As Haagenti pointed out, this game is amazing even single player mode. Plus if you have a friend or two who are interested you can always have a different game going for each friend/pair of friends and one going solo so you can play whatever game is most available.
If its going to be a bit of a pause between gaming sessions i suggest wholesale abuse of the notes system in the galaxy map
(use / to go into note mode or click the button over on the left) I find notes a GREAT way to remember your plans between gaming sessions and to go into details about your plans for a specific planet and important tactical information, like the drive-through lady is particularly rude at the command station which tends to lower your troop's moral or how the special ops base commander really needs to lose the mustache causing your men to point and laugh instead of opening fire
You can of course also mention silly stuff like how it'd be ideal to take for its large amount of resources, ion cannon, and position as a bottle-neck planet only having 1 or 2 hostile wormhole(s) after capture but most people don't like such silliness written in the notes
Seriously though, the game isn't meant to be done in 1 or even necessarily 2 gaming sessions (my first AI 6 game has spanned 4 loads so far each time I've only played for 1 to 3 hours tops before having to save and go do something else, was going to play tonight but got reading the forums instead lol
)
So while the overall campaign takes a monstrous amount of time, you can also play it like a casual short-term-goals type game by making notes on the planets of what you want to accomplish then each gaming session try to achieve one of those goals even if its something as simple as a gate raid (you'd be surprised how difficult gate raids can be against certain AI types). In fact in my limited experience the game is best played with this sort of mind set focusing on one short term goal after another all which get you closer to the ultimate goal of destroying the AI Cores.
That's one of the magical things about AI War, for all its depth and massive scale, it really leaves a lot to the individual player's individual unique style and due to its hot-join/leave support even their time constraints for multi-session coop games all without leaving you feeling lost or (totally) overwhelmed
(unless your playing vs 2 level 10 AI, then feeling overwhelmed is by design
)
PS: College is overrated, drop 150 grand on an education you coulda gotten for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.................and yes, that's from Good Will Hunting, and yes that is an absolutely amazing movie
and no I'm not actually saying college is bad, I've just been wanting a good chance to use that line since i saw that movie
and its wayyyy too early/late in the morning to be posting on forums cuz i get stupidly rambly then so... *post*