Sins of a Solar Empire

Pros: one of the best games i have ever played.

in spit of the amazing graphics, seemless game play.

it works very well on linux (under wine)

3.0ghz (not O.C.)
4gig ram
nvidia 9800gtx+

please bear in mind that i am running this in wine 1.1.31 on ubuntu 9.10 and i am not turning compiz off to play this game.

Cons: no campaign. && there is not 'short' game.... i can spend all weekend on one level. i think this game was made for ppl with out a girlfriend.... or guys that just want to block out every thing else for 10 hr at a time

Pros: Great game. 4+ hours of gameplay per skirmish. Amazing graphics. will drag your computer to its knees. WILL KEEP YOU BUSY. You can zoom in on combat between ships and watch the lasers impact on shields and hulls.

Cons: no campaign, no intro.

Other Thoughts: You can get this game on target for $20. I got ripped off by newegg on this, they refused to match the price or at least compensate me in some small way. I'll still shop from them but now I'll be more cautious.

Pros: -Strategic zoom camera (Similar in scope / feel to Supreme Commander). I seriously cannot handle playing any RTS without this camera style. It makes it very easy to control multiple fleets doing multiple things in completely different galaxies / solar systems.
-Graphics are great
-It is fun to play. You can easily get sucked in and play for hours and hours.
-No DRM.
-AI can be very challenging. I love that the AI is very good.
-Reminds me of MOO - but RTS.
-Multiplayer play is a lot of fun.
-Made by a smaller, less known company. I support games made by less known companies.
-I've had a single battle over a solar system last like 20-30 minutes with both sides continuously streaming in reinforcements + repairing their ships / attempting to leave when damaged. That is awesome and very intense!

Cons: -Wasn't a big one for me - but no campaign.
-The last time I played it (some months ago) the races were unbalanced and it felt like each race just had just one strategy that you used to win. I would prefer a greater viability of tactics / options. Though this might have changed with subsequent patches.

Other Thoughts: More of a wish than a con:
-Would have loved a "ship builder" option where you could build / design your own ships (Like MOO).

Overall great game and highly recommended to those who love the "space" feel, as well as RTS. If you liked MOO you should love this. Even if you liked other RTS's then you should like this if you enjoy "base-building" and a slower paced game (not to say that you cant have massive battles).

Pros: Fun!
It is a very well made RTS game.
Very good animation of weapon fire impact ships' shields.
Nice space battles.

Cons: Each game takes quite long.... I mean 3~10 hours.

And even with the fastest speed in multiplay, it is still quite slow.

During multiplay online, it happened twice in the first two days of my online playing that...during the game it suddenly froze for like 30 seconds, then all the players were booted, and AI took over...without even the text message of people had left the game. Took a while for me to realize that there were no more real people in the game... ruined perfectly good rounds.

Other Thoughts: This game needs more advertisement. I have never even heard of it until less than 3 weeks ago at a LAN party.

Playing online might take time to get enough players to start a game.

Pros: *IronEngine is amazing technology and forgiving on system hardware.
*As stated in the ads, UNRIVALED scale, upwards of one thousand starships on screen fighting at once. From captital ships to small fighters.
*Seamless detail transition. From a dramatic close in view showing the cannons on your vessels firing, to a galactic view showing enemy movements, the transition is seamless between all stages.
*Multiplayer game save. As a 4x Empire building game, multiplayer bouts can last days, weeks and in the most extreme cases, months. The (Very fast) Multiplayer save and load feature is invaluable to those who have real lives.
*Empire Building in real time. Unlike most Empire building games, all of Sins of a Solar Empire plays out in real time, making every decision crucial, every command important. There is time to think, the delay simulates the vast size of space in that while your units travel around the stars, you should have ample time to contemplate.
*Newegg.com's early shipp

Cons: *Factions seem a little too similar. They are different, employ different tech, architecture and superweapons, but mostly everything functions very similar. This is great for balance, but not so great for diversity.
*No story campaign... Yet? Perhaps being fixed with some of the Micro expansion, no story campaign is offered, however the game itself is already incredibly fun with it's random scenarios and the game's AI (Especially on hard) Is 'almost' human.
*Menus' For such a great game, the menus seem a little uninspired in design. They function, but aren't particularly eye catching, outside some of the faction artwork.
*Military prevalent. Unlike most Empire games, it's virtually necessary to conquer by force, while possible to weaken enemy colonies by culture overthrow or economic assault, eventually you need to bring in the warships.

