Shouldn’t older/cheaper structures remain available?

The only way you can build them at the moment is editing your files.

Yes, they should remain available. As it is, your races ability to develop a new planet decreases as you become more advanced. Granted, it should be taking longer to bring a planet from nothing to full production as you become more advanced, but as it is, you lose the ability to get even basic production up and running in a reasonable time, unless you buy a top-end factory which you certainly arent going to do if you are strapped for cash.

And to the inevitable person who will complain about the micromanagement - its not necceserily a bad thing. I'd be much surprised if FrogBoy can't create a governer AI that can manage this reasonably well for you, and even if he cant ... it takes a minute or so per planet. You arent capturing dozens of planets per turn, are you? And if your playing properly your paying some attention to your new aquisitions anyway, so its not as if you're suddenly being forced to do stuff you wouldnt do normaly, you're just being given a few more options to select from. A little elegant interface design and you have to make one more click per planet, if you dont want to accept the default anyway.

It would remove one of the few weaknesses of the Dread Lords though...

i like it as-is
you can always buy your first factory or just build 1-2 starbases
planets you capture normally have at least 2-3 factories anyway and you dont settle on new ones later
having even more improvements in the list would make the whole menu messy

Yeah, right-click on 'uberfactory' to select from older, cheaper factories would be nice. I'd like this beyond early planet development - sometimes, the extra production isn't worth the extra maintenance costs.

I'd like this feature as well. Besides the factory reason, if you come across a world with a 300% farming bonus you might want to put a basic farm on it, but not an advanced farm because of population/approval issues.

Add a tab at the top... one could say "Newest Improvments" and the other "Out of date Improvements"

It would remove one of the few weaknesses of the Dread Lords though...

I am sure they could force the Dread Lords AI to build only the high-end buildings. But even if they could build mid-buildings, that would make them even fiercer opponents, no?

The farm thing makes me think - I rarely used farm research in 1.0x, because morale was so hard for me to maintain. If I could set the 'default' farm to be the lame one, regardless of my tech, that'd make me happy.

I must agree! I would like it too if it would be possible to build the older Factories.

I am a real Colonist Style Player and colonizing almost every Planet possible - and these new factories need more then hundred turns to build on a newly colonized planet if you can't buy them because of to low funds.

Here's a trick that i employed for me to be able to keep my first level default buildings:

Instead of researching the first technologies for each building's improvements (e.g. xeno econs, xeno entertainment etc), i skip those, and when another civ has researched the 2nd level tech, i trade that tech from them. this grants me ability to build 3rd level buildings while still keeping the default ones, which can only be obsoleted by the 2nd level buildings, of which technology i conveniently skipped over.

e.g.:

got: basic lab
research: skip xeno research (that would have granted you xeno labs), but grab research centers tech from another civ.
you know have: basic lab, research centers.

very useful to quick buy these default buildings on new planets deep into the game...

note: some tech level grants you ability bonuses, so you might not want to skip them anyways, such as xeno econs (+10% to economics).

There've been a few threads about this now. In the last one I read, someone who wasn't me suggested that, when you build your factory, it should upgrade through all the lesser factories during the build time. I think that'd work nicely. No extra player involvement required and you don't need to have your interface all cluttered up with obsolete stuff.

Preferably all the older improvements, not just the factories, would remain available. I don’t like clutter either, so the idea of a ‘show older improvements’ tab is good, or just being able to right click on the newer improvement and have the older ones pop down below. Either way. I also like the idea of there being an option for structures to upgrade through each of the lesser stages, though I wouldn't like to see it implemented instead of the lesser structures just being available to build.

Anyway, glad to know I’m not the only one who’s thought about it. GalCivII is my favourite game to come along in ages, and if this one issue could be addressed in a future patch or mod, I wouldn’t have anything more to complain about. I LOVE this game.

~Fingers~

Yes this threw me off the first time, when i played. It seems the game rewards people who have balanced research into factory/research/economy improvements.

Yet another feature of galciv that is somewhat unintuitive that makes it difficult for the human player, the first time around.

The only problem with it just going through all the lesser factories at build time is that it still takes too long in some cases. If I have a new colony later in the game and have higher techs for manufacturing, it might take 50 weeks to build the first factory. If it goes through all the lesser factories, it might be some faster but it still might take say 30 weeks. I would like to get the lower factories sometimes just so I can get other things built a little quicker but I don't really need the higher level factories yet. I like the idea of being able to build them in my sequence similar to MOO2.

What would be nice (you guys listening stardock?) is that as the high level factorys and other upgradable buildings are built... they begin their production before their construction is complete... for example... The factory chain:

Basic Factory: cost: 50 output: 8
Factory: cost 75 output: 10
Enhanced Factory: cost: 100 output: 14
etc.

So if I where to build an enhanced factory on an empty spot, after 50% of it was complete (i.e. I have spent 50 industry points on it) it would then begin producing at a Basic Factory level... i.e. it then generates an output of 8. Once I have spent another 25 points on it, it would begin producing at the Factory level... i.e. it outputs 10 points, etc. Of course, it would be nice if you could halt the building of this at any time... and keep that level of factory.

What do you think? Would this unbalance things too much?

Hi!

What would be nice (you guys listening stardock?) is that as the high level factorys and other upgradable buildings are built... they begin their production before their construction is complete

BR, Iztok

seems like to implement this would need serious restructuring of the codes, imho.

I like the "Selectable improvement level" idea. Instead of a tab though, how about when you click on, say, Factory, a pop-up would show your choices and how long they would take to be complete. Then you could select the one you wanted. No extra clutter; one extra click.

Should an "auto-upgrade yes/no" switch be available? By planet or by empire or both?

Should an "auto-upgrade yes/no" switch be available? By planet or by empire or both?

There is already a planet one in the details screen.