I just want to comment on the music in GalCiv II. I really like the music in the main menu area because it has a human voice singing alongside the actual tune being played, and it really creates a good atmosphere. I'm just sorry there is no such "opera" singing while you are actually playing the game.
Has anyone here ever played "Heroes Of Might & Magic II: The Price Of Loyalty"? It's an old turn based strategy game. One of it's great features was that it allowed the user to set the in-game music to "opera". So instead of getting an ordinary midi, you got a proper tune which was supported by a human voice singing alongside. It was one of the best features of the game, in my humble opinion, and one of the great weaknesses of the subsequent HOMM games was that they cut out the opera music.
For some dumb reason, the number of games which have a human singing accompaniment can be counted on several fingers which is a crying shame... because compared to music an appropriate operatic accompaniment, the music of other games sounds incredibly flat.
And for a game like GalCiv II, I really think it would work really well if more opera singing was put in. Space is a big place, full of mystery and danger, and what better way to capture the soul of space exploration than opera? Just a shame it's only confined to the main title screen in the present version of the game.
Just some food for thought for the developers.
PS. I call it "opera music" because I don't what else to call a tune with an accompanying human voice which sings lyrics which sound nice but where the words are not intelligible (which is fine, because you want atmosphere, not a disco). So apologies in advance to any music afficionado's out there who are grinding their teeth with my potentially incorrect use of the term "opera" lol