So I ended up buying the game and won my first game with the Sophons.
There are lots of stuff I've either missed or that I'd like to see added, actually:
- I still haven't seen how you can upgrade your older ships to their updated versions
- There should be an auto-launch and rendez-vous option. My strategy was to do lots of small Destroyers (1 command point) with missiles. They are expendable, quick to be build, and you can have lots of them. Each of them destroys one enemy ship, so yeah. Missiles are a little OP
- The race screens should show the race effects more prominently, AND their causes. Kind of like Crusader Kings character traits.
- I never managed to propose a single treaty that was accepted. I guess Diplomacy isn't quite there yet? What I liked about GalCiv2 was how well it worked. I would play everyone against one another, make big allies, pacify enemies, until I was strong enough.
- Changing 50% Industry -> Science/Dust actually does not work/does not update correctly through the empire screen. I also loaded a save game where a planet was still producing lots of Dust from 50% Ind -> Dust even though I had changed it to something else.
- Instead of having one production item that changes industry to dust/science, a slider that said HOW MUCH industry you'd like to convert to either Dust or Science would be great. This would allow you to continue producing ships while still getting some of that much needed Dust.
I also really like the RPG aspect of heroes. I wish there could be "mini-heroes", that worked just like heroes, but with a fraction of the bonuses. You'd still be able to level them up, so you could specialise systems or fleets, which would be cute. You could have governors for planets and commanders for fleets.
I'm sure there's tons more stuff I'm missing now. I should do another playthrough, but might wait until I'm