I will specifically answer question 3. I believe a that we have 10,001 patriotic pro-capitalist games. The fact is most people are working class. We have no strategy games that give us a chance to rebel against oppressive tyranny by the bosses and rulers. The reality of the last 2-3 years shows mass rebellion whether it be over racism in the US or extreme poverty and state oppression in Bangladesh, the Mid East, or workers in France, Italy, and Greece fighting back against austerity by staging sit-down strikes , holding corporate executives hostage in their own factories is on the rise. I can visualize massive actions against perpetual warfare by the US in the oil-producing areas, eventually including mutinies and fraggings like during the Vietnam War.  I want to see these type of scenarios in Gal Civ III, another words a reflection of the cultural and economic phenomena that are in the works here./ Not everyone is a drone and mindlessly patriotic. I want options like factions within civilizations embracing mass rebellion not simply repressing it.

Although I've not yet played my first GC game (...am hoping to be able to, soon), I've spent hundreds of hours over the years playing turned-based and RTS grand strategy and 4X games.

While I haven't read all 100+ posts in this thread, many of my feelings have already been stated by others, here, and I'd just like to emphasize a few, particular, comments already posted by others:

I, too, much prefer to spend my game time figuring out a strategy or tactic, rather than doing repetitive, "no-challenge" micromanagement of large numbers of troops/units/cities/buildings, etc.  Therefore, I usually enjoy the beginning stages of game play the most...before I have to start tediously micromanaging a hundred (or hundreds) of..."things."  (I, also, don't much enjoy continuing to play a game when I feel pretty confident I know how it's going to end -- the "mopping up" part of a game, as another has described it.)

Disliking tedious micromanagement, the idea of delegating (in some way) -- to generals/governors/ministers -- the more repetitive "work" in playing a game, does appeal to me...as long as I can decide the overall strategy and "who does what"...and not be concerned about whether or not my "orders" will be correctly carried out.  However, although several other games have attempted to implement a "delegation mechanic," I've yet to find a game with "delegation" that works well enough for me to want to use it.

As for the "surprise and excitement" that "chance and randomness" add to game play...and although I do like "surprises," I tend to prefer games where "luck" has nothing to do with the outcome of a game.  So...my "vote" would be for either no "chance and randomness," or very little...certainly not any major, game-changing random events.  (While some may feel that "no randomness" does not reflect real life, I, personally, don't believe in "luck"...and, therefore, do not share that viewpoint.)

As far as diplomacy, I, too, enjoy witty responses...as long as AI "characters" behave in a manner that is "reasonable," given the present circumstances and the AI character's own set of beliefs, values and priorities...which, I think, would imply at least some amount of consistency and "fathom-ability"...at some level...even though I realize circumstances, belief's, values, and priorities can change.

I would just like to emphasize this one point.  there are other topics on auto balancing trades or assigning "value" to items that can be used to min/max a deal, but this 'What will it take to make this deal work?' is brilliant!  It should not put the deal exactly on the border of barely acceptable (min/max thing again), but should allow a deal to be possible for desperate times.

1) Snarky comments. Star Control had them. Ascendancy had them. Bard's Tale had them. Warlords had them.

2) 500 turns and more. I love to play long games. I love to have loooong tech trees/branches. I like micromanagement, but with good user interface. 

3) I like TBS > RTS. The one RTS that is an all time favorite for me was Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. For TBS - Ascendancy (yea, the AI was whack), MOO2, Star Control 3 (Yea, too ambitious), GC2, ES, Civ4/5, SotS, and EL. E:FELH is also up there. I love uniqueness. I love having lots of options that mean something. I love uniform and organized micromanagement. I love pretty games. I love a good AI. I love large tech trees, and unique quests. I want a game to have many facets to it. Even though some games really excel at one or two things, I love for games to be able to shine in multiple categories. Memorable diplomatic dialogue. Snarky AI. Good combat. Good city management. Interesting choices that lead down interesting pathways.

Not every game that I've listed has all of those (except maybe E:FELH and EL), but they have enough to draw my interest.

I'm only going to answer the 3rd, because to me, the other two depend way too much on the game in question.

The thing I like MOST in a 4x, are the game breakers.  The things everyone could do, but were awe inspiringly powerful. MoM will always be the greatest in this as far as I'm concerned.  The huge powerful spells that were so very strong.   The really good blue counters.   The big wyrm's for green combined with flying... creating massive voclano's under your enemies cities that made them worthless with red.  Or the death spell that raised slain enemies as undead for your army. Or create artifact making unstoppable heoes.

