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What would you pay good money for in an expansion? (The unofficial inquiry)

What would you pay good money for in an expansion? (The unofficial inquiry)

Yes I did use the search feature!

Essentially make a list of things in an expansion pack that would make you want to pay Stardock money (put "would be nice" things in a separate list)

Edit:
Yay!!! The forum will let me edit my posts now!

Anyway my thanks to whoever stickied this.

Feel free to post whatever you desire in future expansion packs, even if it has already been suggested (that shows that many people want said feature). Also don't feel compelled to browse through the previous pages of this thread.
224,035 views 399 replies
Reply #126 Top
Improved Espionage: I don't just want to steal from the AI I would like to be able to delete things from the AI's Datebanks (e.g they r capable of HyperWarp so I would like my spies to delete that date so they can't use HyperWarp anymore).

Improved Diplomacy: be able to make threats, speak to the AI and ask them for help (e.g the Altarian's my Ally r losing the war against the Drengin's and they ask me to help in someway supply them with ships or new tech) I would like to ask them.

Improved Trade routes: their is a something in the TechTree about protecting trade routes and yet my ships and my ally's ships get blasted to pieces. I would like it if I could hav escorts along all my trade routes.

Improved Planet Defences: hav weapons on the planet that fire at enemy ships in orbit.

Improved Fighting: their was a StarTrek game I played years ago where u control the ship during battles, u could divert power from life surport to shileds, choose which weapon to fire and u could also choose what to target on the enemy ship (shields, weapons, engines, life surport etc) u could also withdraw from the fight if u were to damaged and wanted to escape or surrender I would like something like that.

Be able to send ships on patrol and hav them fire automatical on any enemy ships they incounter, and I would like them if they hav warpdrive or hyperwarp to move 1 sq then disappear and reappear where ever basicly like in StarTrek.

New techs like spacial mine fileds, weapon platforms like in StarTrek DS9 the Dominion/Cardassian war that u can place ether in orbit around a planet (and they appear like the moon does circling around earth) or in space, jumpgates to be built on wormholes so as to use them, new ship hulls and modules i.e improved colony, trade modules and add a 2 new ones Carriers (so u can make space carriers send one in to enemy space then launce fighters) and a terrforming one so u can inhabit planets that r 0. And a nice easy to use/understand map editor would be nice as well as a ship editor so we can reconfig ships or make ur own. I would like to add extra hardpoints to some ships and try and make ships from tv programs like StarTrek, StarWars Stargate etc.

spacial anomalys like Blackholes that draws in and destroys any ship within a 2 sq area, permanent wormholes 2 types a 1 way wormhole and a 2 way wormhole, storms ether ion or anti-matter. And add more planets I would like to see every planet in r solar system.
Reply #127 Top
Ok, I've only been playing this game for a couple of weeks and its great, but I am disappointed with certain aspects of it. I know this is a game and not a space simulation but I would love a bit more realism somewhere along the way. I know most of the below amount to a major re-write of the program (if not Galactic Civ III), but the question was what I would "LIKE" not what I can have! Apologies if the below have already been discussed to death in the forums, I didn't check first!

1) Main map. This shows everything!!! I would prefer a galactic map which just showed stars, deep space phenomena and inter-stellar fleets. A double click on a star would bring up a system screen which could display stars (yes we could have binaries, etc), planets (not just 5), moons (colonizable please), asteroids, in-system fleets, etc. Ships would then have in-system engines and warp drives.
2) More specific racial characteristics. E.g gravity, temperature and radiation tolerance. Planets would also have more detailed environmental info meaning that planets are easier to colonize for one race than another.
3) Option to start with "pre-warp" or even "apollo" level tech which would allow initial exploration of your homesystem (would need option (1)) and allow you to witness your races first steps into the universe.
4) Tech tree. This is large, but not large and varied enough. It is also quite predictable. More please, more varied stuff - ground combat techs anyone?
5) Leaders / Legendary Characters. Availability of these from within your own empire would be a nice addition to boost bonuses.
6) Turn week. I think this is naff, turn MONTH or YEAR I can buy into - this doesn't seem believable.
7) Mining Space Resources. Rethink this please! A ship comes along and finds a load of "inluence" lying around in deep space waiting to be mined!! Come on!!! What about finding actual resources which boost manufacturing, influence, etc. E.g highly rare crystals from an asteroid belt which improve your manufacturing bonus.
8) Ground Combat please. Where are my divisions, tanks, planetary defenses, etc?

