Okay, I gave some thought to the UP issues that I have and think I have a reasonable thought regarding some changes to the UP.
Give the UP it's own special 'troops' kind of like UN soldiers (only way more effective)and give them some of their own unique ships, or if this is too much, have the ships drawn randomly from the different races that comprise the UP. This would allow them to be effective at 'enforcing' any policies which might arise. It could also allow for some new and interesting scenarios/events.

I really support this idea. Identical starbase modifiers should not stack, even with influence bases. Otherwise it's just cheesy to convert planets.

OK, one more thing. I would like the Galaxy map made bigger, at least twice the size that it is now. Preferably even 3X. It isn't really much bigger that the mini map now, which makes it rather pointless. At least reduce the size of the sector lines, they make it really hard to see anything now.

1. Economic Starbase modules to increase the output of asteroid mines within it's radius. A more powerful version would be the ability to beam the output directly to the starbase itself, granting the boost to all planets within the radius (would increase the strategic value of asteroid fields)

2. More building choices for Asteroids - allow the player to pick which bonus would be granted by the mine (in line with the current industry bonus), eg off world research centre (research bonus) rare element mine (econ bonus), pleasure park (morale bonus).

3. Regime Change - as a diplomatic option or perhaps a capitulation option the ability to impose your own ethical alignment on a race. Would make the temples slightly more useful.

4. More depth to the ethical choices. At present they're all pretty much a choice of large bonus, small bonus, no bonus/penalty. It would be nice to see something requiring a little more to the decision, eg a choice between three different types of penalty or bonus (for example, an event which gives a boost to research, morale or economy depending on the choice of alignment).

5. It would be a nice little difference if civilisations didn't mind surrendering to a good aligned aggressor so much, but would be willing to fight to the death against an evil aggressor. After all, one will likely assimilate the subjugated empire into it's population, while the other would be more likely to use them as slaves.

6. More custom ship sections

Instead of starbase effects overlapping, make the effects of each module greater, and limit the number of starbases per sector to 1 or 2 (+ resource bases of course).

The ability to destroy and rebuild (elsewhere) major capitals (mfg, econ, tech, etc). Hand in hand with this, change the fact that destruction of a colony reduces the planet to Class 0. Destroying a colony should, by rights, only destroy THE COLONY, not planet's ecosystem. When the English Colony at Roanoke was destroyed, the island didn't disappear (neither did the building for that matter) just the people. And if you're thinking the colony was destroyed a by massive core detonation or some such planet devastating event, well, there are less drastic, and more efficeint ways of depopulating a colony than total annihilation. Please make destruction of a colony result in the planet reverting to its pre-colonized state. Thank you.

Think the last one it’s my personal favorite

1) I would like to be able to change political parties mid game. Say in one of the techs it allows you to choose a different party, given it would cost you a good bit of money and it would also mean you’d get a moral deduction for a few months while things settled down.
2) Work on Starbases! But that’s covered in other posts…
3) I think you should be able to achieve a tech AND use it. Ex: when invading or trading, you should be able to acquire a warp drive II and put them on your ships. HOWEVER you should not be able to continue researching warp drive III with out all the previous techs. This would be a good balance. It would not kill tech trading, but it would get rid of the huge cheeeez of jumping straight to the end of a tech ladder just cause you got luck running across a computer file in an invasion… just because you found the blue prints doesn’t mean you know all the physics hind its workings. (this should also lessen how much the AI values a military tech)
4) I REALLY like wyndstar’s idea about closed boarders. This is something I’ve seen in other games, like Birth of the Federation. You start out with closed boarders then grant passage through friendship treaties. I don’t think that’s good for this game. But I do really like the idea to be able to close your boarders to a certain race, and them violating this would be an act of war.

*And last but not least. MY PERSONAL FAVORATE!*

5) I would really like to see the introduction of a Science Vessel. This would be done by modifying the survey module to give you research points. I say have 4 techs that would branch off of stellar cartography. Each would provide you with the next level research module for your ships. The first should give 1 extra RP but be about size 20, the next 2, the next 3, and finally 4; each getting progressively smaller. The cost should be balanced so that it is encouraged to only put 1 or possibly 2 of these modules on a ship. Any more then this and the ship should cost too much and be too vulnerable to be worth it. These points would not be controlled by the research slider rather they would be set points and you would pay for them with your maintenance cost of the ship. Think of the Federation from Star Trek. They were a peaceful civ and who claimed to have socially evolved past having a military for military’s sake. So they built their starships for exploration, learning, and protection.

