Yesterday afternoon, out of nowhere, I got excited at the prospect of playing GSF, so I took it to my Sunday night meetup and four of us ended up playing.
Two of us had played before, but not in quite a while, and two hadn't. We played the recommended opponent and picked random ships and sectors. It felt like a close match, with two sectors overrun pretty quickly and having to fight off a hoard of ships in the third, but we eventually decided to lure the big bad and put it down pretty handily.
I imagine that if we knew more about what we were doing, we would have won in fewer turns. A few rules things popped up, but we didn't worry too much about them and just guessed at what we should do.
When I firtst learned GSF, I found it maddeningly complex. There was just way too much information and I got very frustrated trying to keep it all in mind and figure out what I wanted to do. With some experience and less concern about playing the perfect game, last night was quite fun.
