Bought it Saturday; installed and played yesterday. I really dig this, and foresee the loss of many hours to it.
It did crash my PC when I exited the game, though.
Did you guys play co-op?
Yes, we played a random medium map with two normal random AI’s.
Sorry I missed the game last night. 
I ended up working all day and most of the night.
How was it? I haven’t tried multi-player yet but it looks like that would be where this game could be challenging.
Last game I played single player was the most challenging yet…4 AI’s (one was the pirate faction) on a 20 planet map, all on Normal. That is the closest the computer has come to beating me…though I still managed to win in the end. The game is getting to easy to win on Normal so I’ll probably kick it up to Hard and see how that goes.
Let me know if you guys want to try another cooperative game this week…I would probably be up for a game or two if so (work permitting).
-XT
It’s actually Supreme Commander in space.
That’s too bad because I didn’t really like SC all that much.
I didn’t like SC either…nor does this remind me of it to be honest. MMV, but this game doesn’t really play much like an RTS to me.
-XT
Agreed - while it’s an RTS when it gets right down to it, the pace everything moves at (as well as the emphasis on the various things you do) makes it feel a LOT more like Civ, IMO.
Well, I’ve played through the hardest game thus far for me. I did one of the medium sized maps with 4 AI’s (5 if you count the pirates) all on Hard. The biggest challenge was trying to attack and beat down one AI while fending off another and the incessant pirate raids. I would just have one of the AI’s on the ropes when another one would launch a full court press on one of my frontier worlds. Because of that the game took significantly longer than any other game I’ve played to date to win…I had to fortify each world I took unless I could take one world then leap the chain to another and protect from there. A lot of times I felt like I was jerking my fleet about constantly to quell one raid after another, usually in opposite sides of my empire. And for the first time since I’ve played influence was a major factor. I had to constantly build propaganda centers on each planet I took so I could ensure I kept the planets I took.
At any rate it was a very good game. I just wish winning something that epic you got more than a you won splash screen. Bit disappointing.
-XT
Beating four AIs on hard does get you something extra.
The ‘Actually, HAL, I CAN do that…’ achievement.
It wasna easy, mind…
-XT
I’m getting creamed here with one AI empire. I just about had the guy, and now I’m down to four planets. I get swarmed by lots and lots of frigates. I’m trying to control choke points.
The devices that prevent jumping; enemy ships obviously are able to leave the gravity well. What’s the point?
Lots and lots of frigates, or battleships to control the above choke points?
I build one core fleet with capital ships and a mobile defense fleet with cruisers and frigates. It’s all in how you mix the ships. Definitely go for the choke points though.
-XT
Well I got this game two days ago and I’m currently at the “find time to play the advanced tutorials” phase of learning, so I haven’t actually played a map yet. And I’m a little leary of startinga game at midnight judging by the three hour stories.
Yeah, this game is a heavy time investment. I haven’t played a game yet that has gone less than 2 hours…and the last game I played took me several days to finally win.
-XT
I just got this game a few days ago, and I wrote a review on Gamefaqs if anyone is reading this and hasn’t tried it yet. You can sum up the review pretty easily with just the title.
“Buy this game now. It’s more important than paying your rent.”
Seriously though, I can’t believe how great this game is. If you think about it, the design isn’t all that groundbreaking or intricate, but nobody has thought to put these elements together in just the right way until now.
Once I get a little more comfortable with the game I want to play with you guys! So far I’m on my third game, after winning one and losing one. I’m playing a map with 8 player ffa, and I finally figured out how to keep the pirates from nailing me down all the time. Right now I’m keeping the pirates focused on the player on one side of me, while I’m concentrating on taking out the player on the opposite side. So far the strategy is working well!
In the FFA games I try and keep the Pirates focused on one or two other players while I go after the other ones. I’m trying a game now with 4 computer players (and the Pirates) broken into teams but it’s not going well. Apparently you have to keep your computer ally happy with you or they will break the alliance and attack you. I had thought that my flank was secure with my computer ally but then they suddenly broke the alliance and attacked me in a full court press. Seriously sucked for a while but I think I have the game back under control (Lost one of the main blocking asteroids to my home world and actually had a full on battle AT my home world, nearly losing it).
Would definitely like to try a multi-player game at some point…still haven’t done that yet.
-XT
I’d love to be involved in multi with fellow dopers but being 6+ hours behind you all I don’t think it’s really likely.
Hmm… tidbit I don’t thinkw as mentioned. Apparantly you CAN manually move your ships in the z-axis. It doesn’t make much difference in combat really, but holding down “D” and clicking will allow you to do so if you are so inclined.
I didn’t know that, though like you I’m not seeing why you would bother. Frankly I usually zoom out until the ships are icons so I can better control tactically how I want the fight to go (and to be honest this usually entails drag clicking every ship and having them fire at a single enemy capital ship until it is destroyed and then rinse and repeat).
-XT