These things took a long time to cast (build, w/e you want to call it),  the other players had opportunity to stop you (counter spells & cast times), but if you finished it, woe to the poor fool who failed to stop you.

That dynamic will always be my favorite part of any 4x game. 

1.) Best aspects of diplomacy:

- Lots of options.  Sharing maps, pacts to share research/wealth production, trade pacts, United Planets votes (aka voting with you in next council), etc.  I want to be able to make a lot of different diplomatic offers, including treaties, trades, and gifts/requests/tribute.

- Europa Universalis has a very large +200/-200 relations rating, that prevents the AI from randomly betraying you; I don't understand why no one else has done this.  The relations rating goes up/down based both on major/minor events (up to +/- 100) and on a monthly (aka turn) basis bringing it up or down by a modest amount (assuming you didn't bribe them into liking you, in which case it could go down very fast).

- Logical vassals/protectorates.  Nations that are afraid of being conquered by their neighbors or are simply ineffective on the grand scale should be willing to or even offer to become a protectorate of another nation.  A nation might join either a faction it is afraid of, or a rival of said faction (or simply another powerful nation they prefer being subject to), based on the circumstances of each incidence.  Civ4 and the Europa Universalis series make the most sense implementing this feature.

- Nations should be willing to make peace if they are getting destroyed in a war; just because their military is 5 times bigger than yours doesn't mean its 5 times better, and I get frustrated by games where I consistently beat an AI but can't make peace (GalCiv2 and Total War come to mind).  They should also remember that you crushed them last time you fought (or that they crushed you).

- You should be able to form temporary alliances between multiple factions, for the purpose of rivalling another faction or alliance.  Europa Universalis II did this feature (without any goal for the alliance though), and balanced it by simply having the alliance dissolve if no one in it fought for too long.  The problems with this feature though, are that it is admittedly based on having larger numbers of factions (minor races should be included in this consideration) and that in EU2 alliances often formed too often and too quickly (and you couldn't get an ally back into your little coalition if he joined another grand alliance).

- I HATED Civilization 5's diplomacy, for a few reasons.  First, declarations of friendship built pseudo-alliances that made playing with 20+ civilizations impossible; when one or two friends denounced one nation, the rest would all start following suit regardless of their relations to those two.  I even had to deal with a nation that I liberated back into existence denouncing me in one game.  Second, warmongering penalties were abominably severe, and NEVER WENT AWAY; Persia still hated the Greeks in the 21st Century because Alexander the Great tried to obliterate them millenia earlier.  Third, the AI was still fundamentally stupid; a nation with no friends wouldn't be any more eager to make new ones than a nation with 12 allies, and on  the other hand a small and militarily-backwards nation would eagerly provoke a war with a far larger and more powerful nation with more allies, on the grounds of something ridiculous like a minor border dispute.  To be blunt, I don't understand how so many people promote that game's diplomacy setup, as I preferred Civ4's diplomacy far more (not to mention GalCiv2's); it was so bad that I can't really bring myself to play the game at all despite enjoying the other aspects of the game a lot.

2.) Turns in a game:

- Probably 300-500 turns.  I rarely finish my games once they reach the mop-up phase, although that's fine so long as the rest of the game is long, and entertaining.  Games can go a lot longer if it feels like the nature and pace of the game are changing over time (such as in Civ4).

3.) Good and bad elements from 4X games:

- Endless Space has a really good UI, making everything easy to access and smoothing over the overall entry into the game.  It helps a ton when a game has a clean, convenient, and easy-to-use and easy-to-read interface.

- Civilization 4 and Civilization 5 are great examples of shooting yourself in the foot during game design.  Both games are basically fantastic (Civ5 only with the expansions though)...except that both games have something so broken that it's hard to bring yourself to play them.  Civilization 5's diplomacy (in larger games) is appallingly bad, while Civilization 4 suffers from debilitating stacks of doom and fundamentally strange combat (why are catapults suiciding themselves in combat, and why are helicopter gunships vulnerable to longbowmen?).  No matter how good the rest of the game is, you can't break something essential like combat or diplomacy.
Note large Civ5 rant from above for more details.

