I wrote about this a long time ago: https://www.galciv2.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=164&AID=79448

Realism and games do not go well together usually.

If you want anything remotely real then the map would look more like this:

The dot in there represents earth, you have to click on the thumbnail to see it. 

GalCiv is a game. It is not a simulation.

As a point of actual realism, how can you expect a completely new feature like novas to be added to a game thats so close to it's release date? Even if they could, a realistic event would have to include the effect of the star collapse, leading to possible black dwarf, neutron star or black hole. Any of these present in the game (particularly black holes) would cause serious gameplay changes, not least of which would be the massive no fly area around this new singularity.
Also supernovae have been known to be able to affect nearby stars (something like up to 3300 lightyears i think) so anything this close would also be damaged or destroyed. Theres definately a point where realism needs to stop, novas just cause too much trouble.

It wouldn't be feasible for the planets to be moved out further from a star, you would either have to set planets to be at least 1 grid square further away or redefine the size of the grid squares. Setting planets further away would cause any tight cluster of stars to cover several sectors instead of being able to fit 3 stars in 1 sector with room for starbases and rally points which means that maps would either have to be bigger or the game would just contain less stars and be shorter. Redefining the grid squares is extremely unlikely for very obvious reasons.

Realism and games do not go well together usually.

I can think of loads of games where this isn't true!

Theres Elite 2, umm... fifa, ummm..... pong?.... thats bout it

1) No i don't want realism and i think i've explained it enough. Just a remote sense of it. Read my previous posts and you will see.
2) Any suggestion i have presented was for an expansion. I haven't stated that but i thought it was pretty obvious.

You guys know what? Just forget the whole thing. I don't like being against the whole community. Ok, noone agrees with me. That's fine. Just pretend i wrote a whole bunch of crap (you already think so anyway) and put the subject to rest.

bloody hell!! easy!

Poor guy... I actually liked him too. I completely disagreed, but still...

Better luck next time

Don't worry - once we all get our greedy hands on the game , I'm sure the whole episode will be forgotten pretty fast.

And now tell me, how could it bother ANYONE to have these things as an OPTION?

if Stardock put in every little option that might please someone, they would have no time to actualy make a cool game. The game would suffer and it would BOTHER ME.

BlizzardGR, with enough work, anything could be made to work. But the point is, does it fit into the game play?

Look, there's already enough game destroying events in the game. There are eco-terrorist that go around, and destroy planets. This is the same thing as your "nova" event. The only way to stop it is to waste the terrorist. Complete pain in the rump. Spoils the game/fun. Why? Because GalCiv is a strategy game, and too much randomness that changes the power balance destroy the fun of the game.

I've found in the gamma, I can almost guarantee a win just by taking the "Lucky" trait. Why? Because it protects me from "Nova" type events (no bad things ever happen to me), and shifts all those bad events to the AI. Whoopsie. What's the point of playing a thinking game where, at the start of every turn, you roll percentile dice, and if the result is "42", you are declared the winner? That's not strategy. That's the main point against these really big events.

In a game where you may play 20,000 turns, carefully building an empire, pursueing a grand strategy while conducting multiple campaigns of conquest, diplomacy, and cultural intergration, having a random event that completely destroys the game isn't fun. That's why people are so busy tinkling on your backside about this. They don't want the fun killed in their game.

Realistically, if any star on the game map went Nova, that would render all worlds unlivable. No worlds, no more game. You'd need to do that silly think in MoO2 and Birth of Feds, and "fix" the star, or it would be a complete game over. So no migration... just researching like made for a special tech. Not much fun in that is there?

Now, what might be fun is a campaign to prevent a major star from going supernova. You know, a linked set of maps were you are battling the local aliens and trying to find some ancient cursor artifacts or library nodes so that your scientist on the homeworld can ultimately cobble together an Ancient star-rejuvenator and prevent the supernova event for another 50,000 years or so. Would that be epic enough for you? It would for me.

Look Star Pilot, i wasn't planning to post anything else but i want to make a few things clear. I see your point and i agree.
I really DON'T want realism as well. I was suggesting that novas would be a very rare event. By that i meant that in a game there will be a slight possibility that a star would go nova (only 1 star) and in this way in most games there wouldn't be such an event. BUT, not all stars would go nova. ONLY red stars. Players would be aware of the risk and wouldn't invest too much on these planets( plus there would be a warning) . If one star eventully goes nova, it wouldn't affect other stars or planets.

I don't think that is realistic is it? It's just an additional challege. In the 10-15 games you will play, there could be a super nova in one or two of them, or even none at all. Please read my posts more carefully to understand what i'm talking about. It tires me to repeat myself

Enough said. That's just my opinion and i respect it if you guys don't agree.

Oh, and what is that eco-terrorist stuff you are talking about? Never heard of such thing.

A new random event in GC2. A minor race pops up, and starts destroying worlds. You have to kill them before they kill off your worlds. Whee! It's what they had planeed to include in GC1 but never implemented. It really sucks on maps with low world count, and it's completely ignorable on maps with extreme world count. It's a world destroying event, over and over and over again until someone wastes the buggers. That's really fun and challenging isn't it? It forces you to make a bunch of starbases (so you can get their home world in range), and then invade. Not the slightest bit fun and certainly not challenging in the slightest.

Now that I've seen them at work in a game, I just reload them out of existance whenever the game tosses them in.

And there's another random event for the Fundamentalists. Man that sucks when it happens on small maps. Should be disabled there, I played a small map and max races. The fast and furious was able to get a planet not on their starting system. Most others just had their starter worlds. So this event happens in my game. The Drengin homeworld became the Fundamentalists HQ and they were left with Kona .. to summarize "Game Over" for them.

Now, let me also bring up. If it was your best planet, or your homeworld and you were left with planets below 10... are you still going to be playing ??

Another one happend later... seems some race found a precursor something or other that added 5 pq.. seems like every 0 planet went to 5. WoW. Extra tax and research bases I thought. (it eventually paid off and did give me the edge I needed )

recessions and whatnot, increases in pop growth... those always happen at one time or another. influence too. IMO these events should be rarer. much rarer. Theres a few that really make me mad (thats an understatement ) the one that gives extra movement to everyone (for nothing). I got my ultrawarp drives the hard way. Theres another one for research doubling everyones research rate. Meh.

There should be some 'good' or benign events too... don't you think ? Winning the Lottery ? Finding a precursor ship or cache? (it was in GC1 ) A random resource appears ?? Faux pas (blunder) by your leader has some unforseen benefit (at the expense of your relations ) Theres already one thats a blunder and you're now at war instead of dinner buddies. In my opinion again, make the world changing events rarer and throw in some that aren't 'catastrophes'


Sorry if I ranted. .