I beleive that GC2 will allow you to assign the AI govenors to handle the nitty gritty if you want.

AND AS A FURTHER NOTE:

The reason as*-end-dency got poor reviews is because it had NO AI, and ulta crappy gameplay mechanics that were obviously made to try and compensate for the AI being MIA. When I reviewed the game way back when I noticed that there seemed to be something very unusual about the way the game reacted to the way I played....it didnt.

I did an experiment, I started a game and did NOTHING but hit next turn (as I recall you could just press enter)....after 75 turns or so at the highest dificutly setting, doing nothing but pressing enter....I won the game.

Ascendancy, the first (and to my knowlege still the only) computer game that is 100% beatable even with your monitor OFF.

Alf your right the AI was missing in asendancy I forgot to mention that but what I was comparing it to was not the ai because one thing that GC or GC2 have is an AI. What I was really refering it to was the lenght of time it took to upgrade buildings. But if the local gov takes care of it then that problem is averted.

Neh the most boringest part of the game. It is a micromanagement nightmare. Maybe soon they will make an option that will allow you to upgrade all structures. But yes it's true it does take long time aswell. That's probably a game balance issue where the cost of the upgrade is factored in with the cost of the lesser building. But regardless the costs will get changed, and I know galciv is not oppossed to having lot of stuff that takes ages to build.

In Beta 4 you will find an option to have the upgrades for your improvements automatically added to your build queues as they become available.

So that means we don't have to go back and check 'maxed out' planets for new build options.

Will this also queu buildings that are being currently constructed?

When I coded it, I made it so that it would go through and change the obsoleted projects in the queue to the upgraded version, but apparently that's more than was expected of me. So I'll have to find out if I can leave it like that.

While playing I noticed that when upgrading factories research labs ect. ect. to their newer more productive counter parts it's long and teadious. Take Ascendancy's developed The Logic Factory, Nice game but was such a burdun on upgrades that it got poorly rated by reviewers. I suggest adding a simple tab on the planet view to be able to upgrade all tiles of factory or reseach in one click. I like micro management but when I have to click on each tab and then click on what I want to do 10 times / planet I lose interest quick.

Beta 4 will have the option for tiles to upgrade to the next level automatically.

So your basic lab becomes a lab becoamse a research center becomes an academy, etc. automatically.

So when you own for example... a Basic Farm and research Xeno Farming you get The next best thing instantly after research? and that when you do research it it imeadilty replaces the Old model? i guess Lowan Citizen:oh its such a sad day i heard on the news that the Government has researched Xeno Farming and has forced all the current Farms into the better farms and made my wife disapate now im married to a ugly man! oh crap my post is thirtenth WERE DOOMED!

But why should it be added to the current build queues when the queue already has something in it? For quick researchers, this could result in multiple sceduling of upgrades before they can actually get built on the small worlds.

Cari, what kind of game balance is it to have advanced items that cost less to build then the basic units? I can understand operating costs being less, but when should an improved item cost less?

Consider, if I can drop a basic factory on a newly settled world, doesn't that accelerate the rate I can then build the next factory? Cannot it build its own upgrade faster then trying to jump straight to advanced factory? Is it planned that one or two steps up for the item, it will be both cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain then the basic starting unit?

I'm just brainstorming, Brad. Micro-management is the beast we are trying to keep from growing, and the system described struck me as having a strong possibility of impacting epic style players rather strongly. We will see it in action soon though, so it will be easier to judge if it will be a concern.

Does the math support going straigth for the big ticket items is faster/more efficent? It didn't under Acendancy, and you are using the same basic world system as them (with just some minor flavor differences). Indeed, it would seem that you should require having a smaller scale item already built before you could build the next step up. Nothing major in itself, as the auto-upgrade governor could handle it. So you zone out a block in basic units, and let him keep upgrading whats built until there is no more orders in the queue.

It's a lot easier to build an uber-industrial complex when you've got some industrial infrastructure already, after all. And the math should support having more shields output on the planet quicker leading to building that uber-factory faster. Unless its just so much cheaper in build costs then a to first build the basic factory and then build the upgrade.