Looks interesting. I've just about reached the point now where my interest in the game is starting to flag, so this is most welcome. Customization sounds promising, and espionage/sabotage was sorely needed. The only thing that slightly concerned me from the interview was that it sounded like this feature would mainly be used for disrupting your opponents planetary tiles. I was hoping for something a little different - getting info on when and where the AI is planning to attack, being able to disrupt diplomatic relations, spark revolutions etc. I'll reserve judgment until release though of course.

definetly cool sounds like these Korath, who are a splinter group (they are still the Drengin species, just a break-away faction I think) are the Drengin, Romulans, and Klingon mixed together and ending up with a bloodlust desire to simply exterminate all other species and the Drengin clan leader is going 'hey, conquest is fine, but genocide is not honorable'. So its a kind of internal Drengin conflict between Clan morals and codes of honor.

This might be something that corresponds to luck....and a prolonged espionage expense...but I would love to steal an enemies starships. And choose to either incorporate them into your own fleet or strip them for analysis. If you strip them you lose the ship but get any tech advancements they might have over you.

I don't like download games    I prefer buying it on box  

I'm a little concerned about download only. The UK download site was more expensive than the US one for Galciv 2, so I bought off Amazon instead. I hope this problem won't happen again, or at least that I'll be able to use the US download site if its cheaper since my bank is quite happily to do payments in US dollars. Also, perhaps Stardock should consider some sort of agreement with other electronic download providers (e.g. Steam) whereby they would sell each other's games and thus reach a larger market?

I am happy with download, so long as its easy, simple to do and user friendly.

There is a CD-purchase option for the expansion for an additional shipping & handling charge.

the development of dark avatar sounds really cool so far, me personally i would like custom senario manager where u can create your own game ie in turn 78 the dread lords or worse invade via a wormhole etc. AND to see some tactical improvements, ie just a little user input to space battles and planetary invasion, maybe just to be able to tell your ships what to shoot at. and maybe a little polish in those areas, like cool sound effects of ships damaged, alert sirens when hull is critical maybe mayday hails, metal girders bending noise's, lights and power fluctations, A fleet manager that looks at entire ships in your empire how long they have existed battles won, ship rankings, catalogues of destroyed ships, vet ships and what about even a chance to escape battle if things are getting too tough (kinda role of the dice chance). some balancing maybe needed. for e.g. my fleet of capital command dreadnaughts been destroyed by acean tiny fighter with one shot by its black hole gun (thats not on lol). i could go on all day (if i was only a game designer hmmmmmmm). gal civ 1 was good but gal civ 2 rules, im off to play it now.