I can only agree with the first post, it's the single best expansion pack I've ever seen for a game. I like virtually every gameplay addition, and the improved AI is excellent as well.

I have to agree. The expansion is great.

Here are the things that I love.

1) Being able to use old tech. Oh, god. This is awesome. I love flexibility.

2) Being able to choose where the ships exit the planets. (small but nice)

3) Not being able to trade with enemy AI every turn. There is a timer that seperates each encounter. (The only problem is it often resets when you re-load).

4) So far I really like the super powers. Some of them do add some new flavor, though some are way better than others.

5) The colony rush is not so important now. With the new colonization tech it really slows down the process. And with the tighter economy you have to cut it short if you intend to win.

6) I like the fact that when you declare war other nations may come to the target of your aggression's aid. Very nice. And it gives me some pause. I am an evil bastard but I don't want to wage war with everyone at once.

7) The engine changes were good. Distance is more of an issue now.

- Livonya

I agree on the engine changes, that's made a big difference. That removed alot of moldy cheese from the game o.0

The campaign is outstanding. I never really got into the first GalCiv...I liked it, don't get me wrong, but I'd play it for a few days and just get bored with it. I'd go back and play for hours in the ship designer trying to re-create a ship I'd seen in a movie or something.

As you can see by the number of posts in the show your ship designs area, I haven't had much success in this endevor

Anyway, the new campaign is really execellent, however I was disappointed that the Krynn were not introduced at some point. I thought they would be a major plot device somewhere, but it never materialized.

The ship designer got a big overhaul, and every race got an extra hull to play with in each ship class. Some are hot, some not-so-hot, but all in all it's definately cool. With Kryo's mod, it's even better (but that's just cuz I like seeing all the hulls available even if I never use them). There are also some new and cool ship templates--actually, alot of ship templates, and for each race and ship class--so you've got some cool ships to play with from the outset.

The espi system...well...I could take it or leave it. I can definately see how it could be a decisive factor, however it hasn't been yet in my games. It can get darned annoying when lots of civs gang up on you with agents but that's the way things go sometimes.

I definately like the combat update, now ships with multiple weapon emplacements can target more than one ship per turn. Now you can destroy cannon fodder fleets in one turn if you've got enough weapons (or few enough enemies)!

Mega events are cool. I've seen quite a few cool ones, and I'm sure there's many more. That alone keeps me playing sandbox mode.

If you're a fan of pirates, they got a big boost in DA. They spawn in good sized fleets of powerful ships, and they seek out and murder trade routes. Mercilessly. Generally the ships are of high enough quality that they easily equal or exceed the combat power of a typical ship-of-the-line of the current tech/era/whatever.

I had an end-game pirate fleet consisting of about...8? tiny or small hull ships accompanied by 4 medium sized ships. Here are some numbers from this fleet: Beam Defense: 367+; Point Defense: 200+; Armor: 450+; Beam Attack: 0; Missile Attack: 1024+ (!!!); Mass Driver Attack: 300+. That fleet pretty much removed my navy as a major threat as my most massive ships were all spaced by them. It seems that whatever weapons they had were either much more powerful than mine, or much smaller allowing them to mount more. When I got down to just a couple of the mediums, the missile attack numbers were much much higer than my Huge ships mounting blackhole eruptor missiles along wtih some defense. Thier defense was even higer than my huge ships, so those pirates must have got thier hands on some serious tech. I'm not sure how that happened, but I just take it in stride as a game mechanic for helping me upgrade my navy

The improved AI, for one thing. I really like the hostile planetary environments, as it totally changes the pace of the colony rush and, frankly, it just makes sense to me where the old system never did. I enjoy the treaties, although I'm hoping a future gameplay tweak will force them to be bilateral so they can't be so easily exploited. I love the opponent customization, I can finally create my own difficulty level essentially. For that matter, if I get bored with the normal races I can make my own. Just too cool.

Ummm, let's see. The way some of the techs, like the engines, have been rebalanced really works for me. It's much harder to make super-fast ships now, making speed all the more valuable as a commodity. I love the little interface changes, like the ability to launch ships into a square of my choosing and the zoomable tech tree. I also really like ship templates, particularly since SD took the time to make unique sets for each race that genuinely look cool. It's nice to be able to produce functional, good looking, unique ships for each race without having to do all the jewelry work myself. Asteroids are cool too.

I love the mega events (well, the ones that actually end up being mega). They tend to shake up games that have started to turn stale and produce new challenges out of nowhere.

I like the diplo restrictions, actually. It's a small thing, but it's major in its gameplay effect. You can only trade with a given race once every 8 weeks and there's a waiting period after a war starts (not sure how long) before you can sue for peace, so you can't declare, invade, and negotiate a peace all in one or two turns like before.

There's a hundred other little things I'm not thinking of, and probably some big ones too. In all I just see it as a much improved experience to a game I already adored. I can't see going back and playing DL again (though it's nice to have the option). I really can't recommend DA highly enough if you enjoyed DL. To me, anyway, there's simply no downside to upgrading.

For $30 USD, it is a bargain, help support the programmers at StarDock so we can see improvements of the quirks we have already mentioned. Gotta give a little to get a little. Think of all the ways you dumped $30 bucks poorly, you won't get many arguments that the vast majority got an investment in fun out of their $30, I have.