To start, I love the game. I'm new to Gal Civ, but have been playing computer turn-based strategy games since Master of Magic. This game was worth every penny spent, and then some.

However, I'm finding some of the random events just too "game-changing" for my tastes. I mentioned in another thread that the appearance of the Ranger ship almost ruined a good game, as nobody (myself, the other AI's) had anything that could even remotely counter it. This Ranger easily destroyed fleet after fleet of medium hull ships (and myself and one AI had just gotten medium hulls, which I bankrupted myself to buy just so I could hold off this one ship - to no avail).

After 12+ hrs into an intense and close game, to have this happen... just... sucks. There was no way I could research fast enough to beat this thing. Hey, maybe it's me - maybe I'm just not good enough yet to have the proper techs I *should* have had at that point. But on normal, I was (barely) winning, and everyone had some strengths and weaknesses - in other words, it was a good, close game, and I seemed to be holding my own.

Then I read in another thread of a random event that turned all class 0 planets in a large area to class 12's. Dozens of planets. Say what???

Now maybe some people like this type of gameplay, but I don't, and I suspect there are others that don't like this level of "overpowered" randomness.

Don't get me wrong - a little randomness and luck is fine (and fun). Give someone *one or two* new class 12 planets. Or make a powerful, but not untouchable, ship appear. A ship that can maybe turn the tide on one front, but then succumb (as the civ that has it didn't actually build it, so they don't fully understand it, and it blows up after twenty turns or whatnot).

A little randomness makes it fun. But the types of events that are currently in GalCiv2 are really *way* too game-changing. I only like playing these kinds of games on huge maps, so I tend to invest a *lot* of time into one game - to think a completely game-changing random event is right around the corner sort of ruins it.

So, can this be addressed? Can't these events be turned off? Or have a toggle for minor / medium / game changing levels of randomness?

On a happy note, I found the cheat codes and killed the ranger with 2 battleships (which I then destroyed - I really don't like to cheat), so my game isn't ruined.