The underlying engine is starting to show it age, but this is not a big deal. If the other players think you might be attempting to build one of these you can bet they will try their best to stop you. A single Titan is worth at least a good-sized fleet and often has additional powers (want to convert an entire planet just by thinking real hard at it? now you can). Titans, on the other hand, are ginormous death-dealers with superpowers. They can be handy when you have more planets than fleets to go around – just send a corvette out and see if it gets attacked. The new corvettes are smaller than frigates and specialize in various debuffs. All the old favorites are back: strike craft, frigates, cruisers, capital ships and non-combat ships. Titans are one of the two new ship types that have been introduced. In addition, each faction has its own special Titan. an offensive vs defensive focus) but provide some variety for those who have been with the series from the beginning. The factions have relatively minor differences (e.g. The original three races – TEC, Advent and Vasari – are now split into two sub-factions each. The races involved are one of the biggest changes. This is a game that it can take a while to learn to play well. That doesn't mean you will be able to, of course. Given the sheer amount of information available and the number of things that can be happening at once it would be easy to get swamped by numbers, but the various interface elements make it easy to winnow the wheat from the chaff. The scroll wheel is just one example of a general trend in this game: the interface is well-designed. This is all handled very seamlessly through the use of the mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out. At this point the game changes from a strategic “which planet should I invade next?” game to a more tactical “how can I maneuver my ships to kill his?”.
Turns out the galaxy isn't big enough for both of you and conflict ensues. Along the way you will discover new technologies that will allow you to extract more resources faster and build better ships.Įventually you will encounter other races. The game mechanics will be familiar to any veteran of the RTS wars – your race starts out on a planet, build some building that produce resources, creates some ships to explore the neighborhood, and takes over nearby planets so you can build more ships and take over more planets. It is a fitting end to this phase of the game's evolution (of course there is going to be a sequel) and rounds out a lot of the elements that were present in its forebears, but not quite fully-formed. This is rather handy, as “Rebellion” is a good place for a newcomer to the series to start.
It is a standalone expansion, so for $40 you get an entire game you can install and play without having to have purchased the original or either of the previous expansions (“Entrenchment” and Diplomacy”). “Rebellion” is the latest (and last) expansion to this franchise. It is the very antithesis of a casual game – you can really spend weeks on a single game, if you wanted to.
It's metascore of 87 is the equal of “Europa Universalis 2” and higher than “Shogun: Total War”. The original “Sins of a Solar Empire” has achieved near-legendary status in the 4X community.