GoodGame

Join Date 01/2005

GC 2.0 feature request thread

Is there a 2.0 GalCiv2 feature request thread yet? (if not, I'd thought I start one for any final minor features).

Edit: I'll add suggestions to the top while this thread is open.

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#1. Auto Sector Patrol (like GC1). Basically similar to auto-attack, but a separate ship option to patrol one sector. Would be better if could patrol multiple sectors. Possibly this could work like the rally points---define a patrol area of multiple sectors, and then individually assign ships to it just like rally points. I'm finding this is crucial to scenario #2 of the ToA campaign to keep that Arnor cruiser in areas where it's most needed on auto-attack.

#2 Generic build queue list. Basically one for the planet spaces and one for the ship list. Planet tries to fulfill the queue order exactly, but of course stops short if it doesn't have high enough planet quality. Ideally this could again work like the rally point system----generate multiple queues, and then assign planets individually to it. I found this to be necessary on a Huge game where all the dead planets get upgraded to PQ 15. On huge, that was instantlly ~60 nice planets in my backyard, about a 500% change for my empire. Had to quit at that point.

#3 Focus menu in the ship builder seems a little buggy and isn't documented in the ToA manual or tutorials. More clarification on how it works would be great. A side thought, how about make it more generic, like alloting space 'cost points' as percentages. E.g. 10% for sensors, 10% for weapons (as well as the % breakdown by weapon type etc..), 30% for engines, as well as set a queue of 'priority' components (e.g. ship MUST have 1 survey module, and 1 ultimate warp bubble, after which divide up the remaining space).

#4 Mass upgrade of ships from the Shipyard screen.

#5 Easier editing / tutorial for custom race leaderheads and logos. (I just got ToA, so I'm not sure if this isn't already in the tools).

#6 Seems to be a bug in purchasing major social production items (e.g. galatic wonders) with debt being forgiven. For instance, if I have just 1bc, I can purchase a 6000bc wonder, but then the enormous debt is forgiven to about -3000 bc. I couldn't detect any reason not to do this since it's like an incredible discount. Not sure if this is an infrequent bug or a feature, but it seems like an exploit.

#7 Fleet templates for the 'fleet'-type rally points. Basically assign one or more fleet templates to the fleet rally points, so the fleets that you want to make are made without micromanagement.

#8 meta-fleets called "Ship Control Groups". Basically a way to keep a pack of ships/fleets together on the governor's screen to assign them a particular rally point to travel towards. Bonus points for the option to guarantee that they sync their movements together so they travel as a single stack through space (so warships of the group can protect non-combatants, etc..).

#9 A short list of waypoints for a rally point. Which would make it more of a "rally path". Also option to set a default command along the path. E.g. set an auto-attack, or attack defenders on planet 33,44 and invade after following the 'rally path'.

#10 A mid-level setting for the mega-events. Subjective, but give each mega-event TWO levels. The normal current setting that tends to shake up a game a lot, and a tepid setting that just shakes the game up a little. E.g. 6 uber pirates vs. 30 of them. Jagged alliance takes no more than one planet form each civ, and no planets with galatic wonders on them. Etc... On the flip side, the Dreadlords event is pretty weak. I'd crank up the normal setting for that some. YMMV

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I would like to see my race Avatar in-game. Maybe in the diplomacy screen, like in Sins of a Solar Empire, for example.

Gal Civ II is a huge strategy rpg, with the different AI personalities, so please complete the in-game graphics.

Thanks

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

It's been mentioned many times previously, but I'd love to see an "upgrade all ships of this type in this fleet" button.

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+152

It's been mentioned many times previously, but I'd love to see an "upgrade all ships of this type in this fleet" button.

Me too, on both counts.

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What is Galciv 2.0?

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GalCiv 2 is technically not at the 2.0 version yet. It's at 1.92, and SD is getting ready to finish it up real soon.

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+112

#1. Auto Sector Patrol (like GC1).

Sector patrol will do just fine, though I wouldn't mind a means to restrict things to current solar system.

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My suggestions:

1. Advanced rally point commands. For use by rally points. What I'm suggesting is to have rally points assign commands to ships that arrive, and/or to fleets that are formed by the rally point. A sample of some stuff I want to do is to have ships use rally points (nav points) to travel around a hostile empire so it arrives in one piece. Another sample is to set ships that arrive (and fleets formed) to guard mode while I wait for the rest of the ships to arrive and join the fleet.

