Dark Avatar: Which features do you want the most?

The new poll...

https://www.galciv2.com/darkavatar
from GalCiv2 Forums

The last poll showed that the largest player demographic for GalCiv II is 26 to 35. So I'm in the majority -- barely at 35. Teh second was 19 to 25 with it declining dramatically in-between. 

This week's poll asks which feature of Dark Avatar (the expansion pack for Galactic Civilizations II) are people most looking forward to?

Dark Avatar isn't a traditional expansion pack. While it does add new units, new opponents, etc. That's where it starts. The real meat is how it fundamentally changes the actual game play. It's not quite a sequel but it's definitely closer to a sequel in terms of new features and content than it is to a typical expansion pack.

So the question is, which feature of Dark Avatar do you find the most interesting?

You have the ability to design your own opponents from scratch and play against them in future games.  You have your spies that you can send to do nasty things to your enemies or to protect yourself.  You have the environment categorization of planets so that you can't just rush out and colonize every planet at first. You have the epic generator which is designed to export your finished games as stories.  There's the asteroid fields which players can build labs on or defense platforms and the like.  There's the new AI options where rather than just setting the difficulty to "hard" you can instead adjust resource bonus/penalty and AI playing intelligence independently. and of course the new campaign where you play as the Drengin, conquering and enslaving. And lastly the new ships, hulls, and other goodies.

And that's just a surface level list. There's going to be a ton of detail work from large chunks of the AI being rewritten with new techniques to enhanced graphics, a Drengin UI, etc. 

If you don't have Galactic Civilizations II, it's at store near you. If you know someone who likes strategy games, please let them know. Staying on shelves, like Walmart, into the Fall is going to be tough so every sale counts.  If you already have Galactic Civilizations II, you can pre-order Dark Avatar and get a discount.

 

64,376 views 93 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm interested in pre ordering Dark Avatar but I live in Britain and all the prices seem to be in dollars, will it be available in Europe or will I have to convert between pounds and dollars?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Voted for environment categorization of planets

Also, I don't know if this has been talked about yet, but a ship editor independent from games would be awesome. We could create, delete, rename, redo ships with only the techs we wanted. Of course all techs would be available within the editor so that one could dictate when in the game the ship could be used. Example: if in the editor I constructed a ship using Laser V and Duranthium II as weapon and armor, the ship would only be available when we researched Laser V and Duranthium II. It would be very cool to have something like this to organize custom ships and so on. Sorry if this has already been thought of

I'm also looking forward for the new graphics for the races. It's one thing that GalCiv2 lacks is diferent architecture on ships that really stands out a race.

Anyway, hurry up guys! I've the money right here to purchase Dark Avatar
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
hmm, for some reason I can't vote, when I look at it, it acts like I've already voted but I didn't.

edit: actually it seems to happen only when I go to the homepage, but when I go to some other part of the site it's normal

edit: sometimes when I refresh the main page it shows as normal, dunno what's going on.

and I use IE 6
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like to pre-order Dark Avatar and wondered also if there will be an option to deal in GB£.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I may be a lone voice in this request, but I would really like an internal recorder for game scores other than the metaverse. If I mod the game, I can't submit the game to the metaverse, so I must hand record the victory conditions and score. How difficult would it be to add an internal recorder such as other games have? It is not a priority, I understand; it is just a matter of convenience and ease for keeping track of ALL games played, not just metaverse acceptable. Thanks for all Stardock is doing to keep your games interesting. (I still play GalCiv 1, too, by the way!)
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
wouldn't the epic generator do something like that? it's already suppoused to record the games, so it shouldn't be too big a step to have it record the score and victory conditions.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You shouldn't make a "Drengin UI". What you should do is do it like the last game, make UIs based on alignment. Obviously if i'm good drengin or evil altarian i shouldn't have the same atmosphere.

Or you could have both, which would be a surprise. UIs based both on race and alignment.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I really can't choose!

I went for the customizable opponents in the end. I always play big maps and it's nice to be able to face a different set of people each game. Especially when there are only 2 real badguys in the standard list.

