When comparing Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion vs Company of Heroes 2, the Slant community recommends Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is ranked 58th while Company of Heroes 2 is ranked 118th. The most important reason people chose Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is:
With the large scale of the game, you can control many fleets in several solar systems, which, on easier difficulties, allows for a leisurely pace to play. This makes the game a worthwhile, relaxing and semi-stress-free strategy title played on a grand scale.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Leisurely real time combat
With the large scale of the game, you can control many fleets in several solar systems, which, on easier difficulties, allows for a leisurely pace to play. This makes the game a worthwhile, relaxing and semi-stress-free strategy title played on a grand scale.
Pro Hard battles
You need a lot of power to win.
Pro Diplomacy used in a smart way
Factions you play against can send you quests that may affect your relationship with others in the match. By taking on these quests, or even downright refusing them, your standing with the respective faction will change, causing a rippling effect that will increase or degrade your relations with others. Thus you must choose whom to aid and who to shun in an effort to create a strong alliance. This diplomatic depth of strategy can greatly change the outcome of a game depending on the strength of your alliance and military, as it is only as strong as your opponent is weak. And there is nothing stopping them from forming an alliance of their own.
Pro Huge, gorgeous battles
Cranked all the way up, the graphics are simply divine.
Pro Great multiplayer
The multiplayer of the game tends to be where the majority of the core experience fun can be seen. With the ability to fight both AI and human adversaries, you command large armies, positioning them in cover and strategic choke points, with the main goal overtaking key economic points to give yourself a military edge. The included Multi-Player contains a plethora of competitive maps, as well as a section of Co-Op maps that are similar to the campaign mode (though not as plentiful).
Pro Focuses more on smart planning rather than brute force
Company of Heroes 2 is an RTS that focuses more on smart decision making of micro-unit control over macro-control and actions per minute. Players will most likely have fewer units under their command during the beginning of each match, making strategic and tactical placement of each unit necessary, rather than focusing on training many units and attacking head-on. This allows for more deep strategic gameplay to take front and center, as players will need to think aggressively and quickly, keeping units in cover and finding defensible positions, as the loss of even a single unit can turn the tide of a battle.
Pro Top of its class in graphics for an Real-Time Strategy title
While not a huge improvement over the first game in the series, the graphics and art style found in Company of Heroes 2 are still quite astounding for an RTS. The animation quality of each unit is incredibly well polished, with infantry moving with fluid realism, and vehicle movement being heavy and slow. Also, to give an added depth of realism, particle effects and quality are nearly unrivaled, as each mortar blast and each grenade detonation casts large chunks of earth into the air in a billowing cascade of terrain destruction, leaving large craters in the ground. Adding greatly to this is the equally gratifying smoke and spark effects one can see when a tank fires a round from its gun, or when bullets ricochet off armored vehicles. While the gameplay in COH2 is second-to-none, the great graphical fidelity adds an immersive aspect that has yet to be matched.
Pro Control large amount of units
Upped from the original game the player is able to control up to 135 units, which is quite a lot of micromanagement for those that are interested.
Pro Tons of replayability thanks to Downloadable Content
While DLC has the potential to introduce imbalance, with purchased items that give advantage, so far Company of Heroes 2 has not had this issue. New campaigns, featuring other allied nations, as well as different commanders with their own powerful abilities are proudly highlighted through this additional content. This allows the player base to have more to do and see, added increased longevity into an already brilliant addition to the Company of Heroes franchise.
Pro Mod support
User Created Content makes every game better. There is a big variety of nice user created maps and mods.
Cons
Con Slow-paced logistics and combat necessitates situational awareness
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a strategy title on a massive scale, with players able to colonize multiple solar systems in any given match. Due in part to this scale, there is a perceived slowdown in gameplay; lengthy building construction, minutes-long research and slow unit movement. While the game, at its heart, does appear to be slow (and sometimes is), awareness of your surroundings is paramount. With fleets sometimes taking minutes to arrive at a destination, and defensive structures quickly falling to a massive fleet, it is easy for players to move out of position allowing key worlds to become targeted and lost in enemy incursions if they expand too quickly. However, not expanding quickly enough can halt the player from building up a fleet capable of taking on an enemy, or pirates head-on. In essence, you must learn to balance fleet needs, knowing the right time to expand, while keeping large groups of your ships scattered in key positions to await reinforcements should the need arise.
Con Steep learning curve can deter casual players
While the game is one of the slower Real-Time Strategy titles, there is a huge learning curve that can wreak havoc on fledgling players. With some research required in order to colonize certain planets, researching use of larger fleet and capital ship sizes, to maintaining a thriving economic civilization, it will take many, many matches before players feel knowledgeable and skilled enough to play on larger maps or even against more difficult AI. With no true Single Player to speak of and little way of help in terms of tutorials, you must play in order to learn, sometimes using trial and error as a way of making progress.
Con Very long games
Depending on the size of the map and how many players involved in it, matches can last for several hours, even days, as the host can save progress for the game locally. The amount of time that needs to be dedicated to any given match can be a deterrent for those that are only interested in playing quick multiplayer games with friends, online opponents, or AI.
Con Very poorly optimized
When there's a lot going on, it runs bad even on the best latest systems.
Con Gameplay can be quite hectic
Some missions can require the player to control up to 135 units at once, on three separate fronts , which can be difficult to manage. While not completely unmanageable, this is something to consider for those that want something a bit more simplistic out of their RTS.
Con Poor quality cutscenes
The cutscenes, while not animated with the in game engine, look pretty abysmal. The animation and graphical quality of each cutscene is immersion-breaking and can take the player out of the game in an instant.
Con Flame weapons feel over powered
When facing off against units or vehicles that use flame weapons, infantry units can be killed almost immediately. The sheer attack speed and ferocity of these flame-based weapons can reduce a player's fighting force to zero. This is especially notable with vehicles that use flamethrowers, as they can roll in from the Fog of War and overwhelm infantry in an instant, leaving players with the feeling that these weapons are overpowered.