@Arduen - This is true, though I would prefer it if the AI was more inclined to sneak attack - the player has the ability to deploy sensor heavy scouts etc.

I think the OP, though, has an important point regarding 'good' and 'evil' races. To me it makes no sense for a good civilisation to fight aggressive, expansionist, imperialist wars against other good civilisations. Certainly they might act to defend other civilisations or the defeat an evil opponent.

@others - Slavery vs enlightenment arguements are pretty naive, this kind of rubbish has been used to defend expansionist wars since the beginning of time - I thought we knew better now...I can't help but wonder what part those non tax paying, formerly free, but now conquered (but of course not genocided!) occupants play in your civilisation - can they vote for example? How long will it take them to reach an acceptable level of enlightenment?

Slavery vs enlightenment arguements are pretty naive, this kind of rubbish has been used to defend expansionist wars since the beginning of time - I thought we knew better now

It's been that way since the beginning of time, hasn't shown any real likelyhood of changing, and you expect it to be different in the future? O.K., so mine is a rather pesimistic interpretation of current events, but probably no further from the truth than an overly optomistic interpretation.

The idea that two "good" governments would never go to war against each other just isn't realistic, in my opinion. Any time you have two cultures with strong differences, you'll have the potential for hightened anxiety that could lead to war. And you don't get much different than born and raised on different planets.

For example, how about the recent sabre rattling between India and Pakistan? One side felt that they needed nuclear weapons to deter the other sides much larger military, and the other side felt that a preemptive strike might be the only way to deal with those weapons. That would be, I believe, a positive feedback loop, in technical terms And yet, do you really think either side was Evil?

I've had all of the races declare war on me for being weak in GC2. And even though I'm only neutral, it's almost always an Evil or another neutral race declaring war. I'm a non-militant builder. Heck, I'm so non-militant that in Civ, I've had Ghandi declare war on me just because he could.

While I have to agree that I'd like to see the AI doing sneak attacks and pressing it's advantage, the idea of saying that good wouldn't declare war on good would have an imbalancing impact on the game, all for less than realistic reasons.

Sadly I'll confess to only having read through about half the posts here, so hopefully I'm not restating anything too ridiculously obvious...

I have much the same experience as Kingswood does with this game. If folks from Stardock have continued to follow this thread a) I'm duly impressed, and I do think a couple of things have been mentioned here which really should be tweaked. (For everyone else, while I understand all the theoretical, technical and story-based reasons for why things are the way they are, at the end of the day all that matters is the gameplay experience.)

I definitely agree about good/evil races. The good guys don't launch an unprovoked invasion, that's what defines them as the "good guys." That doesn't mean good guys don't fight, it just means that they need something to fight about. (The excuse of invading to bring enlightenment is really such a stock and trade villain's line that it almost requires a black hat while delivering it.)
From a gameplay perspective, it really does hurt the experience of dealing with different races. They do indeed have different internal issues, but from MY perspective it's the same metric for every single race: If they measure significantly stronger than me, and are reasonably close, they will declare war.

I recommend this change: Good guys invade to halt aggression, neutral guys invade if it will generate a profit and bad guys invade whenever they're stronger. That really might add up to something interesting.

I also do highly look forward to the addition of computer players that just launch attacks rather than give warnings. It would definitely limit the effectiveness of the build-for-war strategy that is pretty much a game beater right now.

Those would be my big two suggestions. I haven't tried for a tech or influence victory yet (as Kingswood said, I pretty much always end up at war with everyone sooner or later anyway) so I don't have thoughts on those paths.

@ Popup Target - I meant that people now realise that expansionist wars are not fought with a view to enlightening the opposition, rather than that such wars don't/won't occur. The good/evil thing doesn't cross over well to the real world, people here generally do what they like and call that good - history is written by the victor so superior military = good.

In this game the civs are portrayed as Black and White, and they should act accordingly. Good civilizations should not start a war of conquest by themselves.

