The empire bar on the left?

One thing that's extremely hard for game devs to get right is UI design, simply because of all the variables involved. Thankfully, it should be moddable, so as long as its flexible enough, I'm sure the modding community will release something appropriately efficient.

I'm pretty sure that the way they did it is the most efficient. yes, I do indeed think simpler is better (at least, under these circumstances)

i think its a good design according to [+] and [-] collapse features. you have to think that by the time you get to a second planet from colonizing it, a fight will always usually breaks out before then depending how big the galaxy is being played.

almost always you'll encounter hostile scouts or fleets during the second takeover of a planet. again, it all depends on how many planets are being played and how many players are playing on them. so, this case you might not even use the whole left side of your screen to fill in your whole empire. for most who do have other things than to play all day, i believe they will be playing a minimum of no morethan 5planets or less with a 2v2 or 3v3 game, because i'm one of those players who might just play with those settings.

would it be possible to just manage your empire through zooming out to have a good spacial awareness of your empire then zooming back in and out for microing etc

It is possible to do this if you want.

The game is very compatible with the person who plays it(from what i heard). It gives you a lot of choice to how much control the AI should have for the management of your empire. Now, we all know that the AI(no matter how good) always does strange thigs, so some times you will have to do some excesive microing(hopefully not a lot) but i dont think it will be a problem.

it wouldn't hurt to have a little micro management going on during game play. i mean you didn't buy the game to watch the cpu fight right, i want to makesure that when i buy the game that i will be the one playing the game not the cpu =p. beside cpu always needs to be checked every so often. cpu AI's are imperfect without their creators.

True, thats why the give you options, and the AI is very flexible and responds well to changing situations(in battles and such). And you will recieve warning messages when your fleet is being obliterated, so if you want you can just step in, or you can manage every battle from the start. Its your pick.

I think some people are misunderstanding the concept of the game (who knows, maybe its me?)
well either way, the idea of the game is to not dabble in the small details (such as small skirmishes) when bigger, more important logistics need tending to. of course its a good idea to fight the big battles, but I think they created the skirmishing AI well enough to handle periferals.

Exactly what i have been trying to say. However i will always keep an eye on my battles, since they will be amazing to watch anyway.

well duhr, dont get so caught up on your trail that you miss the scenery.

But i must keep to the trail lest i stray from my point.

Youve just been plutoed!   

lol, i mean we do get tired specialy to my finger pushing buttons so the option part is like freedom to my manditory rest periods. i can have enough time to step out and smoke when i know my AI will handle themselves nicely on tuff situations.

roger that!

Well as the scale of this game goes , I dont mind leaving it to the AI to control the actual battles aslong as ive done my bit ..ie managed the empire and strategy to get those ships to the battle.

Its like Civ4 , you do soooo much already , do you really need to control how the tanks shoot..no you just let them auto-fight and see the outcome. However with a game like CnC , you dont exactly do much else so you might want to control how the tanks shoot.

With Sins you got Tons of things to do..like manage an entire system and hundreds of ships and a dozen planets but Sins goes one better by giving you the option to.

The only depressing thing is if the AI can get outsmarted vs a player , meaning players are forced into micro to achieve victory

Not necessarily, there has been countless times when the AI had been able to outsmart me. They think faster, and having so many things to do in an RTS keeps you on your toes and underpressure. Not the best possition to be in while your ruling an empire. I think most player will leave all but the most important battles to the AI.

Looking at the manaegment bar on the left, I wanna know what them blue dots are next to each plant!