GalCiv2 Expansion improvements?

from GalCiv2 Forums

Haven't played GC2 in a long time - I quit playing before the first expansion came out because I was getting annoyed with some game UI/AI issues. Some of them may have been patched out/expansioned out, but that's what I'm here to ask about.

Based on a recent play on a medium size map against challenging opponents on GC2 vanilla 1.6, stuff that I noticed:

1) The AI does not build proper improvements on bonus tiles (even in cases where the planet has plenty of open spaces)

2) The AI is still highly, highly vulnerable to early game tech trading (ie, open up diplomacy every few turns, round robin techs around until I have a huge tech lead)

3) Diplomacy for BCs still requires fiddling with buttons/slider to get maximal amount of trades, no 'automax' button (one major improvement is that trades turn green when they will accept a tech/bc trade, don't believe it did that when I last played)

4) Techs in the tech tree still don't give a good description of what they do/what they unlock

5) 'Upgraded' planetary improvements often seem like huge penalties for new colonies, as they are massively more expensive for only a slight production output increase, greatly slowing the growth of new colonies in the mid/late game

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There's probably some others, those are just the bigger ones that I noticed while playing.

So are those issues still present in the expansion updates, or are they fixed/changed in some way?

Also, for those of you that still play regularly (or quit playing), do you feel the expansions are (or aren't!) worth the money? Do they significantly improve the gameplay or AI, or simply add more 'stuff' and make the balance/difficulty worse?

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

DL is exactly as you describe.

DA is a bit advanced, but not much e.g. you can't open diplomacy talk all the time etc, SuperAbilities, some added Techs...

TA is a world different as a game, esp. because of the different techtree/planetary improvents. Personally I find all parts good, while playing Yor in TA is my fave. I'd give it a try.

Nevertheless, glitches/bugs  -whatever you want call it- are there in all three versions (in TA even new ones!) and once you've played a while you'll surely recognize them all and the gameplay will become rather easy with them.

In some way, yes, TA is much more difficult to balance and play. Besides, both DA/TA are incredibly nerfed in speed, which is one of the greatest differences to DL. To be honest, TA compared to DL was like a new game to me, and I was never regreting the purchase.