That's a cool idea.

PS. You can name ships if you click on the page icon next to their origional name on the botton of the screen like (Firehawk 2234). Then you just type the name in.

3D maps would be a very poor choice. Aside from strict realism not being a virtue in and of itself, it's a feature that complicates and confuses game information and manipulation for no real gain. The current map already doesn't have accurate approximations of distance, where it can take longer to cross a solar system than to go between them, so it's already pretty easy to see the 2D map as an abstraction of movement costs created by gravity wells. It's pretty easy to extend that to the idea that the 2D representation is an abstraction of a 3D one as well.

Besides, spiral galaxies like our own ARE relatively flat anyhow.

Also, you can already name ships and fleets in the same fashion as planets and starbases. When you select them, the information window has a tiny button on the top that lets you rename them.

I say go 3d, or use hexagons. Would eliminate the diagonal distance advantages. Alot harder to do then simple squares though

Sorry, ignore my previous post as I accidentally hit enter and was going to edit it but now I can't, and if a mod could delete it that would be nice.

DISCLAIMER: I've only played GCII, without any expansions at a friends house a few years ago (more than once) so sorry if any of these suggestions are already in the game.


I think GCIII should adopt the engine used for SOASE, maybe expand on the graphics where needed (explosions for example), but allow the optional "classic ui/graphics" so people don't get disappointed because their favorite game of old looks different. A 3D map like in EVE Online would be great but with the ability to switch to 3D...

The five other really big things I want in GCIII is, and am looking for in any spaced based rts, but more specifically the GC series:

The ability to take over a battle and control it in real time, imagine how much more you would sell Stardock, if any higher ups are reading this, if you gave players the ability to micromanage battles and use their own tactics, and maybe have aliens use their own manuevering tactics, maybe totally far out bizarre battle movements that make the races seem utterly alien that the player has to adapt to, this would really sell GCIII to the people like me who are casual fans of turn based games but really love RTSes but want deep strategy at the same time.

I also think major figures would be a good addition, like maybe a king, or a president or a warlord or an oligarchy of politicians, all could be named and have personalities, scandals (drug addictions, alien scandals) and traits. And then lesser figures like famous generals who earn their way to rank from battles, or maybe get statuses handed to them because of a royal connection. The player could attempt to create propaganda, with the possibility of the truth getting around and other factors that impact the leader's popularity.

I would also like ground battles and planets to be fleshed out both in graphics and options, such as micromanagement over armies, let's say you want to take over the food production plant, you could go into a real time mode and siege the facility for example and then the populations nearby would suffer, or what if you could call in fighters and possibly other ships from orbit? I think you should also be able to see a graphical representation of different cities and their inhabitants, like possibly being able to see parades at a terran diplomacy meeting, or a brutal drengin display of power and cruelty to foreigners and the ability to change the architectural style.

Back in the bigger scale of things, there should be different disasters to make a race more flawed and more believable, like maybe overpopulation issues (Mote In God's Eye anyone? ), famine, plague, ect and a united race, dividing into factions, maybe even on a sub planetary level.

Lastly to increase immersivenes players could follow a named ship with named characters through its exploits with fellow members of their race or first contacts with aliens, even with events occuring between crewmen, mutiny ect and these being logged in a journal players can upload to share sort of a space drama with other people, or maybe a charter of rulers where the major events get logged in and the ability for the player to create stories about them and other things.

For those of you who can't be arsed to read all of that I think the biggest things for me would be:
1. SoaSE graphics engine but the ability for a "classic" ui or engine.
2. Real time battles.
3. Planetary interaction fleshed out.
4. Named figures in the empire.
5. More immersiveness.
6. Adding the best features of SoaSE to help create a game that caters to a wider audience.

Sorry if I ranted too much...

It is a fun game. Just take note that it is more RTS than 4X. That seems to be a turnoff to some TBS 4X players, but it is still a great game .

I like SoaSE, but I'm not sure that making a galciv game more like SoaSE is necessarily a good step. After all, the target audiences (and the base game designs) are removed from each other by a fair margin. The same thing goes for tactical combat of any sort... it's awesome as an idea by itself, but it wouldn't work well with a turn based, large scale strategy game... it just isn't what the game is about. Besides, can you imagine managing a hundred battles a turn?

I say, keep the square grid (or go to hexes, that's not a bad idea) and simply elaborate on the interstellar "terrain" more. I'm thinking specifically that asteroid belts, nebula, and other such wide scale terrain features could have additional movement costs associated with them (ie, it would take 2 move to traverse a nebula square) and be generated into the maps more, resulting in choke points and barriers to movement.

