One more thing, this is a semi-question perhaps, as I don't know if it's a bug or not. I've had aliens offer me trade goods in exchange for things before. The problem is, when I accepted said trade good in the trade screen, I nevere received it, or the benifit of it. In fact, when I invaded the civilization who gave me that trade good, I still found it on their planet, and then, and only then did I finally get the bonus for posessing it. Did I effectively give things way for free in exchange for that trade good?

Stock exchanges shouldn't have less economy bonus than a bank!!!!

Monor Races!! They should be exactly like the other races, only smaller. I am sick of how they can't trade ships, starbases etc. Their units have unlimited range. The suddenly appear with all known techs. They put influence bases everywhere. They are just rediculous the way they are. I love the idea of minor races, but make them normal.

Why is it that race can have a certain tech, but not one that preceeds it. Not only that, they will pay money for the less advanced tech. Makes no sense. A race should be required to have a preceeding tech before it can get the next one up the list.

I can see ships in fog of war!! And no matter what, I can always see the ships in orbit around any planet.

Wish there was a popup after a spaceport is built. That way, I don't waste turns before I realise I can build a ship.

Example: I have a ship called viper 123. It is a viper class ship. I upgrade it to a viper 2. However, it still keeps the designation viper 123. Can't tell what it is by it's name. It becoms confusing.

Transparency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it seemed so blatantly obvious that I couldn't risk it not being mentioned:

Racial Attributes. Why can't we give ourselves handicaps in certain areas (ie; -30% in Soldiering for 3 points, or 10% in planet quality)? Alot of the basic races appear to have "weaknesses" as well as strengths, so why can't custom races have the same?

I also wouldn't mind seeing some new weapons/armour types.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it seemed so blatantly obvious that I couldn't risk it not being mentioned:

Racial Attributes. Why can't we give ourselves handicaps in certain areas (ie; -30% in Soldiering for 3 points, or 10% in planet quality)? Alot of the basic races appear to have "weaknesses" as well as strengths, so why can't custom races have the same?

As well, I think we definately need more diplomatic options. Telling an ally to enact a trade embargo on one of your opponents, for instance, or asking alien warlords to help you defend a planet/system against incursion, maybe. *shrugs* I just know as a political animal I'm rather unsatisfied by how little I can manipulate my opponents.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some new weapons/armour types.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it seemed so blatantly obvious that I couldn't risk it not being mentioned:

Racial Attributes. Why can't we give ourselves handicaps in certain areas (ie; -30% in Soldiering for 3 points, or 10% in planet quality)? Alot of the basic races appear to have "weaknesses" as well as strengths, so why can't custom races have the same?

As well, I think we definately need more diplomatic options. Telling an ally to enact a trade embargo on one of your opponents, for instance, or asking alien warlords to help you defend a planet/system against incursion, maybe. *shrugs* I just know as a political animal I'm rather unsatisfied by how little I can manipulate my opponents.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some new weapons/armour types.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but it seemed so blatantly obvious that I couldn't risk it not being mentioned:

Racial Attributes. Why can't we give ourselves handicaps in certain areas (ie; -30% in Soldiering for 3 points, or 10% in planet quality)? Alot of the basic races appear to have "weaknesses" as well as strengths, so why can't custom races have the same?

As well, I think we definately need more diplomatic options. Telling an ally to enact a trade embargo on one of your opponents, for instance, or asking alien warlords to help you defend a planet/system against incursion, maybe. *shrugs* I just know as a political animal I'm rather unsatisfied by how little I can manipulate my opponents.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some new weapons/armour types.


Edit: ACK! Sorry, I had some browser problems.. apparently I sent this multiple times. Delete the others, if anyone can (since I don't seem to have that option.. x.X)

Having played through my first few games.

A confirm (yes/no) window the "buy" option for ships or improvements. A couple of times now I've hit it accidently and dropped deep into the red. In one game happened early and ruined it.

The TURN button should be active only on the map screen and inactive on the planet/ship etc screens to prevent accidental hits when you mean "done" instead.

When a constructor arrives at a base the map should focus on that particular base so you can see where it is! Would also be nice to see the base name in the upgrade dialogue box.

A news log to see past/current events like Civ4 or Hoi2.

AI tech trading is a whirlwind. It ought to be much more expensive/difficult to trade for up to date techs. I also think that in the event of a tech trade, rather than gain that tech instantly you get a % towards the research (to reflect that even if you gain the knowledge of a tech you still have understand it, learn to apply it and work out how to build it). Means you (or the AI) might need to trade several times for the same tech to get it or do 1-2 weeks reseach yourself.

