Newbie multiplayer question

[warbean]

Hello all,

My name is Warren and I am a 19 year old college student, and a total newcomer to SE4. Like one of the other newbies delurking earlier, I am a disillusioned MoO3 player who was led here by a link on their discussion Boards. I downloaded the demo for SE4 gold, and immediately fell in love with the interface and the customization. I love how learning the game is fun in and of itself. Even little things like being able to rename your ships is awesome.

First of all, kudos to this excellent fan community. There seem to be very few immature posters, and there are many people herer who seem to be very willing to go out of their way to help out newcomers.

The gist of what I am getting from posters is that multiplayer is where the action is in this game, because the computer AI becomes very easy to beat after awhile.

It seems that PBW is a very popular way to play this game. From what I can tell, this is just like PBEM, only with a better host. The game is advertised as having TCP/IP support. Does this mean it is possible to play in real time with a user on a different computer by exchanging IP addresses? That would be my preferred method of play, as PBEM is really too slow for me to have too much fun. I see that many tournaments and games have 36 hour turn limits...does this mean I could ptentiall have to wait a day and a half just for one turn to pass by? I want to play in real time!

Is there a community for people who want to play in real time?

Thanks so much in advance.