I've got some ideas about sprucing up combat, but they aren't quite ready for prime time yet... I prototyped my ideas in a quick and dirty C++ program, but the interface for setting up battles, ships, and equipment types is "modify the source code and recompile". That's hardly user friendly, so I'll probably just make a post about it when it's semi-presentable.

One thing that could be done about micromanaging becoming tedius is to have the option of turning control over to an admrail, and this could bring in the ideas stated previusly about having more charecters.

One other important thing is to have more random events, but for most the choices arn't divided along the "good", "evil", and "neutral" lines.

I would also like to underline what I stated before about planning wars with your allies. One way you could do it is to include a "War Room" option at the bottom of the screen. This brings you to a screen where you will have admrails giving intelligence reports and advice, as well as talking with your allies (the talking part is hard, but it could give you options like oyu click on "attack". It will then ask when and where and your allies will either exept or decline.

1. 3D map the more realistic the better.

2. Explored area should depend on telescope/radar technology the more you advance the further and more detailed you can see. Ship exploration should be only as extra.

3. Planet development should have much more depth. Build many mega cities with specific role like science, food production, industry, tourism, etc. You can always zoom in your planet and choose where to build a special building or check an incident.
In the later stages of game where you have to many planets you can select from pre-defined scenarios default or custom eg. a planet dedicated for science with a x number of energy, industry, food, community facilities. Like you get experience from the early stages of the games now you dont need to customize each planet one by one but the only you have to do select what fits better.

4. Terraforming should be much more realistic something you can see and something completely different on every planet like random fauna depended on the current terraforming stage. Not every planet can be terraformed to paradise. For example volcanic or ocean planets.

5. Planet terrain should have more variety for example a 100% volcanic planet cannot be colonized while one at 90% gives too little space for development and dangerous can be colonized only when you have researched the required technology and advance it to create stronger buildings to withstand the heat and quakes.

6. Research should be coordinated to more than one field give 10% there 40% there and 50% there. So you can research more than one technology at once

7. War should be part of the game not the rule.

8. More colonization, development or war and fights? This can be customized when you start a new game.

Those were my first thoughts the more depth and show a game has the better it is as long it keeps the balance between dumb and complex.

Since I can't edit anymore;

Fleet battles and invasions are also superior in IGII.

As far as I recall there are games that have a system that allows a player to fight a certain amount of battles but possibly not all if there are too much. So you would have to choose which battles get your full attention and in which you have to rely on the AI. It could also be dependent on technology how many battles you are able to fight yourself, from none in the beginning to 1, 2, 3 etc. with advancing tech. Or it depends on the number of admirals you possess, so you can fight every battle where one of those special admirals is present.

I agree with Mumble on the TBS vs. RTS issue. I have SoaSE, and it is a great game, but GC3 needs to remain a TBS, not become SoaSE 2. I have enjoyed the few hybrid games out there because they were unique: Total War series and Star Wars: Rebellion. SW:R was the ultimate hybrid in that it was a true 4x RTS, unlike SoaSE. You could control the speed of time and make changes, issue orders, etc. while paused and then you cranked it up to superfast due to the epic time scale to build things or move and waited for the messages to come in that something needed attention.

I also agree with Mumble that a true 3D map would not be helpfull.

One thing that might be a nice compromise on the tactical combat in both space and ground would be a menu of tactical orders similar to how Star Trek: BoTF worked. You could issue orders before combat to direct your forces to use certain tactics and then it gets simulated. Each side would chose and a matrix of results would pit how well each tactic works against eachother. This would add a level of control without bogging a large game down with 'forced' control over all critical battles. Along with this you could have governors that would allow you to set standard tactics against certain enemies, etc. with the ability to override the default at the beginning of each battle.

I also like the idea of personalities and admirals, and space terrain with different movement rates. Maybe even permanent wormholes that you could use for fleets, instead of just the disappearing anomaly that only your 1 survey ship gets to use.

I personally would be content to give up a 3d map and multiplayer in order to include more of these things.

I also have two minor things that could be imporved.

1. You should be able to play senarios not only as the Terrans.

2. You should be able to play as the Dread Lords in those senarios.

To give annother game example: Empire at War gives you the option of commanding a battle in realtime, or just auto resolving. Also one thing that could be done is starting with the origional map of a planet that you see in GCII, but you can then go to a new window that has a map looking more like Civilization III and in each area where you built a "factory" there are several factories scattered around the landscape. then you could command ground armies for prolonged periods of time.