Described as a "board game for the web", Neptune's Pride 2 is a 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) game where diplomacy, war and skullduggery are all keys to victory.
The game is played at a slow pace over a couple of weeks.
8 players per game, looks like a blast.
I seem to have persuaded @Tempy to join, who else is in?
You can sign up here
Completely free too, I'll stick a few of the tutorials in for your viewing pleasure.
One last thing: Listening to the Idle Thumbs guys go on about this it sounds like anonymity is one of the keys to a good time, so don't use your forum name
Starting Guide
Thought it might help to post a few of the mechanics of the game for people starting out.
Expanding your empire
The goal of the game is to reach a certain number of stars before anyone else.
To take over a star you need to send a fleet to that star.
To do this, click on your star that has the fleet, click the plus sign and then click the star(s) you want to travel to.
Save the path and you're good to go.
If there are no opponent ships there you will take over the star regardless of whether it was previously occupied or not.
If there are ships there then combat takes place.
Combat
I wont go into much detail as the combat calculator (shortcut "C") is quite good. Just make sure you check your opponents weapons tech and remember the defender gets a +1 bonus
Economy
This is the main factor in getting you money. The more resources on a star the cheaper it is to increase the economy of the star
Industry
To conquer your galaxy you'll need ships. This number determines how many ships you produce an hour. Again, more resources means cheaper
Science
This number determines how many research points are assigned to your chosen tech every hour. Check the technology (shortcut "T") menu for more details on all the different techs.
Creating a fleet
You can create a fleet on any that has ships on it. Click on the star and select new fleet. You can choose how many ships join the fleet. Remember if you take all ships the star is unprotected.
Spending You Money Wisely
Different stars give different costs for economy, industry and science depend on how much resources there are and how many times you have upgraded. One handy way to get the best price is to look in the galaxy menu (shortcut "G") and sort your stars by the cost of whatever you want to upgrade.
Hope that helps some, I'm sure this will be updated once we have played it a bit more
I haven't played it but I believe you just get email updates whenever something happens that effects you.
The game takes about a month so it's a hop in a few times a day type of thing
I've played a game of the original one every year with a few people for the last 3 years. We've just started a new one or I'd be up for joining this. It properly takes over your life. One guy last year was setting his alarm to get up in the middle of the night and launch attacks while nobody was looking.