First off, let me just say that I actually LIKE this game, but...Before buying this game you should consider just how much you can tolerate the many bugs that are present. I suppose I could make a list, but you could just look around on the other forums (help & suggestions) and see what I mean. I've encountered many myself (and no, I'm not referring to those cases where someone just doesn't know what they're doing). They can be quite irritating to say the least. For example, the failure to autocenter is a well known bug. Yet another, is failure to play music randomly and the failure to choose your opponent's civs randomly. Just imagine playing the same civs all of the time and hearing the same music all of the time. Sure, you may get past these bugs, but until you do... These features don't fail for everyone, but it might fail for you. Think about this before buying. Maybe you'll want to wait for a patch first.
There also seems to be many occurrences of crashes occurring and some of them are NOT the results of incompatible systems, etc. I've tested a few saved game files now (from other people whose systems meet the requirements, etc.) and found them to be corrupted. In fact, I've encountered a bug that occurs whenever you load a game and then sometime during the same game session, you load another game. It messes up the date in the second game you loaded and can wreak all kinds of havoc if you don't notice it. My date in the second game got changed to match the date in the first game I had loaded. This can cause some pretty interesting problems to say the least.
Perhaps, pct. wise, the number of crashes occurring are quite low, in which case your chances might be good, but... You might be one of the not too few unlucky ones too. Something to think about.
Personally, I think this game was rushed. I may get flamed for this, but that's the way it looks to me. Just in case this will help, remember, I LIKE this game in spite of its many faults, but it really could have been better. If you want more specific criticisms, I might provide them later.
I also wonder how much replayability the single player game will have, as I haven't played it too long yet. I have a feeling that the AI is really going to suck. I hope I'm wrong, since I'm playing on the default medium level, but judging by what some others have posted, I wonder if the AI is capable of mounting any kind of real assault? Anyone know yet?
Currently, in my game, I have the considerably more powerful Cubans blockaded. After MANY turns, they still haven't tried to attack one of my ships that are blockading their cities, even though they could build the same ships as me! Am I expecting too much?
I'll play the impossible level next and let you know what I think. Maybe it will be much better? And maybe I'll write a review then too. Then again, maybe no one will want me to?
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