What this game is all about to you?

It's true.

The game is more heavily leaned towards tactical fleet battles.  You'll hear "turtling" mentioned a lot...which is when you tend to sit and try to defend and a poor tactic in Sins, especially at start.

Usually turtling is pretty picked on but I think a lot of us in the back of our minds are thinking "empire" not fleet battle.  I'd enjoy Sins a lot more if I could build a real empire.

Only way to work that is with custom map creation and carefully setting up positions and resources.

Ultimately Sins is a tactics game with some strategy.

Forums

Don't play co-op that's why you feel rushed.

"Whoever gets there the firstest with the mostest wins."

That is MP playing in RTS. Humans are naturally competitive and will compete even when allies. In RTS games, where speed is king, you rarely ever get that empire building feel. TBS does allow this as it forces the players to slow down. I enjoy a good MP game from time to time, but I usually will stick with SP as I too like the empire building feel.

It's all about empire building to me, I take my time to go as fast or as slow as I want, research what I want and do what I want...because I'm only playing singleplayer against normal difficulty AI right now, and they give me that kind of freedom.

Do what I did, go to custom maps. make a 10 star with about 1500 planets, no freaken way you guys can compete. Helps a ton in MP, and you are practically free to roam. something would be wrong if you guys finished the map in under 2hrs

How in the hell do you play with 10 stars and 1500 planets?  I made a map with 6 stars and less than 150 planets and the game is unplayable after about 3-4 hours (lag).  I have a 2.8ghz i7 and an ATI 5770 with 6GB RAM (am aware of the 2GB 32bit limit).  But I would love to play that size a map if you know how.  I'm guess you are talking MP where the CPU isn't having to deal with multiple AIs...

150 planets definatly close to upper limit on planet count. 15 planets per player, is a lot. like. 200+ credits/second a lot. prolly more. prolly alot more.

The Sins engine is designed for maps up to 140 planets.  When you build them larger than that (particularly with lots of stars) the AI won't know what to do and you can get crashes simply by taking a screen shot at the wrong time when it needs more memory than you have.

You can run bigger maps but 140 is the "advertised" limit and depending on the sort of map you make it can have strange issues.

Like Ryat said. Most Multiplayer RTS is about whoever gets the most first wins. It's not just Sins, but pretty much every RTS. However in Single Player vs. the AI you can take as much time, "turtle, and porc" as much as you want, because the AI will "let you do it". Even Cruel, and Vicious cheating AI. I think that is where you get the "empire builder" feel. In MP you don't have much time to stop, and smell the roses.

I like the idea about a "Real Time Tactics" mode. You start with a finite amount of ships, and in battle you have to deal with what you got. Very "Total War-ish". I guess the flagship victory condition is as close as we can get for now.

I think though Sins is a hybrid 4X/RTS. It is more an RTS with just a little bit of 4X tossed in.

It isn't just RTS.  It's also any sort of map-based TBS.  You have to expand quickly early on so that you have the resources you need to continue expanding and to do your research and to build an army and fortifications, etc.  The need to expand and to balance expansion with other goals is a crucial element of the strategy in these games.

Real time strategy games should be fast paced and intense. If you want to take your time you should play turn based games, but I find those incredibly slow and boring.

Depends on your point of view. To me turn based strategy is more like a big game of Chess. Which can be as enjoying as RTS. Set up your empire. Move all your pieces into place. Then at the right time, BAM! Checkmate.

play vs the ai

2 humans vs say 6 Vicious cheating on a 80 planet map with Fastest on all.

its almost impossible to Rush all 6 since they build faster etc, your Forced to hold specific points and "turtle up"

It can be pretty fun, tho its also a bit annoying at times.

I agree with your view. Yeah it's pretty much like any other rts namely Starcraft too which I almost never played online with.

Also yeah most people here realize that even in Co-op the human players tend to rush things out of their competitive nature.

Ill try some SP on normal then. I'd like to smell the roses and feel overhwlemingly powerful(max fleet max command, many many capaital ships and a Titan with max research)

Indeed just that I don't enjoy being forced to play in a certain way that is to rush rush and rush and rush some more whetherh you rush to defend or to attack. It gets...methodological and often feels like a task/work than playing/gaming . I wish for more degree of freedom...soome rose smelling moments then some crisis then another lull where I can just enjoy the sights of my hulking ships of my powerful empire.

I'm not complaining however Sins is a good game.

Ill try some SP like so many of you guys suggested.

Btw DirtySanchezz I think I saw such a name in Star Trek Online. Could you be the same person

Nope; it wasn't me.  There's probably a Dirty Sanchez or two in every game.

DS.

really. really.

really.

I dont know if that was intentially a joke, but. really?

Advertised limit of 140?

Odd, I have played maps of 600+ in diplomacy without lag. Now in Rebellion I'm trying to finish 1000+ maps without lagging. I also don't run through ICO since that might be a source of lag and don't really want to rely too much on game servers, so i run through LAN.

Note: 10 stars with 1500 planets was an example. I usually play around 3-4 stars with each star holding about 396 planets each.

Are you serious? Is this guy serious? Do you have a computer from the future? I want!

For me, it's about building up an empire that sprawls over multiple star systems, with several fleets moving through the various systems either patrolling for hostile incursions or expanding my empires borders. I've never really played the multiplayer for the simple fact that I prefer single player. Aside from that, I love doing SP maps where I have a massive fleet clashing against a large AI fleet, watching ships explode everywhere, and getting that feeling of satisfaction as I watch a hostile cap ship explode in a nova of light, and watch as their ships retreat and get torn apart by my ships before they can escape.

On that note, I finished my first map yesterday. It was a Random Huge (Multi) with myself and five AIs. Final time when the last AI finally surrendered? 12 hours and 3 minutes.

This is one of the reasons why I bought the game. I want to play one long game for months where I just expand and become that superpower til you learn all the other factions and their tendencies and rivals til its like a perpetual place that seems living. Factions start to falter and then there is a faction that becomes a superpower too but just ends up losing to another. 

On a another note, does anyone know how to make it so everyone isnt hostile at start and everyone begins as neutral?

This is the core reasons Sins will always feel rushed.  There aren't a lot of planet upgrades you can do.  The only really long one is swapping out military starbases with economic/culture ones as your front line advances.  Even then it isn't really a challenge so much as waiting for the base to build. 

I keep hoping for an economics expansion pack that opens up more logistic structures (and slots).  Give me the decision of remaining behind my first wall of choke points and expanding my econ as opposed to having to have a second wave of planet grabbing.