1st, I was pleasantly surprised to see the introduction of a long awaited enemy the Vasari. Finally some Alien butt to kick. When i saw the Vasari ships for the 1st time being a modeler myself i had to admire the artwork, and effort that went into creating those models. They are brilliantly done. Along with the new Kol Battleship. Excellent work.

After a few games that surprise slowly started to deteriorated into disappointment. While i was still winning in AI skirmishes, Playing as a Vasari vs AI TEC was much more difficult than playing as TEC vs AI Vasari. I went into this knowing the AI hasn't changed much from beta 3, and what little changes were made to make the Vasari work. I played a few games as TEC vs 2, or 3 AI Vasari opponents, and I noticed something. I would never get attacked. Not once. So i would send scouts to see what was going on. I found that all the AI Vasari opponents were fighting, and LOSING to pirate raids! Yes, in 1 battle i watched 3 AI Vasari level 1 cap ships loose to a pirate raid fleet. I said ok this must be a fluke. Then i read these idiotic riot act debates on the forums about how the Vasari are underpowered/overpowered, Play like protoss, not play like protoss, you need to micro the hell out of them to win, yada, yada, and so on. I wont go any further into that debate.

What i was expecting was an ancient technologically superior foe that has been fighting its way to TEC space for 10,000 years. What i got was a foe that is just "mildly" superior on a ship per ship basis. A foe that has a very weak early game. So weak that an AI Vasari can't stand up to AI pirates. Let alone a TEC colbalt rush. A foe with cap ships that have some buffs, and debuff's that need constant extreme micromanagement to be any effective at all. A foe not living up to what we expected according to the lore.

Lets forget about the lore for a while. What is fact is that while Vasari slightly outmatches TEC on a 1 for 1 ship basis, they cant outmatch TEC on economy, and production. Which is apparently the counter to the Vasari's "superiority". By the time a Vasari player has a cap ship + 20, or so frigates, A competent TEC player has 3 cap ships, plus 30+ various frigates. Vasari dont do too well when they are outnumbered in the early game.

All of this changes once you are able to research some higher level techs. Which some in my opinion need to come down a few levels like the Phase Gate. If a Vasari player makes it to tech level 9 then the tables will start to turn, and they become more like what you would expect them to be. Which is Dominating. At the maximum tech level of 15 they are damn near unstoppable with summon dark fleet. However i dont think the developers intention was for a TEC player to wipe out a Vasari player quickly before he reaches tech level "x" otherwise TEC is dead. This is an empire building game not "Beat the Clock", or "Death Race 2000". A smart Vasari player can do the same things to TEC if he wanted to. It has been done already. The problem in my opinion is the Vasari's level 1-3 game is way too weak, plus way too slow, and way too expensive to make it to tech 5-9. While still trying to build up your forces, and your empires infrastructure.

This is not to say there are no good points to b4. There are plenty. The addition of the Vasari itself is a good point even if they do need some work. The new Kol battleship is a very good point, because the model itself is brilliant. Multiplayer seems to be working fine now. Not near as many connection issues as before. Single player is still as smooth as ever. The game is shaping up.

If i had a choice between pre-ordering, and playing this beta, or buying some untested big name broken game, i would chose to pre-order this game. It is more stable than most of the established games out there, and it isnt taxing on lower end systems. I have rarely if ever had a CTD. I certainly do not regret my choice Ironclad, and Stardock deserve much praise for what has been done so far.

As for all the heated debates going on... If we hated this game so much i seriously doubt so much passion would be in those debates