Yeah I have to third what Fimbul said. I think 2526 is not the year, but the amount of dollars they had for a development budget. Totally lacks production values, the art is ugly as hell and the animations are just embarrassing, where they exist at all. The combat is very disappointing. It clearly is trying to pay homage to MOO2, but they took out the awesome parts (weapon research, ship design) and emphasized the sucky parts (population shuffling and happiness micro-management). Not worth the money at all, maybe if it was $10 it'd be worth it.

Problem resolved in my case with beta pach 1.023... seem that new shader have resolved a lot of problems...

For a list of what have change with 1.023 and 1.024, take a look at http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2379183 ...

Very important, download the upgrade where you have buy your game... version from matrixgames accept only patch from matrixgames and version from Impulse accept only patch from Impulse... don't know why but it seem that both distribution are incompatible... in fact, if you try to upgrade a impulse version with a matrixgames patch, it will not accept your serial...

Anyway, a lot of work was made... but some work remain... minor annoying thing and balance thing... modding have become more easy and maybe some multiplayer will maybe be possible in the future...

At the strategic level, the game is not so bad... but for the visual, it is very low for my taste...

And yes, like you wrote, the original release look more like a beta... now it is better... but it seem to become usual with a lot of games who are released early, before the majority of bug are crushed...

In fact, very large map are not more possible... before, if you wish, you was able to make a map 1000x1000... in 1.023, it was reduce to 250x250, and rise again in 1.024 to 300x300...

For me, this game remain a work in progress but the positive thing is that the devs are working on it and don't ignore the "complain" of their customer...