- The most frustrating thing about most 4X games is the colony rush; some games, like Endless Space, do a really good job of limiting your ability to expand (given a large enough map), but otherwise the game is often decided by the map dumping too many good planets close to one player, or for a player happening upon a good planet before his rival can reach it.  Civilizations games have a logical counter to expanding too fast, but the AI doesn't seem to care and rushes anyways (meaning you get less territory, while the AI's growth is stunted to greater detriment).  The only way to counter overcolonizing AI is to be militantly-aggressive.

- I hate it when culture mechanics are arbitrary.  If the peace-loving Altarians are overrun by Drengin culture while they are at war, their planets shouldn't defect unless they were conquered from another empire's culture.  That culture should also be assimilated over time, resulting in closer affinity to your own culture.  The values of a faction should greatly impact what factions they are able to culturally-defect to, not to mention aspects such as approval, loyalty structures, and garrisons affecting that chance.  Civ3 had the most frustrating examples of these, where cities would defect right after you conquered them, while you were still at war.

- Another thing that drives me nuts in 4X games is when there is too much of a tradeoff in military vs territory production (buildings vs units).  I don't like having to entirely halt civic production in order to build a military and falling behind AIs still in peacetime, or alternatively being perpetually vulnerable to attack while my aggressive rival becomes technologically-stunted.  There need to be ways to build units without ceasing your territory's development (aka drafting units, building militias, hiring mercenaries, etc).

[1. What specific features of diplomacy do you traditionally like the most? I want you to be as specific as you can be. Which parts of diplomacy from any game do you like the most? What parts do you remember long after playing the most?]

I  like the different type of treaties you can make with others both in MP and in Single Player (they should be the same.) Such as:

Peace Treaty - You formally agree to not start a shooting war for so many turns.  The length of time should be adjustable based on the negotiation.

Economic Treaty -  This will yield money and depending on the type of government and economic system will vary on how profitable it is.

Cultural Treaty - If culture is a faction in this game (have not gotten the game yet so I'm not sure) then this will promote cultural influence on a nation but it goes both ways depending on how strong ones culture is.

Research Treaty - Same as Economic except it is for Research.

Non-Aggression pact - Your not allies per say but your one step below. Your Relations is greatly improved with the other nation. And you will not attack that nation unless of coarse they attack you.

Alliance:  You are buddies. You can go into each other space.  You can benefit from any space stations that your ally has (get what ever bonus that your ally normally gets from his stations.)  if your fleet is attacked and your allies fleet is adjacent to it then they are pulled into the battle with your.  Also very important, your ally will declare and wage war against your enemies just as you will his. This should be an automatic trigger. But it should be easy to see who your potential ally is at war with before you agree to an alliance.    

** All treaties should be set for so many turns based on what both sides agree on. And it should be flexible.  ****

Also when you make a treaty with a AI (or even a player) for so many turns then that should last that many turns before you can break it or do something else with it. In Warlock 1 it was very irritating when you make an alliance (non-aggression pact) with a Wizard and then a turn or two later they declare war on you. It kind of made Treaties useless.  So I purpose that when you make a peace treaty for say 10 turn then you cannot attack that nation for a minimum of 10 turns  now the treaty should stay in effect until it is changed but the number of turns that you negotiated for should be the minimum number of turns that you have to honor the treaty.  Now you could add a racial/national trait that will allow you to cut this time back which could be interesting for bad guy type races.

Also you should be able to trade stuff like Tech, Ships, Planets, Space Stations, Money, Research, Items (it the game has them.) But do this in a way to where the AI won't get ripped off.   In one of my All time favorite TBS games Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic you could trade everything so to cheat the AI you could just trade all the AI's cities and Magic items and spells for a lump sum of money and the devastate him.  Big exploit.  Of course I made sure when trading that I always was fair.

[2. Looking back, how many turns do your favorite games last? This is important to know the specific number of turns the game in Question lasted.]

I prefer huge maps in both MP and SP so I have no problem with hundreds if not thousands of turns. In fact I don't like quick gams on smaller maps. Gives too much of an RTS feel and I don't like RTS games with a couple of exceptions, (Homeworld, Total War series, King Arthur series (basically fantasy Total War)

 And yes on those long games I do like Tactical combat where I command the battles ass in the AOW series. And I NEVER use Auto-resolve combat. I like combat.  Even in MP games as long as I can either see the combat happening or I can do things with my Kingdom while the battle is going on.....

[3. Consider all The 4X strategy games that you have ever played. How do you define what is a good strategy game or a bad one? To you what makes one strategy game good and another one bad? Consider different memories you have of those games can you remember the parts that made you enjoy that game the most?]

