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Things you would like to see in a Galactic Civilization expansion set

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Things you would like to see in a Galactic Civilization expansion set

from Stardock Forums
I know that there already is one suggestion thread up but I decided to start a second one anyhow. Post any and all ideas that are too outlandish or broad in scope to implement in a commercial patch. Let's see if we can give the developers some evil ideas and maybe, just maybe, improve the chances that there will be a GC expansion pack. I'll try to get this one started.

Things I'd like to see implemented in an expansion:

1) More good and evil technologies
2) Race specific units, technologies and events
3) More events of all types
4) Morality triggered events
5) A new (hard) victory condition only attainable by neutral civilizations
6) Larger than gigantic maps
7) More customization options for maps (more neutral races, better than abundant planets, extra star clusters, more/less anomolies, etc.)
8) A second scenario
9) Two-tiered maps
10) A simple fleet combat system
11) More permenant galactic features (astroid belts, gas giants, ancient junkyards and ruins, etc.)
12) Some additional empire building tools (cosmetic and meaningful)

More technologies and events:
Any expansion to Galactic Civilizations would have to include more of what has already made this game the true, spiritual sucsessor to the Orion series. The event library in particular could be easily expanded to make every game unpredictable and different. Granted, this is already one of the stated goals of the patching process, but what can be done in patches can be 'overdone' in a retail release. :) Adding more technologies for the good and evil civs would also be a likely addition, but would require some compensation for neutrals.

Race specific technologies, units and events:
A familiar idea to an RTS player. An ideal way to introduce race-specific items into GC would be to create 1-3 units and techs for each race, including the humans, and then allowing each player to chose one of each at the start of a campaign. Only techs and units that the player picked at the start could be eventially researched and built.

Not allowing the usage of every racial unit in every game would be a good way to ensure that one race is not automatically 'the best' at any one thing. If the Torians chose their heavy combat vessel they will be able to hold their own against the Drengins. The best part is that the human player will not know what choices the AI races made until later in the game. Did the Drengins decide to activate their Warlord-class battleships (for space superiority) or did they instead chose to use Mutagen bombs (for mutating other species into Drengin hybrids during planetary assaults)?

Neutral victory condition:
Create a United League of Planets and conquer or dominate the galaxy. The catch: The League of Planets cannot have any of the other major races in it -- only minor races (and Independant League) led by the human race. You need at least 4-6 minor races (depending on map size) on-board to win this victory condition. They all must be alive at the end of the game.

It could work like this: Once a minor race is convinced to join the League it becomes an ally of the lead race and every other member race. All member races get military access, shared exploration, trade and diplomatic bonuses with one another. All member races benefit from each others starbases. All minor races belonging to the League give a tribute to the founder but recieve a hefty scientic grant in exchange. League races cannot culture bomb one another.

This would be a very cool victory path. It would be murder build and protect a League of Planets, but it could be a very rewarding endevor. If neutral technologies were to be implemented, perhaps they could be intended to allow this style of victory? The first neutral tech could be League Alliance (allowing member states) and subsequent techs could improve economic and scientic ties between the member races. A full formed League would be an unstable but very wealthy ediface.

Under the right circuimstances, the Arcean Empire may even attempt this. Perhaps one or more of their racial units/techs could be designed with this victory path in mind?

More ahead...
26,107 views 529 replies
Reply #76 from Stardock Forums Top
One thing I'd really like is a start-up option to make minors civs more common or less common at the beginning. Also, I'd like to see minor civs mine resources in their sector.
Reply #77 from Stardock Forums Top
I really like the suggestions that I'm seeing! :D

This could become a very cool game indeed! (I'm not saying that it's not already, though! :) )

But one issue I find most disturbing is that there is seemingly no "good bonuses" for being good. Every evil decision get's you bonuses and every good decision get's you penilized.

I would really like to see events that have bonuses for Good or even Neutral situations, and penalties for evil.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #78 from Stardock Forums Top
How about a new tech that allows the player and AI to make privateers around the same time trade is researched? A privateer was basically a pirate who legally worked for a nation, to disrupt the trade of that nation's rivals. Often times they were used during times of war, but that wasn't always the case.

