I just downloaded GC2 from the website last week, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit, but one thing I'm really noticing the lack of is transparency.  I mean this in two senses:

First, the effects of various things, like improvements and skills, are often unclear.  For example, I know that creativity gives me some chance of instantly researching a technology, but I have no idea what it means to have a creativity of 20, other than that it presumably gives me a better chance than having 19 and a worse chance than having 21.  I'm still not exactly sure how the Crystals trade good that creates happiness works (whether it's one world or all worlds), and I don't know if happiness, approval, and loyalty are all the same thing or not.  The manual isn't very helpful, and the in-game descriptions given for everything are very sparse, and they don't stick to using the same words to describe like effects.  What I'd like to see in a future sequel is an attempt to show the player the inner workings of the game - give me numbers, and don't only provide qualitative descriptions of effects.  I want to know exactly what's going to happen in game when I make a change.

Second, the franchise would really benefit from having something like a Civilopedia.  It's incredibly frustrating to be unable to see what the ship components that a given technology unlocks actually do before I research the technology and open the shipyard.  TA is better about this - I've noticed that I can get short readouts of what improvements do from the tech screen, but even that's of limited utility.  When I'm in diplomacy, I want to be able to look at a tech tree, and I want to be able to see how many beakers it takes to research the various technologies that I can trade for.  In general, I want to be able to seamlessly move from looking at improvements to looking at technologies to looking at ship components.

Basically, I'd like to be given more information and I'd like to have an easy way of referencing that information.

We're actually quite fortunate, usually when someone copy/pastes out of word it breaks the page in IE. This time I just had to read around the formating crap.

I know it's not what you're looking for, but ask around the forum (or use google, the forum's own search function doesn't work). Much of this Stardock hasn't released at all, to prevent (or at least minimize) the number crunching stuff people will do if this is freely available. For some, digging into the mechanics is part of the fun (and frustration).

Creativity - I don't believe it's a straight % chance; that is, if you were to somehow get 100% you would not automatically get the tech you were researching every turn. My guess is your actual chance is something like (creative %)/5, as even with 20% creativity I only seem to get a tech once or twice a game-year.

Trade goods are always civ-wide. Other one-per-civ and one-per-galaxy structures can vary whether they are planet-only and civ-wide.

Happiness and morale are pretty much synonymous. Loyalty appears to be a modifier in the calculation on the chance of a threatened planet flipping. Most likely this is in the form (chance to flip)/(1 + % loyalty), but this is nearly impossible to confirm.

There is a bunch of cool stuff with weapons they could add in there. Say, fighters can only carry basic 'fire in one direction' type weapons. But larger hulled ships could carry a wider variety of weapon types. Such as Flak type frigates to help defend against smaller fighters. I think Tiny and Small hulled ships should get, say, a 25% bonus to attack against huge bulking ships, since there incredibly small size and 'zippy' speed make them difficult targets. Or, large ships get a penalty to their attack against small and tiny hulled ships.

Things like this would make different ships more of a priority and would bring in more of a Fleet Element of needing to use different ships for different situations.

Certain weapons, only being able to be carried on medium size hulled ships (perhaps large) would be most effective vs. fighters, being that med-sized ships still needs to be somewhat maneurable to be able to target the little buggers.

Large and Huge hulled ships can carry very large weapons (that would require more energy) that are more adapt at taking down starbases and other very large targets/ships.

Corvettes for instance, would be medium sized ships, made for the sole purpose of anti-fighter, with turrents able to swivel in almost all directions and advanced tracking systems.

This somewhat has been defined by most sci-fi as how space tactical combat is. I doubt they will implement the fact that a ship must be facing it's target to fire that way (since a Simulation would be required to do all that, and that is not what GalCiv is), but depending on the hull size and weapon type (what that weapon is BEST at doing, with penalties and bonues going along with it), that ship would become much more effective than other ships, depending on the target.

Before building all Avatars to take on the enemy, you may be better off with 1 Avatar, 2 Covettes, and a Fighter Squadron instead. Would add an interesting amount of tactical depth.

Wow, 5 and 6 year olds playing the game as majority? I am in my mid/late 20's, but I think the majority of modders and ones who put a lot of work / strategy mongers are at least 17 and up (I say this because when I was in high school, games at that time, were at the bottom of my list, even though I have always been a game-crazed maniac my whole life).

