Things that need to be changed, fixed, or added.

Admiral Ironfist

Join Date 03/2006

Things that need to be changed, fixed, or added.

After playing God knows how many hours of this game, I can honestly say that I do love the game. However, there are things in this game that really need fixing, or improving.

1. Stardock did a fantastic job on keeping micro-management of planets down to a minimum. They then completely blew it on starbases. Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'm sick of building literally hundreds of constructors, picking a starbase that needs improvement, then sliding over to that starbase and right-clicking on it. I did learn a trick to make it easier, if only a little bit. I build rally points named "Starbase" then have the planets send constructors there. But my point is, this is still micro-management. I'd like to see starbases that automatically upgrade themselves when you research a new tech. I'd even make them take a certain amount of time to build improvements based on your manufacturing level.

2. In-game, detailed explanations of each tech you're researching. Including the details of all the techs that you will receive. For instance, the damage, size, and cost of a certain weapon. Basically, I shouldn't have to go to another website to look up what something is, and what it does.

3. The combat veiwer is weak. I can deal with not having tactical control, it helps prevent exploits, but I've actually sat through one battle in all of the hours a play that I have. Perhaps add formations. Better graphics with detailed explosions would be nice, but I won't push it.

4. Give me a reason to build pyramid style fleets ie.(6 fighters, 4 frigates, 2 cruisers, 1 battleship). As it is, I build medium ships all the time and I win battles easily. Give fighters bonuses against large and huge class ships, give medium ships bonuses against fighters, and give large and huge class ships bonuses against medium and small ships. I know, that is asking a lot.

5. Speed up side scrolling, some of us like that.

6. Give me the option to turn off the game's pre-made ships. I just "obsolete" them as soon as I see them anyway.

7. Let me know when two other races go to war with some kind of pop-up.

8. How about random events that trigger wars with friendly races?

9. The "Secret Police Headquarters" seems useless to me.

10. How about lines drawn from planets to the rally point they are sending ships to. It would give a quick visual feel of what's going where.

11. I would like an option to drastically slow down the initial colony rush. Maybe slow it down to about Moo2 speed. It just seems to frantic to me. I'd like to slowly expand my empire. Perhaps cut the range of ships down about 90% and make researching life support mandatory. Like I said though, make it optional. The more people can customize the game to their prefered playing style the better.

12. Large and Huge ships don't seem to feel very large and huge. Their hitpoints are higher, but they aren't that much better than medium ships. When I build a huge ship, I'd like to see a lot of hitpoints and weapons. I"m talking Super Star Destroyer size compared to a Nebulon B. Why do weapons and defenses suddenly take up more space in bigger ships? That doesn't make sense.

13. Now for my most controversial idea. Take the idea of adding formations to the combat viewer, now add fleet commanders. Nothing fancy. They would start out as captains and work their way up to, say, grand admiral. This would take advantage of the "experience" idea that Stardock was saying about GC2. As they survive battles they would rise in rank. They would get a small percentage chance to pull some kind of surprise manuever on the enemy. For instance, I attack a fleet with a fleet that is commanded by a captain. The random dice roll and is compared to my captains ability. He wins. He then pulls a flanking manuever that gives all of my ships a bonus, and it is played out on the combat viewer. It would show my ships coming at the enemy from the side or from behind. There could also be defensive manuevers added. To keep it simple, any time a ship is made, they would get a captain. If you combine these ships to make a fleet, the highest ranking officer becomes fleet commander. All rolls would be based off of his abilitiy score. If they really wanted to run with this idea, they could even add a racial ability modifier that would increase their leadership ability slightly, reflecting that particular races ability with tactics.

Ok, I'm done for now. Flame away

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Backwards control of starbase construction would be the ideal way - you pick the upgrades you want, allocate a shipyard or two, and they automatically build connies, send them to the base and upgrade to the modules you determined. This sort of allocation of industry would work for all sorts of things, like setting an RP that you want to be constantly refilled with ships as they are destroyed, etc.

