Stars go super nova destroying all planets within X number of parsects. Then a new star and planets form. This way you would not be able to just sit around and do nothing. You would constantly have to monitor your star to see what it was doing. Don't have a set number of years for the Nova. It would have to be unpredictable.

Be able to coexist on planets with the other races. You get this half, we get this half. Then for planetary battles instead of Me vs You it becomes, 100 of my troups vs 70 of your troops in this area, 200 vs 210 in that area. Then you would be able to fight your way to the capital city. This is the way it was kind of in Malkari, a Windows 98 game that was very similar to GC2, only with worse graphics and better depth to the game.

Just my own comment: I do not think improving the AI should be connected to an expansion pack. In my opinion, a killer AI should continue to be developed and added (for free) to the original program. This is what was advertised for it, and I think it's what we have a right to expect. I do not think players should have to pay extra to get the problems with the AI, listed in many other threads, fixed.
Expansion packs should be just that, not an extra fee to get the original game up to snuff. It's such a killer game, but those AI issues really do bring it down and should continue to be addressed through patches rather than expansions. Turning up the difficulty to suicidal is not the solution, fixing the AI is.

I agree with many others... the game definitely needs multiplayer

See, I would pay money to get a better AI. I know that I already paid for that, and what I got isn't too bad, but to get a smart AI that develops planets and ships in an intelligent and reactionary way while managing an effective assault or defense would be worth paying for. What I seek in a game is challenge, so I will pay to get a better challenge.

In addition, I would like to see more races, the races more individualized, and better diplomacy. The rest is fluff. I never play campaigns so forget that unless they really need it in order to sell to the masses.

Well this is certainly a hot topic! Go ahead and mention things that have already been requested in previous posts (it just shows that many people want that feature).

Anyway I would like:
1. AI improvements (its so close to being godly that Stardock shouldn't stop now!)

2. More meaningful and involving espionage. Right now a slider just seems under-whelming. Have random intelligence breaks, defections from enemies, sabotage, more tech thievery, and make it so civs can actually discover that you have operatives in their government, lowering their opinion of you slightly. I also suggest having sub-divisions among espionage (military information, economic information, fund armed rebellions, cover your tracks so civs don't find out what your up to, etcetera.
I think this would add a lot of depth to the game.

3. More ship design options! (because more is more, more or less)

4. The ability to control the frequency of random events (I just can't get enough!)

Also, I personally take back my vote for multi-player, I think it is the single player experience that should be improved.

I'll add more stuff when I feel like it.

You use the current espionage to determine where a race has its unique resource (Aphrodisiac) or super project (Global Terraformer). Then, with the enhanced espionage, you create a spy, put him on a ship, try to infiltrate the planet. You either

(1) Steal the unique resource or the superproject
(2) fail
(3) fail and get caught - resulting in a war

Or, you infiltrate a spy on a planet, and try to get it to flip over to your side, and

(1) succeed
(2) fail
(3) fail and get caught, resulting in a war

Also,

The more spies you manage to infiltrate, the greater the likelihood of acquiring their technology. After each "success", the spy gains experience and increases the chances of his success in each successive mission.

also you have to say bump for this to appear in the recent posts

actualyy just say any thing.

New Race(s)

Map Editor

More Hulls And Jewelry

A threat/extortion option in the diplomacy system (Pay Me Or Die)

Fighters/Carriers

Turned Based Tactical Combat

A More Aggressive AI

The ability to specifically select save ship designs to include/import into the current game.

Tactical combat.