So, it could be another way to disrupt the AI's economy (and vice versa) without necesarily causing a war from the attack. Although it should cause the relationship between those two races to go down over time if the piracy keeps going on. And maybe you could get a small amount of money for each frieghter destroyed by your privateer, to represent the loot they pirated.

The privateer ship could have a higher speed to allow it to catch up with the frieghters, but have a relativly low attack and defense to represent that they are privatly owned ships and not quite "military grade".
Also, the player and AI could be allowed to destroy any privateer vessel they come across without starting a war, so that they can defend against the piracy.

The extra stratagy involved with attacking and defending the frighters would make the whole trade process a little more challenging, and more interesting then just watching the frighters go back and forth. And even though there are already computer controlled space pirates in the game, having your very own pirates to play around with would just be cool. :D

Reply #79 from Stardock Forums Top
1. CHANGABLE SCREEN RESOLUTION!!!!! its very important, since the present one is realy fu*ked up at my comp.
Reply #80 from Stardock Forums Top
Don't know if anyone has mentioned it here, but I would like to have a button that forces the update of influence. I know the time for that to take would be long, so I would like it as a button and thus an option.

~SDC~
Reply #81 from Stardock Forums Top
A lot of really good ideas here and finally read them all.

For me
1. Fleets in general and in combat specifically could use a major over hall. You could do a huge expansion on this alone, I know I wouldn’t mine. Konfuzed667, nope, didn’t know that Frogboy has said this won’t happen. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be done though, or that changes don’t need to be made. (ops, double negative) If everyone wants it then they might do something about it in some form, which is needed, and what in general we are asking for.
2. End wasted production.
3. Want to be able to zoom out from the main screen to see more of the universe with my large screen.
4. Add a Starbase detection module(s) to extend sensor range.
5. Rally points and waypoints for ships.
6. United Planets, allow each race to choose what is to be voted on a rotating basses. For the human player they should have a list to choose from when it is there turn.
7. Better use of Espionage. Allow it to counter Destabilization maybe? When high enough allow for sabotage. Allow it to find out what the next United Planets meeting is going to be about and how a race is going to vote on it.
8. Trade advice. The game would suggest what I could get from another race when I offer something. Note I don’t want too much advice, but some way to determine the value of what I have offered. Or a allow me to ask, “What will you offer me of this trinket?”
9. Hyperlinked and easily navigated in-game tech tree and encyclopedia of improvements, ships, etc.
10. Sharper contrast on main map between fog-of-war and areas where you have sensor info.
11. Oh yea, my button for influence update.
12. Race specific units, technologies and maybe events.
13. Stargates reintroduced for the larger maps. Yes I read the intro. Now I would like to have a way to build 2 and be able to move them, albeit slowly.
14. Make some tech more random in the how long they take to research. Some tech’s have a fairly straightforward progression and would not use this, others would be more random. Or have it as events for certain tech’s.
15. Expand Diplomacy to include arbitration between warring factions and collusion.
16. Outposts for low class planets.
17. Expand on trade to nerf/discourage one path for trade. Include incentives to go to other planets within a race.
18. Galaxy maps that are based on actual galaxies (one example, spiral).
19. Neutral tech additions.
20. Change starbases from affecting everything in a sector to everything in x radius. Creates more strategy.
21. Customize ships, both in game through tech choices or such, and through an editor. I see you have an editor, but haven’t figured out how to do more than change the image. I want to change the stats not image.
22. Be able to tag fleets or ships to alert us when they are visible on the map, tired of hunting the map all the time.


Big bad idea:

Territorial Integrity or Controlled Space. Space is not like air space, wrong analogy. It is more accurate to say that space is like our planets oceans. We say we enforce control of the seas out to 120 miles and while that sound far it’s not, but it is a huge area and in reality we do not, can not, enforce it (ships come and go as they please, we control the docks and enforce economic and militant controls there). This could easily be done wrong and near impossible to be do right. Planets are in effect protected by it anyways. Space is just too large to enforce this, remember think 3D. It would initiate constant wars. Could be fun as a United Planets option. Would really mess the game up though.