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I didn't say it didn't need to go further in the sense of "It's brilliant". I said it in the sense of "It's won awards, and Stardock improve out of choice".
Yes, 1.0x was really needed. But Stardock could have said "Sod off, and come back in six months, and we'll think about it". I didn't say it was perfect in 1.0. I said they didn't have to touch it, but they chose to. So when I read the phrase "you need to do this" it kind of makes me think "umm... no, they could have chosen to say sod it, let's go to hawaii, but they didn't"

My issue with this thinking is that anything you buy will eventually move toward expectations. If you expect that they will not improve the product and do not stand up and say I expect more, you will have a much lower chance of getting it. I am not pointing a finger at Stardock and saying you have done a bad job. Quite the contrary, I think they have done an admirable job with the exception of the 1.1 problems with memory. My point is with the consumers. We as consumers need to have higher expectations and refuse to accept anything less.

I've never really understood what people see in auto-explore. Even if it worked perfectly, what's the point? In the early game, where exploration is important, you need to react to what is discovered. If you see a class 15 or so world, you need to jump on it, so you buy a colony ship. Seeing it a turn later makes no sense to me.

The point is to reduce the micromanagement work you have to do that is not necessary. I can see both sides of this but if you have it, it needs to work. Currently it only halfway works. It needs to be a truly efficient search algorithm that attempts to cover the most unexplored space in the least time no matter what ship you use. It needs to fully utilize the sensor range of whatever ship it is and also be able to work somewhat in concert with any other ships that are auto exploring. The point here is to reduce micromanagement in having to manually move the ship until you need to. If you use colony ships to explore, then allow it to do the work for you until you see a planet to colonize then take it out of auto explore and colonize it. If you are using Scouts as I do sometimes, they continue to explore while you get a colony ship to the planet.

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Well, if everything I build is super-huge and super-loaded with weapons, then where are the Death Stars? Where are the Super Star-Destroyers, where is that huge flagship bad-boy that takes so many resources to make that it's just not worth the expense to make more than one or two?

Why should you have those?

Sci-Fi universes use that idea for several reasons:

1: it's somewhat realistic. In GC2, it's easy to get ludicrous levels of production or money, to the level of building/buying anything in one turn. GC2 is a game, not a realism simulation.

2: it looks cool. 1,500 huge ships is just... normal. 1 huge ship in a field of 50 much smaller ones is grand and enticing.

So, I ask again: what is the point besides fulfilling some Sci-Fi fiction-trained ideal?

The point is to reduce the micromanagement work you have to do that is not necessary.

But it's early game. You've got 2, maybe 3 ships out there. What else are you going to do with the time?

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5. Better Auto Explore algorithm

agreed, quite possibly the most annoying thing in the game is watching your scoutships follow eachother around in circles or going back and forth... what i'd like to see is something like whats in Star Trek: Armada 2, the ships continually auto explore until either destroyed or the game ends.

as for the starbases, what i'd like would be the abillity to put multiple construction mods on a ship, possibly allowing a single constructor to build more than one module or starbase

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I like most of the OP:s suggestions! Iam not quite sure about auto upgradeable star bases, all I know is that its bit painful as it is now.

Formations in combat viewer would indeed be really sweet, at the moment its total chaos and I don´t get any sense of "great" battle going on. No matter how many ships are out there. Also upgrading planet invasion graphics would indeed make the game much more entertaining.

Imagine when using mass drivers there would be actually meteors showering down on enemy or with gas warfare litereally seeing puffs of gas exploding on enemys side. I would like it!

One of my own suggestions how to make civilizations more unique is to rework the goverment system. All the aliens just feel too Human. Example with thalans which obviously is a bug race, I feel weird when Iam choosing a bug Democracy. How about changing it to something like "higher hive mind thinking" and give bit different bonuses? Huge work for all the races but would definetly change the game and make other species more unique. Perhaps in expansion pack "crosses fingers"

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One of my own suggestions how to make civilizations more unique is to rework the goverment system. All the aliens just feel too Human. Example with thalans which obviously is a bug race, I feel weird when Iam choosing a bug Democracy. How about changing it to something like "higher hive mind thinking" and give bit different bonuses? Huge work for all the races but would definetly change the game and make other species more unique. Perhaps in expansion pack "crosses fingers"

MOO2 actually pulled off that kind of thing really well, when creating a custom race you could choose between various government types, then upgrade them later on, also each race had advantages over the others, as well as several with unique governments (humans were the only ones who were 'democratic') but what i'd like to see is more options for customizing your race, more logo's for example.

