Yeah look, i'm a noob,but I don't know how I am supposed to copy the games file to my hardrive where's the instructions that are supposed to tell me? any help would be appreciated. I like supremacy.

Hey Jason, welcome to the forums!

Which files are you talking about? The download for Supremacy?

The Supremacy files are "zipped" - basically, they've been compressed into an archive to make them smaller so it is easier, faster, and uses less bandwidth to download them. However, this also means you need a program that can unzip the files after the download before you can use the files.

The most common program to do this is a program called Winzip, which you can download a free trial of from Here. (It says on the webpage to enter your email address, but you DON'T need to do this - just click the Yellow Download Evaluation button in step three). Run the program and let it install.

Winzip isn't the only program that lets you unzip stuff though - you can also try WinRAR. Winzip can be a bit nasty when it gets to the end of its trial and tries to force you to pay for the full program. WinRAR just has a nag screen that you can just cancel every time you load up the program, so it's a more permanent solution than Winzip. But Winzip has a MUCH friendlier interface. It's your choice which program you chose to use - and they aren't mutually exclusive - you can have them both installed at the same time if you want to.

Once you've installed one of/both of these programs, Download Supremacy and click on the Open button. Once the download has completed, whichever archiving program you chose will automatically open. Use the wizard that that program has and just follow the onscreen instructions. Unzip the game files into a folder in an easy to find location, such as your desktop.

Once the process has completed, open up the folder that you unzipped the files into, and click on the file called "SupremacyClient.exe" (It will simply show up as "SupremacyClient" if you haven't told your computer to display file types) This file will load up the game. If you want to make your life easier, right-click on the SupremacyClient file and click copy. Then, go to your desktop and click on a blank area and right-click, then click on the option that says "Create Shortcut". This will create an icon on your desktop that you can click to load up the game - you won't even need to search through the game folder to find the right icon.

If you need more help on how to use Winzip/WinRAR then let me know, but the built-in Wizards usually guide you through the process so you should be fine. Good luck.

Yeah thanks for that Matress, really helped. This game has the potential to be awesome, everything BOTF SHOULD have been. So how long do you think it will be before it's completed?

That's a question that we're asked a lot, but the truth is that Supremacy isn't as near to completion as most people *think* it is; many game features are simply missing, don't work correctly, or are going to be given an overhaul. We're therefore looking not at months, but years before the game nears completion. The most important part of the game that still needs to be programmed is obviously the AI (Artificial Intelligence). The AI is what controls the other races and empires, but we also plan to use it to take control of systems for players that don't like micromanagement, so it really is going to be an important feature.

...Unfortunately, the programming for the AI has barely started, and it will be the most complicated-to-program part of the game. It will also take a lot of tweaking to get it working correctly - or we could end up with the Empires behaving wrongly, such as the Federation acting like the Terran Empire or the Klingons running away from battle.

To help with the tweaking, we will definitely need players to play-test the game for us, so everyone will be able to help with the development of that particular feature. All people will need to do is note any strange situations where an empire - or minor race - behaves differently to how you would expect. We'll then make the changes needed and release an update. Of course, this is all in the future, and seeing as the AI barely exists yet, we're looking at a minimum of one year for even an early version of the AI is released. I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait along with the rest of us.

Yeah I understand. Can I ask a question? did you look at making the main galactic view a 3D map that you could rotate and zoom in and out or would that be too diffucult to do? It would be pretty cool if it did.

No, we haven't looked at making it 3D - or at least making it rotatable - to my knowledge. The map is considerably more flexible that it was only a few versions ago though, and it already beats the map from BOTF because of the smooth zooming function (Try using your mouse wheel if you haven't already ). It took Mike a looong time to get the zoom function to work as smoothly as it does, and I don't know how making the map 3D would affect the zoom function. It would most likely increase the hardware demands of the game as well, which would be something we would usually try to avoid - or at least include an option to turn the function off for those people who do not meet the increased hardware requirements. But I don't know how easy it would be to include an option to change whether the map was 2D or 3D.

The best thing to do is to ask Mike, which I will do the next time I see him online. Unfortunately, he's told me that he is absolutely swamped with his work at the moment so i might not see him online for a while. This is also why the Easter update is running late.