Got home from work, played this game about 5 hours with few interruptions. I played a 4v4 MP game that lasted about 2.5 hours before what was left of our team saw the writing on the wall and left. I had to host a game because nearly every game I tried to join had the host connection issue (seems common). Also I found it odd that I could not change the map or player slots once a game room is created. One player also lagged out from our game at the very start. The AI that took over for dropped/quitted players was useless. Last, I would prefer to see a faster speed available. But enough of that...

I really want to comment on the AI. My second game was another 2.5 hours that was an 8 planet 1v1 vs a hard computer. I had heard the AI wasn't all that great so I decided to skip straight to hard. Most of the game was stalemated around a dead asteroid field near me with mines I captured. First, the computer never captured those from me even though it held the system for prolonged periods. Second, when the computer did attack a planet later in the game (where I had no ships) it did not attack my builders as they continued building cannons which eventually warded them off. Third, the computer only colonized two of the four planets in it's area. They were volcanic but not colonizing them ultimately lead to the computer losing. In fact I believe the computer even had built enough civic research centers to buy the volcanic habitation tech...

Then there's the whole diplomacy issue which I haven't experienced directly but have read enough about to hold me off from my massive galaxy game until a patch. Plus it has it's own thread so no need to discuss here further.

I say these things because I enjoy it enough to know that I'll be playing it for quite some time. So if I'm already going to be playing I'd prefer to enjoy it as much as possible. Fixing the online issues and brightening up the AI will be the biggest step in that direction.