I agree with you, Jeff, that it's one of the best games ever made. It's certainly in the top 3 for me as far as legitimate 4x type games. I'm with Josh, having played it ad nauseum to the point that I sold it because there is literally no permutation of events and techs that I have not at one point or another explored.
The tech tree was always the most interesting to me because of its relative simplicity, but I found that the downside is that all parties are essentially equal in development of their tech tree, and all techs are essentially independently, but almost simultaneously, discovered. That's its only flaw in my book; it's a perfect ten in every other regard.
I can see only a few ways to keep everything else the same while making it better:
- Give each player a "race" with unique tree (I don't like that so much)
- Each turn, add a tech to the pool and players can buy it for (action + (X+Y)) and then that tech tile is gone for all other players to take
I'd also like to see far more techs so that each game is unique and any one play won't see the entire pool exposed.
I'm with Josh, having played it ad nauseum to the point that I sold it because there is literally no permutation of events and techs that I have not at one point or another explored.
I don't know how many techs and events there are, but that seems like a bold statement