Funny. I just posted about Sins' interesting copy protection stance. Needless to say, I will be getting this game. It appears to be a wonderful hybrid of RTS/SIM/4X. A WoW buddy has been in Beta for Sins and I played it on his system (dual core with an ATI HD2600 or sometihng of the sort). It can get a little bit slow at times, but this is Beta so anything is possible in the final game.
I have a few irks with it right now, but none of them take away from the overall experience. Some of the issues I had also probably could be attributed to my crappy play style. Anyway, one of my favorite things about the game is the persistence of the capital ships and their apparent worth. Match a Level 1 cap with a level 10, the the level 10 will crush the weaker one. So, in MP games, there will be a little fear when that L10 dreadnaught jumps into the middle of a battle you thought you had won with your two weakened level 5 cap ships. I remember in most games, a ship adding to the battle just meant a new strategy, but the strength of these cap ships and their levels (and abilities) can turn the tide of a battle.
Even small games can take a long time. I played a game vs the easy PC and (though my strategy sucked), and it took about 4 hours using my patented Turtle Style of gameplay. But this is aided by the fact that you make more strategic decisions. They're not kidding when they say the micromanagement is greatly reduced. It's right at that "reduced to a fault" level, as you frequently (as a noob) watch your fleets jump into a trap and get raped by a stronger opposing force. There's sometimes nothing you can do aside from give a retreat order when you're being pummeled. The only ships capable of turning the tide is ... more ships... or cap ships.
To that effect, though, a player who knows how to use special abilities of his ships often can take a narrow loss and turn it into a decisive win. Most every sepecial skill can be eset to Autocast, where the AI will decide how these skills are to be used. But some ships are based around support roles and their skills, while very powerful, have a long cooldown or require lots of antimatter (energy) to use. Deciding when to use these powers to the most effect can really make a difference.
Bottom line, this game takes the 4X game I love and changes it from turn based to real time. Throw in some diplomacy mechanics, large tech trees, pirates (organized pirates and very very powerful pirates), visual beauty, and a host of customization of maps and game rules and you have a possible true golden child of the 4X/RTS/Sim genres.
Master of SimHomeworld II, if you will
.
