So recently I have found that a number of my friends have Sins installed on their computers. Being a (non-rts) strategy game lover, and an avid player of SoaSE, I invited my friends to play against me via LAN. In the same room, actually.
First game against friend A, I mopped the floor with him. Mostly through scouting him out and countering his fleet. All my reading on the forum here came in handy. Subsequent games went similarly, though he improved. Main strategic problem was a lack of scouting on his part, and a tendency to spam some unit every game.
So this was all great, and I was hoping to have a non-repetitive, skilled opponent to play against (you know how the AI can be manipulated). ...then he bowed out, saying that the gameplay was too horribly slow. Our battles took minutes (!?), and bombing a planet took the better part of an hour, let alone conquering every last planet. Each game took hours.
I then visited the other friends with Sins on their computers, and they all told me the reason they put down the game, and never play it is because it takes far too long.
I've been playing with all of the game setting options (Ship speed, ship build times, etc.) set to max, but that doesn't increase speed all that much.
I could increase total game-speed by playing on a small, cramped map, but that means that most of the depth that SoaSE has to offer is wasted in a series of low-tech rushes.
I could argue that he should surrender when he has no chance of winning, but he doesn't really think he has a chance to begin with.
I could find other friends to play SoaSE with, but he seems the only one who will actually touch the game.
I could play Entrenchment, but I think that would make the game even slower.
As it happened, I couldn't find the answer, and myself and said friend went back to alternating between turn-based strategy (Ex: Westnoth), which I always win, and fast-paced RTS (Ex: Starcraft), which said friend always wins. No happy middle-ground of SoaSE, as I hoped.
Is this a common problem? Does anyone have suggestions on how to draw my Starcraft/Red Alert loving friends into playing SoaSE?
Is there some way to increase speed in the game? 2x, 4x, 8x speed increases don't work in Multiplayer, apparently.
