I agree with all, but especially NUMBER 7! But then again, sequels are rarely as good as the real original...It had better to the likes of Godfather II. I like dialogue in games. Some people don't, but that's okay. I think Planescape: Torment was the best of the infinity engine games. :) And I've played them all.
I had the peacekeeper event happen to me once. I had numerous enemy fleets in my own area of influence, due to a few planets that flipped culturally to me. The thing about those peacekeepers is, one peacekeeper was loaded with doomrays and had massive missile defenses. over 1000 for each ship (yes, that much). They came in huge fleets, with logistics of 192 or thereabouts. That seriously broke the game, I could probably defeat these fleets if I wanted to. I would take enormous losses on my side,
Influence victories are very easy on small and tiny maps because a few planets can generate enough influence to cover a large part of the map with your sphere of influence, with 3 civ and you, when you flip one civ, or conquer them, it's practically over unless they get rescued by a mega event. I don't like the victory that that much. On larger maps it is very time consuming. If I go for an influence victory, which I used to do a few times, I wipe out all but one or two civilizations,
I have only played a few games on smaller maps, and all of them were finished quickly, I admit, I never played any of these mediam map games beyond normal difficulty, but I think the AI is far more difficult to defeat on larger maps. A war is hardly ever decided quickly in larger maps where I and the AI have large empires with possibly dozens of planets. it's not uncommon for me to play a game that lasts over two weeks, although admittedly that's also because I like to drag things out a little.
