here's mine:

#1: offical level editor that lets us easily create maps, as well as npc races.

#2: Better Random map creation with the ability to pre set player & NPC's starting positions. (I.E four corners, Center cluster, etc..) Maybe just being able to click on a blank mini map before starting the game to choose where each race stars woudl be good.

#3 the maps being more 3d and not "flat space" It would be far more exciting and straegic to play on a map that expands up and down as well instead of just a flat playing field. (no universe has the planets all at one level)

#4 in the sp campaign not having to re research your tech from teh previous mission. (it gets pretty gosh darn boring re researching low level tech and what not every single mission so a campaigh desined where you keep the tech you researched the last mission would be really nice. Maybe cap the available research options for each mission to keep players from maxxing out by the 3rd mission?)

#4 the ability to play with a friend or 2 over LAN and take on the pc, with all players turns takign place at the same time. (more detial on this in the multi player thread elsewhere in the forum)

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Would be nice to see stuff:

#1 some kind of animated review council that gives you feed back and suggestions for on your civilization from time to time (like they did in civilization III )

#2 an option to "automate" the management of planets so they will govern themsevles to a certain extent as far as building upgrades is concenred.

#3 an intergalactic bank of sorts that lets you borrow X amount of cash with a pay back group of options. (just like when you choose to "buy now" when purchasing a ship.)

How about an expansion that addresses all of the known bug issues as well as just bugs in general, that will run on a variety of computers with different operating hardware, and will be trouble free, out of the box (or from the download), with little if any tweaking necessary from the end user? Anyone else who loves this game agree with me on this one being the major sticking point as to why we should give Stardock our money?

Multi-player

Lack of multi-player is the single most lacking feature of GalCiv2.

Two words, Terror Star. At least thats what they were called in the manual for galciv1, I remember them as Doom Stars, whichever. I have searched the forums and the manual but I can't find these delightful stations mentioned anywhere. I don't have full tech so I don't know if they are in the game already, but if not I'd pay good money to regain the ability to destroy a single planet, even if it is insignificant next to the power of the force.

I want to be able to have aliens on my worlds after I conquer them and for them to be able to rebel.

Please add a normal Multiplayer Mode

...it's really all i'm askin' for

..and what i just don't get...why is the fleet combat just a calculated video. I sure would like to control the fleet battle by myselfe. It normaly is one of the funniest parts in a 4x4 game

because of lack of combat control an multiplayer support i just wait for Space Empires V to show up although i whish galactic civilisation would also have this stuff in it...then it would be a really perfect 4x4 game and i would'nt look at any other game

As I had posted somewhere else, some type of "aircraft carrier" style ship with a huge hull and all kinds of points able to accomodate some number of small fighters and ferry them around the galaxy in search of a battlefront somewhere. Does anyone else agree with this? Not necessary for the game to function but something interesting when it comes to tactics.

bring back diplomacy. If some people want to cheat / exploit ai, they can ruin their own game

I agree with more random events, I also want more customization for creating a race (more political parties and abilities foremost) and more ship styles.

List:

Things that weigh heavily upon my mind:

- More customization (Ie. more ship styles, abilities & parties).
- You decide how much money you start with (but not on the Metaverse).
- More things to manage (and by this, I mean things like adapting to planet's terrains and getting bonuses if youre particularily good at doing so, and asteroid belts of course).
- More options and stuff in Diplomacy.

Things that are pretty mandatory:

- Better combat viewer.
- Ships move kind of like in the Star Wars movies: currently they just either stand still and 'flip' around, be close to going through eachother and things like that. Have the fighters move fast and engage and move around the enemy ships and shooting with the capital ships forming a line behind or something... or even let you choose the formation.

Overall things I would look forward to in an expansion for a great game such as GalCiv2:

- More racial overall cuztomization (Priority 1, personally I would even play the game if you couldnt customize your race).

- Asteroid belts, special terrain types and stuff like that (Priority 2).

- ''Star Wars'' type of combat (Priority 3).

- Your continued listening to the customers, this is really great (Priority 4).

- MUUUUCH and I really mean MUUUCH more random events, everything from upon colonizing a planet to finding some artifact from when even the Precursors were kind of young, yes, seriously, the random events are about the third next to race customization and random events as to why I play this great game! INCREASE INCREASE INCREASE!!! AND vary!

- More ships classes! after a while, you simply decide that yes, you want that 500 space ship which is basically as large as a small country. (This would be really nice to see, but I give it a Priority 6).

