These pirates live their own scurvy lives plundering any ship they see fit regardless of what the games’ factions do, but players are also given the ability to set up bounties on their enemies that attract pirate attacks like a Spanish treasure galleon. I’ve always been a fan of playing the virtual Machiavelli role in these titles, but Sins’ inclusion of a neutral pirate faction adds completely new options to the player’s possible strategies.

The three races are extremely varied and require vastly different strategies, the tech tree is immense yet surprisingly self-explanatory, and the diplomacy options are simple but can dramatically shift the course of a game. Combined with the fact that small-scale games that can last up to 12 hours, you have a recipe for warding away anyone whose only experience with strategy games has been Starcraft and rainy day games of Risk with Aunt Emma.īut for the strategy hardcore, Sins is a masterpiece.

Like the Civilization series, the complexity of Sins’ gameplay can be very off-putting to new players.