Hi folks!

I have not yet had a chance to demo/beta test Gal Civ 2, so if any of these features are present, forgive me. If not, I was wondering on the possibility of incorporating them into the game. It seems from a programmer's perspective it would be simple, but as I am not developing the game, I probably shouldn't comment. Also, I realized these after playing Gal Civ 1 after a while.... (btw, to the developers: the following is not a rip on any of you... just a stressing of what I desire to see in the new GC game, so please take no offense) Here goes:

1.) Please make a modification to the player's race selection screen: When devising the amount of points spendable on customizing the player's race, please allow for being a master in 2 traits/skills and so-so to semi-above-average in 1-3 more. This is because it seems that too often the choices are way too painful for a casual gamer (i.e. to have any kind of appreciable bonus in 1 trait I hurt myself in everything else, or disadvantage myself heavily in several traits and hurt myself in everything else). Please set it up so I can perform well in more than one area, and have reasonable bonuses in 1-3, maybe 4 others (especially since the list of possible traits is so long)
A possible way to implement this is to have this determine the score recieved for posting in the Metaverse Another way would be to divide the list of traits into two groups: the few "major" traits that affect the strategy pursued to achieve victory, and the "minor" traits that give that race a unique "flavor", with independant point pools for both. If balancing is an issue, than perhaps have a box marked that the player can check or uncheck , depending on whether he or she cares about this restriction.

2.) On the AI race selection screen, please please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE seperate the intelligence from the starting resources, and the starting resources from each other. The reason for this is that in Gal Civ 1, the intelligence represented the scripts the AI used as well as what formulas were used to calculate their tax income, trade income, cultural influence, etc. I feel that allowing the AI to execute more and more scripts will allow the player to become immersed in the gaming world, but it is peeving the crap out of me that this has to come with all the "extra goodies" for the AI. I have said it before in another thread and will say it here: NOTHING RUINS A GAME for me MORE THAN THE AI CHEATING, AND THAT INCLUDES STARTING WITH MORE MONEY, RESOURCES, TECHS, KNOW LOCATIONS OF GOOD PLANETS, ETC. (caps added not out of anger but for emphasis). If these need to be in (even as part of the backstory), than I would like to have them completely customizable without having to design a whole module or whatever. I truly believe the mark of a quality AI opponent is one who can be challenging and running all kinds of intelligent scripts without having to resort to (combine with) having more resources, starting techs, starting planets, etc. than the human player. Myself personally, I may not care as much about balance (if that is going to be the issue) as much as allowing myself to play in a world that is immersive and seemingly fair. In order to accomodate those who were fine with how Gal Civ 1 was designed, please make this a toggleable option.
A possibility of how this would be implemented would be to have a slider for each of the starting resources (planets, techs, ships (perhaps broken down by types of ships), etc.), with the player getting X percent more than the computer on the left, and the computer getting Y percent more on the right, and have this setup for each of the races included in the game (the percentages would be relative). From all of this, the difficulty rating could be calculated in a manner similar to how it is calculated in Gal Civ 1.

3.) This is sort of an extension to both of the above: Add to the list of toggleable victory conditions the following: victory by military conquest (and if more stringent restrictions are necessary, defeat if all AI players are conquered by military means). This is to allow for the possibility to have a galaxy where we (including the AI) must use a non-violent method to win. Again, this allows for a somewhat of a sand-box mode to just simply have fun without pressure of "winning".


Well, that is all. Thoughts anyone? (Note To The Developers: again, this is not intended as a rip on you folks, as you did make an awesome game that will remain on my machine, but as way to provide feedback on certain features and on what I hope will be included in the new GC2. Thanks for the awesome games! )

Mike