I agree with you that the min/maxing is a game killer.  I did that in GalCiv2 and learned my lesson.  It sucks the fun right out of it.

For GalCiv3, I'm taking a different approach.  I'm playing it more as an RPG rather than a game that I must win.  In fact, my last game was a defeat and while it came as a surprise, it was very refreshing to see that the possibility of losing was really there.  Seriously, I didn't know it was even possible for me to lose a game against the AI.  I think you're there too.

GalCiv3 isn't as polished as GalCiv2, but if you give it a little leeway, it can be even more fun.  Playing for score in GalCiv2 ruined it for me, but I could probably get back into it after all this time and stay away from the min/maxing.

One thing to keep in mind is that Brad wrote the AI in the other GalCivs.  He's more of an expert overseer in GalCiv3, so the flavor isn't the same.  Brad is without a doubt, the best AI programmer ever to grace the gaming community.  And that's an objective fact.  His proteges naturally can't match him, but with his guidance, they'll kick some serious ass eventually.  

I hope you can resist the min/maxing, even now that you've done some of it.  If it's already put a bad taste in your mouth, a hiatus might be in order.  With the updates and patches, it becomes a new-ish game every few weeks.  After a few months, it might be ready for you.

Personally, I'm having a blast.

Not sure how close you've been following things, but it seems that Brad agrees with you, at least to an extent. 1.4 should have some changes you will like.

Also, while you may not love the min/maxing, in terms of how you build your worlds, I think it is actually much less so then GCII. Sure you probably only want to build economy, manufacturing, or research on any given world; but you should be balancing those with food, growth, approval, influence, and defense.

I have to agree with that. As people stated in different threads bonuses are too high and specialization is too rewarding (or balanced approach is too unrewarding). Specialized planets with one king of building (and  with some pop and approval) are too good and only reason not to build them is "roleplaying"(as already mentioned above). There are some ways to improve situation - like lowering spec. bonuses OR lowering bonuses if planet don't meet some criteria, like for every X industry we need Y recreational\touristic buildings or next industry will be almost useless (or to get over X% manufacturing bonus planet need Y% of approval\tourism etc. - this way tiles and planetary resources matters more). Same for empire - you don't hit quota for tourism, recreation, defense or influence (different quotas based on Race personality)? Here some penalties to man\research\economics.

BUT, it require incredible amount of work and reworking. I don't see how half-measures like governors going too solve anything - only give player a feeling of beings artificially restricted. And the main question still stands - if current situation is against that SD wanted, they really, really didn't saw this coming? That they have EA for? Current GC3 problems are clear as a day after one play-through on big map (i'm not even speaking about largest maps).

It really doesn't. Assume, for a minute, that you have the ability to get a bonus of B to any one of the three fields if you went only for the buildings for that one field (so roughly B*[building fraction] to each field), and also assume that you're splitting the production evenly across the three fields. Three simple options to build the planet:

1. 100% labs
2. 50% labs, 50% factories
3. 33% labs, 33% factories, 33% markets

What's the overall output multiplier?

1. 0.33*(B + 1) + 0.33*(1 + 0) + 0.33*(1 + 0) = 1 + 0.33*B
2. 0.33*(1 + B/2) + 0.33*(1 + B/2) + 0.33*(1 + 0) = 1 + 0.33*B
3. 0.33*(1 + B/3) + 0.33*(1 + B/3) + 0.33*(1 + B/3) = 1 + 0.33*B

Where, exactly, is the 'horrible inefficiency' coming in? I get identical overall output multipliers regardless of how I build the planet. Changing the attainable values of B so that it's not uniform across the three fields and shifting around the production allocation changes things a bit, but you're still looking at a system where the only time things are 'inefficient' is when you're not building the things that give you the highest overall output multiplier. For example, if I have factories and markets which are as good as one another, and I have labs which are 33% better than my factories, and my production allocation is 40% manufacturing, 30% research, and 30% savings, markets are the only thing I can build which are actually inefficient; 100% factories, 100% labs, 50-50 labs and factories, and anything in between that only builds labs and factories will all give me the maximum attainable output multiplier for the conditions listed (1 + 0.4B, where B is the bonus with 100% factories, which is the same as 1 + 0.3*1.33B given with 100% labs; sacrificing labs or factories for markets drags the overall output multiplier down towards 1 + 0.3B).

GCII was balanced by economy/money production...

Large planets with massive factories were possible, but they were crazy expensive to build.

I think the adjacency bonuses were not factored in very well when they decided what each level of improvement would cost to build/maintain.

System wide I think maintenance and upkeep costs should be higher...   

Moral needs to be made much more important...  so that it actually does something.

the combat system needs to be looked at closely.    Ships with no defense should ALWAYS be attacked first unless they are Support vessels,  and Support vessels should have no weapons ever. It is currently too easy to build min-maxed fleets that are totally flawed but will mop the floor with the AI which builds more balanced ships...

all of these things remove the immersion from the game...

And I think the biggest thing is that it has SOO much potential.. but seems to have some pretty huge inherent flaws...  it's like the developers never really played a larger map...

Broadly speaking:

We agree with you. We've been rapidly moving to address this. Baby steps in 1.3 and more radical changes in 1.4 are coming.

The reason I don't like it is because it goes against everything I intended with when I designed GalCiv back in the OS/2 days which is, it is NOT supposed to be a tabletop type GAME.  I want the player to feel like they're in charge of a civilization that has expanded to the stars.

If you look back even to the OS/2 version, when it was just me coding it, you could click on planets and get all kinds of info to make each planet to feel unique. You couldn't min/max them but rather tweak their emphasis some even though min maxing would have been much easier to implement. That's how important it was to me to keep it from being too gamey.

Now, I do believe in *specialized* planets. I really do.  But I do not like the command economy style we have now where our citizens are treated like robots working at the command of the supreme dictator.

It just goes to show that what seems like a good idea on paper doesn't always work out.  

Luckilly (thankfully) as an independent developer AND publisher we have the freedom to go and make changes post-release based on what you guys want and put them out in updates.

GalCiv III's biggest advantage is also its biggest disadvantage. It's a brand-new native, custom, 64-bit strategy game engine.  So on the one hand, that means we had to start over from scratch (where most games are still DirectX 9, 32-bit based games which means at some point, they too will have to make this jump as I have teased my friends at Paradox -- they're going to have to go through this too at some point).  But on the other hand, the things we (you and us) are creating together will stay relevant for years to come.

And THIS!   THIS!!! is why I love Stardock..        

Thank you for directly replying in this thread Brad.   It means a lot.

I've not had a lot of chance to play as much as I'd like to have in the past few months...  and I am not following the forums as closely as I did during Beta...   so I am sorry if my rant was a bit harsh...

I just... find myself flustered by seeing what could be there... that is not there or at least not yet there.

As a smaller publisher with limited programmers and resources I suspect my frustration level is not quite as large as yours...    you want it perfect... 

Well you may be a mere guy playing a computer game. But I am a Space Emperor leading a civilization. 

It's nice to see that they're taking players' feedback seriously. I'm eagerly awaiting 1.4!