So I picked up MoO2 a few days ago and have been addicted to it. I watched quill18's tutorial video, following his custom race build. I lost my first game to the last race in the galaxy who just overwhelmed me because I build crappy ships.

My second playthrough I went custom again but without Creative on Pre-Warp and man it was so much better. Creative takes out a great part of the game. I'm sure this topic has arisen many times over the years but what are your thoughts on it? Does it sap an important aspect of the game away or do you enjoy creative races?

Actually the research in MOO2 was the only thing that I hated in this game. I dont like when im forced to choose between 2 techs with a knowledge that i wont have reasonable chance to get second one - for me diplomacy is waiting for a chance when 'enemy will feel like giving it to you'

Thats where 'creative' perk is coming in - it will help you complete whole tree without worries what to choose. It gives also nice preview - to 'see' all techs at work during first few games. Later on you realize that you use only 1 tech for each level,(or the 1 that vastly outrun the other) so you can live on without 'creative' and choose ie: 'subterran'/'unifiction'/++ production/++research (numbers its what winning most old 4x games - more people == more everything).
There are only 3 or 4 switches in research when your choice is crucial (in example 'stinger missle' or 'automated factories' / or getting early waste management) , once you get used what to choose at these crossroads the rest is simple (that depends on situation at map).

I love the research system in MOO1 tho'. Thanks to the random research tree - you will have to change your strategy to match the current available techs ( no shield techs ? - stick with missles; no barren enviroment control ? - leap frog it and aim for inferno; no soil enrichment and atmospheric terraformer - SPY,SPY,SPY or they will overrun you) That keeps game fresh.

Creative definitely takes something away from the usual way the game works. I wish they had changed it so that, perhaps, you get a random free tech with each level of research. So for most levels, where there are 3 researchable techs, you'd pick one and get a bonus one. That's leave room open for tech trading/some randomness still.

If you want some randomness, try out "Uncreative," where you have no control over which tech you're going to pick. Of course, you can see what the technologies are, but still...
Research is important, yes, but not so much the be-all and end-all. The only thing that good researching gives you is the edge on technology - you'd be the first to get them - but (almost) all technologies can be stolen, salvaged from ships or colonies, or replicated. Anyone who has played against the Darlok will know how ruddy difficult it is to maintain that edge. Creative does make the game very different, just as Telepathic does, or Aquatic, or even Warlord. That's the fun of the game.

I've been enjoying the game at Pre-War and custom racing the Psilions so no one has creative. However I'm still quite new to the game so it makes it quite difficult. But I love challenges :)

If you play MoO2 enough to get good(I played and won on Impossible multiple times), you don't really need creative. I enjoyed MoO2 enough to make some custom races. That included Star Trek and other sci-fi races.

True, I love playing as BORG.

¤ Race Name: BORG
¤ Leaders Name: BORG Queen
¤ Home World: Unimatrix 000
¤ Next Worlds: 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111 or using 4 bits if its a huge galaxy.
¤ Ship Names:
Pre-Titan: BORG Prototype 001
Titan: BORG Cubus 001
Deathstar: BORG Cubus X

Traits:
-2 Ground Combat -10
-3 Spying -10
-5 Low -G World
+6 Unification
+6 Subterranean
+4 Cybernetic
+4 Warlord

Strategy: Pushing production pretty hard and building a large fleet. Getting Gravity-Generator as soon as possible.

My Borg design was a bit different.

Traits:
Repulsive(nobody wants to be assimilated)
- Population(countered by assimilation of course)
Unification
Cybernetic
+50 Ship Defense
+20 Ship Attack
Large World

nice Borg designs, I shall have to try those out. :)

Sigh, that happens when Star Trek geeks play Moo...
Just kidding, no offence intended ;p
Anyone have a playable The Great Old Ones from Cthulhu mythos build? I was thinking of something like this:
-50% Population Growth
-10 Ground Combat
Feudal
Aquatic
Large Home World
Telepathic
Omniscient
Trans Dimensional

Something tells me the Great Ones should be repulsive...?

To most, anyways. They get their mad followers too.

I actually think given the nerf on creative cost from 6 to 8 actually make it viable and balanced, it just becomes another oppotunity cost. I have tried many different custom combos on the unmodded game from gog. The extent of success of each build does depend on available worlds to a certain extent. For comparison, I tried to start on same number of home planets (3), and from my experience the creative route build, is not at all the most effective.

The greatest fun for me in MoOii and its replayability is in customizing different builds, and making different choices. For me creative is just one of them. One of the above mentioned builds:

Subterran + Unification+ others

is one of the best, there are however other interesting ones.

E.g.1 Feudal + Warlord + Spying + Telepathic +
E.g. 2 Democracy + 2 research + Subterran + Tech to android worker quickly and exp...

one of my favorite builds is based on the Elerians:

Telepathic
Warlord
Feudal
Rich Home World
+20 ship offense
+25 ship defense
-10 spying

or variations on that theme (for instance: switching out rich home world for +50 ship attack or +50 ship defense, but -10 Ground combat)

Just to show I'm not a Star Trek geek, I'll post some other familiar sci-fi custom races I came up with.

Alien(H.R. Giger)
Repulsive
Uncreative
High G
Subterranean
+20 Ground Combat
+50 Population(think Facehuggers)
Large World

Martians(H.G. Wells)
Low G
- Money
Poor World
Creative
+1 Research
+50 Ship Defense
+20 Ship Attack
* - Population if it's allowed

Kilrathi(Wing Commander)
- Population
- Money
+1 Research
+20 Ground Combat
+10 Spying
Warlord
Stealth ships