The Main things I would like to see are:
- Optional Tactical Space Combat - not necessarily a turn based system (a'la MOO2), could be a system of specifying tactics/formations prior to fight.
- Special Ships - like the aforementioned carriers, or repair ships/stations, and similar ideas.
- Optional Tactical Ground Combat - make use of your civs advances in a more dynamic fashion. Again not necessarily a turn based system - could be more along the lines of priority targets or more involved tactics. Possibly expanding a planetary invasion to take more than a single week (turn), so you can vary tactics per turn and ship in reinforcements, etc.
- Orbital Defence (in-system fighter or laser satalites) systems as a planetary build option (no space - a colonisation center improvement). I don't like having to design engineless ships to act as local defences - if they are tied to a planet, they should be a planetary option.
- Anomalies were a great idea, but they should be expanded on
- wormholes could be permanent: provided enhanced trade routes (bonus for using wormhole) and a research bonus for drive techs - though it must be guarded to maintain control of it.
- The anomalies are not all present when the game starts, but appear as a result of certain random events - meaning that these events should be investigated when detected.
- Greater Racial Variation - races favour different planet types and treat them as different classes.
- Expanded espionage - as in previous posts - specific targets, sabotage, propoganda, espionage enhancing techs.
- Expanded Diplomacy - as in previous posts - tithing, trade discounts.
- I like the idea of special characters as fleet commanders, system governers or ambassadors - though don't feel it is necessary.
- Wider variety of hulls plus the ability to mod/include other designs without replacing existing hulls (if this is already possible can someone tell me how )
- I like the idea of special sidequests and random events appearing - ie: your ally is suffering from a deadly plague, will you help research the cure?, or: rumours of a ancient artifact have been heard all over - will you follow the trail to find it?
- not bothered about multiplayer - the AI may need some tweaking, but it is pretty good.
- I would like an improved SP campaign

I think the main thing I would like to see in an expansion is minor races which randomly appear actually grow and expand.

Then once these minor races colonized some systems they could apply for a seat on the council if there was one defeated out of the starting number you selected.

I think if thos could be done, it would make the game more real as old powers(races) fall and newer powers(races) raise to take their place.

Personally i hpe the xp will not be cocentrated on ship builder because i could also not buy it.Personally i think that in the XP there should be simply more differentiation between races (except the color on the long run the initial differences between races are nuts).in the game there isn't any vassal state function personally i found the introduction of surrendering to another civ horrible.New improvemnts,new superprojects, more and more portaits and text of technologies not written in 5 seconds.Campaigns are really not needed bacause campaign in gc2 is really crap and i hope Stardok will concentrate their efforts on making game more pretty than adding a new crap campaign.But what i really hope for xp are race unique buildings and advantages.

PLEASE don't do multiplayer. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't waste valuable development time on that.

Make the races more individual/unique via game mechanics/unique technologies. I support the idea of races going for different planet types. That would rock. Optional symmetry breakers, like the Lithavore and Cybernetic options in MOO II. Darn the people crying "But there's a bigger chance a race would be broken." A) A broken race can be fixed. If you don't like playing the broken race, don't play the broken race. If you don't like playing against them, don't include them. Unique tech for each race. Unique ship designs for each race. Completely customizable custom race (Miniaturization is available as a bonus, additional bonuses to make up for lack of race specific tech).

Make the weapon types more unique, also. The current rock/paper/scissors concept is ok, but it could be so much cooler if each weapon type had unique effects, like lasers being faster than missiles, mass drivers having more range than the other two, missiles doing more damage but being slow, and if there were "special weapons" like shield-piercing weapons, extra range, weapons that reduced ship speed and all of that sort of thing. In addition to the new weapon effects, introduce battle strategy options. A menu before the battle with tactical options that influence the outcome of the battle, but don't decide it. Something like:

1) Full Assault (All ships maneuver to short range and unload)
2) Hit and Run (Ships maneuver into firing range, fire, and retreat out of firing range)
3) Defensive Formation (Ships wait for enemy to come into range, then fire)

Its a compromise for the tactical combat people, and it would encourage variations in ship design (fast ships to take advantage of hit and run vs. tank ships that just wait for the enemy to come into range vs. crippler ships that destroy a ship's engines and then fire from long range). Hopefully more options than these three, but I understand what a task coding an AI is.

