I started playing Aurora almost 10 years ago, playing the VB version through numerous updates now in C#. Its got to the ultimate 'one more turn' game for me. The hours I have sunk into this game in both of its version, I cannot even dare to guess. It kept me sane during my years posted up in Northern Saskatchewan, where their is little do other than work and fish (best fishing you can find!). Thanks Steve, for keeping me occupied!
In VB I think my longest game was almost 80 years, before it slowly ground to an unplayable halt. Even knowing I could not get a game to last much longer than that, I continuously found myself coming back to Aurora when disappointed by the likes of Civ VI and Gal Civ 3. Stellaris held my attenion for a couple years, but I still kept checking in to the forums here hoping for a sniff of news on Aurora II and eventually C#. Between the spoiler races and the occasional well established NPR, I learned a lot of lessons in playing the game, designing ships and components and managing colonies. . . . most of them the hard way before there was a decent wiki.
The improvements in C# have been really fantastic. My most recent go with 1. 9. 5 has gone 110 years now and is still quite playable, though it has slowed down to about 20 seconds for a 5 day increment. In fairness I think the slowdown may be partly due to the 400+ mineral packets that are flying from the mining colony orbiting the tertiary star of Ophiuchi C to my main colony orbiting Ophiuchi A, 655 Billion kms away. Another lesson learned. . . double check your packet destinations BEFORE you send ten years worth of them on the scenic route!. But with over 1100 civilian ships in service, a couple hundred of my own creations, 24 colonies in over a dozen systems, and a population of almost 10 billion, its still light years ahead of VB. This is the farthest I have ever been able to get along in the tech tree, so in that respect its been pretty cool too. The unit design has given my WH40K themed empire some real flavour, with Imperial Guard, Space Marines and awesome Baneblade style super heavy tanks.
The only beef I can even mention is that I cant find any bad guys in this go around! I have all but the Invaders turned on, and NPRs at the default settings, but other than a minor NPR next door to Sol that I squished right off the hop, the universe has been silent. 65 systems fully surveyed, and not a peep. No wrecks, no ruins, nothing. Is this normal in C#? It seems so odd to still be flying the same two survey ships (greatly upgraded over the years) that I laid down almost 90 years ago. In my previous games I don't think I ever upgraded my survey ships. I just kept them flying till they ran into something that jumped out and chewed them up when they showed up in a unsuspecting spoiler system. My battle fleets cruise around eyeing the far flung colonies, and each other, with suspicion, hoping for a chance for some action.
Even with no baddies around, its still fun exploring, terraforming, building ships and managing my vast empire. I cant help but hope though, that the next new system my Survey ship jumps into, it gets blasted to bits. That doesn't make me a bad ruler does it. . . . ?