• Take command of 1 of 3 space-faring races as you work to establish domination of the galaxy
• Use diplomacy, economic skill, cultural influence, and sheer military might to establish order
• Explore and conquer neighboring planets and distant solar systems in a massively scaled, fully 3D galaxy
• Transition between the roles of emperor and fleet commander; customize and improve powerful units
• Extensive diplomatic and economic strategies can exercise a variety of options

Ten millennia have passed since you and the few survivors of the once mighty Vasari Empire fled from an unknown threat that all but exterminated your kind. You now find yourself at the fringe of the galaxy in a sector occupied by a pathetically primitive species - one obsessed with trade and lacking any central organization or military technology. Calling themselves the Trader Emergency Coalition, they would have been ideal slaves in the glorious days of the past, but time is of the essence. Use your mastery of phase-space manipulation, gravity and nanotechnology to quickly eliminate any local resistance and acquire the necessary resources to fuel the next segment of your continuing exodus.

Features:

• Take command of 1 of 3 space-faring races as you work to establish domination of the galaxy.
• Use diplomacy, economic skill, cultural influence, and sheer military might to establish order.
• Explore and conquer neighboring planets and distant solar systems in a massively scaled, fully 3D galaxy.
• Transition between the roles of emperor and fleet commander; customize and improve powerful units.
• Extensive diplomatic and economic strategies can exercise a variety of options.

In the future, the survival of humanity stands on the edge of utter ruin as three powerful factions vie for control of the galaxy. Take command of one of three space-faring races as you work to establish your domination of the galaxy in Sins of a Solar Empire, fighting for the survival of your entire race against relentless foes. Your success will depend entirely on your ability to manage your empire and command your vast fleets of starships to victory. Through a combination of diplomacy, economic skill, cultural influence, and sheer military might you will establish order over your corner of the galaxy!
ESRB Rated T for Teen

Deep, fun, and interesting game but I have several qualifications.

This game is much more of an RTS with an emphasis on combat then a civilization building strategy game. The "diplomacy, economic skill, cultural influence" aspects are all geared toward defeating your enemies. You colonize planets, research technologies, and build up economic and cultural infrastructure in order to take over the star system(s). Because it is essentially a combat oriented game and only very simplistically a civilization building strategy game (as the advertising might have misleadingly suggested) I give it 4/5 stars.

Maybe I'm biased in my preferences but the main reason I love this game is because capital ships are essentially the rpg style "heroes". As you win battles, your victorious capital ships will gain experience and levels (up to 10) and new abilities you can choose. This is not a new idea for RTS games and has been done at least since Warcraft III but Sins implements it perfectly in the context of space combat. In long games, high level capital ships are monsters that become the core of your fleets.

In RTS games I personally prefer singleplayer over multiplayer. In Sins there is no singleplayer storyline so singleplayer is basically the same as multiplayer but against AI. That said, the AI is excellent and has 4 difficulty levels. In combat the AI is excellent, tactically and strategically. Unless it is their last planet, you will never kill all of their fleet in one battle. If it looks like they are losing an engagement they will retreat with their remaining ships and if they are not likely to win from the start they will retreat from a system without even engaging you, if necessary, abandoning a planet. I have never seen AI this strategically intelligent in an RTS game.

Overall the combat is a little or maybe a lot slower paced than most RTS games. On large maps, an entire game against AI opponents can easily last easily 10+ hours. By contrast I tried the newest command and conquer game after Sins and it seems ridiculous how fast the combat was. Compared to Sins, C&C seemed like a slaughter fest that is much too fast for any serious tactics.

I guess there's nothing else I can think of that other reviewers have not already mentioned. If you want a deep challenging and slower paced RTS, Sins is probably the game for you. Very likely the most fun I've had in an RTS since Warcraft III and in it's time, WC3 was the most fun I ever had in an RTS game. In short, excellent bug-free game, highly recommended. No DRM spyware is icing on the cake -- games like this deserve our support.

I am a TBS fan. I seen this was a 4X RTS game and heard from a friend it was cool so I bought it. This is a RTS game that's more like TBS game! It's a fun game but IMO mutiplayer is where this game is best at. Mutiplayer is a lot of fun!!!

Stardock did not put a DRM on it, so when you buy it, it is YOUR game! After seeing what happened with spore I am very happy that this does not limit your installs! I was able to install it on all my computers with out any problems!

Game is nice, but there is no single player campaign. That means only skirmish mode. What a disappointment that is. Why bother with all the story line writeup, when in fact, there is no story to be played out in the game. It is all meaningless in that sense. Very dissapointing in this regard. This is a case of the managment team blowing it.

Hail Flavius.

hours of play with interesting strategy and great tech tree. Can turn into a bit of a frustrating war of attrition on the really big maps though. There will soon be micro expansions available with the first one adding space stations that looks like it will add some real replayability All in all it's well worth the money.

