[Panpiper]

I only played for an hour or so on the new map, enough to conquer the planet I found myself on, my city in the middle, surrounded by provinces (nice start for Ulm). I discovered upon processing turn one that the Ulmish scout is not stealthy. Er... Taking the surrounding provinces was trivially easy for Ulm. For troops I purchased nothing but Personal Artillery Marines and deployed them to the far rear of the map. I put my starting troops to the far rear as well. Not a single troll ever reached my firing line. They got close the first couple of battles, but as far as Ulm is concerned, the indies are not over powered.

Then having taken all the planet provinces, I went to move my army onto the large planet surface at the bottom of the map only to discover that only my Vampire Knight prophet could make the leap (he having flying). Hrmm... says I. Right, build troop transports, I think in a fit of lucidity. This still does not permit jumping to the bottom planet surface. It does however seem to permit going into space, so off to take the moon space, then the planet inside, then back to moon space, then the second of the three 'space' spaces around my main planet and... And here is a sticky one, I am not allowed to fly into the third space that encompasses my planet even though the space I am in is adjacent to it. Hrmm... So back I go to that first space sector and from there I can jump onto the bottom planet surface.

And there endeth my play for the day.

The Ulmish Navy Capital Ship had what seemed to me an odd effect in the Death Match. It appeared to do little damage (no firing sprite?) and yet both opponents routed off the field after doing damage to the ship. Go figure. No reward mind you as the ship has no hands. Oops.

The Chief Engineer has a strategic movement of only one, while all the other magic using commander have two. This is most inconvenient for site searching, forcing extra micromanagement upon us. I'd prefer that they all have the same strategic movement.

All in all I think you've got something here. The game appears to adapt itself nicely to the role of a space game. Thank you for the divergence.