Why would you take perfectly decent 4X gameplay and force people to play it in real-time instead of thinking about their actions? Saying "It combines 4X depth with real-time gameplay" is like saying "It combines chess with Whack-A-Mole".

Whack-A-Mole chess sounds AWESOME.

I'm going to try that.

"If you like Galactic Civilizations you will probably like Sins of a Solar Empire."

It looks interesting.

If you can pause it and still control things, like in Rise of Nations, I'd give it a shot, but I can't stand classic/typical RTS twitch gameplay with no pause, because I like to think about things, review things, and do it at my leisure. This is the main reason I prefer GalCiv and Civ over any RTS (although Rise of Nations is an awesome game - kind of a blend of RTS and Civ).

I wasn't sure about Sins as I don't normally like RTS games. I don't like "click happy" games like that. Civ 4 and Gal Civ 2 are my staple with some Oblivion tossed in to take a break.

But Sins just looked too good to pass up so I took a chance and got it.

Wow have I not been disappointed. I am blown away how good this game is and how much fun I'm having playing it. It's heart pounding. I'm playing on normal and it's slow enough for me to keep up (you can play it on slow if you want) and now that I'm getting the UI down I may actually crank it up to fast for my next game.

It really is amazing to watch my 3 huge capital ship charge up their lasers and fire on the enemy. Brad noted once it's like watching Babylon 5 and it really is. I think to have fun I'm going to train up my 4th capital ship and go assult the main pirate base. In the meantime I can easily via the empire tree upgrade my labs and planetary improvements.

Once the demo comes out try this game. Honestly I'm not sure how I can plan GalCiv 2 again after this.

Speaking as a huge fan of GalCiv 2, I wish I'd waited for the demo on this one. I want to love it, I really do, but so far I just don't have any fun playing it. The zoomed in visuals are lovely, but I find it impossibly clunky to play anywhere near that level. In practice I have to play all the way zoomed out to stand any chance of keeping track of what's going on, and the icon view is neither as attractive nor as well designed and clear as that in GC2. Without the eye candy, it just seems bare bones and unengrossing compared to a full fledged strategy game. I'm going to keep trying, maybe I'll find something to love after awhile, but if you have any doubts I really recommend waiting for the demo. I feel like I misspent $50 and, unfortunately, I can't even sell the game because of the registration system.

I'm sure it's great for some folks, I guess it's just not the game for me. I guess there are worse things that giving an extra $50 to Stardock, though. It's not like I haven't gotten many times my money's worth out of GC2, DA, and TA after all.

They've said there will be, yes.

Yeah, I give up. I dislike the mission system, after extended play the interface is still hopelessly awkward, and above all there's just nothing here that holds my interest or brings me into the game. I guess I'll uninstall and come back sometime down the road once lots of patching has been done to see if its any better. Again, no complaints about quality here, it's just very much not my game.

Companies of Heroes, Dawn of War, C&C3 ... aren't comparable to SoaSE. It's more 4X than traditional RTS. As such, I haven't had any need for a minimap yet. The Empire bar usually is a very good substitute.

Think more of what MoO3 should have been, only realtime instead of turnbased. (Gross oversimplification, but the only way to describe the gameplay I can come up with.)

But that's the thing. Sins *isn't* a "twitch" RTS. The person that can click the mouse the fastest *doesn't* win. The person with the best *strategy* will win. You have longer games, build up your empire, research technoligies and so forth. You can't think of this game as a traditional RTS because it's not. It's RT4X as they advertise it.

And the game doesn't need a mini-map. Just doesn't. The empire tree on the left is awesome and very easy to keep track of your entire empire. And I'm a turn based guy. The UI took a couple games for me to figure it out but I've gotten it now and as I posted above, I don't know if I could play Galciv again after being spoiled with the empire tree. One example: Had 2 huge battles going on in border planets. While I was keeping an eye on that I used the empire tree to queue up production on all my planets and set more ships to get built at my shipyard planet and as they get built they automatically would warp on in to the battle I was watching and join up with the fleet. And I never had to leave the battle to do all that. Fantastic.

Basically if you are on the fence I'd wait for the demo which they have said will be up in March.

...

Just wait for a demo Arkhan, and you'll have a chance to see. I have to admit, I don't think I understand how best to use the tree. I see how it functions as a building instrument, but it doesn't supplant the need for a mini map to determine the relative positions of different planets. Absent a large scale view somewhere in the HUD, I'm forced to keep zooming all the way out to see what's going on, which is distracting, awkward, and ultimately my biggest gripe. If I'm missing some component of how the interface works and there's a way around that, then that would be marvelous.

Ultimately I was expecting a game more like EU2 in space, and what I got is more like Homeworld on a large, 2D plane and without a good map tool.

Actually, that pretty much hits the nail on the head as to what I was expecting. Ah well, live and learn.