A real time strategy developed by Stardock Studios, the makers of Galactic Civilizations, "Sins of a Solar Empire" combines the space warfare of Homeworld and the development and management of Civilizations without really committing to either.

In SoaSE, you can play as one of three races: humanity, the psionic Advent, and the technologically advanced Vasari. All three races share the same basic gameplay, though there are some differences in units and technologies. The basic gameplay is based on planets and their gravity well; each planet acts as a "base" of sorts that can be upgraded on the planet itself with infrastructure improvements or reinforced with structures built in orbit like defense platforms and construction facilities. Each planet has a gravity well where ships can move around and engage in combat; traveling between planets causes ships to automatically enter faster-than-light speed once they're out of the planet's gravity well.

There isn't a lot of specific customization you can do on planets (all building construction takes place in orbit), but there are important things you can do on them nonetheless. Improving the infrastructure of the planet increases the amount of taxes that you get from that planet, and also the loyalty of the planet's citizens. It's also possible to explore the planet to look for resources or artifacts hidden on it. The structures that can be built in orbit range from defense platforms to mining outposts to ship construction yards to trade posts to research stations. Defense platforms, like gauss or missile launchers, have a certain radius and are placed around your planet; due to the size of the gravity well around the planet, you have to consider which trade lanes the enemies will come from when placing your platforms. Mining outposts harvest two of the three resources in the game - metal and crystal (the third being credits, gained by taxation) - from asteroids around the planet. Construction yards are your basic unit-building stations, and can build whatever you've researched. Trade posts generate credits depending on how many of your planets are linked up with them. Finally, research stations (either civic or military) affect how much research you can do - the more stations you have, the more advanced your research can get. Research has four types - civilian (affects planets and buildings), military (affects units that can be created and bonuses they receive), fleet (affects experience and maximum amounts of ships), and artifact (grants special bonuses if you receive alien artifacts).

Combat in the game is two-dimensional, and doesn't take advantage of the "space" concept like Homeworld did, which is a major disappointment. Rather than a strategy game, the combat feels more like an assortment of numbers stacking up against each other. Ships can't maneuver particularly well, so in most cases the battle strategy consists of lines of ships shooting at each other. The only real thing you can try to do is maneuver toward your planetary defenses so that they'll be shooting your enemies as well. The only real thing that makes this acceptable is the intended size of battles and the number of battles that can be going on simultaneously once your empire expands. It's easy to keep track of ships due to the sidebar interface that shows all ships (friendly and enemy) near a given planet, and furthermore if you zoom out enough, all the ships show up as icons that allow for easy real-time management. In short, this is a strategy game, but more on an indirect scale of numbers vs numbers, rather than a direct tactical level. The variety of units in the game - from small corvettes to long-range missile frigates to gargantuan dreadnoughts - keeps things interesting, but in the end it all comes down to numbers.

Besides ship-to-ship fighting, the other part of galactic conquest is taking planets. This is done by nuking the planet from orbit with either capital ships or specially-made siege frigates. As missiles fall on the planet, its infrastructure decreases; when it's down fully, it can be captured. Depending on the planet's loyalty to its previous owner, it might be difficult for the new planet to adapt to your empire, and rebellion is entirely possible if the planet's inhabitants are mistreated. The other, more peaceful way of getting new planets is to colonize an uninhabited planet. The colonized planet is generally much more loyal than a conquered planet, though the infrastructure and upgrades start at their base levels.

Diplomacy also plays a key factor in the game; when playing against AI opponents, you will often be given missions that can raise your standing with them, making them more likely to agree to a ceasefire or an alliance. It's also possible to put bounties on the heads of players - rewards and incentives for other players to attack them, essentially. Finally, you can hire pirates to raid certain planets and upset your enemy with no cost in terms of your own ships.

The graphics are decent, but minimal - the details are good, but due to the scale of the game, it's difficult to focus on one specific ship. Furthermore, the animations and movements of ships are minimal - they're basically sitting completely still while little bursts shoot out of their guns. The camera is hard to manage, and the process of zooming in and out often led to my losing track of my units. There's no real parts where you can sit back and just enjoy the cinematic feel of your units blowing up a fleet of enemy ships, even though there is a "cinematic" option that gets rid of a lot of the HUD elements. The sound is not particularly great. The music is decent, but forgettable, and the game's voices are really annoying. Overall, they both kind of detract from the experience in general.

As a whole, this game has a lot of good ideas, but the execution isn't that great. It feels like it's trying to do much, and while it's ahead of a lot of other games in its specific field, it doesn't feel properly committed to any of its gameplay elements. It doesn't have the detail to be a proper management game, and it doesn't have the tactics to be a proper fleet battling game. However, it's a decent effort at a spacefaring conquest game.

7/10.