noob seeking for his first online game

I recommand PBW:
http://seiv.pbw.cc/

Playing online is just crazy for this kind of game, even for a "fast" 1vs1.

Well, even for a 1vs1 in a small quadrant you would have to sit for something like 12 hours straight.

Hmm... maybe if you save the game and agree for some other day to continue it, it could be doable... but I still think using PBW is a far better idea.

PBEM?

It would be fine for a while, perhaps 30 turns, but then the time it takes for each turn gets longer and longer, eventually reaching a point where players are not taking anywhere near the same amount of time to take their turns, depending on the situation facing either player on any given turn. On one turn, player #1 might take 10 minutes to enter orders, while player #2 needs closer to 45; then on the next turn, it could be reversed. The advantages of being online and connected during play go away.

I think the underlying reason for this is found in the depth of this game. The best example I can think of is MOO2, which I have played online for 8 years. It is heavily abstracted and hence simpler, making for shorter turn times. SEV, on the other hand, has many more details to consider and optimize, which equates to lots of time.

In the interest of full disclosure, though, I'd be interested in trying a TCP/IP game once it has actually been fixed (last I heard it was broken), just to see what it's like.

I played a TCP/IP game a few weeks ago and it was broken bad, but you can get around it. The players and I figured out that if the Host is the last person to end his turn then the turns run perfectly. Now if the host ends his turn first, the other players will not have any input for the turn they played and will be played as if the AI was in control (AI picks techs and some other options). We were able to get around this by being in communication out of game since there is no in game communication during a players turn. I am sure it has to do with the way the game recieves and then sends turns to the players. It should not be so hard to fix, and I would love for it to get fixed so that I may continue letting people know how great a game this is.

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Space Empires V rocks and rolls all day long sweet Suzy.

Visit the King of the Hill league. They set up nice games there ;P
http://koth.spaceempires.net/se5/

~Myrath