Njal

I agree that the battles are a bit lacking. Once you have phase inhibitors the best plan seems to be hang around in whatever border system is a chokepoint with overwhelming force, await the inevitable AI horde, crush it because it can't escape and then counterattack. Now you have to have some method to at least make things difficult to jump deep into your rear planets but phase inhibitors are too powerful. I would suggest that phase inhibitors merely cause charging for jump tak

I quite like the game after my first shot at it. I blew through 5 hours and missed a meal without even noticing. Which leads me to ask for a clock in game so I can notice that time has passed. Civ4 has a good version of this and even lets you set alarms in case you have a cut-off you don't want to miss.