[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Ran-Taro:
Additional area's of gameplay that let you play an interesting strategic game, without resorting to violence, and still win.

I'm thinking here of interesting cultural, technological, scientific, diplomatic, exploration etc type ways to play and win the game. I have some ideas about this might be implemented, actually. So I might send them to MM if they are interested.

BTW, If Aaron says "give me an example", point him in the direction of Civilization 3 and Galactic Civilizations. I've never played either game but I've heard that in each of them there are special structures you can build which give you "cultural influence" and can actually sway nearby populations to join your empire; also, in GalCiv, there are a lot of random events and ruins effects which actually require the player to make a choice - for example, you might
discover a planet with a race of sentient whales, and you have several options: enslave them (free labor, but causes unrest), exterminate them (you can now colonize the planet, but makes other races dislike you), or set the planet aside as a sanctuary (gains points with the environmentalist factions).

Say, I read about this laptop which supposedly has the ability to display real 3D images! Assuming this is R2D2-secret-message-from-princess-Leia type stuff and not the cheap gimmicks you see on credit cards, this would be a really cool feature to incorporate into SE5... just imagine the space battles you could have! (I might even accept a 3D map then! )