Nebulars.

I would like to see Nebulars in the game that took up a patch of space on the map. These Nebulars would come in different flavours. i.e.

Green: Impassable, always have to fly around. No planets within.

Red: Violent, some planets within, all toxic or radioactive. Random chance of say 4% each week to destroy any ship with the Nebular except those with planets orbits.

Blue: Reduced Sensor range to zero, and speed to 1.

You could set the game screen to either, no nebulars, small, medium up to huge nebulars that take up a quarter of a map, etc.

Yes and no. No one in this discussion thinks that Tech Trading as it stands does not need a big fix. What I and others are arguing is that simply banning it is not the answer. Right now trading technologies is too cheep and easy. What is needed is a way to make it more ballenced without making it illeagal. The other point is that anything that requires a major overhaul will probably not happen until GalCiv III.

What is likely to happen:
Most unique racial techs will be flagged no trade, no steal. Tech trading will continue as before with a few less techs avalible on the market.

What I would like to see as a solution (but probly will not happen):
Instead of getting a tech a outright when you trade for it or capture it, you would gain a space on your technology tree to start researching the technology. Buying or capturing a tech that is on your tech tree would give you research toward that tech when you do actually research it. So instead of instantly getting Impulse Drive when buying it, it appears on you tech tree the first time (if not already there,) The second time you get 25% of the research needed to finish the tech, and so on. There would need to be a check to insure that each tech can only be sold once between any two races.
This would insure that buying high end techs would still require significant research time before use, and I would even agree that research times for 'unique' might need to be doubled or even quadrupled for an alien race. You could still get specific alien techs if you are really willing to work for them, but the free for all would be severely limited.

Scincerely,

[email protected]

Hi I just started playing this Beta but compared to DL/DA, TA's races seem wholly unbalanced. The Drenging, Korath Clan and Yor Collective can build up fleets far faster than in the previous game/expansion and well in excess of anything the player can. Iconian Refuge have a population growth that seems to surpass even those randy Torian's.

In almost every game I've played, regardless of race, the Altarian Resistance get wiped out within the first hour of game play. The economy is currently skewed as well with a chronically slow start compared to the AI races (although I am unsure if beta 4c will address this).

Military production is also unbalanced. Even when racial and/or special bonuses are applied, coupled with economic growth being over balanced towards the AI races, means that by the time you can manage to build a modest fleet, the AI empires have sprawling territory and huge fleets. In one game where I played the Arcean, I went up against the Drengin. They attacked in one instance and the turn took almost ten minutes to complete due to them throwing fleet after fleet at my one (luckily) superior ship. Research as well is unbalanced. No matter who you play as, even the most ardent researchers, the AI races quickly surpass you in their knowledge base.

All in all I'd say the AI needs some serious love before the expansion is released.

I am not sure if following point are just "tweak" or "big suggestion":

Can those "A has declared war on B" icons just be concealed if the player has never contacted with A yet? recentlly I find it buggy to just click out their diplomacy window and buy a single ship from it, after which I can always offically "learn a new race" at next turn.

Resently Dominion of Korx can build trade routes even before their universal translator is ready, which is really unresonable in my mind.
Can we just make it race tech for Korx?

Another tweak suggestion -- I meet a new civ, I don't even have Universal Translator yet, but the Stats tab in the gives me a lot of information I shouldn't have. Some areas show a ? and say I need a higher level of espionage, but I still shouldn't be able to know what their spending and maintenance is, or what they're researching.

I think that GalCiv should have a "Civilopedia" with descriptions and fiction behind every technology, race, imrovement, wonder, and major ship item along with explanations and tips like in CivIV.

A smarter auto-scout. How the scouting deals with searching a sector is fine, but wokr needs to be done on how the next sector is chosen. Maybe even the ability to select different patterns. One pattern is the current left right in a sector, and bottom to top between sectors. A second pattern would be top to bottom between sectors. A third pattern would be a clockwise spiral (with options of going up first or right first, or even an auto-decide based on what is already searched). A fourth pattern would be a counter-clockwise spiral. A fifth pattern could be go to nearest hidden star and search that sector.

Second part is that before moving every scout should evaluate: is there another scout who will reach that sector to search it before me? If yes, then the scout chooses the next sector to search, based on their chosen search pattern.