Enuf' said . Good luck with the expansion, you have our hopes!

Actual Docking Bays for Large Scale ships and above! I would love to build transport ships that can hold a number of smaller ships inside of it. If I had my ideal stratagy I'd build a one big massive ship with some decent speed to it and load it up full of a bunch of small/tiny ships that have some real firepower. And to ballance it out the ships that would be carried around inside the transports wouldn't be able to luanch (and therefore can't fire) until after the first round of combat.

3. A meaningful espionage portion of the game. I gather this is in the next expansion anyway. This should be another valid path to victory ratehr than an interesting distraction. 4. New races/Better distinction of existing races. Either way works for me if the team find a way to genuinely make each race play differently via unique game mechanics, units etc. +20 production just doesn't do it for me I'm afraid. 5. Optional sidequests that pop up from time to time. All helps to make every game an original story.

What an awesome way to put it. I can't say much that hasn't already been said...



Most important for me, strangely enough - when I play a custom race, I want to feel like it. I want to be using my steampunk-styled customised as crap ships, play as MY original race...

1. I want the ability to have a genuinely story-driven...story! Talking with nameless-ish and faceless leaders doesn't have much appeal. I want to inspire my commanders to battle! I want to tell off the senatorial minority leaders!

2. Hero units. Yup. Or people like that -say, a technician expert on my Battleship would make it repair better, or a sexy general making my fleets more aggressive.

3. Only other thing - flavour text! As an evil or good race, I want to FEEL it! I want to hear colonists begging for mercy! I want to smash rebellions with legions of stormtroopers - or hear about it! I want to hear cittizens praising me in the streets!

4. Events. I love events so much. I need more. More anomolies, more ethical choices.

Some kind of rangefinder would be nice. Something like you select a ship and hold shift then you get a faded movement line to whereever the mouse pointer is. By the pointer it should show you the travel time for the selected ship to that point and if it's in range or not. If it's not in ranger also show how much range is needed vs how far the selected ship can go.

The first thing making me buy, first and before all, is to not just make the game a mix-match of user ideas. MOO3 sadly had some of this, while GalCiv really keeps the whole thing in mind (and the audience, of course). I think that it's really the most important success of GalCiv, and this is really at the level of those knowing the most of the whole game and process: mostly developers. So the main point would be to see this going on, since building a cathedral is not like building 10 different rooms and put columns in-between.

the biggest thing that i would VERY much like to see on this game would be a merging with the older game deadlock for the planetary invasions. instead of having just a grid of the planet, have two squares one for each side of the planet and have one city on each square (like the ones in deadlock). here you can build ground forces and actually have a better control over the planet. so when you invade a planet you can drop off your armys and have them attack what ever you have them set too attack or do. with this you can also put on there anti-spaceship defenses and what not. with the two grids only the enemy can attack one side and build up a defense of landing city and attack from the ground. this would also add to the vehicles in the game so you dont just fly around in space ships. but in short, a 2 city per planet grid and the battles and city construction similar to deadlock.

the biggest thing that i would VERY much like to see on this game would be a merging with the older game deadlock for the planetary invasions. instead of having just a grid of the planet, have two squares one for each side of the planet and have one city on each square (like the ones in deadlock). here you can build ground forces and actually have a better control over the planet. so when you invade a planet you can drop off your armys and have them attack what ever you have them set too attack or do. with this you can also put on there anti-spaceship defenses and what not. with the two grids only the enemy can attack one side and build up a defense of landing city and attack from the ground. this would also add to the vehicles in the game so you dont just fly around in space ships. but in short, a 2 city per planet grid and the battles and city construction similar to deadlock.

I'm sure others have mentioned things like this (sorry no time to read all posts), but what about:

- Building vehicles and special troops like in SW Empire At War (good idea, bad execution in that game BTW). The planet improvements would be Barracks, Training Academy, Munitions Factory, etc. The vehicles would be things like AT-ATs, Ornithopters (Dune), etc.

- Building heroes like in LOTR BFME2, e.g. a Jedi Temple for Jedi Knights, etc. or other specialized citizens like commanders, scientists, Jedi Knights, etc.

- With these improvements, have a real tactical land combat system (turn-based, but could be automated). Of course, an improved tactical space combat system would be welcome (and a higher priority).

I'd pay good money to be able to play against the mind of another person instead of the stupid, 1 inch depth of the shallow AI... Be able to use the engine/mechanics of the game to strategize/politicize/cooperate/consolidate/trade/coerce/manuipluate other players. Line em up against each other, or allied with me. Break hard deals to keep em out of my galatic space. Maybe play cooperatively, teaming up against the stupid AI or against stronger human players, of whom I have no hope of beating on my own.

