Introduction

You made it this far, Commander! Just a few more clicks and you will be challenging other human players. This guide will show you how to create and join games, including in progress games (yes, you read it right, in Sins 2 there is hot seat!).

Most importantly, this guide will give you a short overview of “house rules” when joining a lobby with some random opponents.

Basics

There are 2 options to play online: Either via Internet public servers or via a LAN connection. We will discuss LAN in a later section; for now, let's navigate to “Multi Player” tab.

Here you will see following screen:

Number	Explanation
1	This is the button to click if you want to create a new game and design it to your preferences.
2	This allows you to host a game you have played before. This includes single player games, you would like to continue with a friend.
3	Here you can join in-progress games.
4	At the top of the game list there will be an automatically generated lobby, you can always join.
5	Here you can enter a “game code,” which enables direct join. Very helpful when you are looking for a specific lobby.
6	Here you can see the list of all games.
7	Games will refresh automatically, but you can force refresh to get the lobby list sooner.
8	Hit this button to join the lobby you have selected in [6].

Hot Seat

Before we move on, a few words about “hot seat.” This long-requested feature is now a core part of multiplayer and allows you to drop and join ongoing games. So even on occasions when you lose Internet, you will be able to easily rejoin the game as soon as your connection is stable again!

Creating a Game

If you want to create a new game, you will have to navigate to “Host New Game” as in [1] from the previous chapter.

This will bring up a partially familiar screen from your single-player games. Multiplayer has a few more settings however:

These include:

AI Takeover: If this setting is on, after a player leaves your multiplayer game, his empire will be given to the AI. Otherwise, his empire will just sit there waiting on a human player to join. If you want Sins: Rebellion behavior, you should leave the setting on “Yes.”
AI Hotseat: This setting allows human players to take over AI empires. Meaning if you are waiting on that one last friend to join, you can simply start a game with an AI empire which will develop along with your group. Once your friend is finally available, he will be able to simply jump into the spot of the AI and continue the game from that point.

You can also use this feature to help weaker players by hosting a game with hardest AI and letting it build up an empire in the first 10-15 mins.
Human Hotseat: Similar feature which allows human players to join into the slots of former human empires. The game will give you your previous spot if you were part of the game.
Public Lobby: When enabled, makes your game lobby public so anyone can join it from the lobby browser. Otherwise, only those with your unique game code can join.
Infinite Pauses: If enabled every player will have unlimited pauses. Otherwise only 5 pauses per player for the entire game.

Hosted Lobby

Once you have created your lobby there are 3 new items when compared to single-player:

Number	Explanation
1	Instead of AI players you will see empty spots. These spots will be taken by human players once they join. If you want to play PvE, just click on the button near [1]. This can be done in each row and will add an AI player.
2	Here you can chat with players who joined your lobby.
3	This is your game code. You can share it with your friends so that they can directly join your lobby.

NOTE: You can “whisper” (direct message) to a specific player by pressing tab while in the lobby chat. This also works for in-game chat.

Joining a MP Lobby – House Rules

If you are eager to prove that you can outmatch not just your friends but any other commander, you can join a “random” lobby.

The most common lobby format for such games is the so-called “5s.” These lobbies are generally open to everyone but will often expect you to know the “house rules.”

The idea of those lobbies is to play games in a 5v5 format; and for those games to provide the most fun possible, people try to create balanced teams. For this reason, you will see 2 “captains” who will begin picking their team. There is no special UI indication for captains as this is user concept, not directly represented in the game. Captains are usually skilled players of about similar level.

Until you are a recognized member of these lobbies, the burden of being a captain will not fall on your shoulders. You can just relax and wait for the captains to decide on teams. If you are eager to understand what exactly is being done by the captains, read the next chapter. Otherwise, you can skip it.

How to “Captain”

The first step involves getting 2 volunteers to captain. Once this is done another (non-captain) player sends a number from 1 to 10 via whispering to yet another player. The captains try and guess the number which was sent; and the captain with the closest guess gets the “priority pick.” If both captains are equally close, the process is repeated.

Priority pick allows a captain to be the first one to pick a player; but it also allows the captain to force the first pick on the other player. This is done because of the “pick order” shown in the table below:

Round	Captain #1 picks this many players	Captain #2 picks this many players
1	1	2
2	2	2
3	1	0

Forcing the first pick on the other captain means that he will get one strong player in the first round of picking. However, this will allow his opposite to pick the second and third players in strength. Depending on the skill difference between players, having the second alternative may be better than just getting the strongest player.

During the pick phase, the lobby host will be rearranging players according to each captain's selections.

Game Roles – House Rules

Usually, 5s games are played on random maps. Even if they are not, player placement is random, so it's almost never possible to predict your position and how close your enemies will be. Due to this, a concept of “roles” has been established with your role depending on how dangerous/difficult your position is. Your role also influences the team’s expectations from you.

There are 3 roles: “Economy spot” often abbreviated as Eco, “Aggression spot” abbreviated as Agro, and “Death Spot” also known as the Suicide spot.

Let's talk in more detail about those roles:

Economy spot: You are in an Eco spot if on both your sides (left and right) you have allies. They are basically a meat shield for you, which allows you to safely expand and focus on economy, with the bare minimum invested into a fleet.

Usually, you will be expanding and building up your economy in the first 30 minutes or even more. Once you get to a stable level of economy, your allies will expect you to “feed” them. When they ask for feed, they do not mean you to buy a burger for them. What they want is for you to send them resources, be it the conventional credits or exotics.

You do not have to give all of your resource to your team; you should keep some part to reinvest into more economy. In late game stages, you could go for an ultimate fleet, with titans, capital ships and all the fancy stuff.
Aggression spot: You are in an Agro spot if only one of your flanks is protected by an ally, while the other flank has an opponent. Such a position means that you can focus on aggression in one direction, without fear of getting into a two-front war. Depending on your playstyle and spawn, you can try to go for some economy or fully commit to aggression. Your goal to eliminate your direct opponent will often have a double value because behind that player could be an enemy “Eco” player. And by that, you would disrupt the economy build up for the entirety of enemy team.

Eco players are often so focused on not building ships that you will easily overrun not 1 player, but 2 players in a short time, launching a snowball effect.
Death spot: You are in a Death spot if both of your flanks are endangered by enemies. This is why it's a death spot. Normally, you are determined to die in this spot; the question is only how. If your team has an Eco spot player, he will usually throw all his resources at you so that you can hold on for longer periods of time. This dictates your overall game plan: Expand only to few planets around you and focus on defending those worlds. Your role is not even about having a +1 player for your team. Your role is to prevent 2 enemy players from becoming “Eco” players once you are eliminated. And that's a huge team impact because even if you cannot kill an opponent, you are contributing indirectly to the overall weakening of enemy team.

Multiplayer Guide