Is Sins a True 4X Title?

from Sins Forums
Much to the chagrin of my wife I have played this game almost every waking hour not at work since purchasing it. To understand the quality of the game one has to rate it based primarily on what it attempts to accomplish. So one must base the success of quality of Sins on how it handles the 4X idea as an RTS.

eXplore - You start out with direct visuals on only the planets you and your allies own. The only planets you even know exist are the ones with phase lines connected to your own. From then and there you must seek out the location of the planets (where the types change even playing the same prebuilt map). You can even explore your own planet to discover trade goods, artifacts, and other useful items. Hovering over a planet will inform you of the ships and structures last seen there with a timer to tell you how long ago it was. There are plenty of unique planets to discover early on and recon is an extremely important aspect of the game even from the start.

eXpand - Considering the possibilities for a 6+ star map with 100+ planets, you can rest assured there is plenty of space in the galaxy. Your empire can grow to quite the evil grin faced amount. The colonization system for actually taking over a planet is simple and intelligent.

Where this game lacks here is the strength of culture. Overpowering amounts of culture/influence that you can develop in a game like Civ4 or GalCiv2 are not to be found here. As it stands culture is only useful as a defense in preventing far invaders from colonizing your planets. And everyone knows offensive culture is where the fun is. The problem is two fold. One, it's very hard to generate a significant amount of culture to overthrow a planet without the Advent's Deliverance Engine. Two, when you do overthrow the opponent simply loses control of the planet. You don't gain control of the planet nor any structures that the player owns. As it stands the trade off of military troops for culture is very poor.

eXploit - Between trading, planetary upgrades, three resources to balance, artifacts, and a huge tech tree there are plenty of ways to improve the infrastructure of your empire. The balance between what to build is well done as there are no wrong choices (other than building too many culture structures). Just make sure it fits into an overall strategy!

eXterminate- My favorite X! Simply put, the battles in this game are amazing. Instead of offering the player much better units as the game continues, Sins offers you DIFFERENT units. It's up to you in how you make up your fleet to find that right balance of ability usage, armor, and firepower that will overwhelm your opponent. Siege frigates live too long as of this version but that will be changed in the next patch.

Unfortunately another flaw is found in the diplomacy system. Everything is just too limited. The mission system is a good idea but why do the missions feel like they don't make sense? Why does the AI want me to attack a player that's not near him nor one that he's fighting. Why not add defensive missions that require a certain number of units to sit on a planet for a given length of time? Why can't I assign similar missions to the computer? There could easily be a "favor" stat that informs the player how much another empire is willing to do. Money doesn't seem to do anything to affect how someone feels. 20k credits later and 0 increase in relationship. And why can't I ask for money? Why can't I just ask a player who I only have a cease fire with to attack someone else...I'd be willing to bribe him if I could! The mission system is a great way to transition diplomacy from a TBS game to the RTS world. But...it must expand functionality, reciprocate actions available between player and AI, and show more logic in the AI's requests.


Thank you for taking the time to read (all or part) of this lengthy post. This is a fantastic base game but what will make it truly amazing is the after release support.
48,882 views 26 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Good comments. I agree with you concerning the limited cultural system and simplistic diplomacy. Those are things that could definitely be improved.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I certainly think a diplomacy revamp should be first on the list. It takes out a lot of the fun from FFA games involving the AI. Culture is behind it in terms of importance simply because it doesn't mess up the game in not having. Improving culture would simply add more strategic options and play styles.

Then again in doing that they may render turn based games obsolete...
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Someone was asking me about this game a while back, they wanted to know more or less this same thing.

I told them that if their main strategy in 4x games was to build up their empire and then kill everyone else, that this game captured it nicely. But that if diplomatic or technological victories was their thing then they where out of luck=P

So no, this is not a real 4x game.. The question here though is, is it a true real time 4x?

As people know, there is a great difference between a real time strategy game and a turn based strategy game. They play different and feel different and emphasize certain things. Therefore its reasonable to say that a real time 4x game would play differently and emphasize different things than a turn based 4x game. I would not say that the magnitude of difference between this game and a traditional 4x is any greater than the difference between a turn based and a real time strategy game. Therefore im willing to accept that this game is a 'true' 'real time 4x'.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I think the main area where it deviates from a "true" 4X formula is that there is no real path to victory besides military conquest.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
If you think about it, every RTS has all the X elements. Sins doesn't seem to be any different than any other RTS in that regard other than trying to put it all on a larger scale.

