

They'll appear as dots encircling a planet, meaning only a quick glance will give you all the info you need in terms of how many ships are at your disposal. Another nice feature is the ability to see your units around a planet on the gameplay screen even while zoomed out. It's definitely a plus when taking into account how many other issues are going to press into your thoughts while the clock's running. So by simply clicking around on the left bar, it seems as though you can move around your entire fleet with relative precision. Clicking on the dots actually selects the ships in the game, and group selection is also possible. These can be viewed as small dots, or small pictures of whatever ship the dots represent. Next to the planet is every ship currently based there. Listed on the far left of the interface is every planet you control. YES NO From this menu, which is constantly visible onscreen, it's possible to command every single unit in your possession. More important than zooming, however, is the left side bar you can see in the screens posted below. The zooming issue seems to be handled well, letting players move right in close to the action or way far back. Since the scope of the game is rather large, some maps have two or three star systems, your dominion of control is going to expand beyond anything viewable while zoomed in. Throughout the course of a game, planets will be conquered and battles waged. We didn't get to actually play the game so we can't say for sure, but it seemed as though Sins of a Solar Empire's UI was headed in the right direction. Since the game plays out entirely in real-time, having an intuitive user interface is crucial. Stardock, Sins of a Solar Empire's publisher, recently brought the game by our office to give us an early look. To do battle, players will need to conquer planets, develop technology, and amass vast fleets of tiny scout drones and massive capital ships.

Both the TEC and The Advent are human, whereas the Vasari are an ancient alien race that attempted to reign supreme in the cosmos and failed. The story involves three factions, the Vasari Empire, the Trade Emergency Coalition, and The Advent. In other words, playing requires swifter decision making both for combat and empire management. This means technology management, trade negotiations, and combat all take place on the same map without any pauses. It's a large scale 4X game set in space that plays out entirely in real time. For anyone tired of hitting the "end turn" button in games like Galactic Civilizations II, Civilization IV, or even Rome: Total War, Ironclad Games' Sins of a Solar Empire will offer something different.
