, exploration, but battles are were the focus is.

Quite a different game from what has been out over the last few years.

Also the reason shipping is 15 buck outside the USA, is because the Collectors Edition weighs 3 pounds!

Can anyone who's played it give a detailed overview of the game? I'm really interested.

The game feels somewhat like an RTS version of GalCiv. It is slower paced and has much less micromanagement than most RTS's I've played. In that respect, it feels a bit like the Kohan games (a series I really love). If you've seen any of the previews or movies, you know the whole thing is played out in a galactic map which is zoom-able from extreme close up of a single ship or planet out to an extreme zoomed-out galaxy sized view (it works a lot like SupCom's zoom feature)

The economy is built on mining metal and crystal from around planets and habitable asteroids in gravity well regions. These gravity well areas around the central planet or asteroid are where you build your structures and improvements. These are each linked by a series of lines. The lines indicate routes of travel. Ships travel at faster-than-light speeds between these areas. In addition to metal and crystal, you get tax income from colonized planets and asteroids. The tax rate for these can be increased by building improvements.

In standard RTS style. there is a tech tree that must be researched and allows for military and civic upgrades.

Your fleets are comprised of a mix of ship classes and sizes. The best of these are large, expensive capital ships which have a pop max of 5. You must research a line of tech that allows for training of a new capital ship crew to get to that point. Cap ships acquire abilities and experience through combat which can make them extremely formidable at higher levels.

There is no single player campaign. Single player is just you playing against AI opponents.

I am really looking forward to the final release. Multi should be a blast as there are all of the usual team and co-op options and the ability to save multiplayer games and continue them later.

jakeleg wrote:

The game feels somewhat like an RTS version of GalCiv. It is slower paced and has much less micromanagement than most RTS's I've played. In that respect, it feels a bit like the Kohan games (a series I really love). If you've seen any of the previews or movies, you know the whole thing is played out in a galactic map which is zoom-able from extreme close up of a single ship or planet out to an extreme zoomed-out galaxy sized view (it works a lot like SupCom's zoom feature)

The economy is built on mining metal and crystal from around planets and habitable asteroids in gravity well regions. These gravity well areas around the central planet or asteroid are where you build your structures and improvements. These are each linked by a series of lines. The lines indicate routes of travel. Ships travel at faster-than-light speeds between these areas. In addition to metal and crystal, you get tax income from colonized planets and asteroids. The tax rate for these can be increased by building improvements.

In standard RTS style. there is a tech tree that must be researched and allows for military and civic upgrades.

Your fleets are comprised of a mix of ship classes and sizes. The best of these are large, expensive capital ships which have a pop max of 5. You must research a line of tech that allows for training of a new capital ship crew to get to that point. Cap ships acquire abilities and experience through combat which can make them extremely formidable at higher levels.

There is no single player campaign. Single player is just you playing against AI opponents.

I am really looking forward to the final release. Multi should be a blast as there are all of the usual team and co-op options and the ability to save multiplayer games and continue them later.

Thanks, jake! That's a nice summary and has tipped me in favor of picking this up. I enjoyed the latest GalCiv but after I ran 1 epic universe domination free-form game, where I exhausted all the tech trees, it had me burnt out and not really up for trying any other scenarios. I'm hoping SoaSE will be just enough more action-oriented that I can go through it several times with different tweaks to the game style.

One other cool thing I forgot to mention is the concept of a "bounty." There is a faction of space pirates that roam around and have a home base somewhere in the map. By placing a bounty, you bid against other opponents to get the pirates to attack a particular enemy. The mind games with this against human opponents is fun.

The fleet battles in Sins are really the centerpiece of the game for me. Seeing a huge enemy fleet start popping out of warp near one of your planets is exciting in a "oh crap" kind of way. There is a layer of strategy to the placement of your fleets in your territory that is important. Having them in position to intercept attacking fleets is critical.

Kohan? Did somebody mention Kohan? In Space?

I'll definitely be checking this out.

This one has been only peripherally on my radar -- I've been waiting for it to go retail -- and I happened to check up on it.

The game drops Monday! I pre-ordered. Looks very good.

Oh, I really liked Kohan as well. If the voice acting hadn't been such a disaster, I think it would have done a lot better.

Both Kohan 1 and 2 are in Gametap, btw.

Edit to add: I love Stardock. No copy protection. They treat me like a customer, not a thief. Yay!

For anyone else looking at getting this who hasn't already, it's only $40 at B&M stores. As far as I can tell the only physical box is the collector's edition too.

That's good to know, Malor. I'll be adding Kohan 2 to my backlog.