wow, i finally got this after having played the demo MAAAANY years ago and see that the game is really a pain to play sadly. is there no game speed option?

The + and - buttons should change the game speed, you can keep track of the speed by watching the white bar in the resources bar at the top.

are you sure? i just tried it and the buttons didnt change anything :(

It's what I remember from the old non-GOG version, although there might be an option in the game menu or you might even try dragging the white bar at the top... been a fair while since I played, and I wouldn't think the controls would have changed between the GoG version and disc. Unless you're talking about KKND extreme, in which case it's been even longer since I played that and I wouldn't have a clue about the controls.

Hitting + and - does not work in the GOG version. Anyone know a way to speed up the game? It's painfully slow having to watch your units crawl across the map (with terrible pathfinding, too)

sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/

May I suggest you a solution after 6 years? ;)

Select "additional executables" from GoG Galaxy and the DirectX settings. Disable Aspect ratio correction and Vertical synchronization. Give it a try. I think it helped me a great deal.