I bought this expecting a fairly laid-back kind of experience, sit back while watching a movie with the wife, set things in motion and let the galaxy do what galaxies do.

I did the first tutorial mission and I got the impression that's it's more of an intense "Starcraft" style game as opposed to a relaxed "Alpha Centauri" style game. Is it fair to say that this game needs constant, high-energy attention? Or can it be played in a fairly casual manner as well?

I can appreciate both styles of games so I'll probably play through it at some point regardless, I just wasn't really in the mood for a high-intensity type game when I loaded it up.

It actually comes in somewhere in between. It's certainly nowhere near the manic pace of Starcraft, but it is a real-time game so things will continue to happen whether you address them or not. It's really a matter of taste and preference, and you're the only one who can say whether it's the right speed for you.

The key to sins is to keep pace. It's less important to be really fast, and more important to ensure that you're thinking ahead and are addressing your future needs.

K, thanks for the reply.

If you want to play at maximum it's very clickfesty. This comes from the abilities various ships have with synergies, countermeasures and that sort of things. Think kind of MOBA play style here.

That said it's perfectly fine to have those abilities on auto and let the AI do a decent job of it. But if you're a competitive player you need to click fast.
Honestly I think the vast majority of players only use those abilities themselves from time to time and let the AI take care of it the rest of the time and then Sins have a pretty laid back speed.

Sins is rather slow paced compared to most other RTS games and offers a lot of automatisation options. You won't lose because you clicked that particular ship 5 seconds to late but there are a lot of things to constantly look after on the macro level to ensure you solar empire is doing well. Think of Supreme Commander if you know that game.

One of the things I think Sins does a lot better than SupCom is managing your economy. SupCom has you juggling engineers and micromanaging that work force, which is time consuming and detracts from the ongoing fighting. Sins keeps things simple; the only time you'll ever issue an order to a constructor is if it's relevant, and factories and economic structures are otherwise "place and forget". While they're different games with very different ways of doing things, I think the Sins way works best for the huge scale it's going for.

Yeah Sins has an amazing interface to keep control of multiple fleets and planets. However, SupCom isn't very micro intense either. Both games put more emphasize on foresighted macro management than fast clicking as opposed to Starcraft and others.