Resist is right. The beta is not a demo - to think to use it as such is really, really dumb.

It's a beta. It's not even supposed to be fun. The first parts of the beta were downright agonizing.

Edit: But to answer your question, no.

sorry but i think you have been spoiled by 'betas' of other companies. this ia for once is a real beta, it is not fun, it crashes ...

if you want to have a impression on how the game currently plays try to install win98 without any patches

No, actually things can change significantly. As Frogboy likes to mention, GalCiv didn't have starbases in the public beta, but they were in the final game. The Sins economy got reworked between the end of the beta and release. Major features probably won't be completely overhalled, but it's not just bugs and tweaking, either.

Yeah, with SD betas are more like what most people would see solely during an internal testing stage. You can expect a Lot to change by the retail release. If you're expecting the game to reflect the fun of the finished product atm, it won't. The current Beta 3-A doesn't include tactical battles, constantly crashes, the tech trees and magic are being completely redone etc. I find it a fun and exciting beta process but yeah, as above posters mentioned, don't expect a "traditional" beta.

If you're "looking to be convinced" I'm pretty sure the beta process wouldn't be appropriate. Not a poor reflection on the game by any means, just a reflection on the amount of work still being done before release.

Well I didn't know that, as I wasn't in the beta I was just going off of what Frogboy said.