I have been passing time at work by watching Babylon 5 out of nostalgia (got to love night shifts) and it has been creating a huge craving for playing Gal Civ 2 again.   

I used to play this game ALOT and I am planning to get back into it (I have all night to read forums/wiki etc. to refresh). 

I thought about the reasons I quit playing and they are the following (not a ragequit, just a gradual playing less until I stopped).

1.  Playing massive sized games:  While I love the idea of a massive game then I tended to burn out before finishing any of them.  So I am planning smaller and much more focused games.  I also found ship range to be a bit to good for the map size (even on huge map), tiny nitpick but thats what I remember feeling about it.

2.  I like the idea of slow gradual tech, to allow ship versions to stay in the game for a little while, but tech stagnation turned this into an astronomical wait (as far as I can remember).

I know that I have missed some updates since I stopped (its been ages since I played), so I am very curious on the current state of the game expecially the tech stagnation mechanism. 

I enjoy playing the game slowly and gradually, writing in a describtion for every single new ship type I produce (mad but immersive), so I´d rather not start a game and find out that I need to wait 100 turns for laser IV.    And on the flip side I´d rather not have the game to quick paced... Any recomendations for a good game setting?