Aren't you already on record as a Lego-lover? I can't tell whether you're excited, or put off a bit like pigeonX2 seems to be.

Now you're just teasing me for my earlier posting.

Or, if it's at all like what I'm hoping for, you'll be able to design your own Sauronesque buildings to use.

I think he just means that you can build your own buildings like you can build your own ships in GC2.  A lot of people never even bothered playing the game, they just built their own cool looking ships in GC2.  I know I spent a lot of time making cool looking ships using their in-game ship builder.  I expect the same thing with buildings now.  You can probably pick what kind of building it will be, then make it look any way you want it to.  Sounds pretty cool, actually.  I am suprised this isn't a feature that was trumpeted before, or if it was, I am surprised that I don't remember hearing about it.

I like the cool look. Runes written on the top of the buldings. Made me think of the Death Gate Cycles. Like the buildings are protected by magic

Since it's all customizable I see no problem what so ever.

Hail the frog

If they run it like they did GC2, form is free, function costs money.  You won't have to worry about having a functional building that looks like crap because you can make it look good without spending extra and ruining your effectiveness. 

Although I have to admit, some of the lasers were so fugly it hurt to put them on good looking ships...

Yep I did the same. Couple of other techniques which were useful were ...

(i) Shrinking the component really small then using the angle buttons to put it inside the surface.

(ii) Often, if you zoomed 'inside' the model you can see attachment points that are already hidden and use those.

(iii) I often hid nearly all the components as they interfered with the aesthetic, particularly if I was trying to do a sleek organic craft.

No, just aesthetic. As a suggestion for Brad, for Galciv III, I often thought they should dispense with 'functional' components entirely and just have jewellery and maybe points to attach effects. (e.g. emission points for guns, and lights for engines etc.)

They are spent money on buying art for ugly functional components. Instead they could have spent that money on offering a greater variety of jewellery with things like organic or crystalline components. They could have offered more animation options or texturing options like the ones in Spore.

With the present GCII system, if I want to design a ship like (say the Vorlons) I have to fit lots of tech-looking 'functional' parts, I cannot specify a single ray and I cannot do the 'petals' animation.

I want to be able to be able to kill a giant by burrowing into its brain. Then found a town using his skeletal remains as structural supports. This IS a dream world after all

That's... so disturbing.

Well, you don't often get to play truely parasitic people.  Even when they 'claim' to be parasites, like the zerg, there is little that really makes me feel that they are.  They have infected people and creatures, but that is about it.  Those creatures seem to be living alright on their own.   The people living in a giant would have to have some reason to want to do it.  Perhaps they use the giant's body heat to keep their nobility warm, or maybe they take some of the nutrients from the creature and bath in its body fluids (which they can only take in the right amounts as to not kill the creature).   It certainly would be an interesting twist from what is normally seen in fantasy games.

Damn you.

No worries, I got it! I didn't say anything because I was sure someone else would and I didn't really have anything to add...