GameSpy: Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment - Page 1
Previews
By GameSpy Staff | Sep 11, 2008
Ironclad's terrific "4XRTS" gets all defensive with the launch of the first of three mini-expansions.
Spiffy:
New defensive options; cool new star base units; deeper strategy; $9.99 price.
Iffy:
Even at $9.99 is this enough content to justify a purchase?
Ironclad Games' Sins of a Solar Empire took what was thought to be two incompatible styles of gameplay -- the vast scope of a stately "4X" conquer-the-universe game and the immediacy of an RTS -- and artfully blended them both. Since the February 2008 launch, the Ironclad team has been extremely active in putting out a steady stream of bug fixes and game improvements that have made Sins today far better than what came out of the box at the beginning of the year. What came before is only a prologue, though, as Ironclad gets set to release Entrenchment, the first of three mini-expansions that will radically reshape the Sins universe.
"Sins is a great game, no doubt about it," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock Games, Ironclad's publisher and co-development partner. According to Wardell, the game has managed to move over half a million units worldwide -- four-fifths of that at traditional retail stores. For all that, neither Wardell nor the Ironclad team is satisfied with the game. "We've watched the way the game has developed since launch, which strategies are popular with our players and thought a lot about which way the game should go," Wardell said. "There are always ways to make the game better and Entrenchment is our way of offering a deeper experience to Sins fans."
The genesis of Entrenchment, according to Wardell, comes from the team's realization that the game as designed is built to reward super-aggressive strategies. Defensive structures and emplacements are minimal and multiple routes between worlds mean that it's impossible for a player to defend his or her flank without splitting their fleets. "If I control eight to 10 planets and you've only got three, there's no way you should be able to sneak around and bomb my homeworld into oblivion -- not when I've got three times your resources and a much larger fleet."
That realization led the team to take a serious look at ways of beefing up defensive abilities in Sins of a Solar Empire. Some of the new toys players get to fool around with will be obvious -- improvements to existing structures and new research projects that give them more survivability and a harder punch that will keep them around until the end game when players have their most powerful weaponry out. Players will also get some unique structures they can use to indict certain areas as well as slow down or inhibit war jumping and give defending players more time to move fleets into position or produce more defenses. New minefields with specific types of mines unique to each race are being designed to hinder and slow the movement of enemy forces.