2. Planet (ship production) control group. To be used in the governers screen. I want to be able to assign a bunch of planets to a control group so I can control what they are building at any given point in time, and what rally points they are to use. For instance, if I am not at war, I might use a whole solar system to build constructors. If I get involved in a war, I might then tell them to build bunch of tiny warships, and tell them to send them to a given rally point. Once the war is over, I would be able to tell them to build constructors again and change the rally point without needing to select each planet individually so I don't affect the rest of the planets building those ships (or their rally points).

3. Ship control groups. To be used in the governers screen. I would like to be able assign a bunch of ships to a control group, lets call them "Attack Force" 1, 2 & 3. They function the same as any other ship, except they stand out in the governers screen. Once I'm done fighting the Drengins (peace treaty or total extermination), I can order them to regroup near Yor territory without having to find every ship or transport lying around.

4. Fleet templates. For use by rally points. With the existance of fleet support modules, it now becomes very useful to be picky about what ship goes into any given fleet. Since its possible to get a surplus of ships while a shortage of another, it would be handy for a rally point leave some logistics space in existing fleets (for the ships on short supply), while creating new fleets for these surplus ships (a player can fix the problems later). It would also be handy if a fleet template could be updated so it could reconize the upgraded version of certain ships as a valid substitute for another when assembling fleets.

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Auto fleets-The just how AI can build ships it could take any ships at a rally point and form a fleet.
Auto rally point-We could also have the AI create rally points and you can select what ships follow it.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

#2 is pretty much doable now, if you use rally points creatively.

Make a rally point near the system, and send all production from that system to that point. Then, from the governors screen, you can choose to have all planets with rally point x to build the same ship. If you put the rally point within a single turn of the system, you can almost immediately redirect the new ships - or just do it manually from the beginning. Name the rally point something descriptive, as you will likely have too many to keep track of otherwise.

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I'd like to see the pathfinder automatically make use of the "choose the direction of planet launch" feature to move ships faster through friendly space. Players can already do this via micromanagement, moving two entire tiles for free if they path through a friendly world. With multiple planets in short range of each other, you can turn a cluster of worlds into a fortress defended with only a few fleets at once. It adds a neat territory control element where you can cover a wider area with less ships.

To be honest, though, that's more work than it's worth. It'd be simpler to just make the 1 tile area around a planet you own a "free movement" zone, and any move made within it to another part of it doesn't use movement points. That'd be much easier for the pathfinder to handle (I'm assuming it's A*, so that just means making the movement cost in those areas almost zero), and it'd make it automatic for the AIs to take advantage of that same trick that human players can.

Aside from that, I'd like to see at least one AI (I recommend the Torians or Drengin) be able to cluster their attack fleets and transports into a larger task force spread over a small area, and then aggressively respond to any counter attack with the entire fleet. As it is, they tend to not follow up an attack on a superior fleet even though it might break the back of that fleet, and they spread their attacks across your empire. If the AI was capable of organizing a series of fleets into a battlegroup that isn't spread further than a parsec or two from each other, they'd be able to better protect transports and smash down powerful defenses. Concentration of force!

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Self-document! GalCiv 2 leaves stuff out or flat out lies to you on a great deal of game mechanics, i.e. Super Dominator ability description makes no mention of free ships for declaring war.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

Starstriker1 - I seem to remember Cari calling that an bug - one that benefits the player, but would be nearly impossible to fix. It wasn't even addressed because you HAVE to micromanage it to make it work, so if you cared enough to use it, you deserved the bonus.

Mainly, I use it during the colony rush. Getting a few free points can really matters that early in the game, when ships are really slow and getting there one turn ahead of someone else is really important.

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One of the things that I would like to see is an improvement in the diplomacy screen: an option to offer something for trade and ask the other party, "What will you give me for this?"

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Starstriker1 - I seem to remember Cari calling that an bug - one that benefits the player, but would be nearly impossible to fix. It wasn't even addressed because you HAVE to micromanage it to make it work, so if you cared enough to use it, you deserved the bonus.Mainly, I use it during the colony rush. Getting a few free points can really matters that early in the game, when ships are really slow and getting there one turn ahead of someone else is really important.

Sure it could be easily fixed. Every time you launch or land on a planet, the ship uses a move point.

