I would say the entire game is a clickfest, but the battles are only a semi-clickfest. And most abilties don't need to be perfectly targeted. And its unusual to have 3 battles at once. And when ur fighting battles u should go all out fighting, so don't spend time on other things when getting atacked.

Single player isn't a tactical clickfest (or, at least doesn't have to be) because you can turn the speed settings all the way down, and even pause the game.

Online multiplayer is extreme tactical clickfest, degenerating the game from "realtime strategy" to "realtime tactical."  People will only play on maxed-out speed settings, crowded rush maps, etc.  I dislike this - I'd rather outsmart my opponent than outclick him or outspam him - but if I want to have any online competition at all, it is what I'm forced to do.

while all real time strats require clicking... I would say that sins is rather on the low side... even at high speed settings, as far as "who ever clicks the msot wins".  I mean... if you have ever watched some koreans playing starcraft... ya... sins of a solar empire is really low on the clickclickclick side.  Learning the hotkeys is really helpfull to... cause instead of trying to hit buttons... i can click on a roid and hit qqgwqqaa and have that roid with its pop upgrade, and all its resource roids in que... or qqqgwqqqq for a volcanic... or qqqqgwaaaa for a ice... and so forth. (although, if ima short on monies i might only press the q 3 times so i dont buy that third pop upgade right away)

because key mashing hurts hands less then click mashing imho.

Forums Go Boom!

I find Sins is really no different than games like Warcraft or Starcraft, it's just slowed down and played on a larger scale.  I always find "clickfest" a rather ignorant term anyways.  Virtually anyone with fully functional hands can click blazingly fast, but they are often quite terrible at micromanagement.  I myself have relatively poor eye-hand coordination, but that doesn't stop me from routinely crushing opponents through superior micro.  It's not about physical reflexes, but rather mental ones.

The thing is, whether you're playing Starcraft or Age of Empires or Warcraft or Sins of a Solar Empire, micromanagement isn't about how many clicks you can get off: it's about how you're using them.  It's about planning and timing, the execution of strategy.  Don't mistake the clicks themselves as the definitive action in micromanagement; the act of clicking is only a small part in the overall strategic and tactical process.  In many ways you have more leeway with Sins to pace yourself and you don't have to be lightning quick with reflexes, as you might have to be in Warcraft, but you do need to keep up a solid pace and constantly multi-task.

As for multiplayer being more tactics than strategy, I don't believe that can be helped short of making RTS games fundamentally differently.  The problem is that most maps randomize with either exposed homeworlds or a strategically invaluable planet positioned between players.  The result is simple: both players are forced to go "all in".  You cannot fold because this battle is so important that it will be nearly impossible to win if you just let the enemy have it. 

The alternative suggested is larger maps, but this solves nothing.  This replaces the hard rush with fast colonization.  The goal is simply to build the biggest economic monster machine possible, and then crush the enemy with superior numbers.  This has the same result; at the first hostilities, one player just wipes the other off the board.  In many ways, both extremes have the same problem.  If players are too close the person who can command the best tactical battle promptly stomps the enemy, if they're too far away the player who can raise an economy the fastest promptly stomps the enemy.  Either way, you have tactics or logistics completely stomping "strategy" (although strictly speaking what you're talking about isn't strategy, since logistics and tactics are strategy). 

I find the best solution is a well-built map of moderate size.  Just large enough that rushing is difficult, just small enough that you can't go on an economic boom, and no "do or die" tactical assets located between the players.  That's what I try to build with my galaxyforge creations.

Thank you all for the excellent advice and insights! Any suggestions on what hotkeys are a must-learn? I was a bit suprised to read that people usually only have one big fleet. Why don't people attack on two planets at the same time or need a separate fleet for defense purposes? Having one fleet busy on the other side of the map could leave you very exposed.

Claims that this game is a clickfest are overblown.  It is nothing compared to Starcraft and traditional RTSes, even on the fastest speeds.  During battles you will mostly be ordering various ships in your fleet to focus fire on certain enemy targets which you can queue up with the Shift key.  You'll also be activating the antimatter-based abilities on your capital ships and a couple support thips.  The time where it could become a clickfest is if you have antimatter abilities on frigates and lots of them and you want all of them to use it (steal antimatter, illusion on an illuminator, etc.).

As a general rule, you probably won't have multiple fronts in online multiplayer unless you are playing a free-for-all or a multistar map.  Also, you are better off having one strong fleet than two or three weak ones.  You will kill your opponents' ships faster and lose fewer of yours.  The exception to this is if you start out in a spot where you are sandwiched between two opponents who don't have opponents on the other side of them (allowing them to freely do a 2-v-1 on you).  This is called being in the "suicide" spot and learning how to handle this situation and to be effective and to help your team (it is a team game--you can die and your team can still win) is part of becoming a better player.  Some players will try to stand and fight with the help of a starbase and others will take their fleet and colonizer capital ship and migrate to the middle.  Recognizing the situation early on and planning for what you are going to do is key.  In fact, some players love starting out in the suicide spot.  It's actually possible to almost single-handedly win the game that way if you are good.

