[Lemmy]

I'll comment on the ones i find worth commenting on, and also read about.

Originally posted by Puke:

GALCIV: looks like fun, focus is on politics, but seems to have a very linear political progression. I like the description of the MOO3 political system better. boasts about its AI, but is it strong because it cheats? if so, how does it cheat?

It most certainly does not cheat, at least not in the way traditional AI's do to be good.
The difference is in the design, a traditional AI, like in SE4 or Civ, does it's thinking between player turns, and because not every players wants to wait 30 minutes for a turn, the amount of thinking an AI can do is limited by the games minimum system requirements.
However, in GalCiv, this is handled differently, it's multithreaded. The AI doesn't do it's thinking at the end of the players turn, but during it, while the player is making it's moves, the AI thinks in the background.
This gives the AI a lot more to think about things, allowing for a far better design, not necessarily more complex. How much time it actually takes, still depends on what the AI has to do, but it will not take more time then it needs, so taking more time to finish a turn will not make the game harder.

Linear political progression?
What exactly do you mean by that?

MOO3: whats not to say? whats not to read on any review site. probably just have to wait for it to come out.

Meh...i think it's been hyped a lot, then dehyped by the cutbacks, i'll have to read some player reviews before getting excited about it again.

X2:The Threat: Elite and then some! whoo-hoo. hurry up and find a publisher!

Yes! I've been waiting for tha game so long
I like the developers, they seem to listen to the players complaints. A while ago i've bought X-BTF (the original, found it in the bargain bin) and liked, but i had some gripes with it, that you can't for example buy stations, or own multiple ships, well guess what, the X-Tension had all those things fixed i had gripes about...too bad i can't find it anywhere nowadays.

Freelancer: if you liked privateer, its more of the same, from all the pre-reviews I have read.

Say what you will about Microsoft, they usually deliver decent, and solid games (at least the ones i played), i have no reason to doubt Freelancer will be another one of those.

Imperium Galactica 3: looks to be a super-sweet capital ship combat simulator. other than this, i dont know too much.

The thought of a sequel and improved Version of IG2 is tempting, but Last i read about IG3, is that it will be mission based, which is a big turn-off for me.

X:beyond the frontier (with/without x-tension): sounded cool, never really looked at it. how much strategy and economics were there? or was owning space stations simply a way to make money, and the economics were not really developed?

Hmm, see my reply to X2
IMO X-Tension is a totally different game from X-BTF, given the major impact of the game changes.