Physics, Phaedyme is correct about starbases. In addition there are many pluses and minuses to either form, but no necessity. The main reason we have an “orbiting platform” is the cost would be so much more prohibitive for it not to be orbiting, and our tech is not quite there to do within the safety margins we like. The reason you see them near planets so much in si-fi is that it makes a great jumping off point, reduces the need to have all ships capable of both atmosphere and space fight.


~SDC~
Reply #82 from Stardock Forums Top
Hm ... definitely like the idea of galaxy 'shape' -- spiral, ring, irregular. That would make a big difference, and might even help the problem of starting position being so dominant.

And while scenarios per se might be a bit much to ask, would starfield and resource maps be so hard to do (with starting positions) ? They could be balanced to make for more interesting games.

And while I'm at it, some options for the frequency of resources. (Or at least teach the AI to protect it's resource starbases.)
Reply #83 from Stardock Forums Top
It's lame..I know..but i would like to be able to change the flag of my empire to something else.



Reply #84 from Stardock Forums Top
Lots of great suggestions... here are mine:

#1 - I really liked Paul Auger's (Message #31) idea to add a maintenance cost to new colonies such that expansion is 'slowed'. Like Paul, I enjoy the expansion aspect of the game, and would like it prolonged.

#2 - Galactic topography (black holes, nebulae). These can be obstacles, or perhaps detriments to living in the sector (black holes can gradually suck away PQ). Or nebulae could be passable, but cause ships to pass through them at a reduced movement, or cause sensor blindness (ala Wrath of Khan).

#3 - Colonization events should 'stick'.. meaning that if I find on planet BILBO a precursor device which increases planet quality at the expense of lives, I should be able to turn it on/off. Example: If I have chosen the 'evil' path to turn the device on, if a good civ takes the planet, they should be faced with the same moral dilema. Or once I played as a Palpatine sort of character that started good, then turned evil mid game. I should be able to get that device working, enslave the guys in the underwater bubble city, kill the sentient plant creatures, etc. I'd also like these events to be added to the planet description.

#4 - I'd like a clearer segway between the good/evil UI graphics. It would be neat to gradually change. Likewise, ship icons that gradually change with good/evil. Planet description that change with good/evil, etc.

#5 - Population diversity. If a Yor planet defects to me, won't it be harder to control a planet of machines? Perhaps add planetary options for tourism (when tech appropriate) and citizenship (maybe I don't mind Yorian citizens becoming "Terran's"... Or maybe I allow the Yorians to stay with a 'work visa'). Either way, those citizens may get the boot if I go to war with the Yor... or they may be less productive, or I may need to put them in internment camps.

#6 - I'd like to rename planets within a system.

#7 - Morality triggered events.

#8 - Corruption in the senate [if I am evil, can't I kill people in the senate to make my party win the election?] i.e. internal espionage, destabilization. Repracusions could be civil war, defection, etc.

#9 - Make techs feel more important. Some just feel like jumping off points. While I don't need all techs to give a % bonus, it would be neat if they all enhanced the gameplay somehow [added a unit, module, diplomacy option, government, new event posibilities, etc].

#10 - I like the idea of specialized colonies.... outposts on level 5 planets for mining, research, etc.

#11 - zoom in/out of main map

#12 - UP - I love the UP. I think the minor races should all get a group vote. Likewise, I don't like that only races I have 'met' are in the UP. It doesn't make sense to have a UP meeting with only me and the Drengin. I also think there should be a UP president, or the person with the most influence gets to be the 'leader'. Also, we should be able to initiate a vote on a topic. And get advanced notice on votes, and get a chance to sway the other races. It would be neat the the UP (like the UN) gets all bent out of shape over 'human rights' or 'weapons of mass destruction'.
Reply #85 from Stardock Forums Top
"I would really like to see events that have bonuses for Good or even Neutral situations, and penalties for evil."

So would I, and I don't think it would be at all difficult. Right now being evil nets benefits, being good doesn't (o.k. maybe the Altarians like you more, and there are a few alignment specific techs). So basically you're good because you're trying to be good and purposefully giving up often juicy bonuses. You're evil by default if you just want the bonuses, or if you want to be evil you get rewarded. I think that being evil should also be more of a conscious choice, the simplest and most consistent way to implement that meaning that you will also have to forego bonuses/take penalties to take the evil choice.

i.e. the planet is full of semi-sentient worms, keep them and take a PQ hit or exterminate them and get a (sometimes whopping) bonus. Who won't end up as evil if there's too many of these in a game? Counterbalance that with the planet is full of semi-sentient worms who maintain a lush biosphere, keep them around and accomodate them for a PQ bonus and exterminate them 'cause that's what evil civs do and take a PQ hit.