What I was expecting when I heard that Sins was a 4X RTS was that each X would be more like a turned based X than an RTS X.

For example, while expanding I was expecting that you would have to dilute the population of your home world while trying to take over nearby planets. In sins, you create a colony ship and all you need is antimatter to take a planet. The population of your home world is unaffected.

Dilution of your population is a natural (and realistic) way to deter a player from expanding his empire too quickly. Sins has put in a somewhat artificial mechanic to do this with new planets actually costing you money instead of making you money. The solution works, but I find it really takes away from the whole feeling of expanding the citizens of my empire across the galaxy.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
For example, while expanding I was expecting that you would have to dilute the population of your home world while trying to take over nearby planets. In sins, you create a colony ship and all you need is antimatter to take a planet. The population of your home world is unaffected.

Dilution of your population is a natural (and realistic) way to deter a player from expanding his empire too quickly. Sins has put in a somewhat artificial mechanic to do this with new planets actually costing you money instead of making you money. The solution works, but I find it really takes away from the whole feeling of expanding the citizens of my empire across the galaxy.

You can create new cities in CivIV simply by sending out a settler unit, so population dilution is not the only mechanic employed by 4X games.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
After a few games now Id have to say ... kind of ;p

It is a 4x game, but a very simplified version of the genre. Far to simplified for my taste tbh. For all I read in interviews etc from the team about avoiding the 'consolization' of games this is by far the most consolized 4x game I have played.

Im still enjoying it, but I can already tell it wont hold my interest as long as games like galciv or even sword of the stars did (do).

D
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I guess it's less a 4x game and more an RTS designed to appeal to fans of the 4x genre.

On a whole I do agree that victory conditions other than military conquest would be welcome, but the game is still excellent as is.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

It is a 4x game, but a very simplified version of the genre. Far to simplified for my taste tbh. For all I read in interviews etc from the team about avoiding the 'consolization' of games this is by far the most consolized 4x game I have played.

Im still enjoying it, but I can already tell it wont hold my interest as long as games like galciv or even sword of the stars did (do).

D


Agreed.


You can create new cities in CivIV simply by sending out a settler unit, so population dilution is not the only mechanic employed by 4X games.


Land based 4X, that is true. Space based, not so much. It is much more forgivable in a land based 4X since your settler does not consist of very many people. They just set up a new colony and attract the locals.

In space expansion, your planets are generally devoid of all sentient life. Thus the need for a large, expensive ship with a lot of people on board; enough people to actually affect the economy of the planet they come from.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
And in Civ the settler unit costs one population to build, if you build a settler in a 2 pop city, you will get a settler and a 1 pop city. Still, this isnt that important, the population hit from building settler units, in most games except civ, rapidly became unimportant.

The weakest aspect of the game is the tech tree. The diplomacy is also weak, but I can forgive them that because writing smart diplomatic AI is incredibly hard. The absence of an interesting tech tree really drags me out of the immersion with the game, and makes it feel like a RTS rather than a 4X. Its an epic and involved RTS to be sure, and it reminds me of my current favourite (Supreme Commander), but its not quite a 4X. I just think they underestimated how much involvement people can have with the game. During a match against the AI I have time to do more than I do, especially by mid-end game. We could easily have dealt with ship design and a full technology tree with lots of options. Excluding options too, like in MOO2/3, so you can have 2 of A and B and C but not all 3.

Ship design in multiplayer could have been dealt with by either abstracting for multiplayer, or insisting on pre-constructed designs you already had saved, or just going with it. If you want to spend time to get advantages in ship design then you'd be sacrificing time spent elsewhere. This 'time balancing' act is actually one of the best aspects of the game.

To aid identification though I'd not have given total control to the player. Youd pick a hull size and ship goal (missiles, lasers, flak etc) and then pick from appropriate options. The hull size and goal would control which icon appeared on the strategy map, so other players could still pick out what was what without complex examination.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
As someone pointed out- all RTS are 4X; its not a hard criteria; the real yet sadly fairly abstract difference between an RTS and a typical turn based empire game is two fold.

1. Scale *Sins solves this adequately :)

2. Role Play

Believe it or not the advantage of most 4X games in terms of their form of fun as opposed to most RTS is that you end role playing your species or your people, you research as such and create mini-stories around typical game events/wars/etc.

