Really early on in one game, I sent a lonely scout to check out the nearby systems. I found the Pirate Haven two sectors away from me. It had about 15 defense platforms and at least 3 dozen ships.

I lost that game when the pirates and the Vasaril decided to hit me in two different sectors at the same time with major offensive forces.

I probably should have put more into military research, but I had just managed to produce my first capital ship.

Unfortunately, I had no idea about the bounty system or anything like that until just now - the tutorial never went over it!

That's about my biggest complaint of the game so far. This is a totally new style of game - a real-time 4x game. I love it, but the learning curve is -insane-.

MOAR TOOTOREALS PLS KTHX.

I like the pirates, if I find a pirate base that means I get 'free' level-ups for my capships

Since most of the pirate ships I've encountered don't have shields my defense platforms and fighters/bombers from defense hangars have made short work of them. Well, it takes a few minutes for them to clean them all out but they take care of the pirates before I sustain any real damage.

My strategy is pretty simple, every system gets four defense hangars and each hangar has 1 fighter and 1 bomber. I build those as soon as I take the system (except for very early in the game) before anything else. Once they're all online I no longer need to keep a defensive fleet stationed there. Add at least four platforms right around the planet itself to take care of the pillagers (I think thats the name of the pirate ships that attack the planet). You can build tons of platforms so make sure you get your hanagars out early and then you can just build platforms until you can't fit anymore at that planet.

Pirates can be used to your advantage, i.e to take an enemy out of a fight as they have to defend their own planets.

game is just great .. speed can be adjustable.

AI and pirates are also great dont dare to dumb down the AI otherwise nobody will play this game after a week cause everyone will have time to learn it more.

its just fine .. in fact its one of the most stable first release i ever saw in my life.

It's also been one of the most stable betas I ever saw in mine Frankly, I'm still amazed there are only 2 actual reported bugs (that aren't hardware issues).

In the beta the pirate base could be taken over with culture alone. Then it became a source of steady income. Colonize the world closest to the pirate world, build a couple broadcast centers, when your culture reaches it the pirate base is yours.

I have not had the opportunity to play the "real game" yet but if this works it will twist your thinking on the pirates 180 degrees, from a liability to an asset.

Pirates can't be captured by culture anymore (in fact, there are no more culture flips, planets go neutral instead of jump to your side), but capturing the pirate base the old fashioned way still nets you a good credit income from them

QFT!

On your first game, of course it feels overwhelming. Once you've played a full game and the learning curve drops away then that first planet feels like agony. Good for me, though, since I study my college work in the interim.

Speed can be adjusted, yes. In fact, I quite like the pacing on 'slow'. We're not asking for a dumbed down AI, we just want to tone down the frequency of the raids.

And I agree, the game is very stable and runs absolutely smooth on the highest settings. Kudos to Ironclad, the engine and gameplay is superb!

What I would like to see is a way to adjust the speed "on the fly" in the middle of a game. That way you could play on a faster speed at the beginning and slow it down as your empire got bigger (maybe something like in Europa Universalis).

Also, I may be missing something but is there a way to pause a single-player game?

The pause button most keyboards have it hidden somewhere in the upper right of your keyboard

You mean the pause button that does absolutely nothing in 99% of programs?

That's the one. It might be rebindable *scratches head*

If you're sitting around waiting for something to do outside of the first few minutes, you're doing it wrong.

Really. Managing a three front war in two or more solar systems can be taxing.

my thoughts exactly: it took me a few games to realize that one really needs to play proactively in order to achieve anything. i don't necessarily mean going on the warpath right away (although expansion certainly helps ;)), but there is always something to do. in some games that may mean creating a massive fleet, and in other games it may mean focusing on empire research. they key is in learning what the situation demands... a skill i have yet to refine.

1- gameplay is a personal preference, to me the game play is way too fast.

2- you can mod the length of time between pirate attacks to how ever you want in the gameplay.constants file in your gameinfo folder.