Expanded Espionage and Diplomacy!!! Pretty much what others have said. Definitely the "Get out of my territory or else" option.

Make wormholes permanent. Otherwise, take them out of the game. They're just annoying as they presently work.

More random events which cause a unilateral rethinking of tactics.

More interesting ground combat. No offense, the current ground combat is kind of lame.

An idea for another "expansion" would be a best of the best player mods cd.

1. Options for tactical space and ground combat.
2. Individual hulls for each race.
3. more hulls and jewelry.
4. More diplomatic options [greater variety of treaties, threats,requests, etc.]
5. Perhaps something other than the all or nothing tech trading we have now. Maybe no trading of military techs.
6. More options for the minor races: setting 1. Minors act just like they do now. setting 2. Minors somewhat more aggressive in their actions and colonization [colonize at least the better planets in their home star system. setting 3. Minors much more aggressive [colonize 5 or 6 planets, make demands, start wars, act rather like the major races only smaller; something other than cash cows or target practice].

Just a few ideas.

Well, here are a few ideas I had...

As the biggest strengths of this game (apart from its AI) are customization (of your civilizations and ships) and the wide array of planets and random events, why not go farther in these directions?

REGARDING CUSTOMIZATION:
- Ability to select customized civilizations for opponents. Like when creating a player-controlled species, but you would also have to pick an "AI profile" (big bad hostile aliens, traders, pacifists...) and a "conversation profile" (with sentences for each event) for it.
Putting these two profiles in XML files would allow further customization of your species, a you could design their own unique AI and text.
- I think there should be a way to disable the distinction between “minor species” and “major species”, thus allowing to randomly select ANY X (1-9) species (regardless they're major, minor or customized species that you've saved) as opponents. This would really be great on large maps, where you would really “not know what's waiting for you in deep space”. It sometimes become old to always fight/ally with the same 10 major races (no matter how well designed they are)
- More variety in species' appearance. Not only new ship parts common to all designs, but also new ship designs (I'd like an “organic” design for ships. After all, why would a civilization not have based its technology on biology rather than engineering... Cruising in huge flesh vessels would definitely rock... My own world-infesting enemy-devouring Zerg-like swarm!). It would also be nice to have a wider choice of “robots” (the guys telling you when technological research is complete and similar events).

REGARDING RANDOM EVENTS:
- New type of “event”: you colonize a planet and find intelligent life forms on it. Rather unoriginal so far. But instead of just being given the choice to let them live or exterminate them, things are more complicated. The native species does not (or only for very short distances, like 21st century humanity) master space-travel, so they give you some sort of “quest” (go kill their rivals on the planet nearby with your futuristic technology, help them out of this planet to go to a better one -this one is good for planets with low ratings). You can choose to help them or not (and even to kill/enslave them, although that would be considered an evil act). If you do help them, they will give you a gift (technology, economical/military bonus, money or slaves for an evil race). I think this would be a change from anomalies when it comes to “bonuses”.
- Alternatively, the native species could ask you to give them hyperdrive. If you choose do so, they would join the other races in the race for galactic conquest. Of course, the new species would be weak (and very friendly to you, as you're their benefactor) first. But you know, things change...

Just my two cents. Tell me if you find those ideas nice.

While I'm at it, just another idea:

- What about a new hull type : "probe". It would be tiny (very few slots) and couldn't have any weapons attached to it BUT it would get 2 or 3 times the bonus from "sensors" and "life support" modules (or better yet, it wouldn't be affected by the "life support" distance limit at all, as they are drones without human crew). If it seems too powerful, well, those ships could be limitated to "auto explore" only and player wouldn't be able to control them.

Such devices would be really useful for deep space exploration when playing a huge or gigantic map. And it would be "realistic": if we ever find new remote worlds and species someday, we will do so by sending a probe BEFORE launching a colony ship filled with people to "auto explore" randomly.

