This is totally off-topic and has nothing to do with allegiance.
I just thought that scince we are all into freeware games with depth and teamplay, why not introduce you to
www.battle-planet.de?What is
www.battle-planet.de?It is an online-game (has a good AI but its focus is on the online part) glued together by former fanboys of the BATTLE ISLE (1-4) series, which you probably know.
So, what you do is, you set up you colony on a planet and build a small infrastructure of factories, power-plants and defenses. Then you produce units to take over other worlds and battle other players in a universe consisting of several planets in different star-systems.
You do all this on hexagonal battle-fields and during turn-based combat.
The game also features a research tree and indivdual units as well as dynamic maps changed by the administrators, called the "Supervisors".
If you want to test if offline, just download the installer:
http://www.battle-planet.de/pbp/download-ascwin.phpand play the campaign against the AI.
If you want to get into the multiplayer part, which consists of "Cycles" (seasons) of which each has 12 turns, just contact the administrator (no, its no Pook), GAMER, his e-mail is:
gamer@ulrichshorst.de <gamer@ulrichshorst.de>
or send him a PM on the forums there.
The website is only availble in german, but the game interface is using the english language. Sadly, as of now, the online documentation is also only availbale in german. But they are looking for a translator.
I just demanded that my HQ shall be installed on ERUPSI and i shall be playing the TERRANER. There is one more free settlement in the NEBULAE-system i guess, so feel free to join.
The current cycle ends may the 14th and we only just played the fourth turn. You have to complete your turn within 30 hours and send it back to the administrator of your planet by mail. All actions are taken by using the game engine, you cna even trade units and such, then you save your turn, and send it to the supervisor, who passes it on the the next player on the planet, after having checked for exploits and cheats, which guarantees for a friendly environment.
If you like deep, turn-based strategy games, this is for you.