I think this would be the least complicated and least destabalizing way of evening up the good/evil choices, and I for one can't see why the good choice is necessarily penalized and the evil one rewarded, at least in terms of the game mechanics.

Or here's another idea. Make it possible for a colonization event to affect two things. They might roughly balance each other out, but not necessarily so, but the choice reflects on good and evil. So in the above example, the good choice to keep the worms gives a PQ bonus but a penalty to production because largescale industry is constrained because interferes with their habitat. Evil choice of killing them reduces PQ but the joy of the annual worm hunt (remember they are semi-sentient) and of eating food that can say 'mama' gives you a morale boost.
Reply #86 from Stardock Forums Top
And I also wanted to plug my favourite notion of extending the explore and expand phases, perhaps simply by adding some sort of maintenance cost to new colonies for a period of time thereby preventing the initial pop rush that sees the galaxy filled up in relatively short order. The universe ought to be a pretty big place, yet I find there's not much elbow-room in them even on humongous maps. Other ideas including wormhole galaxies, areas of the map that are initially inaccessible, are also good and could be used alone or (preferably) in combination.

It also means that you have to work on developing your planets from the beginning, instead of dumping everything into producing your colony ships until you've filled up every nook and cranny you can reach first, by which point you pretty much know how things are going to turn out anyway (although thanks to the richness of this game you can still pursue winning options even if you can't grab as much as the AI).

What I find severely lacking is a sort of rush to the new world kind of thing, you build up and are utilizing your home base as best you can with current technology, then go off to find and exploit uncharted lands that might help tip the balance of power. I find that unless the game is designed around this kind of principle, i.e. Imperialism or Europa Universalis type games, it is hard to get this 'rush'.

But wouldn't it be fun to be able to find a pristing star cluster in the mid to late game and beat the Torians to it? I realize that this can happen now depending on the map generated, but it's hardly a regular occurence.

Perhaps this could be implemented through technology. For example you need to develop a super-scout to explore into certain areas that are inaccessilbe arly on. These areas could be in the form of nebulae or other of the features suggested here which could not be accessed until a certain tech or preferably combination of techs enable ships to travel in them/get sensor readings from them.
Reply #87 from Stardock Forums Top
Ah, forgot one:

Currently, you can do a global switch of Planets making A to now make B. However, I often want *ALL* planets to switch to making, for instance, Battlehammers.

Could you please add a "All Planets Switch Production to X"?
Reply #88 from Stardock Forums Top
Oh, adding to that...

Could I perhaps more simply (or in addition to having an 'All' category) be able to Control+click the items I'd like switched? This is really what I was trying to do the other night. I wanted to Control-click items A and B to switch them to produce item C.
Reply #89 from Stardock Forums Top
I always thought the ability to be a different race would be cool

or if you want to extend the story or something add a new advanced race discovered later like maybe the declining home world of the precursors or something.

maybe you could add an event where your exploring your home planet Earth (or other if other races added) and you find an interstellar gate to the precursor homeworld where you gain huge tech/military boost or just contact with the precursors

or just add the precursors as a minor race (1 or 2 planets no will to expand) with a large role in the story.

I really just want to know more about the story behind the precursors.
Reply #90 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok ive only played one game so far so i cant realy comment on mayjor gameplay changes/additions yet but there are a couple interface things i would like to see.

*Diplomacy Screen:
A little number that shows the research point cost of the techs. Its a pain (especialy as a newbie) clicking stuff on and off the trade lists trying to figure out what things they are willing to pay decent amounts for.
A "What would it take for you to accept this deal?" button. You present a deal thats close to acceptable, and they will then request whatever little extra they want. Again this is a timesaver, no minutes wasted minutely tweaking the amounts of $per turn etc.

CTRL-Clicking of ships for multiselecting, and then being able to tell this group to move from it's various locations to one spot.