I would have gone for the planets thing though (I love the idea of every world being unique and interesting) but I think the system itself sounds a bit limited (see my post here) [link=https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=346&aid=124991#971097]WWW Link">Link
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have three suggestions for Dark Avatar:

1. I would like to see some sort of replay, which shows all of the civilizationsand how they grew throughout (and collapsed) throughout the game. This feature is present in the Civilization games. With it, you can show stuff like at which point power was shifted between various civilization, population growth, etc.

2. I would like to see more varied government types with different abilites available, depending on your moral alignment. For example, if your an evil civilization, the government you would have would probably be a dictatorship of some sort, while good civilizations would probably have some sort of democracy.

3. I would like to see a more realistic approach to how you conscript military troops on invasion fleets. Currently, you could potentially conscript your entire population without any costs or limits whatsoever. I think that there should be a maximum amount of people you, and your opponents, can conscript and send into invasions. This could depend on population, government type, industrial output, etc. I feel this would be interesting when planning invasions, because you would also have to consider not only the type of ships, but also the amount of manpower you have to wage war.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm a big fan of GalCiv2, think its the best 4X since the first Master of Orion. Littlebit to addictive perhaps. What I miss however in the current build of GalCiv2 is the sensation that outer space is dangerous. And then I don't mean dangerous in the civilized way (Drengins, Dreadlords, etc), but random -russian roulette- style dangerous. I miss random events like plagues decimating planet populations, spaceworms destroying entire planets, crystal entities turning your citizens into zombies, stars going supernova, neutron stars sterilizing entire star systems, dark matter showers ripping through your fleets. Hell, throw in the Guardian of Orion for what I care. Include this stuff and you've got another customer for Dark Avatar
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That poll lacks some more options... like "I don't know which one is more interesting." or "Others". I cannot choose just now because it's too soon to be sure of what can be really more interesting for me as player.

-Special world environments: that's very nice and a great addition.
-Asteroid fields that can be mined, armed: not sure, i have read about it and seen a screenshot but... doesn't seem of the most interesting things to me (yet).
-New ship parts, hulls, better graphics: yes! As long as those new graphics doesn't affect users with lower end videocards, right? Not that i'm one of those. It would be nic if each civilization had a different hull style. I know it's a lot of work (and expensive) but it would be cool.
-Epic Generator (finished game exported as a story): one of the best ideas. Unfortunately, it won't be so easy and i think that the result won't satisfy everybody. I suppose it'll be based on predefined texts (with placeholders for names and such) that will record events, some GNN news/reports... I think this idea has a great potential but i don't want to let my imagination fly with it. The results will never be like the human writting it (and people should understand that too). When you are in the beta, make sure you post an example so people can judge and hint.
-Spies: i hate spies.  Surelly i'll spend most of my time using them just for protection.  But it's a good idea considering how plain the actual system is.
-User-Designed opponents: Yay! Snathi, here we come!  
-More detailed AI options (set int/bonus/etc.): a very good idea indeed. I'll love using this option.
-Playing as the bad guys in the campaign: Evil/bad guys are overrated. I don't really care about it although i'll play the campaign and hope to find some of the classical Stardockian humor in it.

I suppose that i'm between Epic Generator and More AI options. In the long term, More AI options is the best.


From the previous users, i like the idea of being able to create ships out of the game. One of the reasons why i don't spend too much type making cool ships is because when i'm playing, i tend to focus on other things. But it would be nice to be able to create ships when i'm not in the mood for another conquest.

Drengin UI???? NAH! I want an Altarian UI! Pretty pretty please! One UI for civilization would be cool but... time consuming to do and all that stuff. So i suppose i'll just support that idea previously mentioned of a UI for each aligment. It won't be the same but it won't cost Stardock so much, right?

Some kind of Highscre screen would be nice. I use Metaverse for that (although i know that with time, the scores lose points   ).

By the way, could we have a screen were we see the avatar we are using in the game? I know it's a unimportant petition but sometimes i wish i could see my avatar somewhere.

Before i forget it as usual i'll use this post to ask this: official map editor? (with campaign creator, mind you) I miss this option but i can understand that it won't be done.

