Then you haven't played Gal Civ II in a while, it should feel like it as it's a new generation of the game so it shouldn't be completely new, on the other hand there are a lot of things that are different...

Gal Civ II did not have Ideology.

Gal Civ II was squares, Gal Civ III is hexes.

Gal Civ II did not have adjacency.

Gal Civ III is 64 Bit, larger Galaxies  (eventually by the time Beta is over)

Gal Civ II did not have trade resources.

Gal Civ II did not have official multiplayer (dev hot seat doesn't count)

Gal Civ II limited number of players to 12 (I believe may have been 10-14 it's been a while for me since I counted)

Gal Civ III will not have spies or rank in initial game release, however, is planned as expansion or DLC.

You expect the Yor not to play as the Yor?  or any other race not to play as their race?

I disagree with all of this, even though I haven't played any one of the three, this is what I see looking at those games, the first two Kinetic Voic and Limit Theory both look simiar to each other but don't appear to play anything like Gal Civ.  Sword of the Stars appears closer, however, based on the rating of the game is much lower than what Gal Civ II is, by around 20 points, that's a lot.

Your opinion, this is a galactic civilization game, why would you immediately be at war with anyone unless you start it?  You need to start to explore and colonize space, the AI is dumb right now so it won't attack unless provoked right now.

Sorry to hear that, I will welcome you back to the game with a multiplayer match later

Sounds like you're not big into this type of game, however, I still would welcome you back to the game

kestlstw, Why shouldn't it feel like Galactic Civilizations II?  Most sequels to games feel like the earlier version.  Look at the Total War games, If you play them and go to the next version, it feels very similar with new features.  Same with this game it's a new version of the earlier game. 

Yes, I love to micromanage my race, however, even in the Galactic Civilizations games it does drag the game depending on how much micromanaging you do in larger galaxies.  But, with that being said I wouldn't change it.  I would rather have the options to micromanage the planets with adjacency or any of the other options than not have them. 

Tactical battles doesn't narrow down micro management, it would increase this by many times.  Think of it now, you don't have to think where to put your weapons, you place them where you want them to be and great you have your ship.  If I had to think where to place my weapons, I now take longer designing my ships.  All of this stated above you don't need controlled tactical battle but then what is really the difference from what they are implying in the game?  Weapons have different firing rates and distance variables, speed of projectile, ect.  Therefore adding firing arcs, doesn't really do much, as far as location of weapons, assume all weapons rotate and can fire in any direction?  Again I know that can't happen but, it's a game.  Now maybe I'm misunderstanding firing arcs and that's fine, otherwise your back to full tactical battles.

In battle tactical battles typically give you a great advantage and thus extending the game greatly.  Look at Total War, they have tactical battles and what 50-100 countries.  When I play that game I want to go in and battle to win, versus having the computer auto resolve as I may take extra losses or loose.  This means the extra time per battle making these games extremely long if I don't auto resolve any battle.  Now Galactic Civilizations II or III, has hundreds, if not thousands of planets in the largest of maps, as it is these games can take weeks if not months to play out.  If I was going to have tactical battles on every space battle and every ground battle during the game that would extend that one game to years, if I ever even finished it.

Now with that being said could it add something to the game, yes, is that what the game is, no.  It has been stated by Stardock that this is a civilization game, on expanding and conquering civilizations, not individual battles.

As they expand the govenors to the game, this may take away some micro-management to the game for those that don't want to be on top of every little detail.  More information I'm sure will come as the polishing of the game approaches.

The only games I can really comment on in this area are sins of a solar empire, endless space, distant worlds, and shattered suns. The only game like galactic civilizations 2 was endless space. Endless space did somewhat they claimed, and made some aspects while others were worse or nonexistent. 

1. Thing that was better was the build que if you didn't take into account that there were only one per solar system instead of two per planet.

 B. Even though the abilities difference were far less. The factions cosmetically were more different.

 C. Pirates

D. The fact that they will let you exploit class zero planets.

E. I do think the screen in between turns was nice.

F. Heroes

G. The battle screen was nice to watch.

H. Resources.

2. What was better in galactic civilizations that was better galactic civilizations was. Racial diversity. With all 3ou0 with different levels of ability. Personalities. Penalties. This was the varied differenceI've seen. We can toss into multiple tech trees into this.

