Hello everyone, I bought Gal Civ II UE from Impulse about a week ago and just finished my first game last night.  I'm really impressed, surprised it took me so long to get around to playing this game.  Seems like a really nice community here just like with Sins of a Solar Empire and Impulse was the least hassle I've ever had with buying games online.  Stardock are definately one to watch and are now my most trusted developer/publisher (or whatever they are, lol).

I played on Beginner as Terran Alliance and managed to get a diplomatic victory.  At first the game was really confusing but I got used to it in the end.  I chose 3 random opponents who turned out to be Altairian Resistance, Drath and Drengin.  I was trying to play a peaceful trader/diplomat type game and my economy and influence were miles ahead of the other races but in every other category I lagged behind.  About 2 thirds of the way through the game I managed to get all my other stats up to be competetive with the other civs.  The Drath got some weird event where apparently everybody became interested in their customs or something, lol, their influence shot up to about double what mine was.

In the end I won by accident, the Drengin were trying to ascend and were about 25% of the way there so I decided I would have to destroy their ascension space stations.  I allied with the Altairians (sp?) and Drath and then went to war with the Drengin.  They surrended in less than a month!  So much for all that tough talk they were giving me, hehe.  When they surrended I won a diplomatic victory for being Allied with the other two civs, it was an accident really, but I'm happy with it.  I guess now that galaxy can go on and live in peace with the Drengin gone for ever.

Anyway, nice game.