For now, i'm done. Keep the good work and bring us a wonderful Dark Avatar.  
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Was also wondering if this will be available to preorder in UK or will we miss out , only seems to be in $ payment .
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For those not in the US, you should at the least be able to buy TGN tokens via PayPal then use the tokens to get GC2:DA. Pretty much any other option would require you to have a US credit/debit card (You can't pre-order directly via paypal as it doesn't support the delayed transaction).
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm really looking forward to the enhanced AI options and the user-designed opponents.

I'm not sure what to make out of the "special environments" and "asteroids" stuff: Sounds a bit like cluttered maps and starbase look-alikes to me...
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Damn all this paypal and credit cards, whoever invented this stuff in the first place needs to go to hell, damn all this digital stuff, what happened to times when you used dollars and you weren't at risk of getting your identity stolen.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
damn all this digital stuff, what happened to times when you used dollars and you weren't at risk of getting your identity stolen.

Most harm is still done with cash, I think.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What about the new treaties feature ? I want to vote for it

"New Treaties. Diplomacy will get beefed up with the additional of new diplomatic treaties. These treaties not only provide mutual benefit but give players more tools to forge their relations with other player"
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1.
I would like to see some more stuff on the universe/space-map, it is to empty right now ^^

some ideas:
- some space-monsters or pirates poping up (like in Civ the barbarians)
**>> some special Monsters(Pirates which fight against your fleet

- some eletric/magnetic fields (like in some StarTrek episode^^)
**>> in MxN fields on the universe/space-map the LOS is reduced
**>> or the firepower is stronger. All in all some bonus or malus for the fleets

- some asteroid-fields
**>> MxN fields to slow-down ship movement

- some stabil wormholes (like in StarTrek DeepSpaceNine)
**>> Pay a fee for use or build a station to protect the/your wormhole


2.
The invasion-battle-animation (troops fight against troops) right now is fun, but perhaps add some options for the player to make some/more tactical orders



Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
out-of-game ship builder.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Asteroids, planetary environments and AI options FTW!

Spies, blegh. I'm already getting flashbacks of Medieval Total War where one spy could completely cripple an entire country, including all armies inside it. Thereby forcing you to place three spies on every country you owned just to counter potential enemy spies.

That's always been the problem with a spy unit. It's great to use for yourself, but it sucks when it's used against you. And so then you're faced with the decision, how powerful do you make it? All powerful, as in Med:Total War? Or rather mediocre, causing players to ignore them.

I've never seen a spy unit work well in a game.

Creston
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The big things I want:

Events that can do something other then effect just me- effect other races and relations...

More political diversity

More gameplay options

Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First off let me express my L  ve for GCII, it is all I have ever hoped for in a space strategy game, on all aspects... gameplay, graphics and features.

Having said this, there are a few features that I would love to see included in the expansion if not a patch...

1. Scalable Planet And Ship Sizes (In Game):
To have an option in the game setup as to how big or small you would like planets, stars and ships to appear ingame. (Maybe the current size to be large, then add a small and tiny option, as in make all ships appear in "fleet size" miniatures by default). This is merely eye candy to get a sense of the "vastness of the galaxy".

2. Larger Galaxy Sizes:
The larger the better I LOVE EPIC sized maps, and in outer space... well the larger the more realistic (To compensate for larger maps maybe some kind of outposts or nav-bouies can be incorporated to extend max ship ranges. **or do starbases already do that? hmmm...)

3. Actual Planetary Bombardment (Bombardment Tech Tree or Module):
I would love to be able to lay siege to a planet and bombard the hell out of their inprovements without having to take over the planet (The current Mass Drivers invasion option). This would be a nice feature... After all, not all of us want to erradicate every civilization, we just want to maintain peace in the Galaxy.

"The Yor don't feel like making peace with our allies the Altarians yet? BOMB A FEW OF THEIR COLONIES INTO DUST to make them think it's a good idea to sign a peace treaty."
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd say I'm most interested in the variable planet environment and the AI updates (You know my methods, Holmes).

Really looking forward to this expansion!
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm most excited about the planetary environments and the AI options although other features such as an evil campaign also seem appealing.

I do have a question though (and I apologise if it has been answered elsewhere). Once the expansion has been installed, will it be easy to "disable"(and "reable") it/parts of it. Could I, for instance, disable spies or play a game without the planetary environments but with the new AI options? If these options exist, are they part of the "new game process".