Sins of a Solar Empire

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Well, 2nd game, same scenario (random small map, 14 planets), end up with advent against advent; victory in 3h40. I think I can go under 3h, spending less on research, making more ships... I research too much useless stuff. Or usefull stuff on large maps, but it's useless on those short scenario.
Less research, more agressivity: I'll make it under 3 hours .

Advent against advent was odd, since I failed to recognize ships I had and built the worng counter ships... Building defenders against purgers helps little ; the good news is that purgers help little, and that AI picked carrier cruiser to play with...
The Advent AI I played against failed to tech up enough and was a bit shy.

Still it was a good game. Resources balancing was fun; way too much cash (my fleet was quite small) and crystal, and starved on ore (I had arctic planets...). With more balanced resources, it would have gone faster...

Neat game overall!

[Crandaeolon]

Advent are pretty slow to get going, their strength is in the late game. Still, you should be able to cut that time to an hour or so, and halve that again to get the time that typical 1vs1 games take to figure out a clear winner. (In MP, opponents usually surrender at that point so you don't need to mop up.)

On small maps it's usually not worth it to research civic stuff at all, except maybe trade ports for TEC and even that puts you on the defensive. Vasari are probably the best faction for very small games because their scouts can capture neutral extractors and their "mainstay" combat ship (Assailant) is available very early.

edit: scratch that "hour or so." I played a similar game, Advent vs 1 hard AI, random small map, and finished it in 1h 50 mins. I made a couple of mistakes (had to defend against a pirate raid with main fleet, missed a colonizer which re-colonized already destroyed worlds), but in any case it'll be damned hard to get a victory within an hour. Hopefully, the oncoming 1.03 patch will make it easier to mop up vs the AI.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Well, the last 1v1 on a small map was Vasari, 2hours, and I lost lot of time because I let one enemy settler wander around, and I had to hunt it before it rebuilt too many planets...
I guess I shall keep ennemy / neutral planet on closer watch
Sieging was a bit long, I shall have made more siege craft, well I would have needed to research it to start with

The only bad news about that Vasari games is that I barely scratched the Vasari tech trees, so I got very little idea what they really look like!

I probably got to play them again for educational value , otherwise, MP, here I come!
Mopping up vs AI is indeed a bit long, AI shall learn to surrender, chess AI can do it, why not Sins AI?

Louis,

[Crandaeolon]

I managed 58 minutes with Advent, 51 mins with TEC and 40 mins with Vasari. Not gonna play vs 1 AI again before they tweak it, it's far too timid now even on Aggressive/Hard. Not to mention that long range frigate rushing (or attack cruiser rushing) always beats the AI, since it tends to build lots of light frigates.

The 1.03 patch is due late this week or early next week, IIRC. Improved AI, AI surrender (yay!), tweaks to market system, long range frigates nerfed and more startup options.

Vasari are the most powerful faction in sheer military potential, with the most devastating weaponry in the game (phase missiles), best late game strikecraft, strong ship hulls and great support cruisers (Subverters.) Vasari also have the best mobility with Marauder capitals and Phase Gates. Economy-wise they're the weakest and have the most expensive ships to boot, so it's particularly important to conserve ships as Vasari. The "late game" tech Returning Armada is currently hideously overpowered (it can be rushed in 20-30 minutes), but that should be fixed in 1.03.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

I have no doubt that you can manage a lot better than I do, and I can easily see how I do not optimize my expenses and fleet movement to get to that kind of time-to-beat-AI. I probably could have done 1h30 as a noob, 40 min is an order of magnitude more impressive, congrat on that!
I started a large solo game, mainly to see the diplomacy game, and also to figure out if my computer can handle very large game (3 stars, 8 players).
Good news is that even a 3 years old puter can handle large game like that, and I have played 2 hours into it, so I am not worried that the world becoming much busier is going to have an impact.
That game is really low spec friendly!
On the bad side, I don't think it gets more difficult with larger game, maybe just longer. Diplomacy is not the game strongest point...

I somehow hope that MP is a bit more than second guessing what the opponent has rushed or maybe I'll turn to somehow slower larger game.

Speaking about that, Sins lobby was kind of unimpressive, either you try to join a game OR you talk? FFers know that gaming is a chatting business
I liked to see many untagged people, it feels like the beginning of the world

Louis,

[scottishranger]

Anybody wants to play, my name is Trajan.

[Crandaeolon]

40 min is an order of magnitude more impressive, congrat on that!

Memorizing a build order and exploiting AI weaknesses is not impressive, quite the opposite - an indication of too much time to waste. The random nature of, uh, _random_ maps also makes luck a pretty large factor.

1.03 unfortunately doesn't improve diplomacy AFAIK, but the AI does get a boost, thank goodness. Diplomacy improvements are coming in 1.04.

I somehow hope that MP is a bit more than second guessing what the opponent has rushed

No need to second guess when you can scout. The RPS system in Sins is not very strong, but after LRMs and Assailants get toned down in 1.03 it should be enough to promote diverse fleets.

MP is basically about the old stalwarts of getting intel, countering, positioning and coordination. Good microing helps too, but fortunately the pace is rather forgiving so you won't need the reflexes of a cockroach. Below MTW level even.

The lobby is indeed horrible in its current state, but 1.03 should already improve it somewhat.

Anybody wants to play, my name is Trajan.

Sure, let's catch a game sometime. My playername on ICO is the same as on these forums, timezone GMT +2.

Louis, I think I figured out your playername.