More anomalies, events, and depth in these elements that change things more than giving some 3% bonus to something or another, particularly expanding the UP to integrate with the rest of the game as others have said, including negotiation options in it, so that it doesn't just turn into 2 votes for no beating out 5 votes for different versions of the same thing.

Another thing would be to expand upon cultural conquest. As it is, it is akin to the military aspect, with planets revolting and joining your empire, while the victory screen goes on about how they're not actually under your power but rather your influence. This seems a disconnect, and it also makes it much more boring if you just gobble up all this territory and empires fade away and hard to reconcile with the sort of ethical play-style that at least I'd want in going for peaceful victories. I'm not sure entirely how a new mechanic would work but would be something to think about.

As a new player, I'm also confused by the role of minor races, since sometimes they've gotten pretty powerful yet mysteriously simply do not expand, so as was said above, more complexity with them and random events and such.

If there's a campaign, not having to rereseach the same technologies on little maps and do the same thing again and again but adding a story to a gigantic map, maybe with some fixed boundaries or something to keep the plot from being completely derailed. Colonizing around the Arcean homeworld or sending settlers to slave away on random new planets willy nilly to reresearch some tech you've already found in five previous missions just really breaks the immersion

I'll buy anything. I'm easy...

I'd pay for:

1. Ships! I'd like every race to have unique base hull designs, and I'd like more jewelry hunks, and things like command decks and tubes and wings and stuff that make ships look more unique.

2. Sized equipment. If I play with the slider size for a laser, I want it's cost, space, and damage to scale as well. The ratios would be the same, but sometimes I really just want 1 rediculously huge gun slung to my huge hull instead of 12 little ones. This could make more even looking designs by making 1 engine into 2 small pods.

3. Diplomacy improvements. I'd like to be able to summon the UP and motion issues instead of waiting for random ones. I'd also like to be able to have UP style agreements with just one race. (Like try to convince the altarans to pay 3 bcs per trade route while I also pay the same to protect routes between our two empires. There's a galaxy wide proposal like that.) I'd also like to be able to threaten someone.

4. Surrender is not lose. Basically, if an AI surrenders, you or another AI takes over control of construction, production, taxation etc., but they still keep their influence and the populace disproves of you. If they revolt, they can get their empire back, so you have to try to influence them into joining your empire properly through cultural revolutions.

5. Mixed populations. If I get a drengin world through influence and have it build transports, I want the drengin invasion bonuses when those troops land. If I get 1 billion yor on my side through information warfare and have 2 billion of my guys, I want 1/3 the yor production bonus. This would make minor races more special.

6. Bottom up taxing. I want to set the target for approval in the tax slider, and then each planet gives me however much tax money they would make if I would have moved the slider until they reached that target approval.

7. Specific espionage. I'd at least like an option to toggle between sleeper and hostile espionage, with sleeper espionage increasing the contacts and information, like current espionage, and then hostile espionage which instead uses the money to try to attack the computer through espionage. Hostile espionage would lead to blown up stuff and stolen techs if it succeeded, but would lead to a loss of contacts and sliding from advanced back down the ladder of espionage levels if it fails. It would be nice to have an espionage focus on foreign planets and starbases as well. Basically you could send all of your spies after their military starbase before you invade. You should have an espionage slider for yourself to make the AI's odds of success worse as well.

8. Anomalies generated per turn. Start out with a smattering across the board, and then add 1 or 2 to the map every couple of turns.

9. Battle time lengths. When fleets fight, there should be a time limit based on the speed advantage of the losing fleet. If your fast ships are getting blown up, they should be able to retreat. Also, battles could be forced to take several weeks and multiple engagements between two large fleets with high defense.

10. I really would like at least hot seat multiplayer or basic LAN multiplayer. I don't want Stardock to waste resources balancing it. I just want to play a few games with my buddies.

