Certainly! If they didn't take, depending on the number of facilities, 10 minutes each, nevermind the more important things that could be built with less headache.

That reminds me,if I recall correctly, the game also lacked decent organization for planetary facilities, so, you'd have to go to all your planets to find out what they possessed. Genius!

I have to honestly ask, what would those be?

You're a graphics whore, we get it.



Rebellion had more depth on the logistical/diplomatic side of the game. That's not really arguable. I'd readily agree that Sins is more fun overall but that isn't because it's a deeper game. It's because Rebilion was more like what taking over the galaxy would really be like which is to say deeply involved, rather complicated and in the end rather tedious and troublesome. It wouldn't be about blowing up the opposing fleet. It'd be about a gigantic logistical headache. However for people who like the logistical/diplomatic side of strategy games over combat? Rebellion did more of it an did it better. I mean, hell, diplomacy in Sins boils down to nothing more than "kill another empire or give me stuff while not actively blowing me up".

Now if I'm given a choice between the two? I'll take Sins. I enjoyed Rebellion despite it's flaws but Sins is a hell of a lot more fun to play for me.

Character units, for one. Simply adding in characters can substantially increase different game mechanic interactions. Additionally, it would be nice to have ground troops (in an abstract manner, not actual ground combat). And moreover, it would be nice if battle outcomes could affect planet's allegiances.

I thought you would say something ridiculous, like emulating combat or something. Thank you for keeping it sane.



I knew it was something like that...It used to be so aggravating, particularly since invasion or bombardment was necessary.

Anyway, I bought Rebellion on impulse. The only reason I got involved in this discussion is because people were comparing Sins negatively to Rebellion (sigh), and because people were becoming defensive over logical complaints with the game. Trying to justify things like terrible combat, unintuitive interface (how can anyone even deny this?), and unbelievably tedious gameplay baffles me.

BTW, why hasn't this completely pointless topic been locked? I'm surprised.

Well, good points of Rebellion that seem to have been overlooked:

Surprisingly advanced space combat. What you see is not what you get. Actually, what you see really, really sucked. I'm not even going to try to deny that. I mean, stuff was identifiable, but Homeworld it ain't.

However, you'd better be pushing out some cheap little corvettes for fighter defense or a 20-squadron strike is going to start shredding your capitals. Those big turbolasers don't aim well at snubfighters. Once you get somebody's shields down, having an ion cannon equipped fighter wing or ship to keep the damaged ship disabled is a huge benefit, enabling the rest of your fleet to go around crippling other vessels while you finish off the wounded.

If my fleet is sufficiently weak to convince the computer to press the attack (much like pre-adjustment Sins AI), I need to be using those hook maneuvers and/or waypointing around the edge of the tactical map to get my gunships into position while my transport and escorts serve as a lure. After the heavies get the fighter/ion bolt treatment, the AI starts to run- straight into my fresh battle line. Had I simply engaged head-on, I'd never do more than scratch the AI's ships before it realizes the tide is turning.

Once Interdictors (and the Rebel version of the same) emerge, things change. Those suckers are target number one for any fighters and light ships out there in the smaller fleet. Kill the Interdictor, escape to fight another day. Fail, and your fleet dies in place. Setting up a huge flak trap around one of those (or around a transport early in the game) lets you bleed off fightercraft.

Even a Star Destroyer vs Mon Cal Cruiser fight takes some forethought. Admiral Ackbar did the right thing in the movie. Once you actually get intermixed, those rebel Cruisers will beat the heck out of ImpStars with their massive broadsides firing left and right. If the Imperials can focus fire fast enough on an uneven advance (or use ion cannons to slow down half the Rebel line), the Imperials have excellent fore-guns to shred the oncoming ships.

Taking over a planet could be done any number of ways. On a planet with leanings in your direction, using spec ops units or characters to sabotage garrison units could result in an uprising in your favor, damaging, destroying or even kicking the garrison offworld. Even if the planet was close to neutral in the other side's favor, destroying the garrison was frequently enough to ensure the planetary government declared neutrality as soon as the last soldier was gone.

If you wanted to use a more direct way, once-daily bombardments, especially with a high-Leadership Admiral, would eventually remove the garrison with a minimum of civilian casualties. Forces interested in the more expedient route could just blow the snot out of the planet ten times in a single day, probably vaporizing half the industry, and assure the destruction of any defenders. You didn't win any friends, but you could take over a heavily-defended planet in less than one game-day.

As far as the characters go, one character is rarely strong enough to pull off a mission successfully, every single time. That's especially true at the beginning of the game. 2-3 characters working in concert are much better. Chewie and Han, Leia and Fey'la, Vader and some thin-necked redshirt, use those complementing teams. I rarely saw failures if I sent all my diplomats to one world on a single mission. On the other hand, I only saw successes every two weeks or so, and only one character would level up their skill at a time. I'd much rather throw my diplomats at neutral worlds, get the relatively easy skill-ups for all of them, and then finally focus my highly-skilled diplomats with 120, 130 and higher Diplomacy scores at the few remaining, hard to convert hold-outs.

Usually by the time I got done converting any neutrals in the area, even the heavily-garrisoned and loyal worlds would start edging in my direction. A quick flyover, a couple of sabotage missions, and the holdouts would frequently flip neutral themselves as the garrison left. The number of times I actually needed to invade planets against the AI could usually be counted in one hand in each game.

The interface itself would actually highlight factory worlds, troop-production facilities, shipyards, garrisons, fleets, characters, and could find ones that are busy or idle.

I think the biggest problem with the game is the categorization. It's not Starcraft on a larger scale, it's Civilization in real-time. I can certainly recall waiting 15 turns to pump out a Battleship in Civ. Even my best production facilities usually took 2-3 turns to make me a Tank. Going to war was frequently a serious headache as every single city had to be switched from civil production to military. When I played in Medium maps and larger, "every city" wasn't a handful of 20-population metropoli either. In that context, Rebellion looks much different than examining it from a "It's been 30 seconds, where's my unit!?" RTS approach.