It's great. But if you only managed to play into 20 turns on Dreadlords, maybe it isn't for you. And what do you mean there wasn't any espionage in Dreadlords, certainly there was. No actual spies, but there was a slider that you could adjust for each race. Now it's a bit more direct, you need to actually place agents on a planet in order to get your espionage levels up.

As for what's good? Asteroid Fields are a great addition. Even lowly planets can become industrial powerhouses now. Or you can redirect distant fields to planets just starting out, giving them a boost to their production.

You also need special tech to colonize certain planets, like radiated ones, heavy gravity, toxic etc. It puts a whole new slant to the colonization rush. If another race beats you to the tech you need for a key planet you wanted, you find it necessary to suddenly change your overall strategy.

Super abilities adds a whole new level to the personalities of the various AIs. They each have their own distinct specialties now. And they're also alot smarter than they were in the default game, more of a challenge. Plus there's two more races in the game.

Ship designing has become much easier now. You can save basic hulls as templates and access them later to use for actual ships. Plus there's alot of new hulls/structures to work with to create truly unique designs.

You can now create your own custom opponents, giving them unique personalities and abilities, as well as ship styles. You can even edit the default races if you like, changing the way they respond in game. So you're not limited to the default races anymore; the sky's the limit as to how many you can include in the game. Of course you can still only have up to 9 at any one time.

The bad? The game is a bit more demanding on your computer system than before. But not alot, if you have a fairly good computer there won't be any problems. It's just people with low end systems that aare having issues.

And of course, as with any new release, there are a few bugs to be worked out. Nothing really gamebreaking for the most part though. And one major patch has already been released, with a couple of additional updates after that. And it sounds like the next patch will be a very good one. The devs are actively seeking player's input as to what they'd like to see. So I expect we'll see some pretty major additions next time.

That's not always the case. I had one game where the Terrans did nothing about my spy and I was able to reach an Advanced level in no time. If they do take them out quickly, just keep trying. The longer a spy is in their territory, the higher your level becomes. One method I've seen mentioned which would probably be effective is to save up a number of spies then place them all at the same time. It will take the AI awhile to neutralize them all, allowing you to gain a level or two. Plus if you target their markets, it reduces their ability to recruit spies of their own.



If you have at least one spy at home, you'll always be able to spy on individual planets.

Yes!

can you steal enemies tech? can you sabotage their production? can you destroy improvments on an enemy planet? I thought I read these things would be incorperated into the expansion.

Yes, yes and no. At least I haven't had the option of actually destroying anything yet, just disabling for awhile. Until my agent gets nullified. And there's a few things you can't disable, like Starports.