Reply #128 Top
1) Hotseat. I don't care for any other multiplayer types with TBS games but hotseat is a must.
2)Tactical combat. Watching my ships blast others to bits is fun, but I'd pay to get the chance to trade 3D animation against 2D tactical combat.

So Long
Shiriki
Reply #129 Top
==> 1st) Special weapons like "boarding" ones or weapons that don't damage the enemy but shut off the enemy's communications or weapons. Support modules that would let the ship be "invisible" for a turn, gas weapons that would inflict casualties to the ship's crew (and then reduce the experience value of this ship).

==> 2nd) Experience : it shouldn't "just" add more hit points but help the ship to target better, evade better, etc...

==> 3rd) Possibilities to flee from battles before total annihilation.

==> 4th) Diplomacy options ... (i don't say more cause it has already been discussed a lot)
Reply #130 Top
I would want to see:
economic vicory

TONS of new hulls, and not those crazy things they have been making. i gotta say, the ones they have mostly stink (no offense, but they seriously do).

the ability to make ai aim for a particular vicory.

new scenerios.

more effecient ways of keeping people happy and gettign a high approval (i discovered early on that keeping a planet with a population of 45 billion is VERY hard).

new weapons and defenses, and less research needed to advance that far so you dont have to spend three days to build up an interesting game.

the ab1ility to upgrade "initial colonies" to better things like "basic colonies" and "superior colonies".

make it a little less dificult to invade enemy planets so you dont have to have several fleets of ships to take one planet.

the ability to "run" your invasion ships through enemy ships orbiting a planet. this would create a timer, depending on how fast the ship can move, and if it lasts long enough against the enemy ships, it makes it through and the invasion commenses.

stardocks (no pun intended on the name of the company). these would eb a new class of starbase. they would be starports in space. unlike normal starbases, these would be like buildable planets, and would be MUCH more flexible than the average starbase. they would be built like ships. you would choose a hull style, and the base piece would be added. you could then add modules, but you would have to add them on manualy, such as you would add a new component to a ship, and choose where you want it located. the number of modules would be generically twenty, however, building a particular module called a support module or a habitat module would allow you to build larger and larger bases up to a maximum size of one-hundred modules. you could add labs, factories, docks (to build ships, and to increase the range from which ships can travel from the station, and to incerase repair speed),defenses, a trade module (to allow you to build the ship on trade routes, but it would not be even a fraction as profitable as an eco starbase), influence modules (like trade modules, they would be much weaker than the actual stations) and a star gate module. the star gates would allow instantanious travel from starbase with a gate to another, and would be mroe effecient than the old fasioned ones. however, they would cost A LOT of money, and would only be able to transport one ship/fleet at a time. they would also take up about ten modules on the station, but if you have a fractured empire, it would be very valuable in connecting it.

these are just what i would like to see.
Reply #131 Top

I have bought the game online, happy about what I expected to be a good work from Stardock. The game is ok. I had a lot fun playing that. However, I bought a new computer because my I can't play in the notebook at maximum settings. I have not Internet at home. Tried offline activation but it does not works. The technical support will not do anything to assist me.

In regard to the topic.
I will never pay money for anything from you Stardock. Never more!

Regards,

Edna K.
Reply #132 Top
I would PAY for ships that behave realistically instead of "bobble-heading".

And more realistic weapon and defence animations in the battle viewer.(like weapons NOT passing through other ships; if a weapon hits an unintended ship then THAT ship takes damage)
Reply #133 Top
Skyjack you could at least be polite about it. I never read whatever thread that is!


