I'd thought I would repost an AAR I did (unexpectedly) to try and explain the game to some people who were unsure whether or not to get Sins (I've done this before. I continue to be somewhat surprised at how many people are intriqued by Sins but are afraid to give it a try.) Since this is an AAR for people who don't play the game, some of the references will be a bit over-simplified for seasoned Sinners....
Episode 1
I started playing a medium game (me plust 3 AIs) as the Advent, using the circular map Kronac's Cross. I was at the bottom of the circle, trapped between a hostile force on my left (the Trade Coalition) and one on my right (The Jisura Nomads). As the Trade Coalition was the more aggressive of the two, I began my war in that direction, quickly over-running two of their three systems. Unfortunately, while my soul fleet (consisting of two caps and assorted support vessels) was busy with them, the Nomads launched a strong effort on my right, penetrating all the way into my core system of Liguria! This forced me to disengage from fighting the Coalition and redeploy to my home system.
Now, while I was busy with the Nomads, a third empire, the Korsul Armada, finished off the Trade Coalition and launched an invasion of my system Danae. In short, I was caught between a hammer and an anvil. What to do?
Things didn't look good for our heroes! But then I saw the opportunity for a little diplomatic fancy footwork with the Korsul Armada. Over the course of the game, I had built up a 39% approval rating with them for various deeds and donated resources. Now, since I was fighting the Nomads, a mutual enemy, I had pushed their approval rating up to around 60%. If the people of Danae were to survive the onrushing warships of the Armada (led by two caps!), I could only do one thing: I offered a ceasefire.
I held my breath as I watched the Armada's, er...armada glide closer and closer to my undefended planet. Just about the moment they were entering bombardment range, the comm channel clicked open: Ceasefire agreed! The enemy fleet swung around and peacefully left my system! Whew!
This left me to deal without distraction with the Nomads. After a prolonged struggle, we defeated the invading fleet, mined the incoming phase lanes and, after accumulating sufficient resources, built our first space station:
Ain't she a beaut! That should keep those Nomads away for a bit (don't tell anyone, but she is largely just a frame at this point as I haven't had the resources to fully equip her. Shhh....).
The ceasefire with the Korsul Armada would eventually expand to other treaties to the point where they requested my help in their attacks on the Nomads. This is where things got strange....
The Armada got in a hot and heavy fight with the main forces of the Nomads at Charybdis and requested our help. So I took my main fleet (I finally built a second, lighter fleet centered around a Radiance Battleship and a Halcyon Carrier and kept it on patrol around Liguria) and rushed to Charybdis. Along the way, I asked the Armada for a formal peace treaty, figuring if we were going to risk ourselves for them, might as well make it official. The Armada replied that we were rushing things and that their people would not support such a treaty. Hmm....
We get there, and see that the Armada is taking on the main naval forces of the Nomads, leaving us a fat Nomad space station to attack. Charge!
That's our forces on the right of the station
Things were going great...until we get a message from the Armada that they didn't ask us to intrude into their backyard (yes they did! I swear!) and they are canceling all treaties! Screw this, we're out of here (those were the words of my admiral) and we left...and rushed to Danae once again, expecting another attack from that direction.
Sure enough, his armada arrives. But things are different this time: we have built a second space station there as well. When my fleet arrives, we shelter under the station's protection, daring him to fight us on ground of our choosing. Foolishly, he agrees. The battle is furious, with both sides bringing in more and more reinforcements.
However, when all is said and done, my side seemed to enjoy a considerable advantage as we made short work of THREE of his caps, suffering very little damage in return. I suspect this was only partly do to the aid of our space station (which was also just a shell with level 1 weaponry), and more to do with the advanced crew experience level of our fleet leader and the heavy amount of defense tech we researched over the course of the game.
For the Korsul Armada, it was a disaster with my forces destroying all three enemy caps and most supporting craft. Here's a view of two caps dying within seconds of each other:
And that's where I called it a night. Now comes the hard part: taking advantage of this stinging loss. The Korsul Armada is the most powerful force left in the game, controlling about two thirds of the map, so he has tremendous resources on hand. We do not.