Well as I said before my favorite game series was AOW (and AOW3 which just came out is at the top of the list,) Civ series with CIV5 being my favorite due to the combat being more fun than in previous CIV games, Warlock 1 and 2  (Fantasy CIV5)  Galciv2 and MOO (the best space TBS games so far.) The only problem I have with GALCIV2 was that it did not have any tactical combat except the lame movie which you had no control over.

I like TBS 4x strategy games and do not like (with the exceptions I listed above) click-fest RTS games.  I prefer TBS 4x games with Tactical Combat that I can control no matter how large the game is because TC is usually the funniest aspect of the game for me (Hence why I love AOW)

Now the more races/nations that can play at once the better

A wide verity of Map sizes the better (and there should be Gigantic maps my favorite)

Also there should be a user friendly editor that does not require you to take classes in programing languages.

This editor should have the ability to create new races/nations and new units with the ability to color them how you like and a easy way to ad picks of them to the game.

GC2 was great as far as creating races but a little difficult in setting up unique ships for those races (at least I did not know how to do it without actually playing the race and creating ships for them in game on the ship editor kinda tedious. I'm sure there was a way to do this but it was not user friendly.  I had up to 30 custom races in GC2 and I hope to be able to create that many in GC3  (And of coarse I will have to have the Federation. Looking forward to creating Star Trek and Star War ships)

I would like to say that one of the coolest aspects of GC2 was the ship creator. I spend more than have my playing time with the game in the Ship creator.

*Galactic Senate Shenanigans: "It has come to our attention that use of Lasers III are degrading the galactic environment. Therefore anyone using those components will be facing economic sanctions... What, those are your main weaponry? What a COINCIDENCE! Now please disassemble your war fleet."

I literally lol'd at that statement. So I like it.

Wow lots of detailed answers.

Just a few comments on diplomacy;

i) The more forms of treaty formal and informal the better.

ii) I like the ability to influence an AI by direct action, and indirect - e.g. insult/attack a mutual threat 

iii) I like the ability to gauge an AIs view/relationship with other AIs and to be able to influence this as well

iv) AIs should play for second place as well, not just seek to win. They should accept winning as part of an alliance as a "win" even if this means that the human player beats the game

v) I like to see logic from AI players. The AI players need a sense of self preservation. They should not start wars that they can never hope to win - if they can snatch a resource etc and then make peace, fine, but starting an unwinable war with the biggest power in the game just spoils the sense of immersion in the game. Join an alliance, don't just commit suicide, or else become a vassal and think of rebelling later, but please don't just commit suicide. When at war, AI players should not have to accept any offer of peace, but if they refuse a generous peace when clearly losing a war they should face revolution if they insist on throwing away planet after planet. They should agree to technolodgy swaps that are in their favour. They should work with the human player if another AI player is about to wipe them out - the AIs need to be designed to seek to survive the game and not to just either stop the human player winning or seek the victory conditions for themselves. This would make them seem more "real" in my opinion.

Ian

1. potentially complex and multifaceted diplomacy where it's more than just a way to abuse the ai into not attacking you.  I recently had a game where I was playing Iridium on team 2 with yor on team2 with me, drengin/krynn team1, terram/altarian team3.  I was playing heavy trader/manufacturing with good research capabilities.  Basically building tall & swiped a couple planets from near yor territory simply because "ooh look at the planet class there!" By the time I had built more colony ships & got them there, the yor had colonized several neighboring planets.  Not wanting to lose my planets, I put some influence  structures down.  Little to my knowledge at the time, the yor were at war with the terrans & not doing too well (being made worse by my inadvertently taking over 5-6 class 4-8 planets over a few dozen turns while it tried building a starbase or two for production). Each of the planets I flipped was basically undeveloped (a factory or two  & population improvement thing at most iirc).  I had a trade route with the altarians (never met the terrans at this point) when I first settled the large planets & quickly setup 2 more with the yor plus a free trade agreement by the time I  took over a sizable chunk of the yor empire that I never really wanted  There was a decent gap between my newly annexed little cluster & the rest of yor's planets.  Had I been offered the planets I took early on, I likely would have been happy contributing all sorts of goodies towards the yor's war effort.  I didn't have any military worth noting (lost defenders & such), but I'd have been happy to give some credits/research units/etc, or if allowed even build a shipyard & contributed a % of my output for some planets to yor's control for their war effort.  The game is still going, so I don't know how things will turn out.  with the beta AI, I'm hoping that I can use this to spin across the galaxy  & push the yor to declare peace before the last straw falls, maye gift some hastily built influence starbases on conquered races later.  sadly, I have no way (to my knowledge) of setting that sort of plan as more than just gift a whole army on someone & hope for the best, without the ability to plan things like that, it's difficult to let any of the races recover from a good butkicking

