So GC4 is coming along GREAT!.  I posted some longer-form stuff on more in depth thoughts I've had on the game.  But just wanted a place to just throw some one-off's that didn't fit into any of those.

In no particular order:

• Transports should be able to take Colonies in 1 turn (instead of 3 like all the other ships).
• The Diplomacy screen Leader Animations are AWESOME.  The brief interlude before they turn their attention to you is really, really well done.  The Krynn and Onyx are my favorite.  My friend commented that the Festron should be eating someone before noticing you, hah!
• the "Militant" Trait is underwelming.  +20 or +40 control at game start doesn't seem great to me?  Maybe there are rush strategies that it's useful for IDK, but adding 0.5/turn or 1/turn to these would make them much more compelling.
• Similarly the "Unrelenting" ability also doesn't seem so amazing.
• Getting Culture/Ideology points is too lumpy - but it sounds like this is being looked at.
• The new Manti tier-1 Commander Ships are GREAT!.  You guys really did them a solid on this one, it makes them MUCH more compelling to play!
• the Prestige Victory condition is also GREAT!  It eliminates the end-game slog, as intended.  I actually finished a game because of it.  The Prestige scoring really adds that "maybe I can get to 100% in just a few more turns" element to the game, whereas by that time grinding out the victory would otherwise be really mundane.
• For some reason, in my game, the Iridium Corporates seemed to do a really poor job of fleeting up their ships.  I suspect that this is an aspect of all of the rush-building that they can do?  Perhaps this is always the case when the AI doesn't have ships stationed on planet/shipyard prior to deployment.  But they'd be much more formidable were they not sending their ships one by one into the meat grinder.

Things are looking good!

-tid242