Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment Review: Newer, Better, Faster

With its superb game design, and innovative interface “Sins of the Solar Empire” is a real-time strategy masterpiece; an experience that not many gamers could forget. It took the well-known traits of RTS games, and combined them with 4X elements. Despite all the right things developer Ironclad has done with “Sins,” it’s not to say the game is without flaws; most players’ major gripe with the game was the lack of defense. Your fleet played either offensively or defensively, and due to the game’s slow pacing, it became a game of cat and mouse as you tried to micromanage your fleet’s orders. One minute your attacking fleet is ready to blow up the enemy’s capital, only to be told to go back since your enemy is doing the same thing on the other side of the galaxy. Ironclad recognized this and introduced their micro-expansion, “Entrenchment.”

“Entrenchment” is all about defense. There are no new ships, capital ships, or anything to help the offense. The goal with this expansion was to allow the option for players to invest into effective defensive tech for their colonies – even on the most basic level, such as additional upgrades for the basic platforms already in the first game. However, the highlights of the expansion are easily the mines and Starbases.

The mines work as you’d expect – they’re placed anywhere within the colony’s gravity well, and cannot be detected unless you’re using a scout, making the scouts a very viable ally in the assaulting fleet. Mines also take very little time to set up, making them very valuable especially, if you know you that pirates will be raiding soon. Much like ships and technology, the mines play differently for each faction: TEC mines are very straight forward as they blow up when an enemy comes by. The Vasari mines slow down the enemy and prevent them from jumping out of the gravity well. The Advent mines, my personally favorite, home onto enemy ships.

However, as great as the mines are, the main reason why anyone should want to nab this expansion is the Starbases. These behemoth machines are essentially your in-game, swiss-army knife, but they’re very expensive. Getting the constructor for the Starbases won’t take you long, in terms of tech, but the challenge is getting enough resources to upgrade them. Once these guys are fully upgraded, they become a bigger target than the colony or defending fleet, and are valuable to your empire.

Starbases can be placed anywhere, even in inhabitable locations such as asteroid belts. At first they start out as fragile, especially the constructor with paper thin armor. It does take some time to fully construct the Starbase, so you’ll need a meaty escort. However, the patience invested into a Starbase will pay off, as the Starbase has many options at their disposable. What makes Starbases great is that they can take on any role, assuming you’ve invested into the tech tree and have the resources to do so. You can make them trade posts to generate income, have fighter bays to defend itself, create an auxiliary government to prevent takeover, and have construction bays to create ships. Notice I didn’t say “or” at the last sentence, because you will be using slots to create new features for your Starbases, making them a multi-function asset for your empire. Their versatile nature can be used to defend colonies, or, if placed one jump away from the enemy, a way to reinforce your assault fleet.

To better introduce you to the new defensive tech, “Entrenchment” has a new Tech Tree, instead of just merging with the old ones. This way, it’s much easier for players to keep on eye on how well their Starbases are doing while providing a money sink for your resources. Some of the old techs are carried over here as well, making it much easier for even new players to “Sins of the Solar Empire” to get a clear view on their empire’s defensive tech.

Another new feature of the expansion, albeit a very small one, is the Quick Start option. It doesn’t shave hours away from a typical game, but what it does is it fully constructs your first colony’s capabilities. If there are mines, they will be automatically built. You can build your first Capital ship right away, and begin researching. This was designed because, previously, everything in the beginning always started out the same, with the first colony in pre-”Entrenchment.” This Quick Start option simply skips the mundane process and goes straight for the expanding.

“Entrenchment” fixes the core problem of “Sins of the Solar Empire” while adding new tactical elements to the game. The Starbases alone are worth the price, but with the addition of mines and a much more streamlined tech tree, this expansion is practically a steal. “Entrenchment” also speeds up the game’s slow pacing, where your fleet is finally focused on assault while your Starbase, and thirty mines drive back that pirate raid. For a small price of $12, this is a must have for anyone who owns “Sins of the Solar Empire.”

Rating:

“Entrenchment” is an expansion pack for the PC game “Sins of a Solar Empire,” and it was released on February 25th, 2009.

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