4X-RTS:
In this iteration of space voyager, piloting the flagship 4X-RTS, Awkward Mixture has spied the galaxy of Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity, which is not to be confused with its neighboring Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion (a stand alone expansion). The original game, released in 2008, is the oldest of the three games being investigated (Star Ruler 2 and Stellaris), the most conventional RTS of the three, and therefore the least like a 4X game.
While our craft approaches, the captain
has fallen into musing about past RTS games. Perhaps, like you,
fellow voyager, I worshiped WarCraft 2, adored StarCraft,
and praised WarCraft 3, but the magic of the RTS genre has
diminished in recent years. I couldn't summon the force to enjoy
Supreme Commander 2, and can't bother to download
StarCraft 2, even though Blizzard released
it for free in late 2017.
Age might be the source of my aversion
to the RTS genre, in which case the majority of this critique of Sins
springs not from any fault of the game, but my dislike for the
direction of its development. Or maybe, it is an inferior product of
a overly accepting age.
Like Star Ruler 2, Sins: Trinity
contains no campaign, no plot, but a massive collection of prepared
galaxies. In each, the player begins with a single planet. Each
galaxy, whether tiny, massive or somewhere in between, is comprised
of nodes, connected by predetermined pathways. Nodes can contain a
planet, an asteroid field, a pirate base, or empty space, and the
house the various byproducts of homicidal empires (ships and orbital
platforms). The pathways which connect nodes are not space, in that
they have no space, and can contain no fleets, but merely allow
passage between to locations. They are not empty space, but vacuum,
like tunnels connecting rooms. This contrasts sharply with Star
Ruler 2 which did delineate connections between systems, but
whose ships traveled through deep space anyway they desired, and
combat, though increadibly unlikely, could happen in the empty areas,
light-years distant from a sun. In Sins, these paths are the
only means of travel, and while technically deep space, are incapable
of containing combat.
Like other conventional RTS games Sins
uses a common resource strategy: construct buildings which produce
resources. Planets produce credits, with a more developed planet
generating more cash, and unlike Star Ruler, development requires
spending credits instead of creating a trading web. The other two
resources: metal and crystal, are collected by constructing mines on
asteroids. While Sins mercifully reduces the need to
micromanage resource collecting with the type of drones popularized
in StarCraft and WarCraft, resource collection remains
a more involved task than Star Ruler 2's three minute budget.
With these three resources the player's
empire can produce ships, after a shipyard has been built, with the
aid of a construction drone. These little helpers build all the
orbital platforms, from the mining structures on asteroids, to the
defense platforms, the research facilities, and the broadcast
centers.
But it's not the perpetual mining and
resource collection which disgusts me, but the relentless production
necessary for victory.
Like WarCraft 3, one shipyard is
insufficient even early in the game. A winning strategy requires an
OCD like attention to every aspect of the empire, from building
orbital platforms, to the unending production of ships, and the
ceaseless technological development. Every gear of the war machine
needs to be turning continually, and planets must be surrounded by a
mass of shipyards research centers, and interstellar markets, all of
which need to be constantly reminded to produce a near infinite
amount of ships and technologies.
At the same time, to conduct research
the player needs enough research laboratories to unlock more
elaborate advancements. But though there are many different options,
each feels insignificant, with no technology offering a
transformation of tactics. Each technology unlocks a ship, or
provides a minor numerical bonus to combat or the economy, but none
allow for a redesign to make something new.
Unlike Star Ruler 2 ships are not
composed, but produced. They are not designed out of blocks, or even
a frame, with the player able to assign systems. They're massed
produced, predesigned hulks. The player can produce supply
swallowing, credit consuming behemoths called capital ships, which
can level up and gain both activated and passive abilities, but these
are few and far between.
With a fleet assembled, combat is still
a slogging mess. Unlike Star Ruler 2, and more like
StarCraft, each ship is its own unique unit, capable of solo
movement (though ships can be assigned to maneuver together). When
ships are in a node with enemy forces they'll automatically move to
engage. They line up, and shoot at each other. Movement and
inflicting damage are clear but incredibly slow, making these state
of the art ships appear more like the model T than the Enterprise.
Though ships automatically engage the closest enemy, it is possible
to tell them to focus on any particular target, but with even with a
half dozen frigates targeting an enemy, it takes a minute or two
before they succeed in blowing to it bits.
Though the enemy will flee when
outnumbered, the AI will refuse to surrender the map, and will only
lose when they have not a single fleet remaining. Even when they
have no fleets remaining, they continued to recolonize planets which
I'd already turned to ashes. While, it may be possible to capture
enemy help planets, it seemed easier to bombard them from space, and
then recolonize the forsaken, empty cities.
Though clear, combat isn't aided by a
dazzling graphic display. The combat, slow and lifeless as it is,
isn't assisted by a display which has the ships remain stationary,
while the attacks they make against each other are without flash,
even if as they use lasers. Missiles and ships don't explode with
the resounding bang required, and in all the whole system seems
dated.
In conclusion, this seems to be the
issue with Sins of Solar Empire: Trinity compressed
into a wormhole. While it must have captured the zeitgeist of the
2000's, (receiving
the glowing reviews) when the RTS genre was particularly
prominent, today its design seems prehistoric, like when one reads a
book which predicted the future, and yet the era it hypothesized has
already passed, without the exciting technology it described coming
to fruition.
Sins has no grand tactical
element, just the relentless, exhausting attention required to
perpetually produce more ships, and engage them in endless, endurance
defying battles.
I'm not saying you won't enjoy Sins
of a Solar Empire. After playing only the shortest map, with
still took five hours to beat, I had no further interest in the two
other races, and the many unexplored regions of space left, but I'm
willing to believe it received popular approval a decade ago because
it did something well, which I just can't see.
Next week Awkward Mixture begins its
examination of Stellaris.
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