First off, I want tot start this post by expressing my gratitude and respect for the developers of both Glactic Civ 2, and Dark Avatar. The level of support, and responsivensess to end user feedback has been unheralded. I am blown away by how much care, and work has been put into tweaking GC2 after it's release. (A stark contrast to Civ 4 for example.) Having worked in the commercial game industry since 93, I know that after a 1.5 to 3 year development cycle the team want's to move on, and management just want's the revenue stream to commence and be done with it. Anyway, Stardock has a lifelong fan in me. That being said, here's some of my initial thoughts and opinions about Dark Avatar. I love the new implementations. The espionage system is great. A work in progress I'm know, but spot on really. I've always liked the abstraction layer of the domestic spendig screens, allowing me to reassign finanical focus on a global level, and the espionage tab is perfect. An idea I'd love to see is a way to assign free agents in that screen into specific spying tasks targeting foreign powers in a general way. IE: 1) Counter spying. 2) Insurgency support. 3) Tech acquisistion 4) Foreign relation manipulation. In any case I do like the idea that each unassigned spy will automatically sweep my civ and increase the chance of exposing and illimination a foreign agent. I don't think the
agent should be used up though. (Kind of like he's found a agent and calls security.)
I wished there was or is a plan to research an espionage branch of the tech tree, to improve their overall efficiency. (Perhaps a internal affairs branch of the tree at some level to increase a civ's resistance to enemy infiltration.)
Planet colonization techs: I likey! I do wished that different types would offer increased likelihood of bonus tile types. IE: On radioactive planets would be more likely to have +300 manufacturing tiles or aquatic worlds have bonus farming tiles. Maybe barren worlds would be more likely to have remnants of ancient civs hence more likely to provide research bonuses. For that matter, I do wished that the number of bonus tile likelihood could be tweaked in the game setup screen. To me their like finding shiny jewels in a treausre chest.
The asteroind mining: Like it. I don't think they should be flippable though. Anymore that starbases that is. Also it would be nice if they default to a destination receiver but their target planet could be chosen in addition.
The power plants: Love it. In this vein could there be a planetwide %improvement that affects research? A small tech branch of private sector laboratories that could be researched? 10-30% research effectiveness.
And my last suggestion: What about an end level tech that increases the number of usable tiles on all planet? Perhaps even only by one per lever with two levels of refinement. (Kind of like the advanced city planning tech in Moo2.)
Anyway this has gone from a overall impression intention to a goofy wish list. Again let me reiterate how completely blown away I am at the level of professionalism Stardock has demonstrated, and my admiration for a team that has created what I think is the best 4X game I've ever played. You guys are my heroes.
