Do you have Paypal? That will work too. Impulse has a "gift" option, so your friend could buy it for you as a gift and it'll go into your account.

minimum change, maximum effect .

now, on a slightly more serious note: a learning ai would be very difficult to program, wouldn't it? I mean it would be cool if the harder ai analysed your tactics across games and then deploy according counter strategies. been teching for hc's the last few games? early rush. been building a massive economy base first, and then attack? also early rush. neglected carriers and flaks? extra strong carrier forces.

I mean the technicals could probably stored into somewhat manageable functoins, like "if before a certain time internaval, the human player has or has not done this and that -> save as manipulator for following game". but the question is if there is even a brigde for ai's outside of games itself.

I like my version better, thank you.

In theory it's possible, yeah. The game already has stats for pretty much everything, and in most cases you could probably draw some parallels between the stats and strategy used (stuff like x credits spent on tactical buildings across x planets of the player's empire, slow ship progression = turtler). But then it's not so much a learning AI as an adaptable one, and one that's easy to exploit (win a game by turtling, and know that the AI in the next game will go with a rush to try and get you before you get defenses up).

A real "learning" AI would have to make these decisions during a game.. and that's a whole other ballgame

as always you have a point here. however, consider that I mean after a couple of games, not after a single one. any decent human would adapt to a player that has used a very similar set of strategies to beat him. if he does change them all of a sudden then I guess a human would be just a startled as a learning ai. the key of course is to relate it to what is going on in the current game, f.ex. via scouting. remember, a realistic ai is not the same as a perfect, or infallible ai. playing humans is often fun, because they do crazy things, unexpected stuff that sometimes failes, but surprises you nonetheless.

so while there has to be some learning and adapting during the game, I stil think that a few parameters between games would be good. depending on how deep the diplomacy changes in expansion 2 will be, it would even be interestin to establish a faction memory that remembers your trustworthyness in past games. betrayed those sect of cerebri before? hey, they might be a lot less willing to cooperate with you now.

dude no worries i´m german bought the game with paypal on release day and had no problems so far. just register with them and do the stuff that they ask. works wonderful for all kinds of things and you´ll always have paypal as the middleman for security

Indeed this has filled me  with much excitement for SINS again

So you don't need to have a credit card for that if that's the case I'll check it out.