2 

3.  I don't know if it's any one thing, but some things I tend to dislike are AI's that will start wars with traders or vastly more powerful foes where the power lies in potential rather than standing army just "because".  I'd much rather see them knock on the door with a nonagression type treaty offered in exchange for trade routes/free trade/etc or somethingas the opening salvo

1. What specific features of diplomacy do you traditionally like the most? I want you to be as specific as you can be. Which parts of diplomacy from any game do you like the most? What parts do you remember long after playing the most?

The more individual a race is in its interactions with me. That is the more a race sounds like it's own race, own personality, own text, with its own goals and the less like a generic AI the better. Galciv had some of this in ideologies for example but it could very much be improved on to be specific to individual race types.

I like multi-alliances, and interactions like the UP, unpredictable dipolmacy. Space Empires V almost did it, they almost made multi alliances a real possibility but they ended up buggy and not working right. That way you could have regional alliances, or alliances between groups of races that share common ideologies like traders, or peaceful researchers etc with their own internal diplomacy. To macro it you could just have a diplomacy option called, invite race into alliance, this sets up an alliance between all three races (if accepted by all).

2. Looking back, how many turns do your favorite games last? This is important to know the specific number of turns the game in Question lasted. 

They don't finish. They last as long as possible. I like epic games , in the early galciv games where I was able to put all the AI in together, till that was patched out to be made impossible in future expansions.

3. Consider all The 4X strategy games that you have ever played. How do you define what is a good strategy game or a bad one? To you what makes one strategy game good fand another one bad? Consider different memories you have of those games can you remember the parts that made you enjoy that game the most?

I like to look at the map each time and be surprised. I like to slowly explore the galaxy and see the AI doing their own thing, wars across the map playing out and feeling a small part of it. AI's pulling me in two directions, both wanting me in their alliance.

I like to see modded races behaving differently, space empires IV did this brilliantly, by allowing modders to make their own AI for their races and then seeing two modders with unique AI's and ship designs battling it out. Galciv 3 would benefit in giving people at least limited control in for example the diplomatic modifiers for each race. ++ for trade, -- or --- for close borders, even + for close borders, the more control you can give them under the hood the better.

I like to be surprised during gameplay. Galciv pioneered many types of events, small planet wide ones, UP votes, and galactic ones, I loved that kind of gameplay back in the day.

I like to have plenty of options with dealing with each situation. The more gameplay options you can give me the better, starbases, influence, military, diplomacy, (espionage would be a nice addition).

I like to feel like the good guy uniting the galaxy into larger alliances, then facing another large alliance, or I like to play the conqueror and see the radical difference in how the game players out and how AI's interact with me, I loved the way several smaller races would unite to fight my mega evil race as a random event in the older galcivs.

I love that we can tweak map types still and want to see more options, for example bonus tiles per planet (either more tiles or just more bonuses +1/+2 etc), more extreme options either end of the rare and abundant options for everything, very rare, ultra rare, and plentiful, extreme etc.

I may be too late so hopefully this post gets read. ^^

1. But being a longtime 4x gamer especially concerning those of the space opera type, diplomacy and interactions between alien races and the way this is handled can easily make or break a game for me.  Extreme depth isnt totally neccesary but long as the AI can exploit all its parts fully and intelligently I definitely appreciate in-depth diplomacy.  But also I demand an even playing field above all else.  If there is any mechanic that gives the player an advantage simply for being the player and not ai that definitely hurts the immersion for me.  

One big example of this is your very own GalCiv 2 where your technology level down the diplomacy branch literally makes it easier to coax the AI into shitty deals.  Example.. Let's say I'm playing any of the other races besides the terrans, well the terrans have the super diplomat ability which nets them better deals in diplomacy..  Long as it's not actually against the player controlled race itself, since I have the ability to decide on a deal simply based on the terms and how it fits in my strategy instead of an arbiturary modifier.  I know the modifier doesn't help to an extreme amount but this has been an annoyance I find hard to ignore.  I just want my opponents to decide on terms purely based on their judgement, calculations, and priorities.  Not that, THEN have some articifial modifer put on top of that.

