Reminds me of building a custom race in MOO2, skav. You had so many points , positive and negative, to distribute—charismatic, creative, democratic all gave huge perks but you only had ten points, so had to start picking negative traits—high-gravity planet, low population growth, etc, to balance out.

@ Wulf. Those are perfectly valid points and questions, of course. A lot more depends on balance, really, than we usually consider. Must make game design even more of a challenge.