I think you are missing something on terraforming (which is getting upgraded soon, so I don't think it's worth discussing until we see where it goes, since it should be out in two days, I think), because it does not work like it did in GC1. Take the actual third level, Terraforming. When you research Habitat Improvement, one of your tiles (on PQ 11 or higher planets, has no effect on smaller) that is not in the ocean but was not previously usable will turn red. This tells you that that tile is terraformable. when you get the Teraforming tech, you can then start terraforming that tile by building "basic terraforming" on it. Then you can build the second half of it (no, I don't know why they require two steps). At that time, the tile has become usable and you can now build something else on that tile. At no time did the PQ of the planet itself go up.

Yes, terraforming as it stands in Beta 4C needs a rework, but that's happening.

Terraforming research time too long? I'd have to say that that depends on your settings. It's one of the harder techs to research, but far from the hardest, and I usually tackle it earlier than I did in GC1, and when I do tackle it, it takes less turns (usually less than 20).



The AI is still under development. Beta 4 was the first time the AI was actually making an effort to play the game, rather than flail around randomly, I seem to recall. The GC1 AI was pretty good for most players, and I expect no less from the GC2 AI in the released product.



As for that trade, I believe you'll find the AI is insanely protective of military technologies. It gets quite a bit more reasonable if you're asking for non-military technologies. On Normal, I can usually get the AI to trade for the first generation of techs or so (Interstellar Republic for Shields II/Stinger II/etc and all it's prerequisites), sometimes the early second generation techs (Harpoon 1, etc), but I have to be offering something that the AI is starving for to get anything higher than that.

My race has research at the second set (+20 I think), and I'm technologist for the government. I have one or two (depending on value of planet) research centers (not fully upgraded, but they are simply called research centers), tech turned to very fast in the game settings, and normal spending on everything. It takes at least 200 turns to research, sometimes more, and there's no way, unless I turn down all spending but research, and notch up the tax, to get it in 20 turns.

Dunno, might just be me.

That's just not right. We're obviously doing something different. I'm not even taking the racial research bonus and I'm doing much better than that.

1) What's your overall funding level at, percentage-wise. That should be at 100% except at times of financial crisis.

2) What percentage are you funding research at? (mine are usually in the 30-60 range, higher at times when I have nothing but techs to shoot for).

3) How many colonies do you have? (30-50 is a normal number for a gigantic map for me at the point that the initial expansion has stopped, but I play abundant stars/planets/habitable planets).

4) How many Research Centers do you have per planet? This gets mixed with me, as some planets will have several, others have none.

5) What's the total listed for Research Expenses on the Domestic Policy/Economy screen. I'm at 261BC right now, and I'm still very early on in my current game.

One thing to be aware of is that tax rates can be set quite a bit higher than I would consider reasonable. I run in the 60-70% tax rate most of the game, and drop it to 40% when my economy is strong enough that I can do that, but by that time, it's just a matter of thinking that 60% is too high, that *I'd* be wanting to revolt.