Sure they should. What is your usual alignment? If you take those sweet PQ colonization events and are leaning towards evil, they most certainly should attack you. Yor an evil race with no military. You having a high potential for a massive military is all the more reason to strike first. Yes, the AI needs a spot of help in that area. No argument there. It's first strike tactics are inadequate even if their first strike timing were perfect.

If you take those sweet PQ colonization events and are leaning towards evil, they most certainly should attack you.

Try a medium map, with all good civilizations and align yourself with good. Play like I do, place 1-2 defenders in the orbit of each planet, upgrading it each time, so you can have a quick response fleet at the ready holding the invading civilization back while you start building your main fleets. Send freighters to each civ. Concentrate on industry, economy and research. About mid-game, once all the AIs have built a sizeable fleet, one of them WILL attack you. There is NO real difference between good and evil. I have screenshots from a game I played to show Marcathonas. Mid-game the Torians declared war. "Long ago we were enslaved by the Drengin empire. In time we were able to fight them off. This means when we conquer you, we know how to keep you from ever being free again." Certainly sounds "good".
Don't misunderstand me. I really like GalCiv. I played the first one to death when I found it 2 years ago in a bargaining bin. Stardock have a rep for creating good AI, maybe people are just expecting a bit too much. In any other game I wouldn't be complaining. (I just re-installed Star Wars: Rebellion after 3 years. Talk about bad AI... )

You having a high potential for a massive military is all the more reason to strike first.

Well, if the Devs would just confirm this, I'll keep my mouth shut about this one. If the AI is doing this on purpose, just because it realizes that I can outproduce it, I'll be duly impressed. And yes, it's first strike capabilities are limited. In the game where the Torians declared war, they had troop transports sitting at the border doing nothing, while their battle fleets moved in. I read somewhere Brad saying that it'll wait until space superiority has been established, there was, however, nothing to establish. My military was almost non-existant, but in 3 turns I created a fleet with 3 times the firepower of one of theirs. The AI should aim for the industrial planets first, and do this as fast as possible.

Well, although I don't have that much of a problem with the good races and their tendency to strike at weaker civs I still share the general view that at a certain point you simply have no choice but to to build up your military to avoid war.
There simply seems to be no way of using diplomacy or anything else to seek a peaceful co-existance with the other races from a certain stage on without much military forces at hand.
My games also forced me to finish off the agressors in a counter strike and after that all I was left with were other weak races I could easily erradicate afterwards. So I never really had an opportunity to reach a stage at which the more advanced weapons an other techs could be of any use. That is somewhat unsatisifying.

At least my idea of playing purely randomized games adds a new way of unpredictability to the games I play now.

Don't forget that the AI changes over time. In my most recent game the Altarians turned Evil. Wouldn't it be kind of boring to know exactly who you could trust and who you couldn't?

They did?! How did you notice?

Oh, and you don't need no stinking army if you have a silver tongue.

I play on gigantic maps, so there's room to grow and expand without running into "that's my planet" issues off the start. It also allows an opportunity for trade, etc. No alien civilization has ever initiated a war against me. When I notice the others civ's start building a military, I'll build a few ships. Not looking to be "top dog", just enough to say I have a home defese fleet. With my economy, trade and influence levels...they leave me alone.

War starts when I notice ISB's popping up next to my planets (usually from the Thalans). If the civ won't let me buy them (they never do) then I build up enough of a fleet for a sneak attack and take out their best planets simutaneously. If the map has a couple good planets near my border, I might just take those planets and ask for peace.

Once I simply destroyed the ISBs and asked for peace. When the civ rebuilt the ISB's, I took them out. Having ships does not mean you have to use them.

If the other races keep attacking you, there's got to be more of a reason than you having a small military. By mid game I'll have a couple fleets of fast ships that I'll upgrade to appropriate defenses when needed. If someone starts trouble, I bloody their nose. Just because I could take all their planets doesn't mean I have to.

My most recent game I conquered the Thalans for establishing ISB's, and minor races as I ran across them. All the other major races fell through influence. At one point I had the 4th strongest military. Upgrading my exisiting ships bumped me up to third. No one bothered me. Actually, no one bothered me after I conqured the Thalans.

As I said, there's something else going on than just a weak military.