3. Galactic civilizations had bigger maps.

C. After you pick your faction you can choose what abilities to add. 

D. Endless space giving you natural wonders over super projects and galactic achievements was inferior. Building wonders does something to phase lanes.

E. Closed borders in endless space where you are cut off from colonising and exploring. This was probably the biggest step backwards in civilization four. I actually would like to tell you to get out of my space, but if I don't want to leave you have to throw me out or the threat is empty. I was big on sneak attack in civilization three and call to power. 

F. Phase lanesdon't like. Them.

G.tech tree layout better less confusing. 

H. Ship customisation is the besI've seen.

To me galactic civilizations wins.

I like intelligentgames, so the more you do the better. Micromanaging doesn't bother me. I don't mind improvements as long as it keeps the gameplay. Like when they came out with tropical. When they came out with tropical two when happened that's not tropical. Tropical two should have been called something else. I will expect galact civilizations wheniI plat galactic civilizations three. Not distant worlds or something else. That is what I mean.  Turn based tactical combat I don't care about. What I would not want to see galactic civilizations turn into sins of a solar empire like someone suggested even though I had a lot of fun playing the game. Why doesn't civilization doesn't turn into empire earth there both good games.

What flaws are you referring to?

1. The game on the largest map size, lasts weeks if not months already unless you rush through it. 
2. If you play out all tactical battles (take control) that makes the whole game last longer (not the specific battle) Think about it right now the battles are quick, turns take 5 minutes or less with 50-100 planets (depending on what you are doing)  If you had full tactical battles, each battle may last a while, if like total war up to 2 hours if you let it. This all means that if that turn you have say 5 ship battles and 1 planet invasion that one turn may I'll give you ship battle 15 minutes each, planet invasion 1 hour, that means that turn itself could take up to 2 hours 15 minutes.  You want to this because you get an advantage over the auto resolve option.  Large games take 1000+ turns, so let's say 1000 for arguments sake, and the average turn of 2.25 hours being that there may be times in the game at the begining that your turns go quickly but there may be turns that have 30 ship battles and several invasions.  This means that the game would last for around 2500 hours, figure the average player puts in 2.5 hours daily that would mean the game would last around 3 years, if you didn't loose interest first.

Those points are what sets this game apart from other 4x games similar to it say Total War.  As yes Total War has full tactical battles but, Galactic Civilizations III has thousands of planets.  Total war is a war game limiting the number of territories, Galactic Civilizations III is a civilization game. 

Are you even bothering to read?

Research itself is dull (everything boils down to Gun, gun+1, gun+2, smaller gun1, smaller gun2, smaller gun3, damage+1, damage+2, damage+3) It's so formulaic and..."sterile" for the lack of a better word. Very spreadsheeat-y. Things you research lack any character or depth

Combat is boring as hell. Ship design might as well be pointless - and the research makes ships obsolete at a massive pace, requiring you to contantly upgrade any design you make (with the upgrade being "oh, I now have more space in my hull, lets put two more guns on it"). The ships you get by default are more than good enough and your ships wont' really perform differently.

I want it to be a different game? No, I want it to be a better game. I want it to keep whatever was good and worked good and enhance upon areas in which it was weak. This assertion that tactical battles or more complex combat in any fashion (anything different than rock/paper/scissors) somehow magically transorm it into "NOT Gal Civ" has no grounds in reality.

This is not true. It depends on how it's done. Let's also not forget that what is best is situational. Few games, if any, can go into such depth that every single thing will matter. Also, what is so wrong with the player being able to fail utterly at designing a ship? Players should be able to fail in every aspect of the game. That is part of the challenge.

Also, there will always be those that will want to experiment. Just with fire arcs you have a lot of options. Do you want to make a ship with forward-fixed weapons? But what if it gets flanked? Mimic a WW2 battleship? But turrets take up more mass/space than fixed guns. How much armor do I put on? More armor = more mass. I'm gonna need bigger/more engines. Etc, etc..

What exactly is stopping you from making a ship you want visually, and then assigning weapons (and arcs) as you see fit? Unless you make some really stupid mistakes and don't use your designs strengths ("one single big engine, no armor and all forward fixed weapons! Die! Dieeee! Hahahaha.. Did that one get behind me? Ups, he disabled my engines! Frak. Dead in the water!")

EDIT:

Are you honestly accusing me of not wanting to give honest feedback just because you don't like what I wrote?

