First off, sorry for the odd title, but in many ways it describes my experience with the game since this is essential what happened with the game on my computer.
I bought the game because I’m a sucker for Space games and having played Galactic Civilizations I and II, I recently installed the game with high expectations.
Everything works perfect, no problems on the technical side. I was thrilled with the game play and all the new stuff. A good UI, and an easy to learn game in many ways.
So how come I uninstalled the game after only a couple of skirmish games?
I had a few games, and playing on normal against (or with, depending on the diplomatic relations) 7 AI’s, and eventually loosing, I finally had a good start and enough experience to fight back and eventually take over one solar system (or is it a galaxy?).
At this point in the game I had many planets and the biggest fleet possible, consisting of many high level capital ships and armadas of smaller crafts. I started fighting the AI in another galaxy which had teamed up so basically it was me against two other civilizations. We fought huge wars, and it was fun, but the AI kept running away resulting in me giving chase and taken over one planet after the other. And I started to get really really bored. I could easily see that this was going to repeat itself through planet after planet and galaxy after galaxy (played a huge map). So I though, what’s the point?
I started up a new game and played as one of the other races. They had some different skills, which was fun, but eventually I was chasing the AI around the galaxy again, and having to defend myself against the mandatory "seeker vessel/siege frigate/" attacks which normally ruined my planet before enough defense was in place (the fleet moved from one planet to the other) to wipe out the attacking ships.
After this, mouse and cat game with the AI, I uninstalled the game, and though back on the starwars game rebellion where you could build Interdicter Stardestroyers to prevent the AI from running all the time and eventually crush their fleet – how I missed that ability. Even with the jump inhibitors on the planet the AI in SoSE always got away with the majority of their fleet.
After playing other games for a couple of weeks I visited this site and read about the upcoming Entrenchment and though I have another go at it – missing some of the elements in the game. I remember I thought that SoSE feels like a "basic" game. Like some base model just waiting to get additional stuff added! More ships, definitely better planetary defense etc. Games like X3-Reunion, where people mod the game like crazy, gets the playability prolonged for years and years and year.
At the moment, I’m playing a large galaxy game, and generally enjoying myself, even though I still have to chase the AI around. I’m discovering more and more stuff I like, even though I can’t wait to the new add on comes out! I played a game where I had 4 planets, and begun to fight the AI’s. Eventually I was fighting 6 different AI’s which had joined forces and I eventually lost the game to a HUGE fleet from my opponents, but man I fought hard and laughed afterwards.
Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to give my opinion on another excellent game from Stardock and Ironclad, which I love to play now, and I hope it will become so much more in the future! You have definitely created a good foundation to build up one of the best strategy games out there – I look forward to the expansions in the future.