I think the single best thing that they could do for the game has already been suggested by frogboy himself:

1) Starbase area of effect includes an area centered on the starbase and 2)Limit the number of starbases bases on logistics points.

Result of change: The game will be more fun because people will have to play more realisticly and no more cheeses like building a kazillion trade starbases or party palaces.

1) How about ability to stop ship building or improvement construction on a given planet, and have the
resources not allocated and wasted on said planet? Perhaps I want to concentrate my building on efficient planets?

2) Ability to build starbase that increase range? build starbase and improvement to extend the range of ships (having the starbase act as a planet for range...)

3) Possible starship upgrade- For capital ships only- fighters! (the upgrade simulates ability of big ship to carry little ships (gives a plus to attack, maybe sensor range)

~SDC~

1) Empire Borders
2) More events! And add a few more really big events. Ones that, of course, are preventable ("Our sources say that revolutionaries in (List a few planets here) are planning a major revolt...")
3) More political parties.
4) More UN decisions
5) When you lose control of the political party, you should gain the benefits of that party.
6) Take over ships.
7) Custom ships ala Moo2.
8) Ability to rename individual planets (Eg Star System Russia with Moscow, St Petersburg, etc etc)
9) Make minor races more important.
10) Allow unlimited benefit points, though put a note that if someone goes over 10 then they cannot submit to metaverse.
11) Add some negative choices ala moo2. For example:

The Humans have the following:
Population Growth: +70% (Don't ask) COST: 5
Military Production: +50% COST: 5
Social Production +50% COST: 5
Repulsive: Unable to conduct diplomacy COST: -5
TOTAL: 5+5+5=15-5=10. Yay!

Of course, continued free minor updates, etc...And if you have an idea for an expansion pack that doesn't add too much, make it free obviously.

For a feature that would make tech whoring a LOT more difficult and (hopefully) interesting, have each race pick two or three areas of strength that they are going to focus on. E.g. The Drengin would focus on +Attack/+Def/+HP, the Altarians on +Diplo/+Influence/+Trade, etc. Weight their research trees toward branches that provide those benefits. Have them value trade according to whether the tech being offered supports their focus (a plus), or the tech being requested supports the other race's apparent focus (a minus, estimated by checking what the other race has available for trade).
Is Conglomerates (+Route, 3200) really worth 8 times as much as 2D Phasing (+Att, +Def, 400)? If I offer you Conglomerates, will you give me 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D phasing in reply? That's a 3200 for 3600 trade, pretty close, but it's +1 route for +40Att/+40Def (plus 2 improvements, a galactic achievement, and a module).
The AI might want to figure out how much effect is being traded, not just how much cost. If it's the Drengin offering Conglomerates to the Altarians in exchange for all the Phasing, I'd think the Altarians might want to consider that the actual benefits are heavily weighted in the Drengins' favor.

i'd like to choose the look of the ships each game (like moo2). simple, but i iz simple.

actually i'd really like to click on a ship and see what number it is (for trading) without the full name cutting off cos it's too long.

This is already the case. Except the ai doesn't know how to use it. If the ai did, then it would be cool.

If you use the GC editor you can change the costs of these and the bonus's it takes a bit of work though, Just open up the English.str file in the GC editor and edit away. make sure you back it up though, as you might find it rather boring.

Two words: Force feedback.

Wouldn't that pretty much brake the sense of "losing control"? Maybe as an option, but not as default.

~SDC~

i az had a cunning plan viz logistics: hows about a penalty on movement based on influence ie if you iz ownin' da space you iz boned up on da maps, but if u iz travellin' in unowned space, or space owned by anuvver race u iz gettin' lost, and turnin' right instead of left etc etc

I agree very much with this point.

I don't like it that I'm forced to build all the time something on all planets which costs maintanace afterwards.

And I would like to build my ships with the most military improvements etc.

Thank you for the great game

Volker

If already mentioned I apologize . . . .