Two items I would like to see in the release version of TA are: 1) The Intelligence screen of starbases should list all available modules as well as the currently installed modules. I want to be able to open the intelligence screen on any of my starbases at any time and see what I could install if I sent a constructor there. 2)Under financial management there are tabs which show the maintenance costs for ships and planet structures. I want a tab for starbases as well.

I noticed when you play a scernario, your starting planet says it is the cradle of said Civ maybe they could change the describten? Also I like the idea of having a Civilopedia explaning about races, and tech since the explanations for both seem thin like why do the torinas have a super breeder ability?

Some very good ideas here. Those are some of mine ideas that already got posted:

-Allow ships to carry multiple constructor modules OR "make constructors works as miners. When new modules are researched, constructors fan out and improve the starbases themselves".

-Graphic tech tree view viewable for opposing civs once you get enough spies in there.

-"I'd like to know how my allies are planning on voting on an issue in the United Planets before I vote".

-Voting on the UP should move your good/evil slider; ie: should we ban terror stars? No: +2 evil; Yes, +2 good.

I really like this idea. More powerful modules could take more turns to complete.

And in the starbase intelligence screen have the option of checking whether you want a certain module built (in case of you can't afford it at the moment, no constructor will come to build it).

It would be nice if you (or the AI) could change the empire colors of other players before a game to prevent the same (or almost the same) color for several players. I prefer a dark red color but I am not Drengin and if they are in the game it's very hard to know the difference. The Bars for research, military and so on should be in a different color for each race.

If it was already suggested just ignore it.

I would like to see the technology Mini-Soldiers brought back. It was always my preferred invasion technique, and I do not think it was really imbalanced.

I got some ship type ideas here>WWW Link

would be cool if when ppl contact you, "lets supply arms to who ever will fight bob", you can actually do that

can we have the ability to recorded our own games like in SINS, also, being able to just watching the AIs played against each other.

Doom ray is way much too powerfull (22!!!)
Since there is no first strike in battles, any ship with doom ray mutually annihhilates any other ship even if we compare medium with huge.
Looks like the old antimatter missile... but this time there is no way to prevent it. Attacking is futile. Had to develop similar ships and they annihilate each other.

Didn't check if other attack technologies have the same issue

On general screen, click on ship, manage, add a button to give/ask that ship to a race, this opens the diplomatic interface with the ship already in the bottom left/right.
Same from diplomatic interface: give/ask ship, reverts to general screen, select multiple ships, get back to diplomacy.
Same bahaviour for giving/getting planets.

In the old times you could tell governors to build a sequence.
I'd like that brought back. Obviously using tiles bonuses appropriately.

Ships on autoexplore/autopilot (miners, freighter, scouts) should stay away from your enemy controlled space and ships.
The later could be harder to be coded.

This would include established freighter lines. They should turn around enemy space if possible. A penalty would apply to the route.

Before building a starbase I'd like to check what squares will be influenced.
The round circle is nice but fuels missunderstandings.
Can you add a trigger that highlights the affected squares given the position of a constructor?

Many have been raised/discussed elsewhere so I'll keep it brief in the interests of clarity.

(1) Change civ colours so that there are less Grays.
(2) Reduce pop-ups and facilitate access to relevant info (as per Link suggestion).
(3) Ability to upgrade ships on planets using resources rather than cash.
(4) Ability to "maximize" size of list windows/sections in diplomacy screens (as per Link).
(5) Add user selectable icon for planets (i.e. Industry, Finance, Research, Mixed) - which can be used for colony manager sorting.
(6) Checkbox for no steal/trade of unique technologies in game settings.
(7) Ability to detach a single ship from a fleet (to avoid disband/reform syndrome).
(8) Ability to "propose" votes (from list of existing votes) - rotate around civs.

Also; I've tried to keep to "minor" tweaks; but can't really judge if this is the case as I don't know much about the GalCiv 2 code stream.

Here are two minor suggestions:

The Xinathium Hull Plating does not seem to be as useful now that there are HP modules. Perhaps some other improvement can be substituted. I would not mind seeing a military production or loyalty-boosting trade good.

It would be nice if the Korx could regain some or all of their -20 loyalty points.
My suggestion:
Mercenary Academy: +5
Freighter Command +5
A loyalty-boosting trade good.

i think that some techs should require at least 2 techs. for example, you should need tech A and tech B (from 2 different tech branches) to research C and that combines both branches and then they can branch off again