Lady and gentlemen, I'm here to break up the lovefest... or at least to post a minimally incendiary List of observations. These are things I wish could be changed.
(1 of 4) "Deals that have been paid in full cannot be cancelled" : really? Have you ever tried telling Darth Vader that one of his deals cannot be cancelled? Right.
2) Un-abandonable colonies : coupled with a mandatory large empire penalty, which can only be cancelled by using up a race feature ... come ON dudes!
I'm going to take a guess here and say the purpose of "space tourism" is to offset the garbage planets that take approval away from your quality worlds. Well, 3 extra bc per class 4 mudhole that another race colonzed and that promptly rebelled over to me is poor compensation. I think that tourist structures really should have a negative maintenance cost, ie a base income. Does it make sense to anyone that a "port of call" would continually lose money?
3) Divided tech selections: I cannot rage enough at this left-hand, right-hand, middle-hand nonsense! Did they think that turning the tree concept on its head is an innovation? Alright as a novelty it worked, but after a while I get to thinking "so why can't I research both things, or all three?" In fact I would have preferred that picking additional techs in a set cost less discovery points (you are already bogging down, instead of spending your research on higher tier sciences) or if owning several pieces of a set would make a subsequent tech on that branch cost less. . It Makes sense, it's called synergy and it exists everywhere in nature! Anyway why are these unchoosable techs appearing in groups of 3 always. In reality that would be statistically very improbable! (yes I know there are a couple sets that only contained two). It seems like an alright mechanic so I can take it or leave it; however there's one branch I can't stand and that's the life support. It's inconceivable that you have the entire useless branch of life support, and in addition a choice under propulsion to increase range by --wait for it...-- TWO tiles. Just makes me really worry for the eggheads of the future, you know?
4) Player negotiation: no, no, no! Everything wrong! Race reports should be improved and fully available during a chat. "Hi, custom race guy, I have NO idea what your strengths and penalties are, but you already want to trade for planetary invasion..." When conversing with an AI, what are their techs? Since I'm already able to see what all their planets are building, what garrisons they have, the minute details of the makeup of the garrison, etc etc, should I not be able to calculate what discoveries they've made, more or less?
Thanks for reading, and guys keep in mind that I've played a lot fewer games in this than I have in GC2. Any inaccuracies are the fault of the author.