One possible offshoot of this. Currently the rings around a planet give a research boost to that planet. But there are alot of 0 class planets with rings that can never be used in this way. But by outfitting the survey ship with research modules, make it possible to set up science stations, similar to an asteroid mining field, in orbit around one of these ringed planets. This station would transmit it's data to the nearest planet adding to it's research score. The research vessels task would be to build these stations in the same way that the space miner builds mining facilities. You could even add in permanent anomalies that these stations could be built on for a steady stream of research points.

Ummm one more for me

Expanding, aggressive/passive Minors please!

But that would make them Majors. They're meant to stay at home and not expand to other systems. Otherwise they're just another player race.

That's true, making them play the same as majors would defeat the point of them being "minor".

I would like to see them being a bit smarter though: less constructor/star base spam, and more trade. They could be tech or arms dealers, eventually saving enough money to buy a new planet. Make them economic powers, rather than military powers.

i would like to see minor races have the ability to be inducted into my empire. right now the only way to take remove them from the game is to physically invade them. wich for a peacful race is a horrificly unfathomable option. In Birth of the Federation if a minor race was compleatly in awe of you they would ask to become part of your empire. i would like to see minors do the same thing. if they are in the middle of your space and they are inlove with you why would they not want to join you or at least entertain the idea if you proposed it?

i think this should happen similarly to how US states are inducted. if the option is presented (by either party) and if you are in a republic democracy or federation there should be a vote. i would even like to see the possibility of that vote being no if said minor race is of different ethical alignment... maybe in this case it you would have to continue improving dimplo relations with this minor befor the vote would be a yes.

- Fix espionage. At the moment it is broken. If I click on an enemy planet to veiw it, I recieve a dialog telling me that my espionage level needs to be "Advanced." However, if I buy a spy, I can instantly see all the imporvements on every planet including the military, social, and research production regardless of my espionage level. In fact, the only way to up the espionage level is to place a spy, which is self defeating as they are neutralized immediately. It's better to build the spy, use it to veiw the enemie's planets in their entirety (Place the spy, then cancel).

Combining the DL and DA systems would be the best route (atleat for a patch I think). Use the DL espionage model to find teh info about the enemy first (like the composistion of a planet and thier production), then the DA model to dirsupt the enemy with spies. 2 separate sliders would work fine.

- Perhaps tweak the tech trading a bit more. Its hard (and I like it difficut), but it seems highly illogical. I understand that its hard to do, and I think we are on the right track, but It still needs a little more TLC

They certainly shouldn't be building Influence starbases, they serve absolutely no purpose at all. They'd be better off building Military starbases near their home world, and better ships to defend themselves with.

1) Large (spinal) weapons for large/huge hulls (which do massive damage, maybe firing much less often than smaller weapons)

2) Something better with Military starbases

3) destroying a colony should not destroy the planets' habitability; except for maybe certain situations

From what I heard, the defense bug is because the defense is pooled against each individual weapons. So when an offtype weapon is used, the total defense = floor(square root total defense) and the absorbed amount is then subtracted from total defense value.

I suggest to when square root of defense is used or right type defense is worn down to 0, the rest of the damage absorbed by the defense should modified to the power of 2.
Example: Assume all rolls are maxed and assumes weapons firing order is random.
Defense = 16B + 0MA + 0MS = 16

3MA damage vs total defense of 16 (off type)
= 3 damage vs 4 defense (square root 16).
3 damaged is absorbed as 3 < 4
total defense now = 16 - 3^2 = 7

Then 2B damage vs 7 (on type)
= 2 damage vs 7 defense
2 < 7
total defense now = 7 - 2 = 5

This is for single defense type. In the case of multiple defense types it gets complicated.

Defense = 9B + 4MA + 0MS = 13

3MA damage vs total defense of 13 (on type now)
3 < 13
total defense now = 9B + (4MA-3) + 0MS = 10

2B damage vs 10 (on type)
2 < 10
total defense now = (9B-2) + 1MA + 0MS = 8

3MA vs 8 (on type)
3 < 8
total defense now = 7B + 1MA-1 + 0MS - 2MA^2 = 7B + 0MA + 0MS - 4 = 3

And now the defense is of single type (beam only) for the rest of the round.

