[Commander G]

I enjoy this game and consider it good, but as a Software Developer myself, I cannot call it great for the following reasons:

1) Cumbersome User Interface. Most operations are performed in modal situations where I cannot control the view of other information to help me make decisions on that operation.

2) I cannot cut and paste text from the news page to record information in a text file for later review.

3) It does not keep a history of prior Messages.

4) It could use notifications of idle production queues and idle ships.

5) I cannot edit a message once it is sent and cannot send more than one message to a player.

It does have its strengths:

1)Managable Turns because fleets are limited to what the empire can support in on going maintenance. Anyone who has played Stars! where there is no maintenance will know the game because very hard to manage as players get huge maintenance free fleets.

2) Rewards for being agressive early in the game. Early wars do not necessarily set your economy back so much that an early war costs you the game. You can use resources that you cannot use to build facilities to build ships to harass your enemy. If you can capture another races population early in the game, it can repay huge dividends later in the game.

3) Nice balance to the components. Certainly there are some that not very useful and need tweaking, especially in the weapons department. However, in this game defensive components are a valuable thing to consider employing. In Stars!, offense rules and defense systems are ineffective (Jammers are easily beaten by extra computers and Beam Deflectors can only be added to certain hull types).

4) Nice Technology Tree. You have to carefully balance how you spread your research out and carefully consider your technology trades.

5) Diplomacy interface is nice. What can discredit a game that allows a floundering player to submit himself to being subjagated until someone arrives delivers him. You do not have to give up! All the different relationship levels leave plenty of room for striking deals. This really shines in the Multi-player games.