Welcome to Sins of a Solar Empire II! By now you (hopefully) know that you’re about to enter a space-based real-time strategy (RTS) game. This guide will assume you know nothing. If you do know how to play RTS’s already, you may want to skip to the Advanced Guide or bear with us as we state stuff you consider obvious.

Main Menu

When you first launch the game, this is where you’ll begin. You will initially see a dialog giving you information on the latest update to the game - look here first for what’s new. Additional information can be found via the links in the bottom right corner:

• Join our Discord server

• Official forums

• Player Guide (this)

• Help Tips

You can also create new single- or multiplayer games here; load existing games and watch recorded games. Selecting a map from the list will give you some general information about it, such as the number of players it supports.

Single-Player Setup

Let’s begin by creating a single-player game. There are several maps to choose from and many more being added. Refer to the image and table below for an overview of this screen.

Open

A Quick Detour to Game Settings

Since we called out the main menu above, this is a good place to do a short detour on game settings. Graphics and Sound are self-explanatory, so we’ll skip right to User Interface and Key Bindings.

Open

Escape Menu - Settings - UI Options

A brief overview of this dialog:

• Layout and Scaling: The game will automatically set this based on your Windows desktop resolution (when running borderless window mode). However, you can manually adjust the UI scaling here.

• Advanced Tooltips: By default, the game only displays the most commonly used information on its various tooltips. Players can un-hide this during a game play holding Alt. However, if you always want all of the information displayed, enable this option.

• Cluster Orbital Structures: This option affects automatic structure placement when you’re either zoomed out from a planet or using the planet management window to build something. When enabled (default), the AI will cluster your structures together in the gravity well, vs. spreading them out.

• Use Alliance Colors: When enabled, team allied players will share the same color in the HUD (for culture lines, unit icons, etc.). This makes it easier to tell at a glance if someone is friend or foe (allies are green and enemies are red).

The last screen I want to call out is the Key Bindings dialog (shown below). Here you can expand each section to customize your keys however you like.

Player Setup

When you click on Create Lobby, you’ll arrive at the player setup screen.

Player Customization

When you click on the colored icon (see #2 above), you’ll bring up the player customization screen. Here you can see how your units will look based on your choices. You can pick empire icon, primary and secondary player colors, and your player portrait. By default, players use Full Color for their units; but if you’d prefer something more toned down, click the Full Color button and switch to Minimal Color mode.

Game Options

By clicking on the Options label, you can modify various aspects of your match. These are largely self-explanatory, so I’ll only go over a few here:

• Orbiting Planets: As time progresses, planets will slowly orbit their star. This affects the phase lanes that connect planets which can significantly alter the landscape. If you’re new to Sins II, you may want to disable this feature initially.

• Reveal Map on Lost: Unhides the map after you’ve lost the game.

• Home Planet Victory: If a player’s homeworld is destroyed, they lose the game. If disabled, you can opt to relocate your homeworld during play.

• Colonization Victory: When enabled, the player who controls a super majority of planets on the map will win.

Multiplayer

Sins of a Solar Empire II supports up to 10-players via Internet or LAN. We’re going to focus on Internet multiplayer for now, which is nearly identical to single-player with a few notable exceptions.

Host New Game

The player who sets up a multiplayer game controls all of the game options:

• AI Takeover Enabled: When active this option tells the game to replace a human player who drops out of the game with an AI player after about 5 minutes. This delay gives the player a chance to rejoin the game in progress before an AI takes over their empire.

  • If disabled, a player can still rejoin the game in progress if they return. However, if the spot isn’t taken the empire is essentially ‘dead’ and up-for-grabs. Note that ships/defenses will continue to attack enemies that come within their range.

• Hotseat Enabled: This option makes it possible for human players to join a game after it starts, if there’s a free position available. When active, AI players will be replaced by humans first.

• Public Lobby: When enabled, lists your game in the public lobby list so anyone can join. Otherwise, players will need to Join by Code. A unique game code will be created once you click on Create Online Lobby.

Host Save Game

Any player can save and restore a multiplayer game. Unlike in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, all players don’t need to have their own save games. The game will also autosave approximately every 15 minutes of play time. Once you’ve hosted a save game, player can rejoin using the unique player code that’s generated (or via the lobby if it was a public game).

Join Game

Displays the public lobby list for available games (if any); and gives you the option to Join by Code.

Basic Mouse Controls

If you’re a brand new RTS player, here are some common mouse controls to know:

• Left-click: To select a unit/structure or click a button.

• Right-click: To commit an action (context sensitive).

• Drag-select: To select a group of units or structures.

• Mouseover: Displays context sensitive details on most game objects.

• Mouse-wheel: Zoom in/out camera to your mouse pointer.

• Pause/Break: Pause/unpause the game. In multiplayer, you only get 5 pause actions.

• Escape: Exit out of the current menu.