well, there's the Dawn of War style of campaign which is sort of like a strategic board game involving capturing territory and running competing factions off the map. that might work for Sins. 

there's also the story driven campaign. the most famous of these are probably the Warcraft/Starcraft campaigns which are both story driven and extended tutorials so you take the good with the bad. 

i think the backstory of Sins is interesting enough that alot of players would thoroughly enjoy seeing some story development linked to completing vs. AI maps. keeping my fingers crossed. 

Here let me make a campaign for you.

Small Random map. You vs easy AI.  You are TEC, the AI is Vasari. Assumes you have Entrenchment and Quick Start enabled.

Chapter 1.

Use your scouts to scout the surrounding planets.

Locate the nearest Asteroid.

Build 4 Cobalt frigates and a Colony Frigate.

Go to the Asteroid, defeat the locol militia and set up a new colony.

Build up your resource extractors and upgrade the civilian infrastrcuture on your asteroid.

Chapter 2.

Use the Capital Ship factory to build A KOL Battleship.

Locate neares Volcanic/Ice planet.  Send your KOL Battleship to the Ice/Volcanic planet and defeat the local militia.

Send your colony frigate to the Ice/Volcanic planet.

In order to colonize the planet you need to research Ice/Volcanic colonization technology.

Build 2 civic labs at your homeworld and research the Ice/Volcanic colonization.

Establish a colony on the Ice/Volcanic planet

Chapter 3.

Locate nearest Terran/Desert planet. 

These planets are very well defended, you will need better ships to take them.

Build 2 Military Labs at the Volcanic/Ice planet.

Once built, research the LRM frigate prototype.

Build 5 LRM frigates.

Take your fleet, including new LRM frigates, to the Terran/Desert planet and defeat the militia.

Establish a new colony. Upgradign the civilian infrastrucutre to level 2, and adding extractors.

Chapter 4.

Locate the nearest Gas Giant/Plasma Storm/Asteroid Belt with neutral extractors.

Send your Cobalt frigates to defeat the pirates defending this location, if any.

Send your colony frigate to capture the neutral extractor.

Chapter 5.

Use your existing Civic labs to research Orbital Commerce.

Make your new Desert/Terran planet a commerce hub by building 3 Trade Ports in orbit.

To increase the yield of the trade ports, extend the trade route by upgrading the Logistics Capacity on your Home World, Asteroid and Ice/Volcanic colonies.

Build 1 Trade port at each of these planets.

ok this is as far as I can get without being bored to death.

If yall listen to the Gamers with Jobs Podcast with Blair. He states that they are only going to do a campaign if they can do it their way. Which is not the usual RTS way. Besides honestly this game does not need a campaign. If you want a story make one up and map to go with it. I promise the game is way better this way.

Why are you posting? Go play my campaign!

Everything you get to do in a campaign you get to do in Sins.  The only difference is it happens in a different way each time, so the replayability factor is way higher.

I guess if they're going to do one at all they could either...

...expand on the back story of each faction by way of missions with scripted events and dialogue/cut scenes.  So have the player go through 'historic' missions that deal with the early years of the TEC when the in-fighting and rebellion was at its worst.  Or perhaps play through the events that lead up to the Vasari exodus.  Stuff like that. 

Or they could set it in the 'present day' Sins Universe and use a combination of tech/unit limiting, and opening up phase lanes to an expanded game area once certain criteria are met, or triggers activated.  Supreme Commander used the idea of an ever expanding game area to quite good effect.  It'd work even better in Sins.  You could start off playing the outer fringes of a solar system, gradually working your way towards inner planets (all the way eliminating specific targets, collecting artifacts that relate to the story, etc.) until you eventually get access to another star, and then another and another.  They could be present from the very beginning but have the AI "frozen" until you have access to it to prevent CPU overload from start

Either of these scenarios could also make use of mission specific ships - things we haven't seen before.  So, having to go out and rescuse a MASSIVE colony ship from an unstable stars gravity well.  Or hunting for hidden special weapons or research facilities in asteroid fields or electro magnetic storms.  That'd be kinda neat I guess.

Maybe a campaign would work after all

**Edit: oooh and how about a planet-killing-asteroid mission??  Evacuate a system using transport ships before the planet literally gets wiped off the map.  It'd be kinda cool to see the asteroid inching towards your planet, a bit like the Novalith Cannon icon.  But ya know.  Bigger.  The size of a planet or something.  Yeeeeeeeeah!

Ironclad don't want to make a campaign, ok, i can understand that. But what about a campaign editor ? When i see the great work done by fans in the modding section, i can't imagine how much excellent campaigns could be done by the community.

I have no idea how much work Ironclad would have to to create this tool, though. Games like Age Of empires II, empire earth, Rise of Nations or Starcraft had their official campaign made with an editor given to the consumer with the game so it was not as if the team had to developp a campaign editor as a bonus.

Guys dont complain for campaigns and instead JOIN US AT RESSURECTING STEEL COMMAND! Apply to the site and lets create a community wide WAR in which battles will have consequences on the grand scheme of things!

Ain't that better than any sort of campaign????

PS: Its in Multiplayer organiser!!!

I would, but your campaign doesn't have a story with cinematics.

1. Why not, if it works for all the other RTS, why not for Sins.

2. No true, I have played many campaigns over and over again. I have played the campaigns in StarCraft, Act of War, Red Alert 2, AoE II & Star Trek Armada many times. Reliving a campaign is like watching a good movie, how many times have I seen Star Wars or Aliens or X-Men? cant count.

3. I agree that ressources should focus on making better gameplay, however they could have invested some into a campaign. I know that investing in actors and special effect to create cinematics cost a lot of money; I believe they didnt' do that because: A) they didn't have the budget or they had no idea that game was gonna sell or C) they had no idea how to make a story-driven scenario. I do agree that the community is good at helping with questions, but again the community does not make up for a good story with cut-scenes.

Chimpspanner, i like your idea about the historic missions and your expanding idea. Yes, a campaign could easily work if done correctly.

True, some people dont want a campaign, but many others do! Just look at the number of people reading the stories made by some of the players. Maybe IC could actually hire some of those players to write a good story.

I dont!

One of which youre part of +_+

he he he!