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So far so good. Just finished the second game. Got an alliance victory that went "roughly" according to plan.
There is some cool stuff in this game. I was fighting a see-saw battle with the Evil Apes in the Evil Robot's home sector as part of a three-civilization alliance against the Apes, when all of a sudden one of my allies, the Utopians, declare war on the Robots. I have to jump in, but now I'm in deep shit, as all the Evil Robot ships come pouring out of their systems after my ships. I retreat out of the sector at full speed with my precious but badly outgunned warships, but this leaves a slew of lumbering battleaxe ships bearing down on an advanced spacestation that I had set up in the sector, and I've got three expensive, full, and god-awful slow transports full of troops surrounded there as well. Things looked grim--I'm about two turns from losing the spacestation and all the transports--until I manage to sneak in a construction ship into the spacestation that allows me to build some kind of a wave-jamming module that slows down enemy ships in the sector by one move per turn, effectively freezing all the slow enemy ships where they are. They were scattered all over the sector as they closed in on my spacestation and transports, so now I turn my fleet around, go back in, and rip them apart one-by-one. Within a year the whole sector--the heart of the Evil Robot empire--was cleared of enemy presence. Warm up the fat lady! Game over! What a rush seeing a crushing disaster get turned into a decisive victory with just one small ship adding one small feature to a spacestation at literally the last second. Cool stuff, indeed. Well worth the price of admission.
The AI was respectable on the normal level. It did do some questionable things, mostly along the lines of not pushing advantages and not using ships effectively, but that may just be part of the "normal" level. I'll try moving up a notch in the next game.
One of the things that I did like was the fact that the game throws things at you to keep you on your toes even in the endgame, when normally these games are just a matter of time if you've got a big lead. First, I got a message that the Yoda Slugs (the Yor) developed some ancient technology that would allow them to grow infinitely stronger very quickly, and that I should eliminate them before it would be too late. They only had one system left at the time, and they had been a willing minor ally, so I left them alone on principle. The game didn't go on that much further, but I wonder what would have happened if it had. Also, a massive space shark popped in to the galaxy and wraught some havoc. Lastly, the Yoda Slugs found a huge space craft from an ancient civilization on one of their planets. Had they been an enemy, it would have been tough to take out. Even though I was reasonably certain I would win after that major battle ripped the guts of the enemy and gave me a decisive advantage in planets, tech, etc., I never felt 100% comfortable with the lead until it was all over. Good stuff.
I also like the scale and scope of the game a lot. So many games today try to do everything, and end up falling far short. This game tries to stay within its limits and provide a solid single-player challenge. I'm still on the fence, as the AI at the normal level looks very beatable, but I'm guessing that it will be a tough fight at the next levels up. If it is, this game will get a solid thumbs up.
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