I wonder why there isn't a planetary tile bonus for economy bonus.. broken?

Anyway, back to the suggestion that was inspired by EIGHTATE8.

First suggestion (kinda long, but the idea is fairly simple. Shouldn't be that hard to implement for the Devs, might take a while to balance depending on the approach.)

In short: Special Resource that grants POINT bonus not PERCENTAGE bonus.

Instead of the tile giving a special resource that boost the effect of the respective improvement by certain percentage, there could be some resources that would give you actual points (albeit very little).

Instead of an artifact that increase research of any project on that tile by 200%, there could be a special resource (precursor nano lab) that would contribute 2 tp. Another resource might give 10 BC every turn.

The bonus would be much minor compared to the percentage bonus but appears more frequently.

Whether the building on top of the said special resource would need to match the bonus would be at Devs' discretion
If the AI can't be designed to interpret it effectively, it should just give the bonus as long as there's an improvement over it. The AI can just treat the tile as normal or something to prioritize in building on if there is no % bonus tile. Unfortunately, this will make the resource pointless as there will be no strategy involved.


If the special resource requires the same type of planetary improvement build on top of it, the player might reconsider their choice of making the planet specialize in research since there might be resources that give bonus to bc or influence. The minor but steady bonus would also change how the players play the beginning of the game where 20 points might be more important than 20%.




Second suggestion:

United Planets:
1) Allow suggestion of your own Bill
pick from a list of options. Each civ might take turn picking bills.

2) Take turn to vote. The order of which civilization goes will be determined randomly.

Often time.. I might find myself holding a great amount of influence but not enough to dictate (51%).
Say a bill to decide how many BC should go into the celebration to boost morale. I want to pick D and pay the max because I have the money and that the approval rating could use a boost. Unfortunately, the other civilizations don't have enough money for D and some went for C and others went for B. In the end, B is chosen even though C would have been chosen if I voted for C instead. If the UP took turn to vote. I might have found out that C is more likely to succeed.

The biggest problem in implementing this would be making it fair for the AI. It shouldn't be hard to make each civilization vote separately and randomly. It would require more coding to allow the AI to understand the effect of the votes.. how many votes left.. and what would be the best choice for them.

3) allows some shadow deal right before the UP starts.
This might be an easier way to solve the problem in 1. One might argue that the player should go and trade for influence right before the UP.. though a separate screen to deal with the matter would be better than the notification. (more coding.. unfortunatley)
If 3) is implemented... This might allow the trick such as log-rolling (you vote for me this time, i vote for you next time) that might consequently affect diplomatic relationship if the deal isn't carried out.

i think there should be an option to upgrade ships in the shipyard so that you can refit your ships without to pay much. The cost would be the cost of all new parts on the ship (or something in that region).
The money way for upgrades is simply too expensive for whole fleets.

- In trade route screen it would be nice, when you select a route it would be highlighted in the little map next to the routes.

- When you give your race an custom name it should read in the games fleets also. Example I have named my Yor civilization to Cylons. Now when I create a fleet its still called Yor Fleet *** when it should be Cylon Fleet ***.

If explosions could have an option in the video menu for 'simple' explosions, that would be very helpful. The current explosions are very complex and lag my system something fierce whenever they happen.

crickel

In campaign mode, it would be good if you could your criteria for winning a level, and how much of that has been achieved so far.

I noticed that in the research screen, in the upper right-hand side where the benefits of the tech are listed, that user-designed ships that I made obsolete (or perhaps deleted) are still listed as outcomes of researching the tech. I think my user designed shipsets that have been made obsolete are still in there somewhere.

I'd like to see the ablity to maximize the tech tree window. As it is, it only fills about a third of the research screen, and it's very difficult to get an idea of the larger view.

I've also had trouble click dragging- sometimes the mouse 'sticks' to a spot, and the mouse will continue to move the screen despite my having to release the button. Rarely, clicking will somehow deselect GalCiv2 and a click near the edge of the screen with randomly minimize the game.

In the ship design screen, I'd like the ability to click drag to move the ship image around on it's axis, instead of depending on those clunky buttons.