Critique is not meant to be praise. Nor it's not meant to be comforting or nice. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. And yes, I do know it's a beta. So what? By pointing out what I see as flawed in the beta, that is how the developers know what to work on.

Am I just supposed to only report bugs and not comment on gameplay/mechanics or anything else? Someone here is a fanboy.

It is kinda dull. Tech that really give you options and are more than just +1 damage.

For every weapon "tier" you get a research that increases damage, research that reduces cost and research that reduces mass. Rinse and repeat. You're researching the same stuff for every weapon, in every weapon category. There is no real difference between weapons either.

There are plenty of games that did research better. Heck, the old MOO2 had a more interesting tech tree. And I'm going to bring up SOTS again, since it probably has the best research I've seen (with each type having different applications and effects)

In GCII the battles didn't even look interesting and so far GCIII looks exactly the same. As for this being a civilization game thus "what combat" - that very line of reasoning is deeply flawed.

1) Since when are deep civlization/strategic layer and a great tactical layer mutually exclusive?

2) Warfare is part of civilization. The presidents don't generally order scientists around nor do they oversee the construction of every bloody building on a planet either, yet you don't seem to complain there.

3) You seem to have a fixation on some vision of a tactical layer that would be implemented (if any), yet I gave no actual specifics. "Something to make battles and ship design more interesting/meaningful" is very broad. No direct control or great detail is necessary. Weather TB or RT or just simulated, something as simple as general orders could be enough (if coupled with more meaningful ship design). For instance Endless Space has 3 orders that you gave your fleet that are executed one after another. Birth of the Federation did it better, by giving orders to groups (heavy cruiser, go point blank! Strike cruisers, hang back and provide support. Destroyers, flank. Heavy destroyers, evasive action!), the enemy would do likewise, then the ship would fight for 15 seconds and you got another opportunity to change orders. There are many other ways.

Which is why every warship, airplane or tank in the world looks the same? Oh, they don't!

Here's the deal of sorts.The OP feels there is something wrong with the tech tree, but doesn't quite know what exactly.

I love the layout, its easier to understand than galciv2 and it has standards in the specialization techs. OP would want more variation in specialization tech bonuses and more unique techs. Maybe having more weapons with different stats per tech, or more surprising tech bonuses. When the tech tree splits to other branches it might be good to have some very tempting bonuses to make choices harder, maybe some penalties to other stats here and there as well (if its tasteful and done right).

DARCA '_;

1.  Welcome to Stardock's IP.  This is the tree-of-buildables (including techs, improvements, components, modules) that Paul has envisioned (for years).  It won't ever change to be just like any other game's, because he's making his own game.

Maybe you can wait a few releases and then play somebody's modded tech tree.  Or just play those other games.  Beta gives you a voice to influence what's here, but simply demanding a total replacement is probably not going to catch on at this stage.

2.  Combat Viewer is deferred to Beta 4.  You Have Not Seen Anything Yet.  You're looking at a placeholder that's essentially unchanged since Alpha 0.31 (although it got a cosmetic bump in Beta 3).  It's still just the placeholder, with none of the mechanisms implemented or revealed.  Any conclusions you draw from it reflect more on you than on GC3.

Absolutely none of us have any idea how GC3 ship combat will look, or work.  From the decreased activity in these forums, I suspect that many of us have cut back on active play until Beta 4 comes out.  (We're washing dishes, doing laundry, walking the dog, ...)

3.  Stardock has no interest (nor resources) in pursuing both.  Perhaps they're wrong, you're right, and you can start a hungrier, more ambitious game company and take all of their market share away.  Until then, the relative scarcity of such games suggests that they really are pretty hard and expensive to do right.

4.  Actually, at the level of abstraction of even the most hard-core tactical design games, all airplanes do look functionally the same.  Real-world differences are way below the level of abstraction.  Gamers are not interested in being mechanical, aeronautical, fluid dynamics, metallurgical, or maritime engineers at that level of detail.  The game engine will never have the fidelity to handle those differences anyways.  (Even Boeing can't simulate jetliners (or the next generation), which is why they still build physical models and use wind tunnels.)