I'd pay the $10 measily bucks more then I am now to play humans instead of with awful AI, that can't be tweaked to play any more competitively then the level of even a 5 yr old chimp. (No offense to the chimps ages 1-5.)

So make it happen, I'll even buy two copies if the first one works out of the box/download, and you can believe it this time.

1) Something similar to a governor to automatically add certain improvements with very minimal user interaction.

In a highly expansive game, it gets very tedious to set up the basics on a planet (such as factories, farms, research, etc.). It would be nice for something to mitigate doing the basics (or to even template a few basic constructions).

Multiplayer, even if it's only available through a LAN.

i'd really like to see something like what MOO3 had as far as macro-management. new colonies build on available land based on what is needed most, or what the user defines. also, automatic colonization (with set paramaters? don't colonize planets smaller than class 7? holy moly!) would be a huge boon. my play style tends to leave me a little low on initial colonies, because i'd rather focus my time on other aspects.

and ooooohhh yeah...modify my flagship! i can't count how many times i've wanted to add more engines, weapons, whatever to my flagship.

* Each race should have it's own "spokesman" like they did in Master of Orion. When you research something, starts a ground battle or something other of importance happens, a person from your own species told you what you just did. I miss that in GalCiv2.

* More hulls, design parts and all that. Even different looks for every weapon, engine and what not. Maybe even editable designs for them?

* Each hull itself should be customizable. Sure we can make impressive things with the current hulls, but imagine if you could have a minimum hull to play around with. Like just the skeleton instead of entire body. The more customization, the better.

* Ever played TrackMania? It lets you paint directly on the car with actual color, as well as add pictures. Imagine that in GalCiv2!!!   

* Each race should have at least a few unique technologies, like a few unique beam guns, a few unique missiles and so on. Make each race unique.

* Even more custom races would be sweet.

* Add more ship types. Six isnt' enough, even if you can make more. Or add a "minimum" ship type to allow as much customization as possible.

I would love MultiPlayer Option - As Hot Seat and/or even as a Play by E-Mail option. I love the way the game is now (I am a new player and am still learning the game) most of what I have read in other replys sounds great and would really enhance an already great game, but just being able to play this game with 4 or 5 of my friends across the country would be worth some additional cash.

The ground combat expansion would be super.
The expanded United Planets options would make for a greater diplomatic version of the game.
Minor races expanding more would be more realistic (after all the Terrans were a "minor" race at one time - right.
The ability to truly terraform the Class 0 planets - perhaps with a new ship type The terraform Ships - you would have to use resources to protect the ships while they terraform and the number of ships terraforming in any one star system would be limited by your current Logistics ability.

How about a truly 3 dimentional galaxy? you would have x,y and z coordinates for your fleets - ships could be on the same x and y corridenates but be several lightyears apart on the z coordinates.

How about galatic reporters on all ships therefore giving reports on all battles of special "finds" of all races - Races could choose not to allow reporters.

This game reminds me of a game one of my friends ran as a play-by-mail game several years back "IGE" Inter Galatic Empires - but of course this was before computers became as fast and as low cost as they are today and before the Internet was so widely used. There was about six to 8 people playing there was a lot of "diplomacy" going on behind the curtins - this game was great but he stopped running it because of military actions being taken at the time (We were in the USMC) and just never got it started again.

Sorry about that just had to toss my two cents worth in.

JOE

The thing I would like to see the most would be that upgrades (factories,research facilities, ect) should be voluntary. Like later in the game, you start a new planet, but it takes 30+ turns to build that 1st Industrial Sector. Should have the option to start with the basic factory and work your way up. Better control on how u build a planet. Also a manuel battle option would be great. Diplomacy could be alot better as well.

After reading all 224 posts, I would like to add:

(1) have the computer randomly select which computer opponents are "minor" races
(2) in the ship design, tab through hard points to place ship weapons, modules, defences, etc.
(3) cylce through ships/fleets to be certain they are where i think they should be
(4) have race specific abilities
(5) use more diplomacy options
(6) more ship hulls

My fave would have to be 1 because you don't know who to pick on. i think it would enhance the game play because you wouldn't know who the minors would be. Then you would need to choose your allies/enemies wisely.

(7) Stand alone ship design program. I would love to tinker with weapon configurations and not be limited by the techs that i have researched in the game.