The ability to upgrade ships that are in fleets, rather than have disband one fleet and use the upgrade all option then reassemble that fleet.

I want to be able to see my own ship designs in game somewhere (perhaps grayed out in the custom ship section) so I can worked what tech's I need to get them!

Is there a way to issue orders (sentry etc) to fleets?


Umm - thats it for now.

Anyone had a problem like below ? i edit ships a lot, and when i load a saved game the build list for ships, it contains ALL previously delted or obsoleted designs. Any way to make that stop ?

Oh, one more idea. In Alpha Centauri (possibly in newer civ games too, I don't remember), when you had a TON of units to move all at once, you could hold down shift and all the animation would be skipped for the most part. This was *incredibly* handy. I sorely miss being able to do something similar when moving a large number of units in Galciv. (yes, I know about fleets!)

First off, great game, I bought it the day you guys did the release and have been very happy with it.

I read through a couple pages of these user-recommended tweaks but since I am at work, going through all 11 pages was a bit much, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned:

1) On the planet-production screen where the various planet improvements, super projects & trade items are listed, it would be nice if right at the top of the list of this stuff, much like in the ship design menus, there were 3 tabs that said 'Planet Improvements', 'Super Projects', and 'Trade Items'. When none are selected, all the improvements and such are displayed, but when they are selected individually, the appropriate items show up. This would be useful since often when I am checking which planets have what, if I have gotten behind the construction of super projects & trade items, the list gets somewhat overly long and its a pain to keep scrolling the list to add the basic planet improvements.

3) Spying-improvement research (gain +x% per level of research)

3) Negative racial attributes; I am repeating what another poster has said as well, I think it would be a good idea to allow players to select negative racial attributes to gain points they could put in other attributes, with a maximum number of negative points allowed. The only issue is that this would likely force SD to rebalance the AI races.

4) Make a hotkey for going through owned planets in the planet-construction screen, instead of having to hit the previous/next buttons at the top

5) Hotkey for scrolling through 'inactive' ships, ie ships that have no orders such as freighters who arrived at their destination after all the trade-slots are filled.

6) Events log of events, includes planets being taken over via influence, freighters arriving at destinations, being attacked, etc. Its too easy to quickly click the 'ok' button of these event notifiers without seeing where they happened.

7) Playing the campaign and changing the default player stats should not alter the human SD-made race. This is kind of stupid really since theres no way to reset the Human race abilities to their defaults so after I played the campaign, I had to 'make up' new abilities for the humans which was annoying since their settings should not have been altered in the first place. The campaign player race should be its own thing that does not alter anything except perhaps the custom-race slot. This is a must-have, not optional.

8) Custom AI Race Creation, players should be able to create custom races they can play against (ala Space Empires IV) via the same interface they create their own race with, then save it and load it up as an opponent-controlled race in the non-campaign gamemode. Since the AI plays based on its abilities and this is already being done when the player alters the humans in the campaign mode (see recommendation #7) , this should not be difficult.

9) Ship creation screen, this DEFINITELY needs a filter system for the stuff already on the ship. Its really annoying to spend 15 - 20 minutes designing a ship with a lot of asthetic pieces and then when editing the actual equipment like engines, weapons, etc, having to scroll through a long ass list of asthetic objects you've put on it. Just use the same filters as are already on the top of the creation-menu, Visuals, Weapons, Engines, Defense, Modules. This would make the ship-creation screen perfect imo.

10) Ability to mass-upgrade ships such as fleets

Final Note on Spying:
I have noticed that GC2 relegates spies to the sidelines as a passive force in the game, and while I can understand the fustration of players who are undermined by AI spying, I think this really adds a more complex, better element to the game. While not a tweak, I implore the GalCiv2 developers to make spying a more integral part of the game strategy. This includes spending money on counter-intelligence and offensive spying operations against other races which also carries the threat of being discovered and attacked in turn. Perhaps have a toggle where players could say whether or not they want to play with the advanced spying rules when they start a new game. Not an ideal solution, but I'd really like to see more spy-strategy in the game.

Please increase the maximum allowable sensor range from 15pc to 30pc.

That would be fantastic!

+ Sound cues for events like war, peace, and button clicks.

That is one of the things I missed from GaCiv 1.

Has anyone suggested being able to zoom in and out on the tech tree? Even with things minimized, it can take a lot of scrolling to get from the top to the bottom.

I'd like the ship view in the ship design screen to be easier to manipulate. Changing the view of your ship-in-progress is pretty awkward with the supplied controls. The ability to click-n-drag the mouse on the view window to rotate the view would make it a lot easier to get the view you want, which would result in a lot fewer misplaced parts.

