It seems kind of a stretch to say they are copying Zero Hour. I'm sure that's the only game in the history of gaming to offer modified versions of the same faction. And even if they did, what the hell would be wrong with it, zero hour was a great expansion pack.

I hope for moddable AI as well, but it certainly not a game breaker if they don't have it.

Waiting for game play features before pre-order. 

New ships, new factions, better explosions are fine but playing the same way gets old quick.  I would like to know, for instance, what the rebels have to offset the advantages in material resources the loyalists to be successful; what new tactics are available to the rebels to be able to fight; what about the possibilities of a mixed human-vasari-advent rebels with weird ships designs.  If we are going to play the same way as Trinity or the original but with new factions and ships and lighting, then what is the point? 

I will wait to see a little more gameplay features or more info on the rebel abilities before ordering.

Did not say that they did -.-
And wrong with it? Nothing wrong with it... But my personal unattackable opinion that I have all the right in the whole known and unknown universe to have, I found Zero hour's faction to be unbalanced. yes, some of them had nice little airplanes, but they lacked stuff on the ground.

And that is what I fear the factions of SoaSE will be aswell. Vasari faction that focuses on "Deathball SB" while ignoring support, or TEC that focuses on economics. heck, a whole faction of tTEC, all with different types of trading ships and no guns on 'em at all, almost sounds like fun.
Ofcourse that won't happen to the TEC, but I hope it helped to verify my point.

I don't think so... Zero Hour was with different Colonels or Generals leading the army and they had different specialties (not saying it worked all the time). If anything, splitting loyalists and rebels will more likely make one faction fight dirtier or fight with some twist on their tech tree.

Not likely to have one faction ignoring HCs or scouts because they have splintered appart. 

Well to be honest I think zero hour was more balanced that Sins has ever been. I had many fun hours showing my friendshow mistaken they were to think any particular general was bad. If you played them right you could win with any of them.

Unless you mean by unbalanced you mean to their strategies. In which case that was the point, if you wanted to win with ground units it shoul be obvious not to play as the air force general. In many ways chosing a particular general was a gamble that you could maximize their strengths more than you were hindered by their weaknesses. And if you didn't want to take a gamble, you could always still play as the base faction, which is an option Sins should have if it is really going to move in that direction.

But if for some reason you feel otherwise, by all means keep your opinion. I was just puzzled where you were coming from. Don't take my sarcasm too personally.

 

I have a question, If I buy Rebellion, it includes Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchmen + Diplomacy + Rebellion? I mean, it includes all Sins expansions?

Yes, Rebellion has all the content.

Has it been answered whether or not a Rebellion purchaser (who had never purchased any other Sins games) could run Vanilla, Entrenchment, and Diplomacy individually or if they would be strictly limited to playing Rebellion?

Fro 30 bucs who gives a FRACK.  I pre-ordered this thing right on the spot

no - Rebellion is a seperate game - I believe it has all the features ofthe other games, but  you cannot play each seperately if that is what you are asking.

Hooray!  Of course, this means my SoaSE fever is in full swing again! Now I just need to convince all of my friends to pre-order this as well.

...and maybe play Diplo/Entrenchment for the next ~8 months.

Why wouldn't they just include the exes?

 

How do you know this?  I don't think any of the developers have actually said that.  (Or did they?)

I asked Yarlen on IRC and he said they're not sure yet, but will likely end up including the vanilla/entrench/diplo executables. Don't take it for anything set in stone, however.

I hope they include them just because new players are going to be overwhelmed by having to learn 5 tech trees (military, civilian, diplomatic, entrenchment defenses, factions) in addition to starbases, diplomacy, and whatever else they throw in.  My advice to newbies is that they should start with Vanilla and work their way up.