Hi!

First: sry for my not so perfect english
Second: I love this game and I won't write this anymore just some complaints and some suggestions..

My very first game was on a huge map, 5 opponents, though level. I haven't seen the tutorial and never played with galciv1, but I've still won . How?: I'm playing Orion2 till these days (And I tried/played many 4x games) so I know research is the key for victory. I had contact with 8 minor civ so I traded every tech for much money (which was needed, because my economy was a crap... ). The other trick is to check the Ai's ships and make counter designs against them.

My second game was on painful level, medium map, I had a very strong economy (with many-many starbases,) I played a custom race with economic and morale bonus). There was some challenge in this, but I've won again

Third game (still playing) gigantic map, masochistic level , 9 opponents, Extra rule: I'm trying te be as peacefull as possible. I colonized some planets and just researched peacefully in one corner of the galaxy. Soon every civilization declared war on me just because I didn't have big military force. (I had a very strong defense: many upgraded starbases, And I could become the most advanced civ even this difficulty level.) I could hold them back for some time, but they had so many fleets so they managed to destroy half of my starbases when I could build up a new generation fleet and started to pay back . During these times two other civ surrendered to me. I've never fought with them, they were in the other half of the galaxy. These planets were surrounded with enemy fleets, and there was no defense at all, however the AI didn't take them for a long time. (BUG? ). I've noticed on the treaties screen: everyone was war with me, and they was close to each other. What??? Why was I hated so much? My next move was that i give the surrendered planets to the other civs for declaring war on each other . It worked. I got time to build up my fleets and start to conquer the galaxy. Now I'm sure I'll win (if i finish, actually small maps are more fun)

So those observations:
-restricted techtrade would be fine (after the patch is better, I hope the same rule applies to the trade beetween the AIs)

-I have found something strange (every major civ had something like this): In one stack 30-40!! fleets waited. They were obsolete, and they didn't do anything just sit in one spot. Probably the high maintance crippled these civs.

-The Ai should organise its attacks
examples:
Should protect its transports more (moving them with its fleets would be optimal (It'd make the AI much nastier )
I saw their transports coming one by one: It should have made fleets of them. (as I do)
I can see their fleets (defenses/attacks) so I think it can see mine also, so he could predict the result of the fight.: if it hopeless it shouldn't start fighting. ( instead it should adapt as soon as it can. The reason It doesn't do that I think is because it make many fleets with timed-out technology, and cannot upgrade them)

-The AI should defend its colonies more (the ships: called defender are usually nothing...)

-I didn't liked that everyone hated me because I didn't have large number of ships. (some civs, for example the Drengins maybe, but not every civ...)

-a diplomatic option: stay out of my territory or I'll attack would be good

-some idea for buildings
stargate: would be very expensive and it would allow jumps beetwen our (and allies') colonies
something like warp interdictor from orion2: it'd slow down enemy ships near to our colony

for ships: interstellar drives: it'd ad speed bonus if the ship is not in a starsystem (outside some radius)

that it for now.

ps: i've found some bugs (even with the latest patch, but I saw them mentioned already)