[Meglobob]

Well looks like I am an exception in this thread, in that I loved GalCiv2. There's nothing quite like playing on suicidal level on a gigantic map being attacked by 4 other races at once, desperately trying to survive in a very hostile universe.

Personally, many times playing the game its given me the, 'star wars' or 'Babylon 5' feeling of a truely epic space conflict.

Perhaps its the interface that gives the impression of no soul? But I would say its polished, slick, user friendly and very funtional. So functional and easy to use, you can run a 100+ planet empire before the game starts to drag. Running a 100+ province empire in Dom3 is certainly considerably alot more micromangement.

The tech tree contains alot of humour, the races have different, 'personalities' (different AI scripts), do you really not have any fun designing and redesigning your ships from fighters to mainline battleships? Then orgainising them into fleets, deploying those fleets for a first strike on a enemy empire? Or building up a massive economic and trade empire?

Surprised so many people don't like it!

I suspect Elemental will be equally polished, slick and user friendly with decent AI. I have not really been paying much attention to its development but have high hopes and I will be buying it once its officially released, personally not keen on playing alpha and beta versions.