One of the best PC titles of 2008, and arguably the best space RTS in years, Sins of a Solar Empire, returns with its new expansion: Entrenchment. Featuring Starbases, mines, new cruisers, improved AI and more, Entrenchment aims to take intergalactic warfare to a whole new level.

By a whole new level I mean: “Oh my god, it’s a minefield” and “I’m gonna need more Cap ships and cruisers, he’s upgraded his starbase!” kind of level… The WOW kind of level.

Find out how Entrenchment could possibly improve Sins of a Solar Empire, after the jump!

While I reveled in the sheer scope of SoaSE, the problem of how to defend your colonies when your fleet was half way across the cosmos was an omnipresent one. This is at the heart of what Entrenchment offers fans; the ability to build defenses around your key colonies that can actually withstand (and possibly defeat) an attack by a sizable enemy fleet.

One of the main strategic holes in SoaSE was that an attack fleet could simply rush through even heavily fortified choke-points on the map and head straight for your key worlds. Given travel time and distance, more than once I was caught with my pants down as a planet was attacked and lost while the bulk of my forces were trying in vain to return home to defend it. Given that money hardly grows on trees in SoaSE (you can’t just churn out ship after ship), the choice of whether to send out your entire fleet on an attack mission, or divide your forces so that some could defend was a tough one.

That has all changed with the introduction of Entrenchment. Now when an enemy fleet tries to race through one of your choke-points, it’s more than likely he will get torn apart by an orbital minefield and/or have to face down an incredibly powerful (and expensive) Starbase.

The tech tree now features a section devoted specifically to fortifications. While Starbases, mines and other defenses are a nice upgrade, the improvements are not all based on dishing out retribution against anyone attacking you. One of my favorite improvements is the option to upgrade your Starbases with the ability to prevent the world they orbit from being colonized or lost to an enemy.

Check out other key improvements on page 2.

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