However, why? It might be an entirely unintentional mechanic, but that's not a bad thing. I'd point out that "skiing" in the Tribes games was initially a bug, but is now a core game mechanic. It simply added so much to the game that it was kept. It went from mashing the jump button in Tribes 1 to just being able to hold it down and get the same results in Tribes 2 to make the use of it more intuitive, and it was also toned down some for balance considerations (much to the consternation of some of the hardcore T1 players) but it was for most intents and purposes legitimized and developed into the sequel.

I'd argue that using friendly planets as "slingshots" is a fun mechanic that, while current unintended, would be a nice thing to develop as an actual feature of the game. It gives you a home territory advantage and makes the interstellar terrain much more meaningful. Also, if you legitimize it with the pathfinder (or by making movement immediately around the planet free, as I described) it ceases to be a player only exploit and instead puts the player and AI on equal footing.

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Don't you think it's a bit too early fort that ?
I mean talking about game which development will start 2-3 years from now ?

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more AI updates

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GoodGame #4 Mass upgrade of ships from the Shipyard screen.

Isn't that there, already?

WIllythemailboy It's been mentioned many times previously, but I'd love to see an "upgrade all ships of this type in this fleet" button.

Yes, now this I'd get in line to buy.

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DivineWrath wrote:

3. Ship control groups. To be used in the governers screen. I would like to be able assign a bunch of ships to a control group, lets call them "Attack Force" 1, 2 & 3. They function the same as any other ship, except they stand out in the governers screen. Once I'm done fighting the Drengins (peace treaty or total extermination), I can order them to regroup near Yor territory without having to find every ship or transport lying around.

4. Fleet templates. For use by rally points. With the existance of fleet support modules, it now becomes very useful to be picky about what ship goes into any given fleet. Since its possible to get a surplus of ships while a shortage of another, it would be handy for a rally point leave some logistics space in existing fleets (for the ships on short supply), while creating new fleets for these surplus ships (a player can fix the problems later). It would also be handy if a fleet template could be updated so it could reconize the upgraded version of certain ships as a valid substitute for another when assembling fleets.

Both those sound great. By #3 you basically mean a "fleet" that is not a true fleet, for when you want ships stacked together to move together even though they aren't fleets?

Fleet templates sounds perfect for when you want each of your fleets to have like 1xwarp bubble, 1xadvanced module carrier (Amplifier, Fleet Defense, etc..), and then multiple combatants. But currently you have to have micromanage the fleets even if you have a bunch rallying at the same point. The same thing might be accomplised by a starport queue as well though. Just have have one iteration of the queue = 1 fleet and give that planet its own fleet rally point.

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One of the things that I would like to see is an improvement in the diplomacy screen: an option to offer something for trade and ask the other party, "What will you give me for this?"

Basically that is there now. It's pretty much a style difference between Civ4 and GC2, but as is I like GC2 better since it kind of captures the art of the deal as you try to fish for what the other side ones. I've discovered with ToA that the negotiations are a little bit different than I remembered from DA. Although hitting the money will make an an auto-offer that makes it green, or be all the money you have, sometimes the auto-offer offers less than you have so, just because it's red doesn't mean you can't offer enough to make the offer a go. I've seen this behavior when trying to sue for peace.

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Don't you think it's a bit too early fort that ?I mean talking about game which development will start 2-3 years from now ?

You're thinking of GalCiv3. We're talking about the planned 2.0 patch for GalCiv2, which has already been budgeted for as a major overhaul of several major gameplay elements, like espionage.

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+112

Both those sound great. By #3 you basically mean a "fleet" that is not a true fleet, for when you want ships stacked together to move together even though they aren't fleets?

Although I have some ideas for a "psuodo fleet" (such as fleets replacing destroyed ships from the psuodo fleet reserve), that was not what I was talking about in #3.

What I was suggesting was a new feature for the governers tab. Currently, I am unable to affect ships baised upon their current location, or whatever role I'm using them for. If I'm using 5 fleets of attack ships, and 2 fleets of transports attack a bunch of Drengin planets behind the front lines. If I felt I suddenly needed the extra firepower at the front lines, I could use this new governer feature to order all 7 fleets to head to a rally point near the front lines without needing to find all 7 fleets and instruct them to move individually.

The same thing might be accomplised by a starport queue as well though. Just have have one iteration of the queue = 1 fleet and give that planet its own fleet rally point.

That could work too for fleet templates, but it would most likely take longer to build since its limited to the building capacity of a single planet instead of maybe a whole sector.

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