For anyone who has the game already, can I play as anyone else besides Earth in GalCiv?

nope, but you can customize it extensively..

You don't play as Earth, you play as the humans. Earth is a planet!
You're the humans - but you can rename your race, name your leader, change the name of star systems. You can pick from the full set of racial abilities - you're not restricted to any specific set just because you're playing as Humans.
You really won't notice the difference, unless you were really into the whole MoO type thing where you have your research delivered via a scientist of your race.
The robot that tells you about your research is cooler and can change appearance during the game.

~SDC~

You can only play with humans. But consider this: in two games you can be as different as the Star Trek Federation was from the Star Wars Empire, and everything in between. Trust me, you will NOT be bored

Astro

~SDC~

Remember that old game SimEarth? There's one game where you can play as Earth!

~SDC~

No, you played WITH Earth.

Ooh, that sounds dirty. LOL

~SDC~

Just a note. They make it pretty clear in the advertizing...they keep saying the fate of HUMANITY is in your hands and things like that. I think it's hilarious that this is such an issue, and I'm someone who really gets into my games.

M

Okay thanks for the help.

I remember playing through an entire game of SimEarth when I was young, and I felt pretty darn proud when my people packed into spaceships and left the planet as a nature preserve.

For some reason my Mom didn't express the appropriate amount of awe at my monumental accomplishment.

You have to start on Earth, you have to be called Human.

After that, you can name your leader and empire anything you please, and you can customize the Humans as much as you can customize the alien & human races in the other major space 4x games, if not more so.

Does the moniker matter? From the spreadsheet point of view, no: a Klackon by any other name would work as hard. On the other hand, there is a lot in a name; other games have often used the alien race names and pictures as a shorthand for increasing its potential ability to engage our emotions [the ants work hard, the birds are good pilots, etc].

GalCiv doesn't do this, but it is a tradeoff with a purpose. Because the player will always be the Humans, GalCiv can have far less generic messages in diplomacy and events. That, in turn, increases the game's potential ability to engage our emotions.

What the outcry over the lack of ability to change the racial picture shows is that the method other games use *works*. GalCiv's method also works, for me at any rate - though it would be better with the Epic Generator. [King of Dragon Pass did that (and had a simpler job to do in setting it up) and the resultant files are great stuff.]