I just second these (hey, You stole my ideas ):

4. When I click on the money button, it should automatically try to adjust the amount to the best deal (for me) that the AI will accept. I can do this manually, but why should I have to. Painful MM. Ditto influence button 3. Tech sharing is too easy and too much of a requirement. You have to do it to stay competitive, and it becomes painful MM in a game with many AIs. I the motion of a "no tech sharing" checkbox. I also reccomend some combination of the following, but they are probably not "1 Hour" solutions. Please dump them in the longer term suggestion box: 3a. Tech trading costs both parties (say) 10% of the flask value of the tech in credits - this represents the effort required to transfer the knowledge. Will require AI tweaks. 3b. Tech trading just gives the recieving party "blueprints." They still need to research the tech at (say) 25% of the base cost. 3c. Tech requires infrastructure to support it. (You need educate people about gravity even after you have discovered it, for example.) You lose some flasks (or credits) to "education" for every tech you own. 0.1% to 1% of the base value of the tech might be a good range. This penalty would accumulate in the later game, but could be compensated for by lowering the costs of later techs. This would reward players for specializing to some extent, which is good IMHO. 3.c.i Also to reward specialization - at least in terms of the weapon armor paths - allow for a building, tech, or SB improvement that makes specializing even more attractive. Right now adapting to what your enemies are using is pretty easy, at least early on. 3.d. Tech trading should be easier with people who are allies, trading partners, or significantly influenced by your culture. It should be harder with people who don't like you or lack borders with your civilization. 3.d.i There should be tech sharing treaties, where you automatically give an ally all techs you research, or all nonmilitary techs (assuming they want them, given the restraints of sharing above), possibly with an agreed apon payment (0-100% of the "market value" they would have paid for it in negotiations).

I'm new to the game so bare with me if I'm missing the obvious but...

1) Make auto launch option for all non interactive ships - i.e. constructor, any ship that doesn't need my input.
2) Update manual with more details...what does each of the custom maps options do, etc?
3) Unlock the races and other option in Unlimited War (and others in the dropdown)...I don't want to play everyone just a few races, allow me to choose the options as if a "normal" game.
4) Allow us to select where a opponent starts from on the map rather than random.
5) during Trade/diplomatic screens, I would like to see more details about what the trade offer is. Just a title isn't enough, the tech tree is big!

Question: When do you NOT WANT your Freighters and Constructors to launch from orbit after they are built?

Answer: Hardly ever!

Problem: It's unholy dull when pushing trade or starbases to have to micromanage launching them in to space. I mean, yeah, you do need to manage where they are going, but the launch part of the process could be automated. Anything that cuts down on the interface tedium would be helpful.

Solution: Any ship with a Trade or Construct module on it should auto-launch. (If you really want them to stay in orbit, on those rare occasions, you can put them back in orbit!)


- Sirian

This is a minor thing and I don't know how easy it is, but can we get a checkbox in the options that will have all of your ships with autopilot orders move at the beginning of the turn instead of the end? That would be more in keeping with the behavior of other 4X games.

It just feels weird to me the way it works now, particularly when you're dealing with colonizing planets, building starbases, etc.

Comment: Core Design Ship problem

I see quite a few players that would like to be able to modify the core ship designs, however, because of the way they are made (extra colony module on the Terrian ship - using technology that the player really doesn't get until later in the game, i.e. Survey Ships) the game isn't really set up to allow you to. I also find that as one poster mentioned if you go into a wormhole and have your survey ship warped to the other side of the galaxy, it really makes it hard to continue the game without reloading as you miss out on all the goodie huts (anomolys) which are scarfed up by other Civs. The survey ship, one of the most useful ships you have at the beginning of the game, basically becomes useless as the game progresses and all the anomolys are discovered. You can't upgrade it unless you research the technology and no one researchs the technology because it's not very useful.

Possible solutions: Move the Survey tech much lower down the tech tree so it can be discovered earlier which allows the player to re-build new survey vessels earlier to replace/upgrade. I believe this should be on par with Space Militarization in terms of researchablilty.

JMO.

