Stardock - Sins of a Solar Empire and GalCivII:UE

[Hawkbit]

Interestingly, it is on Steam now.  I had a feeling that would happen when Gamestop bought Impulse; interesting to see it come to fruition.

Decent 4x game if you haven't played it.  Should make for a great $5.00 sale purchase.

EDIT: Added GalCivII:UE

[Malakili]

This is definitely worth owning, may as well wait for a cheap sale since its not like its new anymore anyway, but I'd definitely recommend this.

[Teleku]

Sweeeeet.  Been wanting to play this forever, but wasn't going to buy it till the assholes put it on steam.  Now I shall enjoy!

[JWIV]

Well worth picking up  - easily one of my favorite all time games - especially with the addition of static defenses with Entrenchment.

[bhodi]

Yeah, I'll pick this up since they seem to have fixed a lot of my gripes about the orig launch. Well, I'll pick it up on sale; $15 is a tiny bit too steep.

[Kail]

I already have the base game, does anyone know what (if anything) Trinity adds?

[Baldrake]

So is this a fast-paced game where my fingers will hurt after playing for a while? Or is it slow enough to actually think through your strategy? Because I'm basically done with frenetic RTSs. Just getting too old I guess.

[JWIV]

So is this a fast-paced game where my fingers will hurt after playing for a while? Or is it slow enough to actually think through your strategy? Because I'm basically done with frenetic RTSs. Just getting too old I guess.

Right off the bat, I'll say that Sins does have on the fly speed controls, so you can speed it up or slow it down as need be.

That said, Sins by default is not a twitch based game.  Rather, everything tends to move at a rather stately pace.  Which is not to say it's slow - while you have fleets moving into position for an assault, you'll also be forced to keep an eye on your tech tree, planet development, the black market, production, and oh yes, pirate and player assaults.   So what ends up happening is while no single part of the game is overwhelmingly fast, you're constantly busy.

[Baldrake]

Well then looks like I should pick it up next time it's on sale. ;)

[tgr]

I'd actually go so far as to say it's worth €15 regardless, unless you're hellbent on your strategy game being land-based.

The only thing I have to gripe about it is, I think it's a bit too simplistic, but that's probably because I'm an absolute sucker for stroking my neckbeard.

[NiX]

I'd actually go so far as to say it's worth €15 regardless, unless you're hellbent on your strategy game being land-based.

The only thing I have to gripe about it is, I think it's a bit too simplistic, but that's probably because I'm an absolute sucker for stroking my neckbeard.

I'd agree with your second statement because the game appeals to me. 4x games make me cry and hate myself, but I really enjoyed Sins for finding a fine balance between the two that doesn't require you to, well, stroke your neckbeard.

[Sky]

Just going to put it in this as a Stardock thing, but GalCiv2 is on Steam now, too.

A bit too late imo, I really want to play this game but Stardock was so stingy.

[Strazos]

Nice, can finally de-disk eventually and get the expansion content.

[Ruvaldt]

I loved GalCiv 2, but I'll still be waiting for a Steam sale to de-disc.  Hopefully the Christmas sale won't disappoint.  It really is a great 4x though.

[tgr]

25% isn't enough for this game?

I bought both just to give stardock some extra money. vOv

[Ruvaldt]

25% isn't enough for this game?

It isn't when you're broke and unemployed.   

I have an interview on Tuesday though; if it goes well I may celebrate with some GalCiv.

[sinij]

Interesting as well, I am surprised they sold Impulse, I am more surprised they managed to sell it without getting locked into Impulse in the process.

This still doesn't change the fact that they fucked everyone who bought Elemental and were facetious to offer "free expansion" and then proceeding to sell delivery mechanism to the devil. So my goodwill toward Stardock is nil.

[sinij]

Sweeeeet.  Been wanting to play this forever, but wasn't going to buy it till the assholes put it on steam.  Now I shall enjoy!

You got it wrong, Steam are bunch of assholes (need internet connection to go into offline mode; cannot uninstall Steam and still play games), Impulse in its pre-sale version was nearly ideal implementation - non-intrusive, convenient and wasn't rammed down your throat.

Sure, Steam looks fairly benign when compared to UBI fucktardation, but if you objectively assess it, it is still major pain in the butt.

[Teleku]

Steam is completely non-intrusive for me, provides many features and utilities I now love, and I rather have all my games in one place than have to log in to different services.  At this point I wont buy a PC game unless its on steam (with exceptions for some of the big guys who wont play along, like Blizzard).  Not having the functionality of steam (I'm assuming the 'intrusive' things your talking about) is actually a reason for me not to buy things from impulse.

Also, I'm not sure what your talking about on the offline mode thing.  I didn't have internet for the first few days I moved into my new place, and I was able to play all of my steam games (that had already been installed obviously) just fine...

As to the GAME, I've decided to put myself on game buying lock down until the inevitable steam Christmas sale comes.  So hopefully I should pick it up (along with all the other shit I've been holding off on) then.

[sinij]

Try following: Shut down your internet connection. Now try to put Steam into offline mode.

[HaemishM]

How many words are scrawled in feces on your walls and can anyone read the language they are written in besides yourself?

[Teleku]

Try following: Shut down your internet connection. Now try to put Steam into offline mode.

I did this, just in case its I who am crazy, and not you.  It worked fine, and I was able to log in and play a game.  When I went to restart, it warned that only games fully updated would be available, that's it.

Just to be extra sure, I turned off steam, unplugged my cat5 cable, then started steam. It went into offline mode, and I was able to start up a game. 

I tried a few more combinations.  I literally cannot make steam stop me from playing games.

[lamaros]

You're engaging with a crazy person, you do realise?

[Sky]

Some people have perfect avatards. Sinij is one of those people.

[sinij]

Last time my internet crapped out fucktarded Steam told me "could not connect to the steam network" (no shit, eh?) when I tried to put it into offline mode. When my connection was restored it connected for the last time, shitlisted it everywhere I could think of. It does work offline, but having internet connection to go into offline mode is beyond retarded.

This wasn't years ago, happened to me sometime between Skyrim release date and now. Prevented me from playing Skyrim for a while. I am not talking about activation ether, I played it successfully prior to this happening.

[tgr]

The last time I had a problem with steam was once when I'd installed MW1, shut down the machine and driven to a LAN party which didn't have internet. I'd forgotten to start the game and to put steam in offline mode. I missed out on that tournament because of it.

A year later my internet connection absolutely crapped out on me literally half an hour after I got home. Put steam in offline mode and fired up all the games I could think of that I had installed, just to test. All of them fired up. I then went to a machine at work and tried to download a lot of other games I wanted to play on a new install on a removable disk and take that home with me, unsurprisingly that didn't work, so I shrugged and spent that week playing AI War.

vOv

[tgr]

Also, one of the things that annoy me about impulse, is the fact that for some reason it keeps insisting on trying to sell me games which aren't available in my region. It's like it's hard to figure out how to NOT put up popup ads in regions where I'm "not allowed" to buy them. vOv

[Strazos]

Doh, missed this when it was on sale.

And Sinji, from now on you don't get to complain about Steam and internet connections unless I do so first, as I probably have the craziest setup of anyone here now.

My region doesn't even appear as an option in steam settings.