I have a few questions about Galactic Civilization 2 gameplay.
1) Do the bonus tiles in the colony screen actually work?
In my game I have noticed that building a research builing on a research bonus tile seems to do nothing. The Research Total for the colony increases the same amount as building the research building on a non-bonus tile and the Research "tp" of the bonus tile building on the building is the same as one not on a bonus tile. This stay true for all other types of bonuses. Checking in the Summary and Detials Screens of the colony also show no difference than bonus tiles and non bonus tiles. To top it off when I capture AI planets I find that they disregard bonus tiles and build anything on them; perhaps they know something I do not. Do these tile work? And is there any way to tell? I do not just want to *believe* they work.
2) When starting a new game and designing the galaxy the "Habitable Planets", "Number of Planets", and "Number of stars" setting have no real effect on what happens when the galaxy map is generated. If I were to create a galaxy with "rare" on all settings I get the same as if I put "abundant". I get stars that all have 5 planets and 1 out of 3 solar systems with only one or two habitable planets. Ummm yeah. Is this just my game?
3) In the game Manual is states that there is an espionage option called "Destabilization". I believe it states that that option effects the political party election thingies. I have never seen this option in the game, even when the AI have "voting" goverment systems.
4) This question is just personal opinion, but I mainly got this game because the reviewers said the AI was "off-the-wall, crazy good" in so many words. However for me the AI has done nothing smart, tricky, or devious other than trade technology between themselves, seem to never fall into debt, and demand exorborant prices when trading with me. I have never played above the AI normal and only played one or two game throug, perhaps that is why.
Answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated as it is fustrating me so much (along with other bugs that have already been stated) that I cannot continue to play the game.