Strange bug... or bugs...

Well, I got TA yesterday and spent a good portion of my morning trying to figure out how to download the game after changing my email address last year.  SC did not like being told about the email change, and I was unwilling to wait the "2 to 3 business days" to get help from the support staff.  It turns out that when I downloaded and installed the latest version of SC it changed all my email references to the new email address.  In turn this broke:

- The registration of GCII

- The registration of GCII:DA

- SC login

... making matters worse, SC looked like it was logged in... but it wasn't.  I could have revereted the whole SC back to my old email, but then I couldn't install TA... so what to do!? 

Well, I eventually figured out that with my new email also came another unexplained requirement:  A new SC login account.  I guess they assume that people never change their email ever... or remember what email the registered DA under over a year ago... anyway, they assume that you have all GCII and GCII:DA installed... and the way they manage that is SC... so a new login flagged GCII and GCII:DA as unregistered.

Fun...

So I dug up my old registrations and put them in again with the old email and was then able to download and install TA... then came activation...

Same deal...

And email activation and a good deal of prayers later and the game was ready to play!

Off I went on my first immense map, drooling over the thought of getting my very first death star......

After many hours my first death star was ready.  So I rallied my fleet and went to add the death star... and the game crashed.  It crashes every time I try to add it.  Bein that it is completely unable to defend itself, it fell prey to my oppponents fast attack fighters.

Booooo!

Anyway... so far a bit of a disappointment.  The supposedly much improved ground combat is actually the same ground combat minus graphics... can someone explain this?  What is improved? 

Also, when you have the alien races trading away their unique technology for almost nothing in return to every race that asks the uniqueness doesn't last very long.  I would suggest that you either add a function to disable trading on unique techs (not all techs) or make the individual races value them more than they currently do.

I'm still playing.. and it has reawakened my love of this franchise.  But everything I find myself loving are things that existed before this expansion, unfortunately.