How was I impolite?
Reply #134 Top
in combat if you had a small or tiny sized ship and went up agianst a dreadnought or something insanely of powered compared to your ship you could controll it and like dodge attacks and push the space ber to fire or something like that would be cool. diplomatic options like give us that technology of we attack would be nice when dealing with a less powerfull race that you could conquer easly
Reply #135 Top
ability to hire terrorist or something that would sabatoge their improvement tiles(factory's, food supply, orbital defense). they could sneak in in a ship that looks like a friendly freighter.

i would also like to see planetary weapons like a missle you could fire from your planet that would target an enemy planet and damage their tiles or planet quality. it would be really fast moving and hard to catch with a ship(not impossible tho), but could be countered with planet or starbase defenses.

as far as strategic battles go, you could have ship captains that could specialize in certian areas. like speed, mobility, lasers etc. they could gain levels and get new abilties based on levels. the higher the levels the better the combat AI.

i would also like to see a much more robust and specialized weapon and defense layout. something thats not rock paper scissors. something that could be influenced by said captians. like mid battle repairs, shield regeneration or energy weapon regeneration, and ammo resupply.

another thing that would be neat would be if in the gametype selection you could also choose average planet quality. such as low, medium, or high.

i am sure some of this is impossible to do in a expansion, some more for a sequel but i just got on a roll i guess.

SM
Reply #137 Top
Here's a bunch of suggestions, some of them seem to have already been announced, but i'll list them nonetheless:

United Planets: i'd like more involvement like the possibility to
-promote votes, as in to abrogate treaties (i hate when they limit starbase modules for example), or to form a UP military force to exterminate an evil civ/pirates or to prevent and give aid in case of galactic catastrophe
-bribery when voting UP resolutions (extremely useful if i can also promote resolutions)
-for minor races: they can ask to join UP and if accepted they can start to colonize new worlds (becoming in fact a major civ)

Military:
-possibility to invade starbase (i can invade a planet, why not a starbase? maybe with the use of a specialized module with high cost)
-minefields on borders of your empire (treaty option: to give minefield codes to allow free passage to friendly civs, these codes could be also subject to espionage but require a big effort to obtain)
-borders/possibility to threat civ trespassing/UP treaty banning out of borders starbases
-Invasion troops can be recalled after a conquest (as it is they simply vanish into thin air...), maybe gaining experience which adds to their hitpoints/effectiveness
-invaded planets: they should require a few turns to stabilize (aka get to normal production/approval levels), the sooner the invading troops leave the higher the chance they revolt, this being lesser in case my civ has high influence/nearby wealkthy planets, and higher if far away from my planets. Also for invading troops an "auto leave" option when reachen a user defined approval
-logistics of a fleet decrease allowing for more ships to join with experience, if fleet is disbanded the logistic bonus is halved
-ability to move military starbases(deathstar?) but extremely slow and can only defend when attacked
-tactical options when engaging enemy fleets as when invading a planet
-treaties with other civs to perform mock battles so to increase fleet's experience (less than real battles)
-given enough espionage, ability to target specific enemy ship subsystem to lower their effectiveness because you know their weak points

espionage/counter espionage:
-steal enemy ship designs to hit their weak points
-sabotage (generic or of specific planets/improvement given enough espionage level)
-bribery of enemy fleets/planets/starbases...

Politics/Diplomatic:
-given proper form of governement ability to have vassal states (they pay a fee, I protect them and they have access to my researches/economic etch bouses)

Miscellanea:
-stargates: even if obsolete they can be useful on huge maps (istantaneous travel): i'd opt for a tunnel approach:stargates A B con only go though tem, you can't choose C or D when entering A or B. they should also cost a bunch
-starbase modules to give economic bonus to nearby planets
-a multi constructor module (something like the adv troop mod) that gives the possibility to install eg 4 modules on a starbase with a single ship
-somewhat personalize fleets/planets: say i'm ethically good and do something evil: fleets/planets can rebel and join other civs, with a higher chance if they have great experience/wealth/influence (maybe for planets a decrease of income/productivity before defecting)
-terraforming 0 PQ planets or possibility to install special facilities to mine particular resources, maybe with unexpected events tha require more money/time to complete or a productivity penalty
-economy: a Galactic Stock Exchange (a galactic wonder?) which boosts your and other civs economy who decide to join (the one who build it has a bigger bonus)
-economy: a market place where you sell goods/ships/etc, other species can ask for contracts like "build me 10 fighters for XX bucks"
-random events/disaster that requires an UP emergency meeting
-some super-iper-mega-project as a dyson sphere which gives influence/research/manufacturing bonuses
-very huge maps (thousands stars)
-ability to continue playing even after a victory
-eye candy: an easy way to import leader pictures (the other day i wanted an elf portrait but had to desist)

Well I suppose this is enough
Reply #138 Top
I know some of these have been mentioned before...