I'll add to Agent's post on hotkeys by saying that as a new arrival here, I've already repurposed the zxc zooming keys as well, as prime key real estate, as I find the caps-lock context zoom handles the majority of my zoom needs with scrollwheel picking up the rest.

If you have an advanced mouse, with many buttons, you can experiment there as well, mapping the extra sidebuttons to things like Cntl+1 and 1, to rapidly shift focus to a selection of choice near-instantaneously.  Actually, I remapped all my Cntrl+X to Alt+X as I find that a more natural one-handed invoke.

I have not yet done so, but plan presently to key map both the left side, and right side of the ergonomic keyboard here, probably for building and combat respectively, as the split layout should make it easy to shift left hand to one side or another without looking.  That probably depends on whether, once I graduate from SP to Multi, it's feasible to divide that way, vs longer battles benefitting from both some micro and some background building.

I'm too new to offer more tips that are sound, 5 days into playing single player, though I'm keen to experiment tonight with number mapping construction frigates as a way to help jump to planets rapidly.  I think that hotkeying the build commands to letter keys and invoking from the galaxy view will be quicker though.  It merely seems beneficial to experiment.  And that's probably the main thesis I hope to convey.

Play with the mappings until things hum along.

I have lots of ideas.  I won't divulge all of them here, but just a sampling.

One thing I will implement is that you will have a set of build instructions for the particular map you are playing on before the game even starts.  The instructions will be entered into your "build script" via a map editor sort of screen - you will be able to lay down buildings, turrets, etc.  Then you load the build script in when the game loads, and your plan starts unfolding in an automated fashion (of course you will be able to override or change things if necessary).  I could go into lots more detail here, but that's just an idea.

Other ideas include AI which is much more detailed and configurable than what is standard fare with RTS clickfest games.  I'm talking possibly hundreds of independent pluggable "AI modules" that you can select from at each and every level.  At the top level you could set some default AI for a group of units, or even all units.  At the bottom level, you could set a different custom configurable AI FOR EACH UNIT IN THE GAME if you want.  Take an AI for a tank unit, for instance.  Being able to set its behavior in a completely custom way with tens or even hundreds of settings such as "prioritize this target first, this target second, this target third, always run away back to this particular point if hit points fall below this level, etc."

There's more, but those are a few ideas.  My game will NOT be a tactical clickfest.  It will not be "skill based."  It will be completely based on thought and strategy.  You got a better plan than your opponent, you will win.  You don't, you will lose.  It's that simple.

Some will disagree, but, in online multiplayer, I find this to be false.  When I lose, I almost always lose because the dude either has better clickfest abilities, or he is better at something else that is NOT related to strategy, but I rarely lose to strategy.  In fact, often in an objective analysis, my strategy was much better, and this is born out through certain measures such as having many more planets, a better eco, etc. (I know those things don't necessarily always mean I had a better strategy, but they frequently mean it).

I used to be a rather avid chess enthusiast, along with a friend of mine.  We played quite a many games over the years, and studied the game to some degree.  Similarly, I almost always lost chess games due to tactical mistakes, almost never strategic mistakes.  In fact, what me and my friend found was that quite often, surprisingly enough the people who beat us didn't even PLAY with a strategy in mind, by their own admission!  They just played by the seat of their pants, looked for opportunities to capitalize on TACTICALLY, and won that way (wow, if I do this, and he does that, and I do this, I can fork his king and queen and take his queen!).

My strategy was almost always better than my opponent's in chess.  My tactics were not always better.  My friend and I discovered that, at least at the level of chess we were playing at (and I strongly suspect it is true of ALL levels of chess), "tactics dominates strategy."  In other words, if you have better tactics than your opponent, but he has better strategy, you will win and he will lose.

My game improved the most, the fastest, the best, when I finally chucked strategic play and concentrated and boned up on tactics.

I think Sins, the way it is played online multiplayer, is like this.  However, I will grant you that SP can play out however you like.

Misc: Higher elo chess is more strat than tactics.  Each side makes fewer raw tactical blunder mistakes for one, and have fundamentally better structural defense / coverage vs what we might call the lower hanging fruit of forks and pins.  Imho, high elo level, the tactical moves that surprise are at least as often piece sacrifices to carry through an attack, or subtler exchanges that result in unfavorable relative pawn structures.  I'm not saying peeps won't fianchette a bishop (I love queens indian defense as black especially for that!) against a currently pawn-engaged center and angle towards a deadly pin when the center unlocks, or snatch pieces with forks, just the tactically dangerous stuff that gives you that sinking feeling is often sacrificials or poisoned pawns that are inviting but a bad idea to take, or so forth.

Keep playing!

-evoke