1. How about fixing the way ships set to auto-explore tend to hang around the edges of the map?

2. More randomness choices for new games. Random AI intelligence, random AI, random techs, abilities, stats for custom race.

3. When starting a new game can you fix it so everyone is spread out a little better? Or at least fix it so the player isn't usually boxed into a corner at the start of a new game.

4. Definatly have the minimap move with the main map!

5. Tone down the amount of tech trading that goes on between the AI.

6. How about a way to export custom made ships so we can share them with others?

7. Decrease the amount of wormholes in anomolies.

Awesome game!

I also want to add my vote to assign all techs a number based upon the number of flasks that it takes to reasearch them and display that number in both the reasearch window and the Diplomatic window.

Perhaps that might solve some of the AI trade problems too. I often have the AI coming to me and offering unfair trades, lower technology for higher technology straight up. If the AI is doing this to the AI, then it's no wonder we having the AI's all have the same tech. In the AI's eye's it's just a 1-1 trade (or appears that way). Perhaps if the AI was forced to make equal value trades in terms of credits or other value - maybe it would slow down some of the trading.

I hope it's not too late to get in on this. There have been a lot of good ideas here, but I was suprised to find that the number 1, simple change I would really appreciate was not mentioned: an obvious UI indicator to tell you at a glance whether the current unit has moves left or not.

I would favor having the selection circle turn red to indicate the unit is out of moves. This would keep me from having to find the "0/3" moves line, and would give a nice visual indication that you really had ended your turn when nothing else happens (I get it a lot in early/small games).

Similarly, a color change to gray or some such could be employed when ships from another side are selected, as a helpful reminder that you can't give them orders.

would like to see, as in GalCiv1, that hitting space bar when there are no units selected will automatically find the next unit, or end the turn. I like keyboard shortcuts.

This appears to work in 1.0D1 now.

I'd like to see the ablity to maximize the tech tree window. As it is, it only fills about a third of the research screen, and it's very difficult to get an idea of the larger view.

THere is a More button you can press that expands it to full screen.

In the ship design screen, I'd like the ability to click drag to move the ship image around on it's axis, instead of depending on those clunky buttons.

Clicking and holding the middle mouse button does this.

Wow. Tons of stuff here.

I would like to repeat the request for Green lights in the extras, so that you can have green and red running lights (I presently always put blue and red on).

I would also like the Population numbers reduced from billions to maybe medium millions (purely asethetic, but having a population of several billion people on a planet in only a couple years is very strange).

I think some of the hard points are bugged. I was trying to make an X wing type ship on one of the terran light hulls, and the top port wing would always point down instead of up, the other three positions worked fine.

Another suggestion which might be easy to tweak: In the ship designer, a button that temporarily turns off the hardpoint colors. When I'm designing a ship some of the items have so many hardpoint attachment points it makes it hard to visualize exactly what the final design looks like.

Not sure if this bothers anyone else, but I think it would be a great addition.

Well, I would like to see full blown real time tactical combat just kidding.......

Actually, I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but I've seen a bug where another civ will have the same border color as yours, and this makes things really hard to keep track of when I think I have more space than I really do

Also, kudos to you guys for this thread alone. This really goes above and beyond nearly every other game company around

In the battle screen... PLEASE reduce the amount of motion for the larger ships!! The movement of the bigger capital ships in the battle screen is VERY distracting and can quickly ruin your view depending on your camera.

Also, have whatever camera you have chosen adapt to the full geometry of the ship! I have a strong belief that you guys have it tied to the center of the chosen hull. I tried using chase cams in some of my bigger, highly decorated, can't even SEE the original hull ships, and all I got was a screen full of wobbling geometry because I was stuck inside the ship. It quickly limited my camera options to basically ONLY top down.

Speed up the non-beam weapons in the battle screen. All the missles and mass drivers in 1x speed mode take way too long to reach thier target. I had a large capital ship armed with Photo Torpedoes that wre slow as heck! I speed up the battle, but thanks to the silly motion of the capital ships, my ship looked like it was on a see-saw... but at least the missle LOOKED like a missle's speed!