Oh, and in the neither here nor there range, I have another pet peeve I'd like to see eliminated from GC-III (Or, for that matter, GC-II, but I presume that ship done sailed - wish I had posted this before 2.0, ah well)

Change the way the starbase building limit is setup. After playing awhile, I have to confess, the 'set 16 starbases with speed assist on a set of ships' is just a horrid way to abuse the four starbases per sector rule, and setting up sixteen starbases to exert influence on that five planet economic powerhouse of a system (I've actually managed to get as many as nine planets boosted by the same bases before. It's awesome, er, a nasty way of abusing the system that no real player would succumb to. <--- That second one, there, of course. - {G}.

This should be changed to a simple "No two starbases can exist within each others Area of Influence" Rule (For everything but mines anyway, which don't provide bonuses.). Given that the AOI is still the same for all starbases, this still allows four three (Sorry, Evidently I forgot how to do geometry at some point) bases to assist a planet, but it doesn't allow the level of abuse the arbitrary 'x number per sector' system does.

If you wanted to make it less arbitrary, you could set it up as "Two starbases within each other's AOI cannot contain redundant modules" (edit: or even just not stack the effect of redundant modules in a given AOI) - that way you *could* crowd starbases together if you had a genuine tactical need, but there would be a limit to the abusability, although I think the first would be the clean and obvious implementation, although the second in turn would automatically account for mining bases and strategic reasons to 'crowd' starbases of different types. The third would not allow any stacking of modules of course, which I'm not sure I favor.

