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4. The decision to develop the 3D engine to support a wider variety of graphics cards and PC systems.
While it was tempting for the team to make the Iron Engine (the engine behind Sins of a Solar Empire) have Battlestar Galactica-like visuals, the decision was made to make the game look really good on the widest possible existing installed base of video cards.
Sins still has phenomenal visuals, even on lower end systems, but doesn't include DirectX 10 support (for instance).
5. The decision not to use any CD/DVD copy protection.
Like with Galactic Civilizations II, Sins of a Solar Empire includes no on disk copy protection.
This left the game open for piracy, but the calculation Stardock had made with Galactic Civilizations II was that more users would buy it as a result of not being inconvenienced than would be lost from piracy. That trend has continued with Sins of a Solar Empire.
Another early HUD variation. Ironclad iterated on the HUD and the
overall UI probably more than any other part of the game, knowing it
was critical to making the RT4X concept playable.
6. The decision to allow multiplayer games to be saved and restored for later play.
This turned out to be a significant selling point to PC strategy gamers. Many strategy gamers like to get together and play with friends on the LAN or Internet. Nothing is more frustrating than a game being interrupted due to a dropped player or just not having enough time to finish a session.
Having a robust and easy to use save and restore option for multiplayer helped make Sins a compelling strategy game for a previously untapped demographic of PC gamers.
The interesting part is that Ironclad originally implemented this feature solely for the purposes of tracking down multiplayer bugs before recognizing its marketability and gameplay advantages.
A near-final Sins HUD. Expect more improvements in the upcoming 1.1 version.
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Let the big publishers fight amongst themselves. Let them compete on graphics, production values, and "me too" incremental features ("oooh cover system!"). And let them spend millions on holiday season advertising, fighting to be heard by a market that's already over-flooded with 80% crap.
Let them fight it out while you, the smaller studio, create a deep game for a market that no big name publisher would care about. And if you do a good job, you may be surprised at how big your audience really is.
As an article on aigamedev.com pointed out, a single player campaign can be more useful as a tutorial than the straight forward tutorial it already has.
On the forums, many people complain of others over powering them, which most of the time its just players using the unit types incorrectly. I too love that the multiplayer is quite balanced, but I would have liked to learn where to use certain units and know of some strategies thought out by Ironclad as to help form my own.
You've never played starcraft have you joe? Many GOOD RTS games have had great campaigns, are you saying Starcraft and Company of heroes had crappy single player? Or what abou rise of nations and rise of legends? Both of these games were far from bad.
Some people apparently have bad memories.