After playing lots and lots, I've found a few quirks, most of which have been mentioned and will be corrected with subsequent releases. All in all, a good way to fail a semester.
BUT multiplayer stinks worse than the CD. If you PBEM, it's fine. I am not up to playing a turn a day for a year, though--my attention span just doesn't cut it. Failing a networked game ala Civilization, I have a couple of suggestions:
1) When you finish a "different machines" turn, SE4 saves a file and immediately quits. Likewise after the Host/gamemaster processes the turns. If this isn't a bug, it is an annoying feature. I'd much rather SE4 quit to the start screen so you could immediately start another turn.
2) Rather than PBEM or communicating directly to the host, I'd like to be able to use something like
www.xdrive.com a little more transparently. (Xdrive being an Online virtual drive capable of being seen by many at once.) The process would be something like:
a. Save game file to Xdrive
b. Individual machines grab file and
generate orders for the turn.
c. Host waits for all the individual
orders to be saved to xdrive.
d. Host automatically processes turn.
e. Goto a.
(Ewww. Flashback to basic.)
Pretty please, Aaron?
Great game; poor multiplayer
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