Jonnan

1. Races that get conquered should have the ability to rebel against their new overlords. It's not like every single last Iconian gets killed and instantaneously replaced by a Drengin when the Drengin capture a planet. If anything they should get eradicated over time. To monitor this there should be another civ manager screen linked to the planet manager. It would show the percentage of sentient species currently residing on that planet in the form of a pie graph or bar graph. So that you will have to take a Total War perspective on the situation. If the majority of residents on a planet happens to be the Iconians (and you're Altarian) you will want them to see that they can't get away with taking their planet back for their own race. To keep them "subdued" you can keep a small military force in orbit to maintain any further rebellion (Neutral-type choice). Or you can eradicate the "captives" over a period of time (sorta like the Nazis, take an evil approach). Or lull them into a sense of peace and security through the use of orbital sound modifiers (research of a tech would be required to build these as a social project), which would subliminally "encourage" the Iconians to accept their defeat (good-type choice). Or you could simply deport all of them (another Neutral-ish approach), although this would probablly make you suffer an economic hit on the planet, but it would improve Altarian morale. There should also be a bar graph showing the relitive morale of Altarians, Iconians, and whatever other kind of aliens reside on said planet, in compared to eachother.
2. There should be smaller per-planet events on a more regular basis. Such as Power Outages. This would of course require you to build power plants on your planets to power your research labs, factories, etc. The frequency of these Power Outages would depend on: certain techs, how many power plants you have, how advanced those power plants are, spacial surroundings (such as black holes, or purple suns, sortof the way orbiting moons boost production on a planet), the number of spies on this planet, the number of spies placed specifficaly on power plants, etc. This event would have a negative effect on your planet. It would probablly reduce all production on that planet to zero (that means Military/Social/Research production). Meaning that the planet would not generate anything that turn, except an income that is split in half due to bad morale, governmental compensation package on that planet, etc. There can also be positive ones, such as the discovery of a new Trimaldyhyde deposit which will be mined over a ten week period. This event would increase the income from that planet by 57% or something like that. And since these are Minor events, more than one of them can happen on one planet. However there should be a limit to how many can happen at one time (like 3). It would make the game a whole lot more realistic.
3. The subject of planetary bombardment. Stardock said it wouldn't, but if they put limitations on it, the way they did to the terror stars, I think that they may acctually put it in there. It would of course be tech dependent (like Tidal Disruptors, or Mass Driver Strike for planetary invasion). You would only be allowed to have one vessel which can acctually hold a planetary bombardment module at the begining. But through research, you would be able to have a maximum of three or five ships. They would also be unable to defend themselves from enemy fire (through both the use of defenses and weapons), it would only be allowed to carry that one module. It would also have limeted per-turn movement (like the terror star), something like a maximum of 7 parsecs (instead of just one like for the terror star). And once it gets into orbit around a planet (providing that all enemy ships are destroyed) you will only be allowed to attack one social project per turn until all are destroyed. This would also severely weaken planetary defenses leaving a big hole open for a transport to come and fill. And maybe the only ship capable of holding that module would have to be a medium sized ship, anything larger would be a waste. It would make ship battle tactics a bit more interesting (sortof like a CTF sort of thing, where you have to get your flag into the enemy base in order to win).
4. Commenting on Jonnan's post, about everyone starting out as Minors, having their tech trees be influenced by culture rather than god-like might. Minors should be able to become majors through the researching of specific techs. It would be really interesting to get your ass kicked by the Snathi Horde, instead of the other way around. The effectivness of everything you build should be based around certain techs. Like the effectiveness of research buildings. I know what you're all probablly thinking: "But don't my research buildings become more effective just by building better ones/upgrading the ones I already have?". Well yes there is that. But let's say that you are unable to research anything past Research Academies, what do you do if you want more research? Well the answer is simple, there will be (after a certain tech is researched) a new branch to the tech tree. It will be something maybe called Internal Power Generators. It would boost the research production of all research buildings by 7 Million Research Points. Now let's say that those research academies had an output of 30 Million Research Points. So after you research that tech, each one of your research academies will be generating 37 Million Research Points. This tech would also make all of your research buildings immune to the Power Outages "Minor" event mentioned earlier. The only production building that will still suffer will be factories (there are also other buildings that will suffer as well, such as Entertainment Centers and stuff like that). To make your factories keep running, you would have to research Backup Power Cells. These would however also run out, so in reality your military and social production will only be cut by 50% after you research this tech and a power outage occurs. This would also make the game much more realistic.
5. Also in this article, Tech Stealing. Unique techs such as the "Shrine of the Mithrilar" or whatever it's called should be able to be stolen. So let's say that you invade a planet that has that building, due to certain good/neutral/evil choices (such as interogating the citizens, evil choice) you will be able to build that building as well. The effectiveness of the building you manage to build will also depend on those choices (let's say for example Thought Ripping, which will corrupt those thoughts).
6. On the subject of GOOD/NEUTRAL/EVIL choices, there should be more of them. HELL of alot more of them. They would affect the effectiveness of your buildings for example or even wether or not you will have to re-research a tech due to a bad decision. There should also be semi-good/semi-bad decision choices. For example: The Hermit Scientist: If you choose the good choice, you will get a +2% PQ bonus for being merciful and letting an old scientist continue his ways of solitude he tipped you in on how to increase soil strenghth in prairie/marshlands. If you choose the semi-good choice, you will get +4% knowledge of the tech tree thanks to your skillful bluffing. If you choose the neutral choice, you will get a +10% knowledge of the tech tree and +4% PQ bonus for threatening to rat him out to the scientific community, however he commited suicide before you could extract any more useful information. If you chose the semi-evil choice, you would get a +32% knowledge of the tech tree bonus, but for fear of killing him, you decided to stop torturing him, in which case he told all of the scientific community of the tortures you put him through and it managed to leak out to another empire resulting in a -2% negotiations penalty on the diplomatic screen. If you chose the evil choice, you would get a +50% knowledge of the tech tree due to your skillful ways of torture, however he died because of a brain hemorhage when your torturers flushed too much electricity through his brain (no PQ bonus for you, and a -3% negotiations penalty in the diplomatic screen). And so on.
