Captivating Story and Extensive Lore

The independent Trader Worlds must unite and form the Trader Emergency Coalition to defend themselves against the return of their exiled brethren, "The Advent" and the arrival of the desperate remnants of the ancient Vasari Empire.

The intention of Sins of a Solar Empire is to be as much the beginning of an epic science fiction saga as it is an evolutionary real time strategy game. This concept is strongly supported by both online and in-game artwork, sound and music, and a plot that extends well beyond the arc exposed in this title.

Choose from Three Unique Races

Take command of one of three unique races, each with their own style, story, ships, structures, weapons, technologies, and strategies.

• The industrious Trader Emergency Coalition (TEC) strives to advance its antiquated war technology in order to defend its worlds.
  
• Exiled for deviancy, The Advent are a Psitech empowered race bent on retribution and the acquisition of rare resources.
  
• The technologically superior Vasari seek new worlds to repopulate their devastated numbers and fuel the next phase of their unending exodus.
  

Explore the Epic Scale of a Dynamic Galaxy

Explore and conquer neighboring planets and distant solar systems in a massively scaled, fully 3D galaxy featuring orbiting planets, clusters of asteroids, rare comets and radiant stars.

The Iron Engine is specially designed with new technologies that allow it to handle extraordinarily large differences in size, scale, and distance and does so without compromising graphical detail or destroying the seamless nature of the 3D environment.

Conquer and Colonize Vast Worlds

Fuel an expanding empire with the valuable resources discovered on planets. Develop each world by building ground-based and orbital structures including cities and defense platforms.

Each class of planet has a distribution of appropriate terrain that ranges from ice-fields to molten-rock, and deserts to oceans. Each type of terrain provides players with unique bonuses and strategic opportunities.

Interact with planets in diverse ways such as conquering enemy worlds by peacefully shifting allegiance or forcefully raining death from orbit.

Planets exert gravity on nearby ships and structures and orbit about their stars for an evolving battlefield.

Customize and Improve Powerful Units

As battle hardened capital ships advance in level, their core offensive and defensive systems are improved and their unique abilities are unlocked. Try out the devastating Raze Planet, the tactical Clairvoyance, and the hull ravaging Phase Missile Swarm.

Ability to Manage an Empire with Ease

• Learn the game as you play with smart tool-tips, detailed information cards, and verbal audio alerts.
  
• Play with just a mouse or even a console style controller! (Keyboard hotkeys also available.)
  
• A simplified 3D camera that allows you to play in true 3D without ever worrying about getting lost or dealing with the confusing 3rd dimension.
  
• An abundance of intelligently triggered visual and verbal audio alerts will always help you keep track of your empire's status.
  
• Record your matches so you can learn from the enemy.
  

Take on Multiple Roles

Transition between the roles of emperor and fleet commander as you zoom-in seamlessly to direct a crucial battle while managing the rest of your empire effortlessly on the same screen.

Extensive Diplomatic and Economic Strategies

Diplomatic and economic strategists can exercise a variety of options including forging and breaking alliances, trading resources, placing bounties on backstabbing ex-allies and over-powered tyrants, blockading enemy planets, establishing trade routes, and manipulating the commodities market.

Fully Adaptive Artificial Intelligence with Advanced Tactics

Test your mettle against fully adaptive, unscripted and non-cheating AI players who will pull every trick in the book to try and subdue your empire's advances and surprise you at every turn with rushes, ambushes, diversionary tactics, and secret alliances.

Intelligent Units and Reduced Micromanagement

High-level empire strategists have the option to automate various capital ship combat actions so they can focus on the larger picture. They can trust that their AI battle commanders will assign appropriate targets and use the most effective weapons and abilities to take them out.

Focus on strategy. At all levels of the game, great strides were taken to minimize micromanagement. Units were made smarter, user interface options were improved, game features redesigned, and entire game systems eliminated.

Spectacular 3D Graphics with Unparalleled Sense of Scale

Powered by the Iron Engine, the galaxy will come alive. From the smallest solo manned fighter to the largest glowing star, not a single detail has been missed.

• The Iron Engine features new size and scale technologies that deliver convincingly large stars and planets next to comparably small orbital structures, capital ships and fighters with equal levels of rendering detail at each scale.
  
• Extensive Bump-mapping flushes out the depth and detail of almost every surface, including the plated hulls of ships and the rugged mountains, craters and coastlines of planets.
  
• Per-Pixel Specular Lighting from each star shines and glints off the various metals of each ship and orbital structure, while the same light forms authentic day/night cycles on each planet.
  
• Dynamic Fractal Generation finds a number of uses but most impressively with the animation and creation of realistic planetary cloud covers, and the coronas and molten surfaces of stars.
  
• Post Process Bloom Filtering infuses all forms of light and energy with the appropriate amount of life, glow, and intensity, from stellar phenomena to weapons fire and more.
  

Highlights

• Full DirectX 9c support to make the most of the latest graphics cards but also scales to support older cards.
  
• Bumpmapping.
  
• Per-Pixel Specular Lighting.
  
• Dynamic Fractal Generation.
  
• Post Process Bloom Filtering.
  
• High Resolution Compressed Textures.
  
• Environment Mapping.
  
• Full Shader Model 2.0 support.
  
• Custom Pixel and Vertex Shaders for all meshes and effects.
  
• Multiple resolution support.
  
• Advanced Particle System.
  
• Self-Illumination.
  
• Multisampling.
  
• Antialiasing.
  

Cinematic Musical Experience

Experience a wide-range of emotions and variety as the audio engine dynamically shifts the musical score to suit the game's ebb and flow.

The story, races and lore are brought to life with over 3 CD's worth of original music, from themes of complacent peace to hopeless despair and more.

Immersive 3D Sound Effects

From the deep rumble of planetary bomb detonations to the Doppler Effect of screaming fighters, hear all the action in both hardware accelerated and software driven 3D positional sound.

Intense Worldwide Multiplayer Action with IroncladOnline

Engage opponents on IroncladOnline, our new Internet matchmaking, player ranking, and statistic tracking service. (Free subscription is included.)

Up to 10 players can battle simultaneously for galactic supremacy.

Multiple Ways to Express your own Creativity

Ironclad fully endorses the modding of its games for non-profit purposes. The Iron Engine is completely data-driven, has an embedded Lua Scripting Engine with console access, and is supported by the Forge Tool Suite. Modding instructions and the Forge Tool Suite will be provided.

Fan Artwork and Fiction will be spotlighted on the game's website with awards and prizes offered in regular contests.

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• Developer Site
• Official Site