I played it in the OS/2 days. I'd still be playing -- but I don't have OS/2. Stardock claimed that it was a lot of work shoehorning the game into Windows' limitations.
As for the AI, I could pretty well outsmart it back then. I don't know how well it's improved.
Much later they had an add-on patch that allowed you to design ships. That added a lot of fun to the game.
What steams me is, the demo costs as much as the game -- you just get free upgrades to the full Version and any patches.
I mean, seriously: demo. D-E-M-O.
demonstration
Lot's of nice eyecandy 'tho. That ruined desert city was my wall paper at work for quite a while. But I told people to visualize a ruins planet in SE4 when they saw the image.
That is so bad.
[ December 22, 2002, 18:16: Message edited by: Arkcon ]