Quote Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
I just played the demo too, and I was wondering if taking 3 hours or so to get a military aircraft is normal. On the one game I played, I got 2 class 10s, one 7 or so, and one 18 (stole the highest out of Altarian territory...heehee).

But the begining seemed to take forever. Is it like this in the real game? I wouldn't want to spend an hour or so before being even able to fight.
Well, that's pretty much the normal flow of the game. Unlike the TW series, it's not designed to allow an early military rush. You don't start with any military power. Planetary Invasion is also pretty far down the tech tree, which discourages early military action. There isn't much incentive to attack your neighbors until you have that. In most of my games, the shooting doesn't start until somewhere in the midgame.

You can speed it up a little by using the smaller maps (so fewer early resources are used in colonization buildup), and using one of the faster research settings in the initial startup. That will bring Planetary Invasion online faster. Another way to get into a quick fight is to play the startup mode (I forget the name... Battle of the Gods, or something?) where everyone starts the game fully teched-up. That can be fun, but it's a bit one-dimensional (IMO).

I actually enjoy the slow buildup and jockying for position and strength with larger maps and slow tech, but that's just me. When I want a game where I can run an early Blitz, I go back to RTW:BI. They're just different types of games.