I played DomII a little, and I'm playing Dom3 now. I've been lurking on this forum for a long time now, but this is my first post.
I love Dom3 and I'm sure with the patches it will be better then ever. One question to all you SP'ers. I've seen so many say that there in their 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc, game. On large maps with lots of AI players. And they finished most or all the previous games.
How do you guys do that 
I'm in my 3rd game (as EA Ulm)[
edit: MA Ulm ], sure. But thats only because I experimented and quit my first two early. I'm now in a game were I've eliminated one pretender (of significant size) and am battling the strongest AI empire (Ermor). I'm in the 5th year. I've been playing about 3 hours a day for 3 days now.
I may win, or may not. But one thing is for sure, it will take me at least a week or two, if not more to finish.