defekt wrote:
And I seriously doubt that your '10 year old' computer runs Sins in anything like a playable fashion, even in SP.

That's highly debatable actually. Some people pretend my Aspire 6920 laptop can't run Skyrim at anything than the lowest setting but I still run it at medium with a FPS of 20, which is more than enough for me.

Vanzagar wrote:
Ya, is there any 4x game that doesn't have this, I found the same in MOO? How can Endless Space fix this?

Eh, if you ever find out, let the devs know! I'm sure they're looking for the answer themselves.

Atlictoatl wrote:
My adoration for Endless Space has shown me that I really love aspects of this genre, and I'd like to experience some other titles in the genre. I haven't played any space-based games of the last decade aside from the Warhammer 40K RTS series, and so am wholly unfamiliar with them.



Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity is currently on sale at Steam for $5, and I'm very much considering picking it up, but I first am curious to hear what the Endless Space community thought of it. How does it compare to Endless Space? What elements does it do well?



I'm looking for an alternate take on space combat that isn't extraordinarily tedious in the empire management aspect.

Take a look at this thread for a general consensus on the popular 4x games:



/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9176-best-4x-game-ever



Sins is a solid combat orientated real time game. A new stand alone expansion has just been released which is less popular that ES. Frenetic.

Sword of the Stars is another real time combat game with interesting race design but not much other than the combat part. Didn't like it myself.

GC2 has a fair amount of typical planet building micro-management but with very good AI by all accounts, no combat control and is getting long in teeth now.

Legends of Pegasus is due out in August and perhaps could be a direct competitor to Endless Space if it's any good.

Other indie made games are around like Distant Stars and Distant Worlds etc but they are all simplistic top down blastathons compared to Endless Space.

Does anyone konw if the new Sins expansion plays smoothly as the previous installements tended to lag at some point in the game when too many ships are built and get into combat?

It seems to run as well, however if the game lags there is very little graphical difference to turning the textures down a little.

nats wrote:
Other indie made games are around like Distant Stars and Distant Worlds etc but they are all simplistic top down blastathons compared to Endless Space.

Er, not quite. If you are after that truly epic scale 'empire' feeling, which is the essence of any self-respecting 4X, then DW has that in spades; must be easily the most involving 4X game I’ve ever played – it will take me longer to master DW than it did with the Falcon/Apache games (w/ their brick-like manuals). Aside from aesthetic presentation I'm struggling to think of anything else that ES does better than DW… ES is multiplayer whereas DW isn’t which I suppose might be one more point, but if MP is my want-of-the-moment then for me there are better options than ES.

Igncom1 wrote:
It seems to run as well, however if the game lags there is very little graphical difference to turning the textures down a little.

...and turning such things down often does very little to improve the lag, even in Rebellion; it's a core design bottleneck issue that has never been completely rectified. When a couple of the capital ships let rip with the larger area effect abilities during huge furballs the resultant lag spike can be considerable. I (we) tend to keep the planet count to around 10*Players to prevent things from getting too enormous; that’s still plenty large enough to see the top elements on some of the tech branches and get a good few sessions out of the map. Seems to run pretty well all round under those constraints.

I dunno, my 10 year old computer seems to do fine with it, maybe its a MP thing.

Igncom1 wrote:
I dunno, my 10 year old computer seems to do fine with it, maybe its a MP thing.

Yes, I'm talking about MP. Sins doesn't offer all that much in SP IMO.



And I seriously doubt that your '10 year old' computer runs Sins in anything like a playable fashion, even in SP.

Armid wrote:
and (much like Endless Space) boring fleet grinding late-game.

Ya, is there any 4x game that doesn't have this, I found the same in MOO? How can Endless Space fix this?

Atlictoatl wrote:
Howdies.



My adoration for Endless Space has shown me that I really love aspects of this genre, and I'd like to experience some other titles in the genre. I haven't played any space-based games of the last decade aside from the Warhammer 40K RTS series, and so am wholly unfamiliar with them.



Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity is currently on sale at Steam for $5, and I'm very much considering picking it up, but I first am curious to hear what the Endless Space community thought of it. How does it compare to Endless Space? What elements does it do well?