Back in WW2, the difference between the Rolls Royce Merlin engine (UK) and the Packard Merlin engine (licensed to USA/Canada) were a minor issue.  The P-38 Lightning had the fatal flaw of the compressibility dive, where the airflow over the top of the wing hits Mach 1 and locks the elevators/ailerons with a force exceeding human arms, which caused test pilots to dive straight into the ground.  It was maybe the P-38E in 1943/44 that finally fixed this (by borrowing dive brakes similar to a Dauntless).  This was tactically relevant for ~18 months of savage dogfighting because German pilots were indoctrinated to dive away from fights they don't want -- and Lightnings could not dive vertically to chase them.  Do you really want a game that combines deep civilization, broad strategy, tactical micro for every dogfight for 5+ years of war, and little engineering issues like that?  Maybe we'll agree to draw the line somewhere, and abstract away all details below it.

I had some nice game with galciv2 so i've bought gc3 and no doubt i will play it, but i agree with OP and have my own concerns too.

I hope the game will be me more interesting. For tech tree the best is moo's (btw why there is age of war? i like peaceful builder games )

Some of my concerns: (note I haven't play too much yet, so sorry if I got something wrong:

-colonization is still very cheap and luck plays a huge factor. IMO colonization should require more comitment and there shouldn't be planets as good as or better than the homeworld just ready to be taken, all should require effort via terraforming.

-Galaxy map doesn't feel like space.. it'ds like a map (almost)randomly filled with stars, planets, asteroids etc.. i would like to see more separated systems somehow. And i know it's too late but actually the hex system seems doesn't look good for galciv for me.

-I haven't dig into economy too much yet, but please, please make it that there is no waste. if adjusting the slider at each planet for most of the turns gives advantage that will lead to too much microing.. and I'm that kind of player who wants to play on highest difficulty so I like microing.. just not uneccessary microing (so make sure that overflow works as it should.) Btw sliders, a suggestion: make it so that a simplified govern slider is accessible at the planet screen without opening the govern tab. i don't like open/close many tabs just to adjust the slider. For more advanced stuff I'd prefer if I wouldn1t even need to open the planet screen to make changes on my planets. (so just clicking on it on the galaxy map i could change production and sliders at  the bottom or the side of the screen)

-Tbh I can't see yet what is the point of improvements affecting the adjacent tiles.. especially since my first capital was on an island tile.. just one more luck factor.

So define constructive feedback then.

Apparently, anything that isn't praise, or isn't a a bug report, isn't proper feedback

I wouldn't say I don't know what is wrong, but you're never going to get a consensus on it anyway.

take MOO" for example, it had choices. At specific point in the tech tree, you could either pick A or B or C. Not all. You had to choose.

SOTS had a randomized tech tree (with core techs always available). There wasn't a One True Path available, because you might not even have that tech in your tree. It was a challenge to adapt and use what you did have to full effect.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/swordofthestars/images/9/90/SotS_ANY_TechTree.png/revision/latest?cb=20091010054934

Also tech - especially ship techs - had interesting effects. Corrosive cloud missiles that would eat away at any ship caught in it, gravitron beams that enabled you to drag your opponents into eachother or asteroids, torpedoes that picked up power the longer they were in flight, kinetic missiles and Impactors that imparted a lot of momentum on the enemy ship, charkram that weakened armor, EMP weapons, etc, etc..

Even things that were upgrades (red laser -> green laser -> UV beamer -> X-Ray laser -> phaser ) were different and weren't completely linear. Phaser was the most powerful and fired in bursts or beams, but had low range. X-Ray lasers were pulsed weapons and more effective and less likely to bounce against reflective surfaces. Beamers were beams with long "on" times, good against fighters. Normal ballistics packed a punch and momentum, but could bounce off armor. AP rounds were less likely to bounce and had slightly better range, but they did less damage. Older weapons still had their uses.

And of course, the drives:

http://swordofthestars.wikia.com/wiki/FTL_Drive_Technology

And specific racial techs.

For the combat, it's not necessary for the player to have direct input. But something as simple as the player designing a ship with tactical strengths and weakneses (speed, manuverabiltiy, armor, fire arcs) and combat role/tactic (possibly even at design stage) (direct combat, broadside ...  flanking, front) and let the AI do the rest

Erm..it's in the thread title. Of course I knew.

B.t.w - for the rest of you

Saying "It's still beta, don't worry" is pointless. If I don't voice my concerns and observations NOW, while the game is still beta, then it will be too late once the game is finished. Also, the whole point of beta is feedback.