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in my oppinion it is MUST to automate everything that is repetitive in the game, cause these things slow down the game pace a lot and make it monotonous.

As mentioned above starbase upgrading needs automatisation. I could imagine new ship options for constructors like: "head to the next mining-/influence-/eco- base etc. where ever upgrading is possible".
After the constructors are built they would right away head for the next starbase that matches your upgrading criteria defined previously. This could be a planetary option like: After Planet X has built a constructor send the constructor to the next incomplete mining starbase. It would also be great to have a button to globally set all constructors to that mode, no matter where they were built.

Another thing is the guard mode. Ships wake up from guard mode whenever enemy ships are spottet. It can drive you insane when you are at war with several races and they have multible trade routes and scouts in your empire. Each round you must set your scout ships to guard mode again, only because an enemy ship was spottet. It would be better to only wake ships up from guard mode when hostile armed forces have been detected. Or perhaps make it a button. When hostile forces have been detected a button appears, by clicking on it it sends to the corresponding location.

Another thing are the really points. I don't think it is posssible to sort them alphabetically in the list. Currently they get sorted chronologically. When you use this feature as often as I do the list of really points gets quite big, thus it gets very difficult sometimes to find your really points in that chronological list. Having this list sorted alphabetically would be much better.

I think these points are of more importance than all the cosmetic improvements like better combat viewer etc.
Getting rid of all this repetitve and monotonous stuff would give galciv II a huge fun-boost.

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But it's early game. You've got 2, maybe 3 ships out there. What else are you going to do with the time?

First off, I don't like anything that is monotonous and repetitive and thats exactly what exploring is. So even early in the game, I like to move on without continuously having to point the ship in the right direction. Don't get me wrong, it is important and necessary but I like to watch it unfold and colonize rather than continuously click to move the explorer ship.

Secondly, this is a feature that I use throughout the game up until the point when the whole universe is explored.

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I like a lot of the comments, just thought I'd throw out a few ideas about the ships pyramid.

Maybe one reason to split the ships, rather than use just one generic ship is to force some role differentiation.

1. Speed differentiation: automatic -- tiny +2, small +1, medium 0, large -1, huge -2.
This way tiny ships actually have an automatic speed advantage, whereas huge ships have to jam on extra (space heavy) engines to actually get anywhere. The result would be large ships were intrinsically slower, while small ships could play more a harrassment / screening / transport attack / trade ship attack.

2. Weapon and armor differentiation: I think weapons should have the same cost and space for all the different hull sizes. A laser is a laser, etc. However, armor, engines, etc. would scale with size.
I think the result should be big ships would carry lots lots more firepower relative to small ships (even when small ships are grouped). You would need big ships to take out major defensive points like starbases or other big ships.

3. Life support technology should not come with the automatic range bonus. This would help force ships to actually purchase extra life support modules and research life support. Given the size of the modules, small ships would be unable to stack lots of them. They would be fast given the speed bonus, but be forced to stay relatively close to colonies and starbases (short range power projection, like fighters). Meanwhile big ships could afford to have long range ability to project power (blue water navy). This would also make the racial range bonus more attractive, and make life support research a higher research priority.

4. A little more controversial -- Weapon vs hull differentiation. I mentioned this in another post. Maybe if the weapon types did damage based on the hull they were firing against, this would also create more differentiation in ship types.
missiles: 150% vs tiny, small, 100 vs medium, 50 vs large, huge.
beams: 100 / 100 / 100
guns: 50% vs tiny, small, 100 vs medium, 150 vs large, huge

This would give the option to create "anti-fighter" or "anti-capital" ship type role differentiation (e.g. fighters / bombers). You might make beams more costly or space heavy to weaken a general solution. Or make shielding cheap or something.