I'm looking for an alternate take on space combat that isn't extraordinarily tedious in the empire management aspect.

Interface/Intuitiveness – ES: Excellent | Sins: Good

Complexity depth – ES: Fairly shallow | Sins: Reasonably deep

Empire management – ES: Good | Sins: Fairly good

Colony micromanagement – ES: Low | Sin: Lower

Diplomacy – ES: Weak | Sins: Good – yup, amazingly enough Sins has better diplomacy.

Research tree – ES: Fairly extensive | Sins: Fairly extensive

Practical Racial/Faction distinctiveness – ES: Fair | Sins: Pivotal – its all about what/who counters what/who

Racial/Faction customization – ES: Reasonable | Sins: None (predefined)

Typical game time (large) – ES: ~20 hours | Sins: ~3 hours

Excitement per hour – ES: Low to Moderate | Sins: Epic

Rewards Strategic decision-making – ES: Well | Sins: Well

Rewards Tactical decision-making – ES: Almost not at all | Sins: Very well

Combat (space) – ES: Weak | Sins: Very strong

Combat (invasion) – ES: Weak | Sins: Minimal

Ship design – ES: Fair | Sins: None (preset ship types)

That ‘Sim-City’ factor – ES: None | Sins: Strong

That ‘4X’ factor – ES: Good | Sins: Fair

AI – ES: Poor | Sins: Strong

SP (sandbox) – ES: Good | Sins: Fair

SP (campaign) – ES: None | Sins: None

MP (co-op) – ES: Good | Sins: Good

MP (PvP) – ES: Fair | Sins: Strong

Replayability – ES: Fair - every game plays the same | Sins: Good - for an RTS game it's more about tactical play and maps



In the end, however, Sins is ostensibly a slow-paced space RTS whereas ES is a turn-based(ish) 4X game so comparing the two is awkward at best. All I can add is that I’m still playing Sins but I’m not currently playing ES. Sins satisfies my multiplayer co-op/PvP spacey gaming and Distant Worlds sates my SP 4X itch; ES doesn’t really overpower or even bridge either of those areas of my gaming – yet.

defekt wrote:
Yes, I'm talking about MP. Sins doesn't offer all that much in SP IMO.



And I seriously doubt that your '10 year old' computer runs Sins in anything like a playable fashion, even in SP.

I am ok with playing games like SupCom and Sins down to 3FPS....i am a patient man.

Igncom1 wrote:
I am ok with playing games like SupCom and Sins down to 3FPS....i am a patient man.

In effect what you're doing is turning a real time game into a turn based game; you must be some sort of masochist. This of course does nothing to disprove that Sins has a code bottleneck somewhere.

Still doesn't make it a bad game, and it rarely happens as bad as you described anyway.



masochist? Wow.....that's....wow..

defekt wrote:
Interface/Intuitiveness – ES: Excellent | Sins: Good

Thanks for taking the time to do that lengthy comparison; it was interesting.

GJDriessen wrote:
And how do you like Galciv2 so far?

I booted it up and got to the first play-screen after race selection. After looking around through the various panels a bit, I realized it was going to take some extensive tutorial time to figure out how to navigate the game, so I quit the session for another time when I'd have the attention for that.



One thing I like about Endless Space is how easily you can learn your way through it. They really did a phenomenal job with the AI.



I also picked up X3: Terran Conflict, which is more of a space sim, and that's been taking the bulk of my attention. Space Pirates and Zombies is also a fun little thing, though it's more actiony-shooty than your typical 4X.

Atlictoatl wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to do that lengthy comparison; it was interesting.



I booted it up and got to the first play-screen after race selection. After looking around through the various panels a bit, I realized it was going to take some extensive tutorial time to figure out how to navigate the game, so I quit the session for another time when I'd have the attention for that.



One thing I like about Endless Space is how easily you can learn your way through it. They really did a phenomenal job with the AI.



I also picked up X3: Terran Conflict, which is more of a space sim, and that's been taking the bulk of my attention. Space Pirates and Zombies is also a fun little thing, though it's more actiony-shooty than your typical 4X.

Indeed Galciv2 takes time to learn and is not as easy as Endless Space to play. I'm not so sure whether this has anything to do with the AI though. I read many people arguing that Galciv2's AI is still the best one ever created. Moreover, quite some people say that Endless Space's AI is not that great and the challenge is mostly due to bonusses the AI gets compared to the human players.