1) Planetary Bombardment. I don't want every planet I invade. Often, I'm just invading to kill the people who live there.

2) Space Mines. Preferably, a wide variety of them. Maybe even an entire tech tree branch devoted to them.

3) Interdictors. Set up nice, lovely, anti-warp traps and stop fleet movement in some areas.

4) Carriers. This can actually work out if you use a similar tactic to StarCraft. And, before anyone complains that carriers will own the battlefield, I happen to know that the Protoss carriers didn't stand up that well to people targetting the main ship.

5) StarGates. Maybe even the possibility of building them. While expensive and outdated, they still allow for you to use instaneous travel. Besides, it would be an easy way to surprise enemies. Maybe make them an option for the constructors.

6) Fleet Carriers. Believe it or not, but you've already got how these can work in place. Look at planets and ships in orbit. Cut the limit in half for carriers. Bad side-effect of these things being attacked is that you lose the entire fleet. People might want escorts for these. But, it's a great way to get troop carriers to a planet all at once.

7) Better base designs for each race. I've seen the current ship designs. Frankly, they suck. They really suck when I can design two cruisers and have them being a threat to main battle ships.

8) Long-range tactical missiles. Basically put, I want to be able to fire a missile at a planet halfway across the universe and then forget about it. That's another staple of scifi. Of course, these missiles can be shot down before they get to the planet.

9) Terraforming.

10) Planetary Cannons. Someone wants to invade my planet? I want the ability to shoot them before they even land. Lovely counter to planetary bombardment, too.

11) The ability to build orbital defense nets. That way, they have to shoot that down before they invade the planet.

12) Survey drones. Using the same tech base as the missiles above. I don't want to send a manned ship out every time. I want to send a cheap drone out, then send the manned ship if the drone finds anything interesting. It would be cheaper than a survey ship and easier to replace if lost. And, unlike a survey ship, shouldn't need to be within range of friendly planets.

13) Continue playing after victory. You have no idea how hard it is to design ships on a cakewalk game when you accidentally absorb the last remaining alien power just because you're advancing the tech tree. I still have yet to design my fighter with a good set of missile launchers.

14) Minor alien races that can become major races if they conquer enough planets.

15) The option to have Dreadlords show up in a regular game as an NPC race. That would make everyone sweat.
Reply #140 Top
*Troop/Population Difference - Right now it doesn't make sense to have every single "taxpayer" be treated like a soldier. Troops should probably make up 25% of your population. So if you have a billion people living on a single planet, then you should have around 250,000,000 million soldiers. Now if hte player chooses to, he/she can boost that number with a specific slider in the civ manger. However theres an economic decrease in having soldiers since they probably won't pay taxes. So you could increase the overall troop percentage to 50%, thus you may have around 500,000,000 million troops, however less people are paying taxes now which takes away from your overall income.


This post has reminded me of a thing that I don't like in Galciv2 (BTW great game), which is the fact that it's much easier to capture a planet than to defend it. You can easily turn your whole population into soldiers without any training costs (in time or money) and boost them using various invasion tactics. Poor defenders don't have much choice - they die in billions. In my oppinion more difficult planet conquering would make the game more colorful - longer and more realistic wars. Now I can conquer whole alien civ within just a few turns.
Reply #141 Top
-terraforming 0 PQ planets or possibility to install special facilities to mine particular resources, maybe with unexpected events tha require more money/time to complete or a productivity penalty


Some proposals:
- Distinguish the planet quality and planet size: total number of tiles should depend on the planet size; 3 types of tiles (habitable, industrial only, non-habitable); on habitable tiles you can build everything normally, while on industrial you can only build industrial type buildings at bigger cost and also bigger maintenance; non-habitable tiles cannot be used at all (no way to build anything on a gas giant); using the terraforming techs you could turn some (but not all) of the industrial tiles into habitable or some non-habitable into industrial; using this approach you could colonize non-habitable planets (if they have at least 1 industrial tile) with a special colony module and build factories, research centers, spaceport, etc. - but no social, economical, cultural or food producing buildings (and no, or only part of special/galactic projects).

