This would not be a small update

hello Frogboy, three small galciv2: dreadlords updates i would like to see are the following; espionage slider bar for minor races, the auto pilot loses ships when there are many trade routes and fleet gatherings at once, the voice on the tutorials breaks up. if these updates could be applied to all the galciv2 games that would be excellent! i will update to galciv2 ultimate when i have a job but in the meantime i have to soldier with the version i can afford. it's an incredible game, with many paths to glory and lots of fun customizing.

     sincerely, Gundam_Pilot_00

Make the AI half to look for planets too, like you do, unless you save and start over many times looking for planets. The AI could make alot of scouts like 20 to 30 scouts, to look for planets, but the AI can know that yellow and purple suns are good to look at first.

“There is no such thing as a plea of innocence in my court.

A plea of innocence is guilty of wasting my time. Guilty.”

Inquisitor Lord Draco of Adepta Sororitas

That's true with some races, but not with all. And if this would be so then this would mean that if I choose such a race for a game I should have full access to this "prior knowledge" as well, isn't it? Furthermore, SD has previously denied the AI's "prior knowledge".

As GmOOnii suggested, sending colonizers just to a star will be mostly fruitfull - what's needed is just "Stellar Cartography" and the human player can take full advantage of this.

However, apparently, the AI doesn't seem to have a Fog of War, and also knows where Galactic Resources are - and here critisism is righteous. (although this couldn't be solved with a "small" update...)

I dont use hyperdrive I's but they are not aligned by default when placing them on ships. (yes all the position sliders are at the default position.)

A few of the extra ship jewelry textures are not done.

Make trade worth more. And not for just making ai love you just before you beat them to death!

One other thing with the different Trade techs. For Advanced Trade lets your Freighters travel at say 1/3 to 1/2 their real speed when on a trade route. And Master Trade lets your Freighters travel at 2/3 to 3/4 their true speed on trade routes.

Maybe with Master Trade you can put 2 moduales on your Freighter and double your money. Just an idea.

The Altarian/Drath moral structure (I can't remember its name right now but the first one 75% to morale) its image doesn't show up after the pop up message that its complete and when selecting it on worlds too.

Arcean Empire. They really need a little boost or something. Give them at least Ion engines or hell at the most Impulse I tech. They are to slow and you can steal any advantage from them.

In the option menu set all Starbases to a default option to auto improve(ie place a new base and then tell each and everyone that I want them to auto upgrade when constructor arrives.)

Constructors should be used up when building a Starbase but not when upgrading a Starbase. Make them like miners so I dont have to build so many.

Some ai's dont expand as well, like the Terrans are great at it. I want more blobs!

I'll try to think of more...

Wow Frogboy! I'm almost hesitant to add to this enormous pile, but I do have one request. I'm not a beginner, and it bugs me that in every game I have to go and set my production slider to 100%. It would be nice if there were menu options controlling the default positions for all of the domestic screen sliders. That would be sweet!

Adding additional mining modules to a ship needs to decrease the amount of time it takes to upgrade asteroids.  As it is right now I never bother researching the final level of space mining.  It takes way to long to upgrade asteroids at this point.  Its even worse if you're building on an asteroid that does not have a mining base on it.

Adding additional constructor modules needs to allow you to add multiple upgrades to a starbase.

If you changed these two things it would make cargo hulls actually worth while to use.  As it is once you slap on a constructor or mining module on the cargo hull there is very little reason to do anything else with the design.  Maybe add an engine or two but even that is debatable.  Its worthless to put weapons on them since they only have 1 HP and if you add the HP modules it makes them cost to much for how the game handles modules.  Once you upgrade a starbase the constructors get consumed.  This would be different if it was just the module itself that got consumed and you could go back to a planet and resupply the constructor module.  This would be absolutely amazing if you could add this functionality to troop modules.  I could then add them to actual combat ship designs without having them disappear once I invade a planet.  I use tiny hulls to save on money since I never use the extra space on cargo hulls.  There is simply no reason to use cargo hulls period once you've researched miniaturization up to a certain point.  I simply don't have anything to put on them that would make sense.

The research inflation is outta whack.  It can get ridiculously high by the end of games on immense maps.

Didn't say remove the inflation.  I know why its there.  But when you're playing on immense maps that can take days in real life over hundreds of turns to finish its quite aggravating to see technologies you haven't researched yet go from 5 weeks when you first look at them to 15 or more weeks once you finally get around to researching them.  All the while you have increased your overall research output as well.

As it is right now there needs to be some kind of cap.  If there is one it must be set ridiculously high or something.

Actually, technological advancement only feels linear. It really does progress exponentially, making the GC2 research rate realistic. Here's a good article (if you can get past the wacko stuff):

The Law of Accelerating Returns

Read the article I linked. Basically, technology progresses exponentially. Exponential growth can not be underestimated. Its realistic to go from 1 colony ship to dominating the galaxy in just a few years. If anything, the fastest tech rate is historically too slow and doesn't go far enough. However, playing the game where all matter and energy is converted into a super intelligent substrate does not provide for exciting gameplay. In other words, play GC2 with the settings that provide you with the best game experience.

Two small things take up a lot of my time on DA:

1.  The lack of the ability to reject or at least not use a captured tech--like a costly upgrade in manufacturing which can wreck my economy unless I go through planet by planet and delete the upgrades.  I think this was mentioned earlier by someone else.

2.  On the planet screen started by the leftmost button, show the type of planet (high gravity, toxic, etc) with an icon.  This would help particularly with uncolonized planets.

And two other things:

3.  Make tech cheaper in TA.

4.  I still have the bug in TA (a few other have mentioned it) where deep into the game in a huge galaxy I am having new ship icons show up at the beginning of the turn.  I get none even though I know they were produced.  I should have lots of them.  I can launch the ships by going from one planet to another.

Excellent idea...psst DA/TA are worth the money.