i've been reading some of the hate mail here between those complaining about bugs and those defending the game and/or Stardock. what i can't understand is why anyone would defend a product so crappy, buggy, unbalanced, poorly designed, and generally full of errors, mistakes, and stupid decisions (unless they work for Stardock, of course). one of the defenders said that if we want stability, we should stick to the release version. um, the release version is the one that's full of bugs--i shudder to think how crappy the beta is! anyway, i understand the longing for a good open-ended galactic conquest game, but galciv2 is not it and never will be. those who are working on it don't even know the basics of game software design.