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STICKY: EASY TWEAKS to make the game better for you

STICKY: EASY TWEAKS to make the game better for you

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This is a sticky thread for people to request very simple tweaks -- things that could be put in and tested in less than an hour that you think would make the game more fun.

So suggestions like "We want a full blown encyclopedia" or "Can we have tactical combat?" should NOT go here.  These are things that should be very easy to do.

The goal is to come up with a list of little things we can do to put into a Thursday update so that people who had to wait to get the game at retail will be able to have something to look forward to to make it worth the wait.

 

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Reply #326 Top
I'd also like an option for closed borders

You won't have it as there isn't borders in GalCiv II, only influence areas.
Reply #327 Top
Let's see. The ability to cancel an upgrade during the same turn you request it (for instance, in case you click on the wrong ship).

The ability to get the upgrade/construct options out of a ship in a stack (if you can do this, I don't know how).

The ability to alter how many freebie points each race gets (this may be possible in an ini file already, I don't know, but I couldn't see how to do in the begin game features).

The ability to turn the dithering effect on fog of war off, so you can more clearly see which spaces you've explored and which you haven't. (This is actually two effects, the fog of war dither and the dither/taper effect at the edges of unexplore space).

An option to hold down the ctrl key (or something like) and see the path your unit is planning on taking.

Waypoints (assuming they arn't already in and I didn't just miss how to do them--I only have a download copy atm, so I have no manual).

Next/Prev unit keyboard option (other then the find button).

Center on current object button

In the planet screen, have each improvement display what it would provide for the square you actually have selected (so you can see, for instance, if the Last Restaurant is effected by culture squares, etc.). Similarly have the info on improvements on tiles show their actual value, as opposed to their base production value.

When you obsolete a ship class, the option to upgrade all ships of that class to a new ship class.

A map size bigger then gigantic (esp. since debugging the gigantic size bug probably isn't a single hour feature). An arbitrary map size option specifying map size by sector dimensions (e.g.12x12)

A simple techs tab, like in Civ4, where you can see which races have which techs that you don't (since you can get this information by talking to each one already anyway)

Some sort of popup in the diplomacy dialog that tells you the attitude and peace status of the current faction with each other faction.

In the "we've just met" dialog, it'd be nice if there was some sort of blow up of the part of the map where you actually met, so you could tell where and between whom first contact took place.


Probably quite a few more, beside these. Not sure all those are "one hour" features, but they certainly fall into the category of tweaks to me. Well, except the last few, but they're still "small" improvements. Sorry for repeats, consider those to be my seconds (thirds, etc.) on requesting the feature in question 8).
Reply #328 Top
As I get better and better at this game... there are two things that cripple the AI vs a human player.

First, the "Fog of War" does not cover planets. I can click on a planet, and if it defended, I can see how many ships are there, and how exactly they are armed. Thus, i can plan my fleet way in advance to counter the ships that my enemy has. If a planet is covered by the fog of war, you should not be able to see ANYTHING about the planet except that it exists, and maybe the last quality setting that you knew it to be when you explored it.

Secondly, on the same issue... why waste time with espionage, if you can simply open a trade with an AI, and they will simply SHOW you what technology they have researched?

Both of these issues make planning fleets to move against the AI excessively easy. It would be almost impossible for the AI to "surprise" me.
Reply #329 Top
My wishlist

(mostly things I miss from GalCiv 1)
(and forgive me if you can do some of these and I missed it somehow, but I don't think so).

1) Ability to rename enemy alien races (like in Galciv1 at the game config screen).

2) Fleets are nice, but the stacks should still move together. It is more of a pain moving the main stack (with subfleets and transports in it) than in part 1.

3) Ability to see how many movement points the slowest ship in the fleet has (or ability to lock the fleet). My current game has new engine transport ships that are always outpacing the escorts in the stack. I also have trouble seeing how many troops in a transport ship when it's in a fleet. Logistics information seems duplicated, too... so there's room.

4) Waypoints seem more troublesome, again it is a stack issue... I can't seem to order the whole stack to go to a waypoint, has to be fleet/ship by fleet/ship. When I'm trying to switch ships from one waypoint to a new one, they always all stop in place too.

5) Ability to watch movements of alien ships (at least hostile ones). This is a smaller point since the interface overviews are good.

6) Ability to set the number of special resources. Personally, I don't like them I'd turn 'em off or lower them... surprising to me that you can limit even anomalies, but not the resources.

7) Ability to edit the default ship designs. They are almost obsolete instantly, but they have nice designs. It would be nice to be able to copy and rename/upgrade.

