Sins of a Solar Empire

[Pat22]

I've been practicing competitive play and strategies... I'm getting better. Today I stomped 3 hard AIs ( not that impressive ) and lost basically no ships at all ( that's quite impressive ). And I didn't use a single bomber, so no I wasn't sitting at the edge of the gravity well letting my strike craft do all the work. I was throwing frigates at starbases and * ( even morer impressive ).

I didn't know light frigates could actually take out a stock starbase without taking catastrophic losses.

[CommanderKobialka]

I didn't know light frigates could actually take out a stock starbase without taking catastrophic losses.

[Pat22]

Today I decided I'd play some starcraft 2, not having enough time for a Sins game before I leave for work.

Ten minutes later I had booted the game, updated it, crushed the AI without any kind of strategy other than attack-move to victory and had had exactly zero units of fun.

[Chairman_Tiel]

SC AI is terribad.

It's when you face up against the Koreans that you really have to watch your ass.

[Avenger_7]

The Insane AI's are fucking unfair, Very Hard are somewhat challenging, Hard is easy.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Huh. I didn't know they had more AI in SC.

Regardless, it'd be nice if game makers didn't use giving AI resources out of nowhere instead of increasing the CPU player's skill. Probably easier said than done, but it's just plain infuriating when they start pulling ships and superweapons out of their bums when the going gets rough. That's not difficult, that's just cheating. Bah, technical limitations .-.

[Avenger_7]

Like I said, it's unfair. I've still beat them (with casters + worker drops), but never conventionally. It really requires you to think and use strategy rather than the standard out-macro/steamroll, but turning half the planet into a nuclear wasteland works too :P

[Pat22]

Quick note here, I don't understand why a game of SC2 lasts 10 minutes but a game of Brood War lasts 45. The AI in a 14 yeard old game is better than the one in a recent game.

But speaking of unfair AIs, I was playing against one in Rebellion, trying to beat him without using bombers or my Titan. All was going well, considering I was fighting a player who had more than twice my income thanks to money cheats and a fleet three times the size of mine, I held my ground and didn't lost a planet for hours.

It reached the point where I had a fleet worth maybe 300-400 supply and he was nearing the 2000 supply mark, with a level 4 Titan to back it all up. He was hitting me on two fronts with two fleets each of them larger than my single fleet. At that point, I decided it might be wise to get a Titan.
I stopped putting resources into defense and focused it all into Titan research and construction, which cost one planet because the defenses failed due to lack of resources but it was well worth it.
Let me dig up the screenshot I took, it explains the entire game perfectly. Post it in an Edit.

Here, basically this is a chart that represents the amount of ships we each had as the game progressed. I was actually at 700 supply while he was at 1800 when I got my Eradica out.

[҉]

THREAD IS REVIVE! Not only is Rebellion 66% off on Steam, bringing the price down to $13.89 US, there's also an official DLC called Forbidden Planets that's only $3 something.

[ACH0225]

What's it do? Make moar owls?

[҉]

What's it do? Make moar owls?

It adds four new types of planet: Oceanic, Ferrous, Greenhouse, and Barren. Oceanic supports even more population than Terran, Ferrous has massive numbers of metal asteroids (up to 8), Greenhouse is a fairly standard planet but with the potential for some heavy negative bonuses, and Barren has a tiny population but lots of logistics slots. It also adds a ton of planetary bonuses (40, IIRC, which is more than the game currently has at all). I'm not sure I love the idea, really. Oceanic is basically Terran but better, and doesn't make a ton of sense (why does it have a higher pop?). Ferrous is basically volcanic but better. Greenhouse adds nothing; it's just undesirable. Barren is just Desert but more so, so it makes Desert kinda useless. I dunno.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Really a personal choice, but bear in mind almost no one has this DLC so you're in a sunk boat there.

It'd be better to just pick up one of the mods that does the same thing for free and tell anyone you're playing with to do the same, if extra planets are that big of a feature for you.

[ACH0225]

Oceanic supports even more population than Terran

How the hell does this work?

[Pat22]

Oceanic supports even more population than Terran

How the hell does this work?

People like to build civilizations near sources of water. More water, more civilization?
That or underwater cities is very popular.

[Pat22]

I've gotten Forbidden Worlds DLC. I like most aspects of it, like planet specialization and whatnot, but other parts bother me a bit.
The fact that there are more planets that require tech to colonize means early game expansion is severely slowed down, and in some cases you can get screwed over if there are too many of the new planets near you at the beginning.
And the specializations, I don't know if its best to specialize all planets or just pick a few. If you do specialize, it limits what a planet can do. If you don't, I feel like you're missing out on the bonuses.