Brad Wardell, the owner of Stardock, says he loves the new Diplomacy expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire. Well, duh, his company is publishing it. But Mr. Wardell isn't a good enough actor to feign the sort of enthusiasm evident in this broad outline of how the game plays.

A couple of things caught my eye, both examples of how adding diplomacy isn't just a way to do an end run around the usual fighting you'd do in a real time strategy game (as much as people try to tag Sins a grand strategic game, it really isn't; it's an RTS through and through). At one point, Wardell noted that there was diplomatic tension with an AI player. So he called up an information box to check why the other player didn't like him.

Their fleet strength is just so much higher than mine that it's bringing down everything else big time. Their fleet is almost 4 times larger than mine.

Ah, peace through strength. Ronald Reagan would be proud.

Mr. Wardell indicated that he was going for a diplomatic victory. In other strategy games, such as the Civilization series, a diplomatic victory generally means avoiding wars. But Wardell noted that's not quite how it works when you're playing the Diplomacy expansion for Sins.

...based on who I set up as my opponents, I can greatly increase or decrease the ease of getting a diplomatic victory. Now, to be...ahem, honest, because I'm playing as TEC and half my opponents are TEC, I've effectively made it quite a bit easier to get a diplomatic victory since the different TEC factions are more likely to "get back together" than say my ability to get the Advent and Vasari to be friends with me.

It seems that a diplomatic victory is partly a matter of taking out factions that are hostile to you to improve your global diplomatic standing. A diplomatic victory doesn't mean avoiding war. It means choosing wisely who to exterminate.

The Diplomacy expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire comes out next Tuesday.