Therefore what I hope to expect in Galciv 3 is this mechanic totally replaced with something much more like how Sword of the Stars 2 handled diplomacy.  That's how I think a good diplomacy system is handled (even though their ai simply sucked to much to use it properly).  So like SotS2, when you tech down the diplomacy branch, instead of increasing some modifier artificially making deals easier to net (except towards players) have diplomatic interactions restricted based on your tech level and starbase upgrades/planetary improvements through a point system which will simulate the ability of your civ to streamline the bureacracy involved and the organization needed for the lobbying, transportation, and arranging the contacts needed to get it through.   Like sending out a new treaty or offer would require a certain amount of diplomatic points to be spent thats generated by your tech level and improvements, and the more diplomatic improvements you have, the more of these points you can have stored at one time.  This will keep both the AI and the player from articifically abusing diplomacy to get an edge in the game and level the fields a bit depending on how much you research and focus on diplomatic efforts. In other words you can only do as much as your improvements, tech level, and point generation allows, which at times could require multiple turns to acquire the points needed to carry out the offers if you have few embassys, low diplomatic tech, and are just racially poor at diplomacy.

Also of course the AI can spend points to produce a counter offer more appropriately fitting their desires, and depending on the personality of a race, this can keep going back and forth until one side eventually gives in on a deal either because they don't have the diplomatic points to go any further or they just decide to settle with it.  

Your ability to store and generate the points required by this will determine whether you can try to get a better deal or not, or counter deals with something more preferable for that matter, and effect what offers you can make simply based on whether you can afford to put the points aside.  This will work a little like influence,  HELL influence can be the points spent instead of a secondary item to keep track of.  This way a player diplomatically skilled could offer another player or AI these points to help them talk their way out of a hairy situation if they don't have the diplomatic resources to carry it out themselves (which would also require the civ offering the influence to spend a little themselves to see it carry through.).  This will give influence a far more complex and interesting importance.  Do you decide to save your influence to provide leverage in the next United Planets meet and propose items for it?  Or do you spend them on the lobbying and bureaucracy required to pass that meaty economic treaty with that economically strong neighbor.

Sorry you me to be specific lol, I care about my diplomacy, I want to see it done right for once.

2. My games generally last for hundreds of turns, I go for the long lasting epics where the game has the opportunity to change drastically over the course of the games life.  Those are the games I also have most fun at.

3.  What makes the best strategy game in my opinion is one that doesn't cut corners in strategic or tactical options and allows me to tell my own story from the very start to end.  One of the biggest ones that I feel cause a lot of them to fall short for me are the methods of conquest.  There needs to be an absurd amount of means to acquire what you want with some being much better under certain circumstances than others.  This is one reason I love the Civ and Gal Civ series so much.  There are so many ways I can gain control of that city or planet that I never once feel restrained in my quest for global or galactic dominition, both peacefully and aggressively.  And while I'm on the topic of aggressive, planetary conquest through invasion is an extremely important aspect to include and I consider only the best 4x space games give a considerable amount of attention to.  IDC if you have the prettiest, most cinematic space battles this side of the galaxy, if you tell me you're a 4x game set in space and your only means of capturing planets is glassing it from orbit I'm just going to keep walking down the isle.  Though others will argue that conquest through invasion wouldn't plausibly exist in the future for one reason or another (usually to just to defend their favorite 4x game) I for one believe that unless you actually want that planet, structurally intact, habitable, and as untouched as possible then you are going to be as surgical as possible and invade that shit.  Like even now, just because we have air control and nukes it does NOT and has not eliminate infantry tactics.  Period.

And about telling my own story, if a 4x restricts players by putting way too much emphasis on their own lore and not providing enough options for players to tailor their games as they see fit then that's another game I'm probably going to avoid.  About the only thing I didn't like in that respect to galciv 2 was that it started you out with a colony ship, survey ship, and miner right from the start.  What if I don't like how the starter ships look?  What if I don't like their design?  And what if I didn't even want to build a mining ship until a little later?  At least just have the players start out with a survey ship and nothing else.  The more control I have over how my game starts the more I feel that that civ is truly mine.  (That's one thing I hated about SotS 2 was they forced you to start with 3 precolonized worlds for no reason.  Even after I modified the save file to have all the players start with one the empires played out just fine, so why did I HAVE to start with 3?)

Sorry for the length and thanks for the read, I just finally want a game that for once touches me in ALL the right places, not just a few of them, lol.  So far 0 have done that with only Distant Worlds actually coming real close.