Wonderful game you have here guys, and i aplaud your intention to continue improving it.
Joben :)
Reply #91 from Stardock Forums Top
i would also like the ability later on in the game to turn even level 1-8 planets into 15 or higher. The idea that you can trancend existance with omnicience but you can't turn a crappy planet into a decent one is beyond me.
Reply #92 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow, addictive game! I've got a list, and if these items were mentioned before, I'd like to add my vote to their requests. Mind you, these are all requests, so please add a 'Please!' on the end of each :D

1) More races to come up against, or, different splinters/factions (other than political parties) of the races we have.

2) Different AI tendencies for each race based on alignment or splinter group.

3) More ship types! :)

4) Flesh out the Techs a little more, if possible add effects other than stat increases, like new espionage missions, or new weapon theories (different ships). Non-obvious wonders, maybe? Like Galactic university wonder available after all basic theories, or later advanced theories are researched. Maybe even branching techs, like Temporal Physics (or micro-biological industries, or sentient robotics or something of that ilk) that allow for a different type of a particular tech that would be mutually exclusive from other, similar techs? Different approaches to the same problem type of thing...

5) More in depth espionage items, like maybe agent training, cell training, free lance agents, saboteurs, info thieves, culture thieves (influence) etc. :) Maybe an entire Expansion pack devoted to 'Shadow Empires' Specialized stealth ships, espionage techs, espionage modules, black market techs, Espionage missions, and expanded clandestine operations!!!! :) Of course I could be getting ahead of myself...

Back to the single liners:
6) More movies throughout the game! (I love the ones that are there, but I want more!!! :):))

7) More Story elements.

8) Interactive story lines based on the other races.

9) Detailed Ship interface (Encompassing, but not limited too, greater info on ship locations, # of a particular type of ship, Ship class orders, Rally Points, Ship filters, and Maint. Costs by ship) :)

10a) Filters for the social build queues (Kind of like the tech tree filters, Cost filters, Name filters, Category filters)

10b) Filters for the Military build queues (Ship type, Ship cost, Ship Name)

11) Military instalations (to assist in planetary defense)

12) Different Ship Icons to choose from... maybe three or so different 'styles' of star ships... essentially 3 or so different pics for, oh say, battleships.

13) Different roles for ships... missle frigates, beam frigates, refueling transports, Carriers :), re-designate the Star Fighter some thing else, and incorporate fighter wings.

and finally... Themed Expansion packs!!!! :) Kind of like source books for RPGs... (Wow, did I just reference RPGs?? oh man... I need sleep...) Each pack would add on techs, projects, and additional functionality to existing game sections :):):)

e.g.

'Shadow Civilisation' - an Espionage themed Expansion
'Great Armadas' - Starship/ Military expansion
'Agendas' - Political Expansion
'Xenology' - Alien expansions :d

etc. etc.

Well... I think I've said enough so far, maybe more later? Have fun storming the galaxy!

-Ag
Reply #93 from Stardock Forums Top

I haven't thought about this idea in detail (how it would effect game balance/play) but expanding on my idea of diverse populations (i.e. you may have Yor colonists on your planet, and making them happy may be tougher than making regular old earthlings happy)...

What if instead of all of your population being valid 'soldiers' that you had to first 'create' soldiers by placing part of your population in that category (or produce them with a 'barracks' type building. Same goes for espionage, etc.

Another note... what if espionage granted you peeks into cities/units/starbases to let you see what modules/wonders/etc were built there. [not sure if this happens already]
Reply #94 from Stardock Forums Top
So many good ideas in these posts. I would like to suggest some enhancements to the starbases.
1) Have a missle defense module. Create several different types of missles, move them to your starbase and be able to fire them at ships in your sector. Both offensively and defensively. Also be able to load the module with anti matter missles that can fire at targets anywhere on the map. A different missle module for each type of missle. Also keep a missle count, in other words not a missle fire forever without resupply.

2) Starbases should require resupply. Establish a resupply route much like the trade routes, build a freighter and docking at your starbase will establish and AI resupply route. The farther away from your nearest planet would require more supply routes. Say if you build a SB 3 sectors away from your nearest planet, then it would require 3 resupply routes to maintain the SB. You would be able to knock out the supply of a SB which would make its effects dormant until its resupplied.

