maybe not but you should still be able to patrol an area whether it is with way points or assigning ships to a base and use its influence area to patrol in and as soon as we colonize mars and they become their own nation/nations they/we will put borders in space maybe ones that move with the planet like borders in the ocean around countries now

but there will be some kind of border

as i said before once we colonize the centaur system and after we run into other races out there we will have patrols in both systems and running between them even if the contacts are all peaceful

there will be some sort of bondery set up

I think the following changes would be useful:

-Stars and planets don't occupy seperate squares, but rather a "system" takes the space of one square. One can zoom in on any system to view individual planets, and zoom in further on planets to view the planet and its moons, as well as their structures.

-Some more habitable planets house "minor civilizations," or civilizations that have yet to successfully travel to space. These civilizations can be dealt with in a variety of ways. Leaving the population unchanged will yield greater production; initial costs involve only building some modern structures such as Star Ports, and while build costs will be higher, so will production speeds by the same magnatude. Players can also exterminate the population, heavilly reducing turn-by-turn costs and chances of defection, but the initial costs are extremely high to transport colonists and build modern cities.

-Planets hold far more build space, and multiple civilizations can occupy a single planet, although such is extremely rare, occuring mostly in the middle of an invasion. Special deals can be set up to share a planets space, but civilizations are rarely inclined to sell more space than is needed for a port. By building a minimum of structures and paying a premium to make them difficult to find, a civilization can house useful structures without others knowing, but leaves the planet open for any civilization to publicly claim should they find it useful.

-Borders extend a certain distance from populated zones which the intergalactic council decides. Most of space will be empty and unclaimed.

-Carrier modules are available after the largest hulls are researched, and fleets carry many more ships. While players can send numerous ships together, they must be subdivided into fleets. Fleets could hold a few carrier ships full of smaller fighters; I should be able to send in a few custom-made Star Destroyers loaded with TIE fighters. When carriers are used, the speed of a fleet is not limited by docked ships, allowing for stronger fighters to be transported in a reasonable time. Carrier modules are expensive.

-Capturing a planet requires many more troops, and troops usually must occupy a planet for many turns to fully capture a planet. Any player can initiate orbital strikes if the correct ships are in orbit. Troop module costs will be balanced accordingly.

-Weapons, defense, and miniaturization are not part of the main technology tree. Rather, they can be researched indefinitely. Each weapons and defense technology a player researches acts as a trade resource, allowing any side to trade them with other civilizations without losing exclusivity to the technology. This gives powerful militaristic civilizations more bargaining power, and the technology itself more value.

-Civilizations will fear other civilizations with significantly more military power. More military power will encourage other civilizations not to attack, but if one or a few civilizations are too advanced other civilizations will panic, form stronger bonds with one another, and overreact to otherwise minor incursions. I know the current AI will be far less inclined to attack more powerful civilizations, but I don't think they'll worry if one civilizations holds nearly half of the galaxy's military power. A powerful civilization can releave much tension by trading their weapons and defense modules to weaker civilizations.

-Line of sight (LOS) will be slightly greater, and contain two layers. The first layer, the smallest, can detect anything. The second layer, which extends further, can detect only large objects, like anomylies, moons, et cetera. The second layer can detect the quality of planets. All star positions are still known from the very beginning, and planets are revealed a little later. The minimap will use 4 shades of gray to illustrate explored areas.

-The AI will, of course, be even better than it is now.

Nah... Space is well... space. You can't guard it in terms of "borders". Think about it. Stand outside and look into the distance. You have the surface and the sky. It would be esy to sit there with a gun and shoot at anything that might be headed your way. Space however... any enemy could be way below you, or over you, or way to the side... Well space is inifinte, there are no directions, no gravity. For all intents and purposes you can't really make space into a "board" game of sorts, just because how vast and open space really is.

On the note of carriers, if the devs do consider these it's best to wait towards Galciv 3 since it would have to radically change the entire ship dyanamic. It would be nice little touch to a potential tactical combat.

Expansion wise.