Overall, the battle screen is great, but I think it needs a good amount of improvement to make it "worth" using. I can see easily how I'd get bored of it or annoyed with it. Maybe that's why the default settings on a fresh install have it turned OFF.

Some ship design jewelry ideas:
-Items with race logo on them (panels, fins, etc.)

-Special effects. I know the elec arcing is part of the game to show a ship is damaged, but having the ability to add elec arcs, glowing engines, pulsating lights, oscilating panels, etc. would be killer sweet. Obviously, more system intensive. Think the disruptor array and nacels on the Enterprise, or the Kitt light on the Cylon ships in BSG.

-Mobile parts (again system intensive)! Having that big ring actually ROTATING would be flipping sweet!

-Parts that connect two hardpoints, and sizes to fit. You can kind of cheat this effect now, but I think it would cool to just have a series of bars, tubes, etc. that automatically connect one end to a hardpoint and you click on the second hardpoint for the other to connect to, and it does, stretchin/resizing as need be.

-Glowing parts. Not so much as the special effects item above, but more so parts that have similar qualities to the engines having a color, but obviously NOT an engine part. For instance, rods that connect main bridge to the mid section... all glow the same color as the engines.

-Rotateable hard points that hold the same direction. More accurately, the abillity to alter the horizon of a hard point, while maintaining it's direction. Make it intervals of 15-45 degrees.

-Delete key functionality!

-ability to turn off hardpoints (mentioned in another post) for viewing.

-the ability to delete pieces that DO have other pieces attached. this would make it less tedious to take back 5 or 6 steps of poor choices. A confirmation box would eliminate accidental deletions.

-a more discernable Bridge

-more items that are round or sleeker (aside from the more curvacious Torian pieces)

-add the ability to "skin" over pieces. Many of the pieces, regardless of scale, don't "fit" right due to slightly different textures. So maybe allowing a secondary "skin" layer could be added to add some smoothness to design and blending of textures.

-potential to add "damage" scarring textures on panels. I'm just thinking about all the cool star wars vehicles that ust wouldn't look AS cool without that blaster mark there, or scrape here.

-kinda of similar to my race decals suggestion, but how about numbers and letters as decals.

-more impressive engines! The only one that LOOKS like it could make your ship run like a bat outta hell highest level Ion drive. Hell even the high-end warp drive looks un-assuming.

-different texture values. kind of falls under the skinning suggestion, but the ability to choose different base textures could be fun. For instance, the chrome look like Amidala's ships in SW: Ep1 & 2.

-this is a stretch, but perhaps allowing to make parts transparent could yield some interesting results. have the stipulation that the HULL cannot be invisible... thus eliminating having ghost ships.

Those are some seeds that spilled outta my noggin... hope some of them spark some inspiration!

SOrry! Can't stop thinking about this friggin' game (and ways I think would make it even better.)
Just one thing this time though: planet tiles.

I wish there was not a limit to improving your planet quality. I know you can improve a small number of tiles with soil enrichment, habitat improvement, terraforming, and finaly orbital terraformer; but I wish it didn't stop there. I recall in the GC1, it didn't stop, you could keep researching terraforming abilities and keep enriching your planets!

I would love to see the terraforming tree "branched out." Lets have more to do on the planets!

/slap self. Thanks greggbert!

-Rotateable hard points that hold the same direction. More accurately, the abillity to alter the horizon of a hard point, while maintaining it's direction. Make it intervals of 15-45 degrees.

This can be done now in the Ship designer. Look at the extras column, there are items there that lets you alter the degreee of the hardpoint. These probably should be controls on the designer screen.

-the ability to delete pieces that DO have other pieces attached. this would make it less tedious to take back 5 or 6 steps of poor choices. A confirmation box would eliminate accidental deletions.

I STRONGLY second this idea!

This is a minor tweak that I hope you include in the new patch: planet city lights. They are not working as they should. I and many others have documented how they are bugged, either not appearing ever, such as a hugely poplulated fully built up planet, or appearing in places they shouldn't like uninhabited planets, some players just never ever see them. The lucky ones who do see them say they happen totally randomly and are bugged. The thread can be found here: https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=162&AID=102806&cmd=myposts#807364