3) In a follow up to #2, once your SB gets to a higher level, i.e. Pleasure Palace then it would require another supply route to keep it maintained.

4) Which brings us to hydroponics modules, when you add a hydroponic module, it will eliminate the need for one supply route. Hydroponics modules could come in levels, say up to level 5. It would let you reduce the number of routes by 5 but in a really distant SB, you may still need supplimental supply routes.

4a) Require a population on a SB. As tech levels increase, the population would need to grow to sustain its maintainence. Initial base would require a follow on Transport with people to make it run. Additional modules would require a certain population level.

5) Terror Stars could not be built unless it had enough Hydroponic modules to make it self supporting. This would require it to travel within 5 sectors of your own planets.

6) Repair/upgrade modules. It seems like currently when a tech is researched, it automatically is applied to your ships. This module would change it so that your ship would not upgrade until you dock and give it the command to upgrade with a small fee.

7) Be able to establish a trade route between your planet and an alien SB the same as an alien planet.

8) A fighter wing module that you can stock with starfighters or corvette's and launch when needed. Have 20 fighters per module. Upgradeable up to 10 modules. Each module is fighter specific. Starfighter modules and Corvette modules.

In other topics, I would also like to be able to find stargates and/or research the tech to build them with a specialized stargate constructor. I like the idea of stargates over wormholes.

Be able to upgrade or terraform a planet up to a higher level. Even the level 1's are real estate and a scarce commodity.

I saw someone mention that larger ships should be limited to range. How about a ship tender. A resupply ship that would extend the range of Battleships and Dreadnaughts.

How about a large map, say twice the size of Gigantic.
I'm just a new player so my ideas are about tapped out.
Greenfire
Reply #95 from Stardock Forums Top
I have to disagrre with the supply rountes idea for starbases, it would be too easy to exploit and would make the resource grab in a large to gigantic galaxy nigh impossible unless one did a ton of micromanagement that IMHO would be totally unecessary. I already have ot manage dozens of ships some turns and this would make things intolerable without any fleet controls.

A better idea IMO is that outside a certain range and not built on a resource a starbase becomes 'frontier' and certain moduels cannot be built or cost upkeep. This would apply to terror stars as well if they moved out of range. They wouldn't lose the modules the modules would simply lose their bounus in that case. The range increasing techs would dictate how far one wcould build/move the base before it incurs penalties. Also the AI should be made more sensitive to bases 1-5 sectors away (dependsing on galaxy size and starbase type) from their planets when you are halfway across the galaxy.

Alliances should get additional options and bonuses since they are hard to get and can drag one into wars that you might not want to fight. Alliances should be able to trade intelligence, use each other's starbases and planets to refuel and also maybe have access to special techs like a tech that gives +2 trade routes just to alliance members or even a super hig level tech availible on the good morale path where you and your partner can share SB resources like if you move a terror star full of industry modules into an ally's sector with planets they get the bonus.

Heck there even could be a thing like a super alliance or unity alliance where to the rest of the galaxy you present a united front and all the bonuses of both races are added together and culturally you and the AI share influence and all tech. Such an alliance would be nigh impossible to form of course and if you AI ally is a jerk and has all the other races against him it could backfire horribly but still it would be a neat idea.
Reply #96 from Stardock Forums Top
Can have a "graphic" repusentation of the "tech tree" IN the game? So while I am playing I can look and see what I need to get where I want.

Examples, Civ 3 and ages of the empire.

Reikes
Reply #97 from Stardock Forums Top
I was thinking of having a visual representation of the advancement of your planet. When there is no colony in the bottom right you have a representation of the environment. It would be a good idea (in my opinion) to show the advancement in this window. For exemple you build a shipyard, then you can see it visualy. I know that the picture is small, and It might get messy later on. But defenitely think it could be coool (like the city in civilization)
Reply #98 from Stardock Forums Top
Im in agreement with those who want to penalize colonization at the beginning, so that you don't overextend. Id love to see this delayed a little bit more. Another thing that would be nice is for the techs to be more "there", so to speak. Let me explain- I would like to see their effects beyond adding numbers to raitngs; while this may be valid for some, currently, it seems to the bonus of the majority of techs.
Reply #99 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not going to write out a big huge post here, as each of these issues could take up a whole thread on their own. But, the more I play the game, the more I think GalCiv could use some attention paid to the following areas:

SPICING UP THE TECH TREE

There was a thread on this a while back about the tech tree being boring. I tend to agree with this.

