As someone who was very fond of SotS1 and the ease with which I could finish the eXplore, eXpand, and eXploit parts of the game and get right to the eXterminate part where ships started exploding, SotS2's increased emphasis on managing your empire and decreased emphasis on fighting and winning battles has not endeared me to the game.
If your playing on larger maps yes. Smaller maps you can reduce that management down to little and watch lots of explosions.
Its very easy to do in a decent amount of turns. Full scale war with turn 1 ships is a blast. Check out some of the MP action that been and being stream (when they are),