That doesn't happen in RTS because there is not enough time to become emotionally invested, and most focus on tactics as opposed to nuances between faction. That doesn't mean people don't enjoy the stories of course, and pick races based on favorites, its just that the RTS empire is not personalized to you.

Sins does not breach this barrier, but it does come closer than any other RTS to create the same role-play experience that space empire (or land) 4X games do.



-Also; Culture once upon a time did take over enemy planets; ultimately it was too good; especially against the AI, and most people did not like it, and there was a million ways to change it... Thus they weakened it and made it a nice defensive measure, but offensively it isn't a full strategy all on its own.

Now in some ways thats good; it promotes combined arms tactics; but in other ways it makes playing the game as say a role playing 'peaceful' people; very difficult.


What you guys should try to keep in mind is that StarDock (and Ironclad by proxy) create games that don't stop being made... they get continually support; with a game like Sins 'production' is never really over.

I'm certain that diplomacy will be getting a big look at for the first big content add on... and with that probablly culture. So i wouldn't sell off such features, the Devs just need more time to digest their own creation, especially in response to the now birthed community.

Basically- suggest things, its great! But I don't think you should expect culture to just take over planets; we have been down that route, and it may come back, but it won't be easy or simple I'm sure.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
In my opinion, the 4X is weak. Far more weak than I hoped. Diplomacy, as it stands currently is just plain silly. Trade routes are necessary, but there's no real control over trade at all. No specific trade goods, no levels of which items to make available, no embargos, etc... In fact, other than building a trade port, there's no control over trade at all. Civilization management is practically non-existant. Oh sure there are techs to research to upgrade your planets increasing tax revenue, etc... But again, no real control over governing the civilizations at all. I may want to manually control the tax rate on one colony, which I can't. I'd rather be a dictator that rules through fear and oppression, but cannot.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
The new element Sins brings to the table, and the one that will help keep it fresh and exciting, is the ability to play against a human opponent. The AI can overwhelm you with it's economic advantage but it is never going to outwit you.

Hopefully Sins will evolve, much the same way GalCiv2 evolved over the past 2 years, and many of the ideas presented on this board will find their way into the expansion packs.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I must say that whatever this game is, i have been waiting for it a long time.

I always liked RTS, but they just didn't feel right. They where too fast, as things on the scale they are depicting probably should be, and it was always about winning some small immediate thing.

And 4x games, i always liked because the immersion and sense of actually 'doing something' was attractive to me. I liked building up an empire and planning things... but i would often get bored after a while. I to this day install galciv2 every few months, play it for a couple days, and find out that im having more fun thinking about it and imagining it than i am actually playing it.

This sort of middle ground is exacly what ive wanted... I just hope that after ive had enough time to really play it i will continue to like it=P

What is needed i think:

1. A better diplomacy system. Nothing too fancy, not as fancy as a true 4x game, but it should be more than the NPC either loving you because you started on the same teams.. until it back stabs you, or npcs hating you and requiring you run around doing asks for them to have a chance at even agreeing not to flat out attack each other. Missions really do kind of suck=P They need to remove some of the more annoying ones.

2. A more fleshed out tech tree.. but not TOO fleshed out. Maybe add certain high-end technologies that you can only get one of. Things that really influence your entire strategy. This is an acceptable way of limiting what you are capable of feasibly doing with out just making it take forever to reach a certain tech like it does in 4x games.

3. Portrait and icon customization, because i just want it=p

4. Fleet naming.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, it is.

Saying that the lack of strong culture means it is not a "real 4X" also means that Civ2, MOO, Alpha Centauri, and Empire are not "real" 4X games.

In Empire, there was no diplomacy at all, this game has more diplomatic options than the grand-daddy of all 4X games.

There is more control over trade than there was in Empire or the early Civ games or Master of Magic.

The tech tree is more detailed than many 4x games.

If all of the games I've mentioned are 4X games then Sins should be considered to be one also.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
I miss alot the customitzation. In any game if it last enought every player will have all the techs. And all TEC players will have the same techs and same for other races...

I have no way that if i'm in love with fighters develop this in further ways, with his drawbacks, or if i want to enforce a industrialist empire over a trade empire. At the moment the tech tree is only about prioritize what techs are useful at a given time. But there is no way to cater your empire at your likes or tactics.

And is an option that really miss.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I think sins does the 4xRTS thing quite well, and i, for one, have been looking forward to something like this for some time, and i dont think sins was meant to compete with galciv.