Otherwise, I'm impressed. Part 1 was one of my alltime most played games, this looks like it might top that.









Reply #330 Top
Absolutely a fantastic game!!!!!

Some more simple "tweaks" that could help:

1) On the trade screen, when you right click on a technology, you get a summary of what that technology is all about (fantastic! ) -- could you make the window that pops up bigger, to display all of the different "sections" at one glance?? --> I always have to scroll down to see what ship components become available, what planet components become available etc. gets tedious after awhile...

2) Maybe this has been fixed already..... when designing a new ship, if you put a component on that is bigger that the size of the hull, a message pop's up telling you it's too big, but the window is BEHIND the shipyard screen. All of a sudden behavior gets alittle "wonky" etc.. Once the shipyard screen is closed, the window (or windows if you try multiple times... are then viewable (and closable) to the user
3) I know there is a "story" behind the game, but a setup option would be nice where we can turn off the "story context" a just be a "bunch of Races trying to conquer the galaxy..." It would be nice if the Terrans were on equal footing to other races, you couldn't see where the other Races are in the galaxy (until you meet them) etc..
Reply #331 Top
I would like to see my completed techs in order of power, what I mean is take engines......I want to see them in order from the least powerful to the most...same with weapons and armor. Or at least checkbox option to have it listed that way, I hate scrolling through a long list. to find what I just researched.

I want an option to turn OFF all the pop ups, I personally find them mostly annoying, aside from the ones that show when a civ declares war on me, I really dont care that civ so and so built a manufacturing captial etc etc.

I would like an option to do counter espionage to prevent spying on me.
Reply #332 Top
Sorry....forgot one more thing

If a race declares war on me, then I proceed to spank the crap out of them (which they/I have) then they come to me for a peace treaty...I want to be able to also require techs ...ships ....planets .....etc from them in the terms of the treaty.......as it is now if a AI race requests a peace treaty I dont have that option until i accept it. then it shows me what techs they have.
Reply #333 Top
First off, great game, love it so far.

Tweaks and or Changes I'd like to see.

1. It's nice that the AI recognizes when it's defeated and surrenders, now i just wish the little twit would surrender to me once in awhile. If I can't have that, i'd REALLY appreciate it if my supposed friends and allies would quit accepting the surrenders of my mortal Enemies. I don't know about you guys, but it kinda pisses me off when they do.

2. Better controls for stacks and fleets. I know this has been mentioned, but figured I would say , please. One suggestion, when you click off a stack, unit, etc., clear the selection. I can't count the number of times I've moved a fleet i didn't mean to, because it didn't deselect when i went to another unit.

3. A button, or something, that resets the Races to their original configuration, after they've been modified.

4. Please check the hardpoints on the Models, and fix them, i've run into a bunch that face the wrong direction, at least in relation to the point on the opposite side.

Hmm, I'm sure there's other stuff, but that's it for right now. Once again, great game, and Thank You.
Reply #334 Top
Darn, just thought of another thing.

The Tech Trading definitely needs an option to limit it. I trade heavily, but still don't like how easy it is. One suggestion, if you trade for a high level tech that you don't have prerequisites for you shouldn't be able to research the next level tech until you get the earlier ones, since they represent a basis for the understanding of the higher level techs. Hope that makes some sense.
Reply #335 Top
Fix Quick Build List so it doesn't show obsolete/deleted designs
Reply #336 Top
Thanks for listening, It is nice to see people wanting to improve there games after release


1. I agree totally with the giving the research techs a trade value so you have an idea what is a good trade etc...

2. having an option to randomize opponents at start up would be wonderful also taking it a step further randomizing the star size cluster habitable planet options etc would be nice..

3. When your in your planet 2d mode and want to switch the ship the planet is rebuilding, you have to hit done which exits you from the planet. Would be nice to be able to cycle through the planets and change their ship they are building from this screen without having to exit the planet each time and move on to the next one.

4. constructors showing starbase influence would be handy as someone mentioned.

Thanks

Reply #337 Top
Ok Game runs sweetly

However the only thing i have come up against is the ship design window. I am running 1024x768 and if a ship gets anywhere above tiny size i am having trouble seeing the whole thing to add 'jewelry' to it. There are times i wish to SCROLL the ship sideways etc to get to a specific are to mod something onto it that is small, but cant get the image to get to the right place. Seen as i create a lot of ships this gets me really annoyed, enough to turn the game off at times!!

Therefore please add the ability to scroll the ships as well as rotate them in the design window. This seems to me a feature that should have been added from the start as you are promoting the design side of the game!! Hard to design if you cant see what you are attaching to!!

