Master of Orion

The Good
Pretty much everything. Particularly the relatively simplistic implementation of controlling resources. Simple slider bars that you adjust to whatever you want your planets to do.

The Bad
Not much. Getting really picky, I could say that there weren't enough technologies, but good grief - there were dozens. Problem was that playing Psilons, you found all the technologies in a Medium game. Large or Huge games simply didn't have enough technologies to keep Psilons an interesting race (once you have everything, how much longer will you play?)

I suppose I could also say that the combat system (hex) was rather limited, and there were only so many ship designs.

The Bottom Line
Civ-like without the details of keeping every planet productive. Endless hours of entertainment.