I do agree that the diplomacy is a bit oversimplified. I dont like how the AI is constantly asking for resources and stuff or they will cancel any treaties with you. It becomes quite exhausting to play with unlocked teams especially if you plan to have more than 1 ally, as at worst you'd have to be attacking multiple enemies at once while giving resources away. Its not particularly fun to be lead around on a chain like a dog. You shouldn't be constantly bombarded with ridiculous demands while youre trying to set up your own empire, the time between 'Assignments' should be longer so you might have time for your own empire too without upsetting your allies. The players should also be able to make demands from allies, and the missions should be more varied, like assisting in defence, or escorting fleets, and other stuff like that, peaceful stuff like organizing negotiations would be great too. Ofcourse all this only applies to single player, as in multiplayer you can 'role play' it with friends if you want.

More options on governing planets would be nice too, like controlling the tax rate, with the risk of the population rebelling if set too high for too long. But stuff like this is not as necessary as an overhaul to the diplomacy system(mostly the AI), as currently I pretty much have to set the teams to locked even though thats not really what i want.

Oh and someone said that playing peaceful people is hard because capturing planets is really hard, but you should realize that 'peaceful' people wouldn't really be all that interested in taking planets from others so if you really want to role play those peaceful people then i guess your out of luck, but if youre only playing semi peaceful, then you could just imagine that youre liberating the planet from a cruel oppressor by supporting the local freedom fighters with military power. :)
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Bah! 4x is a lable, if they want to use they can and therefore it is one :)

One thing I think is having an adverse affect on SINS feeling like it's TBS counterparts is that they obvious put some effort into making the AI a good 'opponent' more than making it a good representation of the race/empire. The most obvious example is with the messages they send out during the game which mimic what a human opponent would say but not what an alien ambassador would tell you. This is also prominent with the individual AI behaviors, although they can be focused as economic or aggressive they are no different than any other race with the same focus. A good basic enhancment here would be to add in a few differences specific to the race such as different fleet formations or preferences for specific fleet compositions or even overall attack/defese strategies. For instance the TEC could generally prefer massive fleets full of heavy hitters and frontal assaults, obviously the aggressive AI would make more and use them more often than the economic AI but the theme could persist. As it stands right now the only real difference is in the ships themselves which results in the AI not taking full advantage of their unique racial units & abilities.

Diplomacy with the AI is generally weak in any game, even those with more focus in the area. In a short time their behavior and responses become easy to predict and adapt to no matter how complex or involved the system is, or they rely too heavily on random factors making them unreliable and annoying. Civ3 & 4 have some great examples of annoying diplomacy :) Diplomacy is always at it's best when it involves other human players though because you're no longer bound by the rules put in place by the developers. SINS' diplomacy is rather weak in comparison though, I played through my first few games without ever opening the window let alone using any diplomacy. A little more depth in diplomacy could really help by at least making you want to try it if nothing else. Although to be completely honest, I don't think diplomacy is a requirement for a good 4x game, it depends more on what the game is attempting to do than what genre it is claiming to fall into.

The economy/empire building could use a bit more depth, with only two (ok, three if we count money) resources it is very RTS-like and not very 4x-like. Even adding one more resource would make the universe feel more detailed without really increasing in complexity. Other improvements here could be with the way refineries work, currently they apply equal bonuses to both resources rather than be focused on one or the other and there are no planet-side improvements to industry or economy and what few planetary modifications you can apply are both extremely simplified and involve no descision other than which to do first. If logistic slots and tactical slots came from a common pool of total slots you'd have to design each planet with a goal in mind, either heavily defended or highly productive. Even something as simple as moving the Military Lab into the tactical pool and putting the repair facility in the logistics pool would have a substantial impact.

Of course, when all is said and done I'm really enjoying this game so even if they never add any depth or variety to the different empires, diplomacy or the economy I'll still enjoy it. I have a bunch of things I'd like to mod in but that really has nothing to do with the base game.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Well it is interesting that people find the diplomacy weak...

thats because your looking at it from an 4X view, but seen from a RTS view this is a very indepth diplomacy model. It still needs work, the missions need to be revised to be more logical, trade alliances need to have more complication, and a little more 'character' is needed.

But compared from the beta the diplomacy is vastly improved; most importantly...

if you are allied at 100% do you realize you can command the ally fleets to go to a particular location and defend or attack the area!!!!