I've been playing GC since the first version on OS/2. I loved GC2 for OS/2. The first Windows version was OK. I am not shelling out a 4th time when there's no multiplayer. I've mentioned this every time a game is released.

If it comes out as a pack for $, I'd probably spring for both the game and the multiplayer pack.

=-VK-30

Several suggestions, in no particular order:

1. A map editor
2. Expanded campaign
3. Multiple campaigns (perhaps you could release a series of $10 campaign "modules")
4. More basic hull types (Additional classes: Carriers, Death-star type)
5. Expand the technology tree significantly (50%+ more techs)
6. More ship modules, additional pieces to add more complexity to ships
7. Tactical combat (as a check box on the game setup screen)

-Map editor

-Have only a certain percentage of the population fight in defense of their planet (this could get rid of the problem of stuffing 1 billion people and their combat equipment into a cargo ship) having grannies charging into battle seems a little strange...

-More race specific dialougue

- Expanded ground combat - A planetary invasion shouldn't take a single turn to accomplish (praticularily for the larger planets) I would like to see an invasion work like this:

1) pick tile to begin invasion - troops land there
2) Troops can attack a number of adjacent tiles every week based off of technology they have researched in ground combat
3) Once all tiles are taken the planet is conquered

A change like this would mean that planetary invasion would be a huge undertaking (as it should be) that can require weeks to subdue an enemy and ties up important resources like ships to protect the invading armies.

As well instead of a random number generated to show the advantage of the attackers having with air superiority you can get a direct bonus based on the number of space craft you bring into orbit to assist the invasion - and if none stay to help then the defenders should gain an advantage in combat.

Once the planet is conquered it should not instantly be happy with the new civilization it has become a part of either. There should be a transition stage where it is less productive with a possibility to rebel. This would slowly go away as they are assimilated into the new empire and could be modified for how quickly by factors like your influence tech.

If they could put this into the game with an expansion it would be well worth the money in my opinion.

1.) I'd definitely pay for a Carrier and Fighters addition. By the end of the game, all the smaller ship classes are virtually obsolete compared to the Huge hulls, so I think that either fighters should get a bonus versus large ships, and large ships a penalty versus fighters, or smaller hulls should inherently have higher speed, something to keep them useful in the late game. I think Carriers would be a great way to do this, and would an another element of strategy to battles without overcomplicating them.

2.) I'd also like to see the implementation of some sort of borders or some way to keep the AI from just hanging out in your space, or heck, the ability to claim space. If not the ability to bar it from your space until it declares war, then at least the option to threaten it to get its starbases + ships out. It can do it to you, after all.

3.) How about doing something with all those useless class zero planets, like an ability to truly terraform them, or at least mine them?

4.) I think a more immersive planetary invasion is a good idea, involving tiles and movement of troops somehow. Other people have already expanded on this.

5.) More hulls and more jewelry. Specifically, some generic squares, circles, panels, windows, etc. so ships can be built entirely from the ground up.

6.) An option to slow down the tech tree, or perhaps some in game time limits to what becomes available for research when. As it stands, I can just shoot up to Total Majesty in the early game, pop in a couple crappy ships, and then build at my leisure.

7.) I'd also like for ships to be able to orbit starbases and defend them like planets. Seems kind of strange that my starbase has to duke it out on its own when there's a fleet of warships nearby, or that they can't fight without its support. This might be a military starbase only ability.

I'm happy with the number of races, but I'd like to see more hull types instead of races sharing types, as already stated, and I'd gladly pay to see all of the above in an expansion.

New Scenarios, interesting ones.

One I'd especially like to see is a "Terran Empire" sort of scenario. You play as the Terrans in a galaxy where every habitable planet has already been colonised by the other Empires and Minor races. You'd start out with Earth as your only planet, and would be surrounded by minor races (unless you turn them off). You'd also get Planetary Invasion for free. Your goal in the scenario is to conquer the galaxy.