I don't have the german edition of Distant Worlds, but, having both the english and german edition of Armada 2526, i can tell you that it's a very good translation (i was part of the beta-testing for Supernova and made corrections to the german translation).

Anyway, you may get the english editions of Armada 2526 and Supernova (published by Iceberg Interactive too) from amazon.co.uk. It's even very cheap now to get both from there (both at around 7 £ each).

StevenAus- Here are reviews on DW and expansions link

Expansions are like GalCiv2 expansions, you get bang for your buck and they make the game even better.

As Hawawaa said, the expansions add an enormous amount to the enjoyment of the game. The new expansion, DW Legends, requires both the original DW and the first expansion, DW Return of the Shakturi - according to the website anyway. Hopefully there will be some sort of bundle deal for those that don't have it yet but the cost is still likely to be much higher than the run of the mill indie games. All I can say is that Distant Worlds with all the expansions is worth every penny. It seriously is that good.

Thank for the info but i don't wish to install it again... basic version have not the very interesting feature of online multiplayer added with the expansion pack ( was promise during the beta testing of the original game but now, need to buy a expension pack for the promise feature )...

Anyway, i am enough busy with my favorite 4x game ( explore, expand, exploit, exterminate ), a real time one called Sins Of A Solar Empire

Armada 2526 was a game with a very good potential but i have not like the rushed release... From what i have read, the game is good now but i don't trust anymore ntronium...

onomastikon- I do believe with every Distant World expansion they do run a preorder sale and even after launch a discount on the main game and in this case the first expansion too. They will even will have a bundle deal going on. They usually tell us just before launch. Incase your looking to save a little.

I have to go with Distant Worlds.  I am a dyehard Turn based player.  But I find the ability to automate so many aspects of DWs that I can find an enjoyable mix of automated and micro-mamaged play.  I also tend to play in smaller galaxies, so i can keep tabs on the action. 

I'm with you. I tried to buy digital english version of Skyrim in Poland. Steam and Impulse and D2D - nope. I bought EU serial at cdkeysdirect and activated on my Steam account by logging on the seller computer by teamviewer. Pretty weird.

As for the topic. I tried both but DW was little weird for me and A unstable... And I've read SOTS2 is unfinished:(

with or without Supernova?

Er somehow I missed my post. Ignore above.

Anyone tried the second expansion of DW, and care to offer comments? (on the expansion.....thinking about getting it)

With Distant Worlds, I bought the original when it first came out, and it was 'neat' but I just couldn't get into it.  I bought the first expansion when it came out and it was 'even more neat' but I still couldn't get into it.

I bought the latest expansion when it came out 2 weeks ago, and now I'm in love with the game.  It just scratches a lot of the right itches for me.  It has all the things you'd expect from a 4X space opera strategy game, but it approaches it in a novel way.  It definitely has aspects of Europa Universalis in Space, which is how a lot of people refer to it.

There's tons of detail to the game, which I love.  You can have planets with mixed alien races, for which you can apply a variety of policies to the races different than your own - assimilate, enslave, exterminate, etc.  There's sophisticated ship design, and a huge list of resources that you need to secure to build those ships.  There's an entirely separate civilian economy with their own ships they control, there are ships full of tourists visiting the resort bases you build to generate tourist income... the list goes on.  Tons of detail.

The truly remarkable thing is that you can automate any or all of it.  Don't enjoy ship design? Automate it.  Don't want to fight your wars? Automate it.  Anything in the game can be automated, to the point that you can put your entire empire on automation if you choose, at which point it's basically an AI empire, but one which you can overrule.  And the automation isn't necessarily all-or-nothing.  You can set it so the automation asks your permission to do things.  It will present you with a list of military ships it wants to buy, which you can approve, reject, or modify.  During a war, you can automate the military operations, but have the AI ask your permission for each and every operation.  Approve the operations you think are in your empire's interests, and let the automation execute them.

I haven't even mentioned the characters, diplomacy, ancient menaces to the galaxy, space monsters, and much more.  And it's all made by a development team that's at the Stardock-level of accessibility, responsiveness and friendliness.  Heck, they just iterated 6 times in 2 weeks with the community on the latest patch, which tweaked some of the rules in response to the feedback.

I have rarely been so turned off by a game that I have not given it more than 30 minutes. Even E:WOM, when it came out, got 6 hours before I gave up for good. Your judgement is of course yours to give, and as quickly as you like, but you seem to be doing a disservice to yourself there.

Because of the very low price tag, I got 2526 and its expansion recently. The expansion does not change the game radically, from what I can see, although I have never played the vanilla version. For its price tag, I think 2526 delivers a fair package.

Likes: lack of micro, "kiss"-design allows for decent AI, decent empire overview, engaging economy, pleasant visuals, varied victory conditions, excellent pacing

Dislikes: UI is decent but suboptimal, AI is decent but improvable, tactical battles are bland, warfare technology is not very varied, movement speed is uniform

The pacing is, in my opinion, by far the game's biggest asset. It seems to go smoothly, from early to mid to late game, with rarely a dull moment. It is certainly not "deep", and there are not too many "wow"-discovery moments (you know, like in Dominions, when you say to yourself: "what a cool trick! I didn't know you could do that like this!"), but it is solid. It also loads fast, runs very stable, and lets you alt-tab in microseconds.

I see lots of room for improvement. Improvement which, it appears, probably wont be happening, which is really too bad. But nevertheless, for 16 Euros investment, 2526 Supernova is a solid SP game. I cannot say the same thing about EWOM even after 1 year. DW's pricetag still has me waiting.

I was toying with both and just threw down with Distant Worlds, with all expansions.  It seemed to have more depth.

Just got through tutorials and started first game. Very excited.