That is a very very very cool feature, and very original for a RTS.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

If all of the games I've mentioned are 4X games then Sins should be considered to be one also.


Then so should any RTS. They all provide the basic 4Xs. They just do it in real time.

So what really makes a 4X a 4X? I think Gauntlet makes some very good points.

1. Scale. I agree that true 4Xs tend to feel very very big. Now scale can be looked at in many ways. Sins tries to play big but I don't really get the feeling of big. Let me try and explain why.

Do you guys remember the briefing session in Nexus? You had the option to look at any planet in a solar system. Planet sizes, and distances between them, were actually represented in a realistic fashion. You could even see there orbits. You could even find comets. Not only that, but you could also zoom waaaaaaaaay waaaaay waaaaay out to look at all the solar systems you have visited in the galaxy.

Of course the briefings were not part of game play, but it FELT BIG.... Really big. Like outer space big. I don't get that feeling in Sins.

Another example: Have any of you every played Eve? Do you remember the first time you fired up your warp drive on your ship and the planet behind you disappeared into a small spec in a fraction of a second? It really felt like you were traveling fast and going far making the solar system feel big. In Sins, when you enter a phase lane you can slowly see the planet your leaving get smaller. Note only that, but when you reach your destination, you can still see the planet you left looming in the back ground. It does not in any way feel like you are traveling fast and the solar system feels very small.

So when I think of scale in terms of traveling in space, I feel Sins really fails in this sense. It is big in the sense of many number of ships, and the possibility for a large economy but not in terms of space travel and solar system size.

2. Role Play - I agree with this characteristic of 4Xs too and I think is strongly related to Scale. For me, being able to role play is affected by the ability of the environment to feel real. While playing an MMO it much easier to emote: "Tholan's hair rustles with the breeze" when I can actually see the leaves in the trees around me doing the same thing. A good game will pull you in with familiar elements of everyday life. If the game diverges too far from what you know about the real world, it becomes difficult if not impossible to role play in that world.

Again I think Sins fails in this regard. Too many sacrifices in the name of game play were made. For instance, putting in phase lanes and making planets smaller to name two. It is hard to get into the role of a leader of your empire when your empire does not really feel all that big.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
PS:

The idea of using a combined pool for logistics/tactical slots was rejected; mainly because it would allow players to create super-fortresses and super-producer worlds... which was considered undesirably by the devs.

Just informing you that it was indeed discussed (and at least for the time being it was rejected)

Also- the planetary upgrades don't need to be more complicated; when you think about it, building all those aqueducts and walls in civ games ammounts to 'laundry listing'... its not really a fun time, and nowadays we expect the option of automating such procedures with governors... something that isn't too difficult in TB but in RT would be a big investment of their work for Iron Clad...

The simplicity of the upgrades keeps it manageable.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
A.. super fortress world you say? I kind of like the sound of that=P

Maybe they should include about 10 'anything' points that can be used for tech OR military. IT doesn't even have to be on top of the current amount, just make the start points useful for anything, and as you gain tactical or logistics points the ones in the 'anything' category naturally transfer to their respective category unless its full.

That way i can have a planet with just a few more tactical things on average, and call it a super fortress so i can have fun pretending things with my internet spaceships.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
You want super fortress worlds? You should have played beta 1. No cap on structures (except trade ports), and phase jump inhibitors prevent enemies from leaving the well at all. It made it incredibly hard to attack, because you were always worried that your fleet would get caught and slaughtered.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
I haven't read all the reply posts, but I did read the OP's and a few of the first ones last night. In my 1on1 games, on small maps...from that experience, I posted "Is this game a RTS" thread. It felt like homeworld but I still saw it as a RT4X game.

My experience totally changed when I moved to Systems of War. Honestly it feels nothing like a RTS. Battles are more like the stack nature, as so much is going on you don't really have time to partake in the real time battles. It really does feel more like HoI, which I would have serious issue with anyone calling it a RTS.

Moreover, Craig said they set out to create a RT4X game. If you think about it, this game is exactly what it would look like. My gut tells me that most 4x games will go the RT route more and more and the debate will be moot after a bit as RT4X becomes a subgenre of 4XGames. Anyone into games can not deny that devs have been moving away from TB games over the last 4-5 years. Even going so far as to give the illusion of RT action with TB or rounds going on behind the scenes.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
My gut tells me that most 4x games will go the RT route


I doubt it. The prevalence of RT combat is because of the inherit imbalance of one side shooting first.