This way, weapons would be more balanced against defense and fix the off type bug. Any thoughts, modifications, and problems with this formula?

I have already modded my games with both of these. Gave custom races 25 ability points, and they still don't get starting techs as good as the default races. Added miniturization with (1pt=5%, 2pts=10%, 3pts=15%, 4pts=20%)

-The espionage spending curve is a bit steep for anyone not playing the Krynn.

-Better starbases. Many good threads on this already.

-For my thoughts on Extreme Colonization.

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=357&aid=143854#1149812

Why on Earth wouldn't you want the ability to 'destroy' the planet's habitability? I think it's a great feature as it allows you to make the planet useless to your enemy. Sometimes a planet 'outlives' it's usefulness, or it could just be a matter of not wanting the enemy to have it. I can think of a dozen other reasons where being able to make the planet a lifeless, useless rock is a must do thing.
My bottom line, please don't 'fix' this feature. It is a definite bonus to be able to do so, at least from a strategic point of view. I know I'd rather chuck a colony/planet than allow it to fall into enemy hands, and I think that is what the devs were thinking as well.

How about the OPTION to destroy habitat, then?

Fair enough. I wasn't reading past into the "except in certain situations" part... my bad
I'm just at a loss as to why you would want to destroy a colony yet still allow the planet to be habitable, unless maybe you were looking to trade or sell the planet?

Two things for me. Reset the custom race names and homeworlds of the stock races. I always change the home planet name and sometimes the race name to make it easier for me to remember. However, I've played games where now I have two "New Jersey" systems and two races called "US". (Hey, I'm just not that smart.)
Also, an in-game clock or turn timer. Too many times I've looked up and it's past midnight. I really get sucked into one more tech, one more ship, and so on. Would be nice to have a reminder of the real world. Paul G.

Past midnight?! Heck, that's just time for a snack break. I've gotten sucked in to playing after 2:00AM several times and then got up at 7:00AM for work.

I was just thinking about star bases and came up with some ideas.

First, you would only need to build one Constructor, to build the initial starbase. Once constructed, a supply line is established to the nearest planet with a Starport, similar to the way the Asteroid Fields now work. Or you could if you wanted, select another planet with a Starport to supply it, with some consequences I'll mention later.

If you wanted to build a module, you would click on the starbase itself and order it's construction. The resources that are required would be drawn directly from the supplying planet's military production through the route established. The player would be able to set the percentage of this production that he/she is willing to allocate for the construction of the module, and the distance between the starbase and the planet would play a factor in the time it takes for the module to be completed, representing the time it takes a supply ship to shuttle back and forth. So while the module was being built, the supplying planet would have less or no military production capabilities available for ships, depending on how the player allocates the resources of the planet. Or, if it turns out to be an issue for the AI have a fixed percentage that's required for starbase support.

There could even be a food component involved so that the supplying planet would also need to provide the starbase with food, and also an ongoing resource supply in order to maintain the base after the module was completed. So the larger the starbase became, the more continueing support it would require from the supplying planet. Go with say one food and one military production unit for every module built on the starbase, as an example. This could kill two birds with one stone really, since it would make those 300% food tiles useful. You could use planets with a high farming ability as suppliers for several starbases, provided you bring up your production there high enough. Also with a distance from supplying planet a factor in the construction of modules, it would reduce the spamming of starbases deep in an opponent's territory. Distant starbases would take much longer to construct than ones nearby.

This would also add some realism into having Starbases. Right now they're completely self-sufficient. Once you build them, no planets are involved in their upkeep, which wouldn't be the case in reality. They will always need to be supplied with food products and raw materils to be used in it's upkeep.

Amateurs!    

I really like the idea of supply lines for starbases. it would deffinitly eliminate the hassel of dealing with constructors. however for those worried about not being able to blow up incomming constructors to enemy starbases, id say maybe make it like a trade rute were you could kill the little transports that are constantly running back and forth. for every little guy you kill it sets the production/bonuses of that starbase back an apropreat amount.