Darrel Buys Sins of a Solar Empire (SoaSE)

I recently bought the PC game Sins of a Solar Empire (SoaSE) by Stardock. It's a RTS (Realtime Strategy) based on building an empire in space and conquering your neighbours. I'm writing this blog so I can document my progress in learning the game and hopefully pick up a few tips from any interested players.

I bought the game a week ago and so far have played 3 games.

Installation: Installation was fairly painless. To download the latest patches I had to install Impulse which is Stardock's attempt to mimic Valve's Steam platform. A bit annoying but if I were a games developer looking to raise my profile I'd probably do the same thing.

Game 1: Manual? What manual?

I launched into my first game. The opening cinematic sequence was very poor. It was certainly trying to assert its own unique style but its cheap production value shows the storyline in this game has been an afterthought. As a long time player of Total Annihilation I've learned that the storyline really is a side issue in RTS games - in fact it can sometimes be a barrier to some sensible and entertaining game mechanics.

I was also surprised to see there is no campagin mode. Again, I'm no too fussed about that but it is an interesting design choice. The developers are obviously interested in a healthy online multiplayer community so campaign mode isn't that important.

My first game was a 1v1, random map against a normal opponent. I was TEC while the opposition was Vasari. I quickly picked up some key principles:

• Credits are almost exclusively gained from taxing your population. More colonies with more population = more credits. It looks like this RTS will follow the more land = more income model.
  
• Metal and crystal are gained from extractors and they pay for themselves fairly quickly so build them ASAP.
• In the early game it's very hard to stop enemy scouts from exploring your systems. The corrollary is its easy to explore enemy systems.

After establishing one or two colonies I focused on building my first fleet using a capital ship and lots of frigates. I was constantly besieged by pirates until a massive enemy fleet 3 times the size of mine picked off my colonies. I resigned after the fleet turned to my capital.

My obvious mistakes:

• I wasn't aware of how to increase your fleet size so I was limited to 100 fleet points and one capital ship. This meant I could not cope with the increasing fleet size of my opposition as the game progressed.
• I didn't understand the bounty mechanic for pirates. AS a result I spent the entire game fighing off wave after wave of pirates.

Game 2: Lets learn the basics

Game 2 was another 1v1 random map but against an easy AI. This time teams were reversed: I was Vasari, AI was TEC. I turned pirates off as I wasn't ready to cope with that aspect of the game yet.

I found out that multiple research centers let you progress up the research tiers which opened up many more gameplay options. I set up a few colonies and then put together a fleet using the 2nd tier of fleet size and 2 capital ships.

I found the defense turrets weren't much of a help with enemy incursions as they were easily bypassed.

Some concepts I picked up:

• I used the hanger defence and it really chews up scouts.
• It looks like bombers are the utility strike unit while fighters are the bomber counter.
• Not only does more land = more credits but also = more logistics slots = more research
• A mix of frigates is good but you don't need many defense frigates. If your fleet is anti-fleet then you also don't need siege crafts.

It took a while (2:39) but finished off the enemy with very little effort. I played around with broadcast towers and didn't get much past tier 3 of research. I assume broadcast towers give you some kind of "culture" win - will check out that mechanic in a future game.

I found I have around 20,000 credits and 10,000 metal and crystal at the end of the game so the main mistake has been a lack of focus in using all available resources. I also researched a lot of techs I never used so that's another area where I could improve.

Game 3: Time to move up a level?

Same settings as game 2 but with pirates on. This time round I was near zero in all resources all game and did a much better job a) prioritising spending and b) using all available resources.

Similar game arc as last time but this time around I went much further into the tech tree and set up a huge network for trade ports and refineries.

Quite an interesting situation though where, due to an odd map topology I have two colonies bordering the pirate colony. The path between the two colonies was 6 jumps if I only used friendly or neutral territory and 2 jumps if I went through pirate HQ! As a result I had heavy casualties when ferrying emergency troops between the two border colonies. I'm wondering if its common to take out the pirate home world in some games?

I noticed that a full trade network didn't earn very much compared with the colony taxes. Is it worth researching the required tech and building the trade ports given the resource cost and lost logistics spaces? I also moved my captial which looks like a good thing to do in most games after 6+ colonies.

Still haven't got to the end of the tech tree in any games. I reckon the next game will be a game on normal difficulty then I have some more ideas to help me learn:

• Builder game to get to the end of the tech tree
• Test game to see if "rushing" works
• Play with the broadcast towers
• Try a multiplayer game
• Try a single-dimension game (i.e only build military techs for one or two ship types)