- Resources. I stated this before, the resources currently in game are a little too generic for me. It's kind of funky to have a big red crystal sitting in space that increases military production. I was thinking a little somthing more specific, such as a metal that increases the hitpoints on your hulls. Resource deposits that can be found on planets too, and must have a specific mining type improvement to harvest it.

For example if I colonize a world there could be a small icon (in the form a rock maybe) on one of the tiles. I check it out for details, and it tells me that a deposit of metal xxxxx can be found here. I then check a certain guide on resources to view the applications of that specific resource and then choose to harvest it by building a mining improvement there.

- Import & Export Market Place. A little more advance than the simple trade window. This would be a place where a race can request, purchase and procure tangible hardware from other races. For instance I put up twenty fighters at the market place. A race lacking in military strenght approaches me, offering to purchase the fighters for maybe 7200BC. The value for the ships may have been 6000BC, and my demands may have been 7000BC. Now I choose to wait, and perhaps another race makes a better offer with 8000BC. I accept and make an extra 2000BC. It can work vice-versa as well.

- Unique techs, abilities, features and options available to certain races. I think this is pretty self-explanatory. Each race should have their own unique technologies that they start with and can research on their own. I also notice almost all of the races are under the federalist party. I don't think Lord Kona is a federalist. I was thinking that maybe a race such as the Yor, are the only ones capable of a replication technology, or might have the jump on nano-technology. Perhaps someone like the Drengins may be capable of using a different form of weapons, like Dark Energy or something. You get the picture however.

- AI. Not to say that the AI is bad, it's incredible actually. However I feel that the AI only does things to help themselves gain power. I've seen the Altarians who are supposed to be a ethically good race declare war on weaker races for the sake of being weak. Other races will sometimes try to take the benefits of your wars by sending troop transports to invade the few remaining worlds of your enemy race. They always act to gain more power. Why can't other races be trying to create alliances with you or other nearby races.

I like the idea of questioning ships that have infringed upon your border. You can ask it to leave, and if it doesn't, then you can shoot at it. Also, when questioned, you can reply that you are en route to such and such location and this is the only route.

I would like to see the chance of requesting permission to go into a territory held by another and state that you are en route to a location. If permission is agreed all is fine, but if permission is refused, you'll have to either go around, or go through and risk being caught. If you go through, then it would be considered an act of war if caught.

On the thought of carriers, it would be nice, but they can only carry so many small short range fighters (10 or so). Also, the cost of building such carriers would be very large.

I think, Nats, that you need a higher difficulty. I never have problems finding excitement. Between my love/hate relationship with the Iconians and constant warring with the Snathi (or Dread Lords, if playing campaign), I'm pretty much never bored. For planets, pick a quick strategy for development and stick with it. I tend to be heavy on the entertainment, since I find happy citizens are productive citizens. Plus, I'm always colonizing and searching for new planets to colonize. Once in a great while, I have a moment of boredom while building my next fleet and waiting for technology to develop, but that tends to end quickly.

Basically, it's a game where you can make your own way through. Set a goal, meet it, then set a tougher goal. I'm still trying to get a technological victory, for example.

[quote=amensotep]Actually, space isn't infinite. The universe itself has an observable rate of expansion and borders. Space is actually quite finite.

That said, you can manage to close off a border and maintain it. You use a combination of heavily-armed starbases, ships on patrol, etc. Basically, like you would in naval warfare, only you have three dimensions to watch instead of two. Combined with excellent sensors, you'll know of any ship making a run for your border before it even crosses.

Oh, all of my ideas are in the sticky at the top.[/quote]

So you're telling me if I kept traveling in one direction I would run into a wall? Or come out of the universe's atmosphere?

Regardless. This brings up the need for cloaked ships in future releases if territory can be guarded.

I would like to see a list added that allows us to choose the designation we wish to be called as leader.

Such as: Emperor, Empress, Chancellor, Supreme Chancellor, Chief of State, Chief Minister, Prime Minister, President, etc.

I would also like to see a female leader added to each civ. It would give a little variety to the game.

Yes come to think about it this game is completely male dominated - no females at all! Thats quite sexist.

Wrong. The thalan leader is probably female, as in a insectoid society the female is ALWAYS the leader.