1. Nightmare level, need it, gotta have it! This should be vertually impossible to beat . . . I'm sure there are ways of improving the AI without simply doubling thier bonus to Tech and Production . . . (easily circumvented)

Some suggestions perhaps . . .

a. Always send some combat transports with fleets who are likely to destroy all the ships in a defending orbit (stops vultures like me stealing planets)

b. Allied or otherwise, never let the AI ignore someone building Culture Bombs, Terror Stars in thier Sector . . . its just common sense. If you try it perhaps the AI could treaten to break your Alliance or better still attack you outright. . . ?

c. Give the AIs the ability to build effective Culture bombs or Terror Stars themselves. Clearly this would add alot of drama to the game. I don't know how many times I've seen the AI build a Terror Star, let alone a Terror Star in a useful location (i.e. next to one of my systems).

d. Final note regarding Terror stars . . . The player shouldn't be alowed to build them while thier economy is in debt! This would be a great improvement to eliminate Alpha Terror Star Strikes to conclude a game . . . ?

e. Make bribery "ALOT" more expensive (why the heck would an AI go to war with a trading partner for 800 bc . . . I've never understood that exploit makes no sense . . . 8000 bc . . . thats more like it, I think IMHO)

f. I don't think Evil alignments should be able to trade for or buy Good techs (and vice versa) . . . thats just not right.

g. The one point cheese I think isn't cheese at all, hear me out on this please . . . its just like saying 'Hiya Big Boy, how ya doin!" . . . also its something that only seems to work (and is a good test of) when a new diplomatic Tech has been applied. Which is to say (as far as I can tell from my experience) . . . you can offer one point of influence to an AI until the cows come home but it won't do a darn thing unless your diplomatic/influence rating has improved. Come to think of it! If thier's has (i.e. the AI that is) and yours hasn't I think that offering one influence point should be taken as an insult and your relationship should get worse! I think thats fair enough . . . ?

These suggestions are for Nightmare offcourse . . . if there will ever be such a level of play that is.


c.

Since ship-editing isn't possible per ship (at least, I highly doubt it), I would like to see some global ship cosntruction screen that will allow me to set some policies. So, for example, I would like to say "I want Dreadnaughts to cost 50% more but give them +1 range".

How can it work? Similar to starbases modules. I research technologies that allow me to add "options" to existing ship classes. Each one of those options will modify the ship - most giving specific bonuses for extra maintence or construction cost. The player can go to a "fleet design" screen, select a design, see all the "modules" and implant them as he sees fit. It's probably something that is going to cost some initial money, too.

That's how, at least, I can see Stardock allowing us some ship design in the existing game design.

Beyond that, while I know this isn't the proper place to approach Brad - Brad, I admire you're work on the game. If you need anything, really, I'm more then happy to lend my services. I did some design work for Master of Orion III and a few other computer games and role-playing systems. I'm more then happy to do any number-crunching or assist you guys in any way you need. Really. I love GalCiv and I want to help.

Now that's an idea. Ship design could be done in space rather than in the docks: You would assemble constructors to build a ship instead of building a starbase. Modules would give +defense as they currently do, and also provide +attack/+speed. Of course, you would have to declare that the starbase is of ship-class, or influence-class or whatever. It would basically allow to develop a specific ship into a super ship, and only this kind of starbase could be converted into terror stars.

LOL Hadn't thought of that, but I'm sure they have at least quadruple redundancy back-ups.
This does give me a brilliant idea (well it's brilliant if no one else has mentioned it): Virus Creation as an evil tech

No, that will be a drastic change to the game's design. Ship construction should remain on planets since the game design is so centered around the social/military/research concept. There is no way Stardock should even contemplate changing it. This is a good, streamlined, effiecent design. No, ship construction should remain as it.

