Now I know it's been too long a week. Didn't see Firgof there :).

Yeah !!
Finally ! :D (instabuy, of course)

I really hope you'll encounter the success you and your team deserves :)

I usually play on a map with 100 systems with one candidate per race so that is 8 races now with the new dlc. Best map to choose if you start a new is Clusters since it puts you in your own Cluster which gives you time to expand and prepare for war.

To be fair there is no such thing as a proper size. It all depends how long you wan't to play. For me it takes about 10-20 hours with 100 systems since the AI is in competition and I exploit their weaknesses aka them being in war with others.

I'll definitely buy it.
Wishlisted for now though.

I've spent enough on some books the last two months. I cannot afford the price of this DLC right now.

Yeah, that's what I was figuring as well, and that definitely seems to be the case, as they did now correct it on the SR2: WotH DLC page. Shame, I've finally gotten around to getting to play X3TC for the first time, and am *really* enjoying it, and got all excited when I saw this was available for my XP gaming rig.....hopes shattered, lol

Hm, realtime strategy. The only realtime strategy I liked was Imperium Galactica 2. So how is this game compared to IG 2? Harder? Easier? Same level of difficulty? Active pause or not?

Active pause, yes. I never played IG2 so can't comment on that.

What you do in this game is colonize planets and export their ressources to planets you wan't to upgrade/level up which gives you certain types of pressure aka resources which are influence, money, research, FTL, energy and global defense. So a certain type of pressure on the planet generates certain types of production buildings. For example if you import money ressource/pressure it generates a number of markeplaces that correspond to the pressure amount available. In order to use pressure you need to have enough cities on the planet which you can build or they generate themselves with time which corresponds to number of needed labour.

So each planet has one or several resources that you can use to upgrade other planets. There are five levels of planetary development which all need certain number of ressources imported. Then you can build orbitals and fleets. You can do diplomacy which is done by buying diplomatic cards with influence. Then you research technology for planets, fleets, etc. You can scout planets, build supply depots, defense satelites, remant ships, activate artifacts, like death star ship, design your own ships for battles, etc . Also if you are not interested in designing ship you can just download in-game new designs from other players and use it in game.

Check some Star Ruler 2 Heralds gameplay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgd6hJjybHs

The game itself is not hard just in needs a bit of time to get adjusted to the economical system which quite simple but works wonderfull.

I recommend the game very much.

I don't think there is a "correct" way to play it. It's one of the most sandboxy strategy games I've seen.
The game gives you a warning when you try to make a game with more than 25 or 30 systems per player, saying that the game will be very slow paced. For a relatively fast-paced game, I'd go for 1 galaxy, 4~5 players, 15~20 systems per player. If you want to have larger number of systems but keep the pace high, there is a slider that controls the amount of barren vs useful planets (I keep that option off so I couldn't tell you the details).

I mostly like the sandbox aspect of it, though, so I usually played with 4 or 5 races, 1 galaxy per race, 40ish systems each galaxy, no barren planets. I like having multiple level 5 planets, with huge trade networks. AI is (or was, didn't try it after the latest patch) very bad at intergalactic colonization and warfare even on hard, though that was a plus for sandbox experience :)

Another good setup that I only recently found about (and now it's my favorite) is to use "The Expanse" map. It's slightly similar to Clusters galaxy Matruchus recommended above: every player spawns in one branch of the galaxy, with strong remnant fleets guarding the center. They differ in one key point, though... On the Expanse, remnant fleets guard the edges of the galaxy, too. Once you clear a system on the edge from the remnants, a new system guarded by increasingly stronger remnants opens up, and so on ad infinitum.

In my most recent game I cleared about 3 tiers, enemy remnants' fleet strength in the fourth tier was somewhere around 2 million. Then I got the expansion and restarted the map :)

nice new pretty for my library... Thanks GoG!

SR2 + DLC hmmm. So its sandboxy type of 4x?. Is there a half decent manual or any description or at least a wiki with basic info?. (reviews seems to indicate the lack of or little)..

I`m currently taking a view into the wiki. Hm, seems as if you can go easily in debt and when you`re in debt, the guns of your ships stop firing! Very weird concept.

Yes there is a wiki here: http://wiki.starruler2.com/Main_Page

and it describes the game quite nicely. Its not very complicated to play. You have a short tutorial that introduces you in to the games economical concept.
Nope, that is not true. Ships fire as long as they have stored enough supply aka ammunition. But still some ships then continue firing with lasers but their power is very much decreased. Debt does not affect firing of ships.

Oh, so the wiki is wrong?
Anyways, I think the game is too complicated for a RTS, it should be a TBS game.