The enclosed ship (The Liberator Class Fighter) is a prime example of this: -

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Reply #338 Top
yeah, this game is just awesome. i love the 4x genre but they are so few that get developed. i don't know if this is a minor tweak or not, i am no programmer. but...

1. after i lose(happens alot heh) i would like to finish watching the AI battle it out. with full view of planets and no fog of war. just to see how it all ended once i was gone.

2. for games that i am just curious about after i am eliminated from the game i would like to simulate those to see who wins, and possibly see the graphs that occompany it, so as to see what happened when.

other than that i am very happy with the game and keep up the great work.

SM
Reply #339 Top
Maybe blinking lights in addition to the standard lights?

Gotta have the blinking lights, where would shows like startrek be without the blinking light on the top??

Reply #340 Top
Clean up the tech tree. I notice there are some missing techs or incorrectly reported techs on the weapons / defense branches. Also the neutrality learning center or whatever the advanced research center you get by choosing a neutral alignment doesn't appear to be buildable.

Removing components when upgrading a ship design which is "in the field" doesn't work when you try to remove the component by selecting it from the horizontal list of components. You have to select the component from the 3D model in order to remove it.
Reply #341 Top
Make it so that the cursor goes to the end of the line instead of the beginning when I rename a ship, and optionally, make it so the line is completely empty when I go to name it so I don't have to backspace at all.
Reply #343 Top
Make it so the A.I. doesnt toally stop.. Was playin against a sub-normal to test my custom race and after they declared war on me the only thing they did was send a few unprotected transports to literally the same spot every time.. Oh and perhaps you can make a button where you click it and cycle through all the ships that havent moved yet or something.. Maybe..
Reply #344 Top
I haven't the time to read through this whole post so please forgive me if this is already mentioned. It would be nice if there was a readout of your net income change for the week next to the bc total in the lower left corner of the main screen. Master of Orion II did this. Example: 5000 bc (+100)

Also diagonal scroll...
Reply #345 Top
There's a awesome (oresome? worth mining!) amount of valuable experience, information and ideas being posted - and it looks like the fora are growing enormously as more and more people get into gear ... but please, please, please can Stardock look at the structure of the fora and posting procedures as a whole? It's getting very hard to navigate in here - the fog of posts is rapidly becoming a miasma ...

Alien-crushing is still fun, though ...
Reply #346 Top
On the "Load" screen:

Double clicking a game file should automatically load it. I find myself double-licking it, waiting, then realizing that I must manually hit the "Load" button. Perhaps I'm a slow learner, or an old dog, but I do this *way* too often, and it has become rather annoying.
Reply #347 Top
I hear all of the complaints about the ease of trading technologies, and I just want to say that that is one of my favorite parts of the game. I love the fact that you can easily trade things with your neighbors! You always had to give up twice as much as you got in Civilization, and that just kept you from even trying. But here you usually get very fair trades, so I hope that you don't tone down the trade like people are asking you to.
Reply #348 Top
I see so many people complain about the tech trading that it worries me that you will change it. It doesn't need to be "fixed" as they say it does. It is my favorite part of this game that you can get "fair" market value for things. I like that friendly civs trade with each other. It helps me develop to trade techs with the computer as I play. It usually ends up that the good civs have similar techs because they trade with each other, and evil civs have similar techs because they trade with each other, and I think this is how it should be. I see no problems with the way it is now.
Reply #349 Top
Most of these were probably posted already, but I'd like to second them (or more).

1. I would like to see some sort of value for tech, not because I want it to be harder to trade techs, but so that I can judge what I can get from the AI for what I'm offering.

2. Tool tips on the tech tree. Just a little mouseover display to tell me what the tech does. I hate the switching back and forth to the big and small views.

3. Zoomable tech tree.

4. It would be nice to see what a planet is building in the context bar, like you can with the shipyard now, maybe a option to toggle between the starport and the planet.

5. Buttons to toggle a planet's production focus in the context bar.

6. Clearer font for tooltips

Thanks for taking suggestions... this is a great game. Keep it coming!
Reply #350 Top
I like the scrolling by arrow keys idea as well. OR the PageUp/Dn keys would be excellent.
Also, when you click on a scroll bar for say the fleet of current ships or your current planets, I'd like the ability to click and hold the mouse button on the scroll bar and have it scroll until it reaches where I want (or at least close). Also, for the scroll bars (for the above - or for the tech & production resource window), I'd sure like to be able to position the cursor over the arrow on each end of the scroll bar and have it scroll until I let go after say a .quarter-second delay or so.
Saves a ton on mouse clicks that way I would think.