You must remember GalCiv entire design is not centered around specifics but global decisions. Starbases are only one exception, but we shouldn't take it too far. So, any ship design option that should be included can't be specific (ala starbases), but global - (ie, global decisions). If Stardock has any intentions of including SOME sort of ship design (which would be cool, granted), then they can only do so via some sort of global screen they can add. If they do so, ONE of the ways for such a screen to work is the ability to implemenet "design programs" that you research by investing money and giving ships specific advantages/disadvantages (like 'long range fuel cells' for scouts that will make scouts cost +1 maintaince and cost +50% more but increase their range with +1).

However, I would like to see, if possible a few more types of ships - maybe ships that can take over some of the advantages starbases have. Like support ships that boost repair speeds in sectors or give extra defense, capitol ships that also give culture benefits, etc. Naturally they will have to have a high maintaince cost to balance them. If I am not mistaken, starbases are treated by the code very much like a ship, so it should be possible in theory to assign the same bonus a starbase has to a ship - like a support ship with +5% repair rate in the sector they can be found, or something. After all, starbases can also move (terror stars), so they are not really different from ships.
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I like the idea of Capital ships having a cultural influence, it should perhaps effect morale as well.

Kinda like how Britain and America used to send there Battleships around the world as a sign of prestige, would add another depth to the game and make the loss of a capital ship more than just a unit.

This might be a useful ingredient in the FlagShip unit which was discussed during the beta's.

I disagree. You have rush plenty of specific decisions.
You have rush-buying options and propaganda available in planets screens.
You can customize every ship by renaming them, and training them (getting them experience). Additionnally, survey ships, starhawks and rangers boost themselves.

What I propose can probably be done without adding lots of user interface, whereas your proposal can't. Since this is the limit set by Brad for implementing stuff in the XPack, I think individual ship customization could be in.

I agree that the best thing that could be done with ships is a new class of ships and the ai to manage it, like bombers for example, or dedicated starbase annihilators. Or include by default a ship design of (def = huge, range = -42, speed = -42) and call it "turtle". This would teach the ai's to defend their planets.
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Sorry if this has been covered already. I haven't read all the threads on new feature requests.

As a player who likes to play Gigantic maps, I'd like to of course see more races. There is talk of 2 more, so that's great. (More would be better). Also, I'd like to see the ability to add more than 5 races to a game. It may not make sense in small games but I think it would be cool in Gigantic maps.

It should also be possible to add more than one version of the same race. Create splinter groups withing a race. Just because people are of the same race doesn't mean they agree or have the same leader.

I'd like to try a Gigantic map with 16 races competing or something like that! I mean you can re-use the AI for the splinter groups of the same races, we just need the abililty to add a race more than once to the game, and the ability to support more than 5 races.

Something that really, really, really needs to be added is something similar to the obsolete military units feature, but for buildings. Buildings on this list no long show up on your build order, just like with the military one, but also, any planet with a building on the list immediatly destroys that building. I spend over half my game destroying worthless stuff that the AI builds on its planets, and its making the game not fun.

I'd like another difficulty level inbetween crippling and maso. Licking the boot soles of the AI the entire game isn't a whole lot of fun. Winning the tiny map maso game is not too difficult but so far I find winning the gigantic map size impossible at maso level (with all races at incredible).

Keep up the excellent work. I'm looking forward to the pay expansion if it goes forward, as well as GC2.

I would like to see an additional Bonus Ability at startup: Alignment shift! Spend one pick to gain or lose 10 alignment points (minor shift toward good or evil), spend three picks for a 20 point shift, and spend five picks for a 30 point shift. Players could then START as either good or evil right out of the box... for a price.

I would also like to see improvements to the scoring system, as outlined in my thread, "Weakness in the Scoring System".

Finally, I would like to see an option to randomize game elements at startup: randomize your political party, bonus picks, galaxy parameters, opponent settings... Variety is not only the spice of life, but often the measure of mastery, too. Can I come up with a way to win from a hodgepodge of bonuses and strategic elements chosen for me at random? That might extend the life of the game for me.


- Sirian