The future of SoaSE

There will be another mini expansion coming,

Diplomacy

You can use Galaxy Forge to make your own maps

and there are a lot of great mods on the forums (I plug for Distant Stars, one that I and others have worked hard on)

  Lots of mods!  Lots of Hard Work from the Devs putting 22 updates in two years into this game! The solo single players have great fun either making or downloading custom maps from other players. And local lan games or online multiplayer where the best of the best play very hard indeed! Some are well... rough around the edges, but some mp'ers everywhere are a little rough. Many are very cordial and polite and will give what they get, meaning dont drop games in the middle for no reason, dont insult or criticize and many will return the favor teaching and helping out and instructing on the finer points of staying alive in the mp universe. 

Buy the game, even if Sins 2 never see's daylight, you will enjoy it and have a great time. I loved HomeWorld, and then HomeWorld 2 and then Cataclysm. But there hasn't been a HW game in 6 or 7 years. Doesn't mean it wasn't an awesome game. Sins is very much like that, awesome and interesting, with mods everywhere to turn it into whatever flavor you might want to try, from the intense and complete makeovers to the test ideas in one-shot mini-mods.

And if Sins 2 does see the light of day? 

Well, haha, you will just get to enjoy it longer! 

Just my opinion, but its a great game, if you've been playing the demo, then you know, and the expansions only add more depth and options and possibilities. 

Take care,

-Teal

-unofficial fan and cheerleader-

Thank you both for the quick reply to my post.  It sounds like you both enjoy the game immensly.  And Teal is very emoticon happy!!  Nuttin' wrong with that.  I appreciate the insight to the game.

Will forward my recommendation to my kids to get me the game for my upcoming birthday.  So will be stuck playing the demo till 12/10 rolls around.    But that will keep me entertained until Christmas rolls around when I get my new laptop...which I hope can play the game as well.  We'll see.  

Thanks again!!

Straight talk from somebody who does lots of modding: I wouldn't be so optimistic. There are a lot of mods but not a lot of people working on them. Most are in a pretty WIP state and kept afloat by 1 or 2 hard working people a piece. Modding support has been lackluster both via a lack of interest in keeping the modding forums up to date (making the learning curve ridiculously high) and a lot of hard-coded limits. #1 is being addressed right now with the modding wiki and #2 is hopefully going to change a little bit with Diplomacy but the modding community is in pretty bad shape (hardly the fault of the modders though!).

I think it's worth the price, myself - if it were $50, I'd say don't bother, but $30's probably worth what you get out of it. I wouldn't bother playing base without one of the "mini-mod" sort of deals like Distant Stars or Mad Scientist - you will run into the lack of depth extremely quickly, whereas with those mods your gameplay will be significantly expanded.

This is the first time I've ever read or even heard of children purchasing a (real) computer game for their parents.  I guess it shows just how far computer gaming has come.

There will be one more expansion, Diplomacy, which will probably be good for people who play the game in single player.  There will not be any more expansions after that, at least not "micro-expansions".  However, there is speculation that they might produce a Sins-2.

There are user-made custom maps, however not all of them will run with the most recent version of Sins.  Everytime the developers did a major patch update, the maps made for previous versions of the game became incompatible with the latest update and needed to be updated themselves.  However, there are a number of custom maps and mods that will work with the most recent update.

Do you know how to find your Sins Application Data folder?  See http://TinyURL.com/Sins5  There is also a map pack that contains an auto-installer if you can't find your folder, it is here:  http://TinyURL.com/Sins6

Fair enough, but you might consider playing it online to play "comp stomps"--people v. AI games, such as 3 guys playing against 7 AIs.  Once you feel much more comfortable with the game and begin to tire of the AI, you might consider trying it against human opponents by looking for new player games.  There are still newer players out there.  You could host a game titled "new players only" or some such and I think the pros would honor that.  Your best bet would be to play Regular Sins with Normal speed settings (which helps keep the Pros out) on the weekends during the North American afternoon and early evening.  You could also put together a group of newer players and have a private game, perhaps people you would have met playing in the online comp stomps.  Don't let the pros keep you off the playground.

Also, when you go to purchase it, I suggest checking the prices at GoGamer.com.  There's a Game of the Year Edition which you can probably get for $18 + shipping and if you have an interest in Galactic Civilizations II, GoGamer recently had a sale for a compilation pack that included both Sins and GalCivII.

Sins + GalCivII complete for $35 + shipping

do not worry about older maps not working as I have written  a map updater AND a mod updater to update maps & the installed mods to the current versions, and intend to keep updating the utilities with EACH patch

harpo

Yeah, that's right, Harpo has solved this problem for us and I owe him much thanks for saving my older maps.  You rock Harpo!

Seriouly, even if Sins were to cost as much as it was selling before the expansions, I don't mind buying...however, it will require major overhaul on some spot, AI for example, and most of all, the feature that currently drives me nuts is the pathfinding, now if that was going to be imporved in the next game.... hell even if it is the same content as it is now but with a way better pathfinding, i don't mind rebuying it

I guess I should add to this that my "kids" are in college.  LOL     They'll always be my kids...don't care how old they get.  But just want to make sure they do spend their hard earned money wisely. 

DirtySanchez...you definately get around on the forums.    This is a very good idea too.  I may do just that!

I already have GalCivII - Dread Lords.  Good grief that game is crazy detailed!!  Too crazy detailed for me at this time  Sins seems to be right up my alley.  Not too much, not too little.  Just right.  But thanks for the heads up!

Thanks to everyone else as well.  The game is going to be added to my game arsenal soon!  But not soon enough.