You might be right Elwro, as I haven't played the game for awhile and I just got back into the game to check it out ToA.
Anyway, some more criticism of Galciv 2 game mechanics:
One thing that they still need to fix is the AI for tech trading. They've moved in the right direction, but I can still do the least amount of research and have the highest tech rating just from trading with a bunch of AIs. AIs need to do more tech trading, making them more stubborn alone doesen't cut it. In fact, now the AI is now *too* stubborn. For example, the Harmony Crystals trade good is pretty much the single most important item to have in the game, yet the AIs won't even trade an item they've deemed "important" for them!
Minor races (free 15 quality planet, yay!) have become unbalancing, don't really add much to the game, and should be either fixed up or removed.
Stardock dropped the ball on governments -- you shouldn't be able to decrease taxes the week before the election to make everything right -- the game should take into account the average moral level for the year (with later turns counting more or something like that). There should also be a warning the week before an election.
Starbases should really move from a "only 4 per sector" to a "Can't build within X parsec distance of another starbase" model, and Military starbases should be given more usefulness.
Mega events should be pre-seeded to avoid "save-reload" syndrome on an unfavorable event.
Starships should be refitted at a planet or station, not in the middle of fucking space -- that's just common sense! Some kind of auto/batch refit option is a must as well.
Starship combat is boring, pretty much on the other extreme of MoO 2 combat. BoTF style combat would liven things up a hell of a lot without really slowing the game down.
Command points is an idea that very much needs to die. Create techs that increase the effectiveness of larger fleets? Sounds good to me. Artificially limit fleet size just because? Go sodomize yourself with something sharp and jagged!
Anything starship related needs a huge overhaul. The rock-paper-scissors ship design process can go fuck itself for being boring, shallow, and just plain unbelievable. For all the things it did wrong, Moo 2 absolutely nailed ship design, and that's what Galciv 2 *should* have striven for.
The lack of planetary bombardment is a bummer, and is a conscious design decision by Wardell that I absolutely disagree with as it limits play styles (and hence, the strategy aspect of the game, as well as replayability) and gives believability a huge slap in the face too.
I guess that if you want to sum it up, you could say that Galciv 2 kind of sucks because you don't *feel* like you're in command of an intergalactic empire. You feel like you're playing a game, and that really affects the way you strategize as you start thinking more about game mechanics and less about real, believable, and satisfying strategy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the entire point of a galactic conquest game to feel like you're the leader of an intergalactic empire? However, thanks to Stardock's many unbelievable, unnecessary, playstyle-limiting abstractions you just can't do that in Galciv.
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