Ahoy GalCiv community! Tis a pleasure to be on ye fine shores once more.

*bows deeply in CariElf’s gracious presence*

I’m really quite smitten with version 2. What I enjoy most is the ability to play as aliens, the high degree of race customization, the smoothness of the new tech layout combining with planet upgrades, the laser-gun-missile triad, and the tremendous ship customizability.

Finally I get to play as "them". I’ve been trying each one of the races and just to be one of them gives each game a unique feel for me. Setting up these games is almost a game unto itself with all the fine tuning I can do now. And praise be to Stardock for including an alien skull and crossed bones on a black banner! Obviously this is my principal flag now.

I admit I wasn’t too keen on planet tiles when I heard about it. I thought it would lead to too much micromanaging. I was mistaken. I like the added control to further specialize a planet and it’s all been implemented with several smart automation features built in. For example, completing research in habitat improvement automatically adds it to all my planets’ queues. Fabulous! And no more fussing about which morale boosting improvements are worth researching and economically sound for my planets. They all stack on top of each other. Awesome!

Lastly, ship creation is by far my favorite aspect. Even after reading about GalCiv2 I had no idea the new feature was so broad and deep. I spend untold hours just tweaking the look of my ships. Let the mighty armada of countless antennas (I love antennas) and skull ’n crossed bones glaring in every direction sail to glorious victory!