Agree 100%
Transitioning from HAL to human opponents, you will get your butt handed to you in your first few PBeM matches!
But with each game versus a human player, you will learn better tactics and strategies, improve your game play and have more excitement / fun then against the AI.
IMO, the more you play against HAL - the more "bad" habits you adopt in your game play and the harder it becomes when you eventually try a few games versus a human opponent.
You don't know what you may be missing until you take the plunge!
I hope you do!
Regards, Mike / "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." - George S. Patton /