'Cause it's a MOO title. Same mistake MOO3 did. Evolve the game play mechanics if you stay in the same series. Start a new series if you absolutely want to go a different path on a quite fundamental design decision. Otherwise it just comes across as using the Brand as a way to cash in on expectations.

I was looking forward to the game, since it announced real battles compared to GalCiv3 or Stellaris. But what I have seen so far doesn't really seem to be a challenging strategy game. I love the faction animations and voice overs. Still, this is not enough for me to buy the game at first sight. Btw, is there a reason why they sell the CE before a normal version first other than making some extra money?

If, and that is a big if, the game gets a bigger starmap, better tactical fights, unique faction technologies and a good custom race creator, I will change my mind. But for now it just stays on my radar. Out of a sudden, Stellaris looks more attractive to me. At least I started to look for alternatives again and I found Polaris Sector. Yet another 4x-space-game that has to proof that it is good and finished...seems like the long waiting and hoping is going on for me.

P.S.: I want to play Birth of the Federation even more now, make it happen lovely GOG team!

That is something I would actually believe - it was stated by CDPR that W3 during the Galaxy launch as their most-sold game preceding by far any other game up to that date, so that seems to be accurate.

If the game is going to copy off of doing space lanes the way that Endless Space did it, it has to do at least as good or better than the way Endless Space did it for me to be interested. And in Endless Space, you had the potential to research techs which allowed you to travel more freely or travel different wormhole paths that were previously locked off, instead of being constrained solely to the lanes to travel to different systems in the later portions of the game.

And then we have here real time combat when things are turn based for the strategy elements. I don't feel like this is going to work at all. I thought the combat of Master of Orion 3 was terrible and hardly functional (when I even had the chance to get to the game's combat). While pausable real time combat could work, it would have to be something that had excellent real time combat in a 3D space like Homeworld did for it to even be worth the bother. Because we're talking about a strategy game here and not something like say, combat in third person view where real time works. If the real time combat elements aren't even on par with what's considered good in the strategy genre, there's no point in trying if it only butchers the combat elements. Master of Orion 2's space battles worked out fine and were generally fair as far as balance goes, one thing that needs to be taken into consideration that real time combat in a strategy game will be even worse for the multiplayer aspects unless worked out thoroughly to make sure it isn't like say, real time (simultaneous) turns with Civilization 5 multiplayer which is terrible.

While not exactly the same thing with Civ 5 as Master of Orion has the space battles separate from the usual interface, turning the combat into an RTS will end up creating problems in both single player and multiplayer for those who don't want to have to multitask like a Korean Starcraft player just to win battles that could go either way. Homeworld wasn't balanced around being a turn based game, so the mechanics of real time combat and being physics/ballistics based actually worked for that game. A turn based game with real time combat creates a logistics issue, especially for those who may be trying to learn the combat system on top of the alterations with ship builds, techs, etc. It wasn't really broken in the first place with Master of Orion 2, so unless you have an improvement over it there's no reason to really try, and by that I mean scrap it if it's clear it won't be an improvement over what was already there. Heroes of Might & Magic games had turn based battles with the turn based strategy, that worked for them so what's to change if it's not better than what the games already had?

1. The CE gets you early access, that's why only the CE is being sold.

2. It doesn't need bigger starmaps. A small map can take five-to-six hours on average difficulty. The game as it is, is longer than MOO2 for the same map size. A medium map takes about as much time to win as a Huge map in MOO2. With MOO2 Huge getting the edge because of the insta-Antarean win possibility.

3. The custom race generator is promised and they've stated they're working on tactical combat (see developer letter above).

This is the thing: a game with fun gameplay requires a brilliant IDEA - but ideas require talent and a touch of genius. The big software companies can throw as much money as they want at a project, but that will not result in a good idea.

This is what you can get by throwing money at a game project:
- more 3D animations
- more complex artwork
- expensive cast of voice actors (see for instance this case)

However, the truth is that none of the above is going to make the game exciting and fun to play.

Even without an idea you can still make proper sequels or remakes of other peoples ideas, like The new Kings Bounty or Fantasy Wars.
Imagine Kings Bounty The Legend with realtime combat :D

I agree.

I haven't played King's Bounty yet but I will.

Important clarification: As long as it's still In Dev and you contact Support to request a refund within 14 days of purchase, you can get your money back, no questions asked.
And if the game gets a full release within that 14-day period, the return policy automatically shifts to the normal 30-day "if it doesn't work, we'll help make it work, or your money back" policy.

Because the turn based combat is synonymous with MoO. I like it because it gives me time to plan, time to test out new ideas and ship designs based around certain types of tactics. (Like cloaked guerilla ships packing massive torpedos, hit and run tactics on bigger fleets before bouncing out and hitting a fleet again, etc.)

I'm not saying real time is automatically bad...in RTS games. I don't feel it belongs in MoO.

I really don't get why you think that the turn based combat made the games great. But, hey you can go to the "MOO conquer the stars" specific forum and give them your feedback.

I'm with you. The turn based play in MOO2 was fun and useful for the first 1/4 of the game, when microing the shield facing and managing missile supplies on the ships made sense for your small fleets. But when you got to having huge fleet-battles, I was usually running it on auto except for usually the one make-or-break battle with the enemy's main fleet.

Yes, at the beginning of the game and depending on your play style the combat could be very fun - but seriously there have to be countless games that have a better turn based combat.
Very often the combat simply broke in a way that I have never encountered in other games and controlling your fleets frequently got tedious.

What was even worse is that the AI sucked so much (especially in MOO1) that when enabling auto half of my ships got destroyed without any reason and that some battles took ages.

Nice looking game, but the automated space battles really kill the whole experience for me, bummer 8(

In what way are they automated?