Other Thoughts: Sins of a Solar Empire is by far the best PC game I've played since The Elder Scrolls: III Morrowind, I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys Empire building games or Real time Strategy. It makes you feel like your really taking strategic decisions in battle. Unlike most RTS games, where everything is handled with Rock-Paper-Scissors style counter and re-counter gameplay. Sins focuses on fleet positioning, economic attacks and cultural subterfuge. You really have to use your brain in every situation. While there are certainly some situations and units that have specific counters, it's very forgiving, as most units are armed with an effective weapon against everything (Particularly capital ships). Also there is some slight RPG element with the capital ships. These strategic resources level up with experience points giving them better HP, AP and Shields as well as new abilities. Ironclad really made an instant masterpiece with this brilliant piece of work.

Pros: this game is awsome i got it last night and am typing this at school. the game can go on for hours i played 1 map for over 2 and a half hours last night with out knowing.

Cons: the egg saver shipping is totally dumb it took 6days to ship so next time just pay for the shipping yourself and get it.

Other Thoughts: the game could last for weeks if the scale is big enough

Pros: Having played other Stardock games i got this one on rep alone.

-Great system
-The scale
-The fun drawn out wars
-The total lack of DRM on the Discs
-Stardock's tech support
-The RT4X idea of a real time game of epic size
-Newegg's shipping
-Micro Expansions on the way

Cons: Well no game is without faults Sins, sins are rather minor

-The Expansion has been pushed back
-Stardock's sometimes flaky update clinet (they have been working on it)
-The fact that when my laptop is out of order my FX5500 can't run it.
-Did i mention that the Expansion has been pushed back?

Honestly any other faults are rather minor.

Other Thoughts: Another comment said that MS had a hand in this game, they did not, the game is part of "Games for Windows" which means that it works with certain standards for a MS game. It doesn't mean MS made the game.

Pros: Good game concept, impressive graphics, fun large-scale battles. Economies are run well. Learning curve is low enough to not frustrate you, but the game is complex enough to be entertaining for a while. The AI is pretty good. Diplomacy is better than average. I overall really like this game.

Cons: This game is flawed in the same way (almost) every Microsoft game is flawed. The different "races" are just nearly identical technologies and ships with different skins. Playing different races makes little difference in the actual game play. Microsoft keeps doing this in all their games.

Games like Starcraft and Company of Heros which have drastically different, yet balanced, races/factions have much better playability are are more interesting, because each race/faction has different units and different tactics. It shows to me that the game creators at Microsoft aren't very creative, and can't balance out different types of units.

I like playing this game, but I think it would be much more interesting with races that really were different.

Other Thoughts: Games take a while to play out, like 4-8 hours. I have stayed up a few nights till 4 a.m. without even noticing how long I had been playing. Games can get monotonous. Game was worth my money, but it wasn't extraordinary.

Intel quad-core Q6600
4 gB DDR2 800 RAM
8800GTS 320 mb graphics card
20'' monitor
Dual Raptor RAID 0 HDDs

Game ran without a hiccup with all settings at max with my set-up.

Pros: Great game. The expansions should increase the longevity quite well. It's a fun game and easy worth more than its selling for. Reminds me of the good old days of RTS games.

Cons: Very time consuming and addicting.

Other Thoughts: Micro-expansions are on the way along with new patch features. I like the no-CD play and no DRM by design. Also, the developers are very involved in the community. I'm hoping they add more multithreading code.

Pros: Amazine game. Huge scale RTS, intense battles, absolutely stunning graphics. Runs very smoothly. Unique and complex gameplay that I really like. Best of all, NO DRM!
Highly recommend to anybody that likes RTS games and/or space :)

Cons: When the game first starts up, the textures take awhile to load, and when it's closed, it takes windoze about a minute to un-page itself. Worth it though, and when I play for 4 or 5 hours straight, an extra minute is no problem.

Other Thoughts: Pentium D 830
EVGA 8800GTS 640
2 GB OCZ DDR2 667
Win XP SP2