I think this could add more strategic depth to the game. A general medium ship with beams could still handle most of the work. But a player that really managed his fleet well could get a lot of mileage out of targeted weapon choices, or a strong role differential in his fleet.

Thanks Stardock for an incredible game. These are just ideas -- I apologize in advance if this is off or I have some mistakes.

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First off, I don't like anything that is monotonous and repetitive and thats exactly what exploring is.

Well, maybe you should just have a "Win Game" button that lets the AI make your moves for you. That wouldn't be monotonous and repetitive

If you don't want to play the game, don't play the game. If you can't be bothered to move a couple of ships around under autopilot (which doesn't even involve moving them yourself), I don't see how you can be much of a fan of TBS games to begin with.

. Speed differentiation

Once again, the question should be asked, "Why?" Just because it damages some preconceived notion that you have that small ships should be faster than big ones? How does this help the gameplay of the game?

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9. The Secret police headquarters raises morale on the planet it's built on by 20%. Which is lower than the normal morale boosting improvements. There doesn't appear to be any other advantage to it, at least according to what it says in its definition.

Actually go to the galciv wiki, they explain this very well, it's affects *base* morale so it's more effective then 20%

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Actually go to the galciv wiki, they explain this very well, it's affects *base* morale so it's more effective then 20%

Could you post a link, I cant seem to find it.

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Well, maybe you should just have a "Win Game" button that lets the AI make your moves for you. That wouldn't be monotonous and repetitive

If you don't want to play the game, don't play the game. If you can't be bothered to move a couple of ships around under autopilot (which doesn't even involve moving them yourself), I don't see how you can be much of a fan of TBS games to begin with

OK, you're just being silly now. Auto-explore is perfectly legitimate and it is currently poorly implemented. Just because you don't use it, doesn't mean that others shouldn't. The tactics involved in exploring every last corner of the map is minimal, and it makes sense to be able to automate it. I really don't understand why you're getting worked up about it.

It can't be THAT hard to sort out, since the other empires' AI seem to manage fine with their scouts.

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Oh give me a break!

That is just the most ridiculous response that shows you have no clue about what I am saying. This has nothing to do with not playing the game. It has to do with parts of the game that do not add value (adding to the gameplay as you say above). You either did not read my comment or don't play the game very much yourself as I was not talking at all about Autopilot. I am talking about scouting an area using Autoexplore. This does not add to the gameplay for me or a large number of others judging by the comments I have seen in other threads. Maybe you like spending time just moving a ship about but I don't. I am interested in the inherent strategy to guiding the economy, building my colonies, building starbases etc. Now go back and play in your sandbox while I go play a good game of Empire or Command HQ that were probably made before you were born.

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Hey, thought of something else.

14. The ability to target a planet producing a ship, then right click on the rally point you want it to send ships to. Also, as mentioned above, show a line from the planet to the rally point on the main screen.

Personally, I'd be happy with any system that ends micro-management of starbases. The starbase governor sounds good, or the idea mentioned about it automatically sending constructors to starbases that need upgrading.

As far as going to the wiki, that is handy, but I'd rather not have to do that. It really should be in the game. I felt that that was established early in the 4X games, but they drifted away from it in GC2. Honestly, I've been to the wiki, and for some reason I have a terrible time finding the information I want. I was looking for a list of weapons tech that detailed each weapon you recieve, and couldn't find detailed information anywhere. It doesn't help that I'm on dial-up, takes forever to find anything.

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I'd like to see starbases that automatically upgrade themselves when you research a new tech. I'd even make them take a certain amount of time to build improvements based on your manufacturing level.

i just realized there is already something very much like that in the game, the auto-upgrade for colony improvements, it would allow for less micromanaging and still keep constructors useful by having them be the 'buy now' option

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Actually go to the galciv wiki, they explain this very well, it's affects *base* morale so it's more effective then 20%

Has this been confirmed? Because that's enough to crack the code into building mega-population planets. With 40% base morale, it's easy to keep a planet in line.

