If money's tight, don't get Empire. CA are letting people apply for some kind of beta testing, just regular people, because the last two patches have been so abysmal and have fixed one problem, but created 5 more.

Having said that i've enjoyed it and am still enjoying it, even though i quit campaigns after 30 turns because i'm invincible and it's clear i will win, but i think i'm able to enjoy it even with the bugs where other people are not because of the way i think... Which is: I bought it knowing that it was going to be full of bugs, so i have no right to complain.