Well listening to the reviews when GalCiv came out and following afterwards... I was undecided on whether to get Galciv or not; I ultimately decided not to get MOO3 after all the reviews on the Europa Universalis forums and elsewhere.
In any case.. I really really wanted a new Sci-fi strategy game, and I had tried SEIV demo and it didn't really do it for me...
So I got Gal Civ this week.
And I LOVE it!
I have to go away for the weekend, so I am planning to leave work early and play it for a few hours!
Very interesting game play... I have pursued a diplomatic and research tactic, and I have not been attacked once, while wars rage around me... placating and establishing trade routes with my most powerful neigbors, and playing a carefully mostly neutral moral position.. has kept me at peace in a galaxy filled with war. Culturally my civilization is becoming dominant and I have absorbed the minor race that was co-habiting in my part of the galaxy... and slowly neighboring worlds are flocking towards my government's opportunities. My next game will be a war game. The game is challenging... and yet I am playing on AI levels so low I won't even tell you out of embarasment. Also, I havn't even begun to understand some details of the game like destabalizing other civs, and warcrafting.
Such fun... but I had a few first off critiques:
~The interface is a bit akward in one or two places... sometimes when you want to upgrade a starbase or going through the planet que, I wish there was a map that let you know where you were without exiting out to check. (anyone else have this problem?)
~I wish the viewable map size was changeable (is it?)
~It goes a little fast at first... it seems to be a rush to colonize and then a long game of infrastructure. I think they should lower ship ranges, and make colony ships more expensive; so there was more of a slow discovery of the galaxy feel. I think the soulution for this, for me, would to play in a huge galaxy with "loose" star clusters.. as I have been playing in medium/tight galaxies. (what do you think?)
~I think this is EU talking through me...but I want to be able vassalize weaker empires somehow, take them under my wing & protect them "offically" (maybe you canand I havn't got that far yet?) and have some other kinds of connections, perhaps some cultural trade agreement that would work like the "royal marriage" does in the EU diplo model.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has any of these same thoughts. 
~Blade!
    
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Welcome Blade! I too agree regarding the colony 'rush', but I find it a feature of all these type of games, Civ3, etc. EU played on a fixed map is a completely different focus, of course. Map size wont actually make much difference - the economic health of your empire is always going to depend on how many planets you can get (and thus how many people you have working and paying taxes) and there will always be a relative rush to get planets.
The alliance mechanism is interesting - you need no formal casus belli in this game, but work hard (with trade routes, gifts, etc) to establish diplomatic relations which will allow you to form alliances - but they will also drag you into war, too. You can do trade agreements and trade embargos so this becomes a useful weapon.
It'll be interesting to hear your reflections as you progress into the game - keep posting!
Cheers
         
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You may not need 20bil soldiers to take a 20bil star system.
It all depends on your soldiering ability compared to that of your enemy. And of course you can use one of the invasion tactics if you have the money. I can't give you any numbers, but it's my experience that invading with a number of soldiers equal to the system's population usually gives me a HUGE advantage. However, I have been beaten on some occasions when attacking highly militarized civs.
Also remember that taking population off the planets will give you a morale boost which may allow you to raise taxes. This somewhat negates the negative effect on your economy. However, I do recommend you don't take population off your main production (high PQ) planets.
  
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. Dosent work if you have lo influence though. In my current game (Normal, Gigantinc)i am getting star after star becuase i colonlized a few 14 planet inside the others zone and eventually they switch over. Only have had one war against a minor which resulted in 314million Troops lost for a planet of around ummm.... alot 
. BUt any way its been great try to get hemegony through influence hope i can post my score by then.