OK, you're just being silly now.

Exploration is part of those 4X's that people talk about with this genre. It's a fundamental part of the gameplay. Not only that, at the beginning of the game where exploration matters most, you don't have much else to do with your turn. Autoexploration just means pressing the Turn button a lot. IE: making the game play itself.

If you find exploration tedious, tough; that's what you paid for when you bought a 4X game. I find it enjoyable.

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If you find exploration tedious, tough; that's what you paid for when you bought a 4X game. I find it enjoyable.

You just don't get it. Its not exploration that I find tedious and I agree its part of a 4X game. I just find continually having to redirect the ship during exploration tedious. There is a difference. I love driving through the countryside on a cool morning with my arm out the window. Its not the act of turning the steering wheel or pressing the gas that I like, its the cool breeze in my face. If you bought the game to click the mouse a bunch of times, I can create a game that you will love and it will cost you less than $40. I myself want to be involved in the action of exploring, not clicking the mouse.

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I just find continually having to redirect the ship during exploration tedious.

thats what the auto-explore command is for, the only problem is the AI for it is really bad, ships tend to follow eachother around which does help you find new planets very well

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thats what the auto-explore command is for, the only problem is the AI for it is really bad, ships tend to follow eachother around which does help you find new planets very well

Now we have come full circle. Thats what the discussion is about, the autoexplore algorithm needs to be improved to make it reasonably efficient.

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I like your ideas.

How about treating constructors a bit like freighters. ie sending a constructor to a starbase establishes a link and constructor route between the planet and the starbase so that all future constructors automatically go down that path. At the starbase end there would be a draggable area for each link so that you could drag the link from one starbase to another, delete it etc. This combined with ur idea #14 (ie click on a starbase as well as a RP) would really solve the problem of starbase management I think.

Also in the starbase you could have a build priority list which would allow you to set which upgrades u want and in which order.

Roq

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Yes a lot of good ideas and the upgrading starbases really need (yes, needs!) some automation. If only I could give the waiting constructor a one - button order: fly on autopilot to and upgraded nearest economic/influence/etc. starbase...

yes, that would be THE thing: a one button order! You could still fly your constructors to a special starbase you want to upgrade urgently, like now. But finding them all and upgrading manually, having to count how many you need there for upgrading up-to-date... the one-button order would take care of it and would also make sure you don't find out 20 turns later that you totally overlooked a particular one....

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I think I'd like the ability to pick the upgrades on the starbase screen and then constructors automatically fly to the closest starbase with queued upgrades when it is built. Just having constructors go to the closest base would end up with my econ bases in the back acres of my empire with 40 in every attack while the military resource on the front lines I need fortified is neglected.

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I have MOO2, MOO3, Birth of the Federation and VGA Planets. They are all enjoyable to play and in some ways are betetr than Gal Civ2. Where Gal Civ 2 shines and the reason I am playing it is the ability to design my own ships and see how they look and handle in battle. That is why, for the life of me, I can not figure out why some of the "ship jewelery" seems so limited and the battles seem so.... limited.

I want the Ship Jewelery to include SAUCERS so I can build Star Ships!!! I can't build Star Trek, Cylon, Gorbn, ISC, or Even UFO ships without Saucers.

I also want the base Hull you start with to be smaller so I can cover it up with my own design and not have it ruin my design concept.

I want more more weapon options and the ability to add 1-2 point improvements to my designs. Instead of having to buy ONE Warp engine, I want the ability to buy 2 or 3 engines that do the same thing.

I really like this game but it is already getting old. I haven't played a game in a week now. I am waiting for 1.2 and hoping that the changes will make it worth playing again.

Please add some more options to Ship Design, Tactics and Battle. I would really enjoy seeing Cloaked Ships, Carriers, Fighters, Mines, Spawning Anomolies and Sensors that affect battle.

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Instead of having to buy ONE Warp engine, I want the ability to buy 2 or 3 engines that do the same thing.

uhh... you can, all my ships have at least 2 engines, my bigger one's get for or five

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