The problem is that techs mostly just add numerical bonuses to abilities that you already have, instead of enabling you to do something you couldn't do before. Many of the techs have very colorful names and descriptions (The Dark Side, ect.) but they just give you some +10% bonus to soldiering or something, so now your soldiering ability is +120% instead of +110%. :notsure:

I'd like to see terraforming given its own branch of techs so that all those useless 13 and lower planets could be used if your willing to go that route. I'd like to see some mutually exclusive techs and more alignment based techs so there is more differentiation between the empires based on what path they take, rather than the race to dreadnoughts. I'd also like to see alignment based tech not be usable at all to races that don't meet the requirement.

SHIPS NEED TO BE REBALANCED

This is related to the tech problem above. Everyone pretty much just builds battlehammers until they get to Dreads, and then you're done. In the case of the battleship/dreadnought/overlord line, there is really no difference between them except better stats. You use them all the same way.

The Phoenix is a good example of a ship that is supposed to be used in a more specialized and interesting manner (a hit-and-run raider) but in practice it doesn't work well, probably because Cloaking doesn't seem to do anything. But this is something that I would like to see more of, in principle.

I'm thinking maybe cloaked ships could be used to attack freighters and other unarmed ships without starting a war, because they are not seen until they attack and no witnesses are left... That way you could wage in low level war against someone without starting a full scale war. Then there would be different tech that allowed you to detect cloaked ships, at certain ranges, ect. It could be quite fun trying to track down the mysterious raiders preying on your shipping lanes, but are never seen, and then discovering what empire is doing it.

REWORK ESPIONAGE AND DESTABILIZATION

Espionage doesn't do anything after medium level. The descriptions of high and advanced level say it does, but it doesn't. I just get my espionage level up to medium to see what they are researching and then turn it off. Maybe further spending helps prevent some rare random events, but it still isn't very interesting to use.

Destabilization seems to works sometimes, but there is very little feedback as to whether it is or not. Even when it does work its uninteresting to use.

Basically, I'd like to see more options, more feedback, and more drama in the use of espionage and destabilization.

GalCiv is a very good game, in large part due to its AI, but it could be a great game with some fleshing out.

:)
Reply #100 from Stardock Forums Top
More comments based on the feedback in the board, which spurred my thoughts...

It would be neat if, like Vanir said that espionage and destabilization was tweaked. The 'high' level of espionage description says you most likely know whats going on better than the leaders of the civ! Perhaps you then are privy to all the diplomatic transactions being performed by that group. Instead of seeing 'Yor is most likely paying tribute to Dergin' you would see the amount, the actual trade, etc because your spied are deep into Yor's government.

Perhaps you can attempt to sabotage production, destroy a unit (terror star) with an internal spy, lower morale on a specific planet, screw up a governer and have them stop/switch production of frictionless clothing [since you are nearing completion, and want to bump off the competition]. Perhaps my spies could stop the destabilization that is occuring on my or rival civs... however they may be 'caught'. Likewise, shouldn't spies have the chance of being caught? Isn't spying 'bad'? I think delving into the espionage could spruce up the intrigue in the game.

As far as sprucing up the tech tree... I think one of the problems is that the tech's offer global increases to your civ... or units to be built everywhere. What if there were social projects that created new military options? i.e. ships that could only be built if you had a shipyard, etc. It would add more local color to the planets... a planet specializing in ship production, for example. Or a planet specializing in shock troops/super soldiers. This would mean that one of your rival's planets could be the only planet they have that is capable of producing dreadnaughts... one swift surgical strike, and...

Some techs (propulsion tech) shouldn't be realized on existing ships... they should be retro-fitted... or perhaps simply never see the bonus... you need to decommission and re-build. This perhaps would make techs feel more substantial. Not that the techs are currently flawed... they are just simple... simple can be good... However, I like more detailed techs.

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Another note... should it be possible to not allow a freighter to trade with you? I would like to try and play the game as a xenophobe (leave UP, no diplomacy with aliens, no trade, etc).