- Terraforming ship module (big and expensive); such ship if it lands on a non-colonized planet can be used to transform 1 tile into a better one (still not always - gas giants and heavy acid atmosphere planets are just not usable at all); this process should take some time, similarly to using any of the terraforming techs on the own planet.
Reply #142 Top
Multiplayer! Ooh and tactical space combat, like in Master of Orion 2 (Not 3 that game was horrible).
Reply #143 Top
2) Borders.


Maybe not borders, but AI should take into account that colonizing a planet or building a mining/military starbase inside the very heart of someones else teritiry will be considered as a hostile action, thus deteriorating the relationship unless the other race agrees. I can allow my best allies to do it sometimes, but they should ask my permission or if they don't care just ruin the relationship. In the same way it could also work between AIs.
Reply #144 Top
I would love an option to start slowly! You tick the box and get...

a)500 bc to start with instead of 5,000
b)No flagship surveyor to start with (no ships at all actually!)
c)No starport on your homeworld (might be a bit too extreme this!)

This way you would really have to work to get off your homeworld and colonise the galaxy.

Also can we have another option which enables you only to see other empires colonies when you have actually encountered them in the game. At the moment you can look at the map and see where everyone is from the start.
Reply #145 Top
This post has reminded me of a thing that I don't like in Galciv2 (BTW great game), which is the fact that it's much easier to capture a planet than to defend it. You can easily turn your whole population into soldiers without any training costs (in time or money) and boost them using various invasion tactics. Poor defenders don't have much choice - they die in billions. In my oppinion more difficult planet conquering would make the game more colorful - longer and more realistic wars. Now I can conquer whole alien civ within just a few turns.


Well, it might have a lot to do with the fact it's actually very easy to invade a planet. Once you get into orbit, you pretty much own it. For example, right now, invading Earth would be a cakewalk, even with all of our missile launchers and airplanes. You don't need to land the soldiers first. Just use those fancy high-tech ships to blast anything that looks like it might be military from orbit, maybe take out a couple of cities, and then land the grunts to do cleanup while your ship provides orbital support and simply blows up anything that resists too much. Pretty much, I would say the game is very realistic in how it treats attempting to defend a planet. Same goes for invading any planet. Want to know how planets can counter this? Look to my suggestion about cannons.
Reply #146 Top
More United Planets options, make it really deep. Deeper trading, maybe specfic goods. MORE SHIP stuff, but I would love to have really deep United Planet actions. Making your own bills and stuff.
Reply #147 Top
More realistic fleet and ship options.

Increased importance on ships Larder ship classes with exponentially longer build times, and overall civilization logistics that limit the amount of larger ships you can have. A feature seen in moo2 that didn't affect the game in any way at all. but one that affects it would be cool.

Better namingFighter-class ships with hidden build numbers (They don't say Star Fury 991 in babylon 5 for instance)

Carrier class ships More than enough people have asked for this. Add one more to that list.

Bigger size ups between ship classes Obviously this is limited, but fighters should be mere specs upon a massive hulled ship

Fleet doctrines Specific tasks for fleets - and the ability to use several in one battle

trainable crews As opposed to experience, keep them seperate - To improve overall performance

Combat doctrines Approaching battles with different plans in order to take advantage of your fleet

Named heroes Recruitable ship captains and admirals, a la moo2, but a little more detail. smaller selection of specials but stats that improve fleet and combat?

Better united planets I pretty much expect this!

Base hulls That are "Cleaner", less spiky bits - I hate modding Torian hulls.

Limiting planet specialisation Requiring buildings of a certain line (say industrial, research etc) to activate the specialisation thats currently in GC2, and by doing so, blocking off certain avenues of building - Build the ultimate research planet, and be limited to your military or economic build options

Economic specialisation On top of military, social and research, that literally cuts everything else to zero and funnels all money after upkeep into profit.

Cant think of anything else right now ^^
Reply #148 Top
More military options. Nuking planets, capturing ships, deploying carries, repair ships, space mines, territory marking, cloaked ships

Is there any way Modders can constuct on mod that does this stuff?
Reply #149 Top
Keep the Metaverse, just add online Multiplayer where one person can play against up to 9 other real online players! Make it so one person can make a game ( with a difficulty limit-if say limit: tough then if the joiner's won more than once above that difficulty then he/she can't play.