Trust me Atlictoatl, if you can figure out how to play X3, you'll figure out how to play GalCiv2.

I have been playing Sins for years and I still do occasionally; I love RTS and sins in my opinion was one of the best space RTS i have played ( except for the halo space RTS that I pray for in vain ) but be warned, if you don't like large confusing battles and massive fleets try the demo first.

Howdies.



My adoration for Endless Space has shown me that I really love aspects of this genre, and I'd like to experience some other titles in the genre. I haven't played any space-based games of the last decade aside from the Warhammer 40K RTS series, and so am wholly unfamiliar with them.



Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity is currently on sale at Steam for $5, and I'm very much considering picking it up, but I first am curious to hear what the Endless Space community thought of it. How does it compare to Endless Space? What elements does it do well?



I'm looking for an alternate take on space combat that isn't extraordinarily tedious in the empire management aspect.

And how do you like Galciv2 so far?

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Looks like I'm getting GalCivII as well!

If your a person who also loves RTS games like me, then Sins is bloody epic.



GalCiv 2 is good fun, straight up.

Ah, GalCiv II is another thing entirely! For many, Master of Orion 2 is THE 4x. For me, it has to be GalCiv. The very different races (complete with their own tech tree), the immersion the atmosphere of the game provided, the custom-made ships...

The only 4x game to beat GalCiv in my heart is Alpha Centauri. I've great hope that Endless Space will take that spot after an extension or two, but really, GalCiv is a gem. The only places where it really fell short was an arguably limited AI and (much like Endless Space) boring fleet grinding late-game.

What about Galactic Civilizations II?

played my first game of sins rebellion last night with my brother. The hardest thing for me was the limitations compared to es i mean you pick from 3 races and one of two factions from each race. the game felt more like a race to the titan ship and then move around and try to destroy fleets. the tech was also kind of limited in my opinion but different strokes for different folks and all that.

I played Nexus a bit cool story and nice gameplay. If you played Homeworld series you will surely like it. A bit more action than Homeworld though.



On main post, i prefer ES from SoaSE. RTS are really not my style and the attempt to mix 4X game with RTS murdered the intention for something good. Nice graphics nice ship design but poor empire management thus making SoaSE just another RTS.

Yep I'm glad I bought ES instead of Rebellion (was tempted for a while).

To sum up SoaSE, it was incredibibly fun, but readily boring. I forgot this when I bought Rebellion, but relearned it fast once more :P

What about Nexus: The Jupiter Incident? Anyone have any experience with that game?

I didn't really like the combat in Sins. It was hectic as RTS games tend to be and became a real clusterf*** when big fleets met and basically always ended up in the bigger fleet blob winning.



Also the combat is weird and unrealistic to look at because most ships just face each other once in range and then just "stand" there duking it out. Very few movement besides fighter swarms (which are kinda cool I grant you that). ES gives you a cool ship of the line feel which I much prefer.

Cool, thanks. How are you liking Endless Space?

Combat, certainly!

Again, the fact that you'll always end up with more or less the same ships might be a problem, but really, even if you do get bored, you'll plug in enough hours anyway to make that 5$ really worth it. Or you'll love the game and make it even more worth it!

Thanks, Armid. Does it do anything better than Endless Space? I also like the empire management aspects of ES, but I think I'd enjoy a game that had more tactical combat and less empire management, which I could play on those weeks I wanted a break from ES.

Sins was awesome and breathtaking... the first few hours.

Then it got old.

Problems with it: it's real time strategy. Not that it's a bad thing, but I better like turn-based. Real time is great for the tactical aspect of the game, which is the strength of Sins, but I'm having way more fun in the empire-management part of this type of game, and that's where Sins fell short in my opinion. You also have no possibility to customize your ships except for some abilities you can get with experience.

Also, the "star systems" in Sins aren't really that. What you've got as galaxy map is a bunch of planets, asteroids and anomalies and no realism at all. And the UI needs work as well, I find it a hassle to use.



Not to say that it's a bad game, it's worth more than 5$, but it was a disappointment to me considering the hype around it.