A few things I'd like to see.

1. In the Metaverse - I think it'd be nice to see the top 20 instead of just the top 10.

2. In the Metaverse - I think it'd be really neat if when you clicked on a the occupied terriitroy map, it would have a pop-up with a random individual from the representative Empire. I think thatd would add a lot of character to the whole Metaverse Map and would be fun to just sit there clicking around to see what pops up.

3. I think you should get more points for losing a game. I know it sounds silly, but a lot of people (myself included) will keep re-starting a game to get a favorable start condition. In a bad way, this makes all your games "more similar". If the Metaverse scoring wasn't quite so harsh for a losing effort that would change. You would be much more apt to "play it out" and thus would have a more varied gameplay experience. This suggestion does not apply to badges and awards.... but it would be kind of funny to have achievements for "lost 10 games", worst loss ever (losing a game after 10 hours and 1,000 turns and being pummeled).

4. This one is important: An option to change the scroll wheel sensitivty in-game. I have to scroll my mousewheel like crazy to zoom in/out. roll/roll/roll/roll/roll/roll hmmm about halfway to where I want to be... roll/roll etc...

5. I'd like to be able to have Gal Civ 1 and Altarian Prophecie's music integrated. Though I like the Gal Civ 2 music, it's not too varied (and selections aren't bearly long enough); and adding the old music in (the game could choose at random which variant to play for each race and each situation) would be really nice. I know we can swap it out... but this "integrated" would be nice.

+ Sound cues for events like war, peace, and button clicks.


That is one of the things I missed from GaCiv 1.


Wow, I thought something atmospheric was missing. I'd like this too.

If you decommission a social project and then rush-build on the same square, it builds what was previously there rather than the new thing you just added.

There shouldn't be an absolute limit of 10 trade routes, since technologies and UP proposals raise the limit above 10.

If you have the bonus pack and "collector's edition content" installed, it should say so on the game screen somewhere. I installed them, but I'm not even sure it happened correctly?

A "Restore All Defaults" button. Something that would revert all the races abilties and colors back to their default. I messed them all up. =P I even tried uninstalling the game (via UN-WISE), did a disk cleanup, defrag, and reinstalled the game from scratch. It still remembers all my galactic, video, and interface settings; PLUS racial abilties, colors, etc. etc. etc. Is there any way to reset the game? (I've tried the clear button, but it removes all abilties, doesn't restore them.) I'm sure there's a magic file in the game recording all this stuff, I'd like to obliterate it. =P As it is, I cannot play the Drengin the way they're supposed to be.

In the meantime, I will be playing as the Evil Death Squirrels, led by Conker of the homeworld Strongbadia. (+50% economy, +70% population) We will rule, we will conquer!!!!

- Add personalities to your ships! Have named captain for each ship. War oriented civilizations should have captains with war bonuses, economics civilizations should have captains with trade bonuses, etc. Not every captain is the same, and definitely not all civilization can fight/trade the same.

- When the captain/leader of a ship/fleet wins a battle, he should be awarded with positive characteristics. Being more realistic by making it so that not every battle has to end up as win or die but you can also flee from the battle rather than face total annihilation. The penalty would be loss of moral and negative characteristics on the captain/leader. In the history of warfare, not all battles ended up as win or die unless it's a siege(a planet in this case).

- Allows ships to be savageable sometimes rather than blowing up all the time. Savaged ships should help you research faster in the components/technology that you savaged. There is a smaller chance of it being in good condition enough to repair into operational. This forces you to take better care of your unique ships from falling into the hands of the enemies.

- When you conquered another civilization, you should be allowed to gain all its technology as well as its talented captains.

- Expand the spy feature by making it more useful. Stealing technology, propaganda to gain influence, gaining knowledge of planned attack on certain starbase/planet.

This is a great game but there is also a lot of room for improvement, which is great. Keep up the good work.

Not sure if this has baan addressed elsewhere, but whats the difference between approval and moral? You get bonus squares on the map that help approval, but no building to improve approval. I assume that entertainment buildings do but they say morale.

Also how about having a way to jump techs? For example - I have spent huge amounts of time investing in Lasers - Phasors, defeating my foes. Now a new empire has gone to war with me and it has huge sheilding bonuses, I want to switch from Lasers to Missiles, now I have to do huge amounts of research to get a decent missile system. Why not have a way for higher techs to allow to leap frog Stinger Missiles 1- 4 . This also applies to defence techs. I would make it that you have had to do signicant research in one branch of weapons before the short cut becomes available in another tech to stop abuse.

