Think of it this way... for 40 bucks, you get what, 10? 20? quite different games (in the form of mods). Mods like Pirates and Nomads (play a pirate or nomadic race), Proportions (slows gameplay down to a more psuedo-realistic pace, makes it take lots of time to get colonies developed, stresses homeworld), Star Trek Mod, Babylon 5 Mod, Star Wars Mod, Devnull (has nasty space monsters that will always give a challenge), Adamant (play as a magic wielding race, a race that evolves organic ships, or a normal "physical" race), Starfire, Highliner, Starfleets, and so on. Each mod offers unique gameplay, giving SE4 a lot more replayability than 99+ percent of games on the market, even if you only play a few mods.
If you want different sounds, check out Tampa Gamers Sound Mod, which can be found on
SpaceEmpires.net. If you want different shipsets, there are 270+ of them out there to pick from. Check out the
SE4 Race Directory. There are a few alternate game interface "mods" out there, such as
TNZ Interface Mod and
Eclipse Interface Mod. There are tons of custom component, facility, planet, star, etc. images as well in the
Image Mod. There are lots of custom graphics available. Using them is really easy. Modding is really easy, as all the data is stored in simple, easy to edit text files.
[ April 03, 2004, 21:41: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]