Not sure if this counts as an easy tweak, it could be extremely simple or take months of testing to get right.

Multiply Damage, Sheilds, Hit Points, Build Space and size by ten, then allow upgraded components to have a better improvement feel.

I.E. Particle Bean goes from damage 1 to D 10.
the PB2 could go from D1 to D11.
Laser goes from D1 to D12
Laser 2 becomes D13
e.t.c.
Phasor goes from Damage 2 to Damage 20

As a tiny has gone from 6 to 60hp this won't unblance the game, but it will allow us players to feel more love from the tech tree.

With XP I would give a bonus of 5 hp per level not 10, as ships become stupidly hard using the current HP system. I have had Small ships with 50 - 60 hp before (with no bonus other than hull plating).

Also would it be possible to allow crews to move from ship to ship, I don't want to put rookies in my brand new Medium ship I want to take my experinced battlehardend kickbutt crews and give them my latest and greatest military ships, and put the rookies in my older ships to gain experience before trusting them with my expensive ships.

First off, this is a great game! The reason this post is long is NOT because I have a laundry list of complaints in regards to the gameplay and underlying systems. Far from it, in fact. It is only this long because there is a staggeringly large number of game interactions, and while I feel some of these need fine-tuning, imo the game is extremely playable as-is.

1)A would like to be able to effectively blockade a planet, I hate attacking a planet, even completely surrounding it, and seeing ships hop right by my fleet as if it wasnt there. they shouldn't be able to leave close orbit if there is a strong enemy force in the adjoining parsecs. I can see tiny/small and fast medium ships being able to run through, but big ships shouldn't be able to glide through as if you weren't there, especially stuff like colony ships and constructors with basic hyperspace engines.

2) I think fleets composed of a huge ship and tiny/small escorts should use the huge ship's speed as the fleet speed, to indicate that while not in combat the tiny ships are docked in the huge ship. Like short-range TIE fighters in a star destroyer. Any balance issues could be offset by requiring a "Docking Bay" module, though considering the amount of firepower tiny ships can muster it doesn't seem to big an advantage.

3) Let troop transports be reusable if the troops win, or at least troop transports with the "Adv. Troop" module installed, so that putting anything other than basic gear on them isn't a complete waste of effort. Combat serial invasions by inflicting damage on the ship relative to the number of troop losses in the invasion, and destroying it if more than 75% of your troops were killed.

4) Give players the option of 'assigning governers' to planets to oversee development, then let a AI handle those planets. Nothing Intensive, or manufacturing oriented, just building farms when the population caps and approval boosters if morale drops. The player would always have the option of stepping back in, either just to build something, or to turn the AI off and micro-manage as normal. This would take some of the strain off of players on gigantic maps where there are sometimes so many inhabited worlds deep in your territory that won't come into play as anything but a tax base for most of the game.

5) Make a diplomacy option for demanding surrender! if only for bravados sake.

Some minor UI tweaks:

1. The selection of planetary improvements in the colony management screen should not reset every time you choose a new tile.

2. The selection of planetary improvements should be sorted (normal improvements first, then super projects, then galactic wonders). It would also help if the text or background color would be different for the different improvement types (e.g. red for galactic wonders, orange for super projects, or something similar). It would also probably be best to put the non-standard improvements (super projects and wonders) at the end of the list.

3. The production/mining/influence bonuses given by a starbase should be available without double clicking the starbase and bringing up the information window. Perhaps this can be added to the description textbox (the one that contains sensor range, etc).

4. This may take more than an hour, but it would be nice to see the amount of culture on a square when you hover the cursor long enough over it (similar to civ 4's nationality %).

5. Again, may take more than an hour, but there doesn't seem to be a starbase list screen.

6. Perhaps the small freighters that appear when a trade route is established (the ones which have movement 1) should become a completely different starship type (private freighter?) so they don't clutter up the starship list and the shipyard.

7. A small bug on the ship design screen: the icons for removed items don't disappear if they were on the end of the list. I think a similar problem also comes up when you are deleting ships when there are multiple ships on the same square.

I've only been playing for some days, and haven't been really hanging out at the forums much, so these suggestions may have already been made.

And congratulations on making a brilliant game. I've only had it since Friday and I've already lost an entire night's sleep on it (and I should be writing a paper!)

I found a fix to the problem of not resetting races. I didn't know the game stored info under the "My Documents" folder. This folder will stay, even after the uninstall. (Pretty sneaky there, lol.) I went into Galciv2 folder, and saw all these modified race files. I deleted them. Game is back to normal now. Ugly fix, but it works.