7. Also based on culture, there should be penalties that apply to certain types of production. Example: it is well known that Drengins are not good researchers, so their labs should in turn be penalized for this. Unlike the Altarians who are good reaserchers, they get a bonus to research production. However since the drengin are militaristic, they get a bonus to ship production, but a penalty to social production. And because the Altarians are more pacifist, they get a bonus to social, and a penalty to military production. And so on and so forth in this manner. The evilness or goodness of a civilization based on their choices should also be reflected in the effectivness of their buildings/ships. I hope that everyone catches my drift with this article.
8. I want to control planetary and space battles, sortof like in Star Wars Empire at War, only better. Give a more RTS approach to the battles, and if you don't want to fight them, it will be decided the way it is now in GalCiv2, through probabillity and chance, with dependance on luck and soldiering bonuses, etc.
9. Trade should become an important source of income again. Taxes should be still extremely important, and it will reflect upon the lucritiveness of your trade routes. Once again, the longer the trade route, the more lucrative it is. There should be a larger number of allowable trade routes as well, something more in the 20's or 30's, that would be good for me. The amount of cash you make off a trade route should also depend on trade good's like frictionless clothing, whether or not you allow your empire to exchange that good with the other empire you're trading those clothes to will depend on economic treaties (in which case they would be acctual treaties), these will of course be able to be changed mid-game. Also certain techs should influence your trading ability. Like Persuasive Merchants Training, would get other empires to pay more money for your product. Relations with that empire will also be reflected in trade income. If any of your trade routes come from the planet that is your economic capital, the value of those routes will triple. If you have any trade routes that go to another civs economic capital, the value of those routes will double. So if you have any routes going from your econ capital to another econ capital, the value of those routes will be 7 times more profitable. And so on and so forth.
10. Military starbases (and only military starbases) should be able to attack enemies that come within a certain radius of that starbase (like 9 persecs in diameter). The amount of damage dealt to ship will depend on the number of parsecs that it travled through that radius, the distance between it and the starbase during that time, the amount of attack modules on that starbase, and through the influence of certain techs. If this was around, there would be more of a point to building military starbases. Instead of ships parked in or around your planets, you would just have to build a defensive grid of military starbases. And I disagree with Jonaan, I like starbase spamming. It would really help out this defensive grid strategy. If the radius of two different Military Starbases overlaps, enemy ships going through that area would recieve more twice the damage they normally would. I also agree that starbases should be able to move at least one parsec per turn. But in order for them to use their effects (like influence, attack boost, trade revenue boost, etc.), they would have to spend one turn deploying out of their mobile form, and into their stationary mode, otherwise they are vulnerable (but able to be put in a fleet for defense) and useless. This would also make the game more realistic in my opinion.
11. And lastly, Alliances and UP-like democratic leagues. I believe that there should still be a league like the UP to decide what to do about events that happen throughout the galaxy. The decisions and votes will be controled by the sub-leagues that the other empires have made amongst themselves. If you are only a member of one sub-league all your IP's/Votes will go into that one league. In this sub-league you will vote upon decisions that are made in the central UP-like league, and on a more regular basis, you will vote on events that happen within that sub-league/alliance (like how much money you should send to another civ in that league if they are in debt). You will (unlike in the UP) have the choice of resigning from a league and then being able to rejoin it providing that the rest of the league will decide to re-invite you. You will also be able to start your own league sending out invitations to other civilizations. Also, upon first entering a league, you will have minimal voting power, because the other members may still be suspicious of your motives. Their trust will grow or decrease depending on the things you vote in favour of, your overall relation with other civs inside and outside of the league, and your ethical alignment, and other stuff that may be deemed important. You also are able to request permission to join a certain league (other civs can ask the same of you), the other civs have the option of refusing your request (as do you), in which case you must wait 20 weeks to ask permission again. Leaders of each league (except the central league) will be elected by the other members of the league depending on their credebility (which they will gain over time from being a member for a certain amount of time), so although you may start out being the leader of a league, there is a possibility that you will get voted against, or even out of your own league (if another league member voices to do so, all of this applies to the human player to, in other words you can do the same thing the AI's can). These leagues will be like any other leagues you see nowadays in real life. Only there will be a certain main theme of each league (like a Tyranny of Evil, guess what will be their theme), and there will be alot more cooperation between members than there is in real life. Theses leagues may also be split into parties (like conservative, liberal, democratic, republican, hell even religious, etc.). And other stuff like that.

So..........

That's all the ideas that I can come up with at the present moment.

I have alot more of them, they're just hiding up in my head somewhere right now.

If anyone wants to add to what I've written, feel free to tell me.

Till then........

LET'S RAGE!!!

(If anyone can read through this whole post, please tell me that too)

(Not many people have the patience to read through "shit" like this)

I'll add some smileys in there later to make it easier to read.

(GOD THAT THANG IS LONG!!!!!)
(YES I KNOW I SPELLED "THING" WRONG)

Well where to start.... shit I really should think about this but screw that time to think of stuff on the spot...

1. Carriers ie module that makes you store tiny and small ships in and it should come in different sizes hell make some races get it earlier ie hull size dependent. Like race A gets it early so they can put them on medium hull, but everyone else has to wait for large hulls to make it happen. Also have more different type of module so you could have different types of carriers and logistic ships... think Eve Online or whatever other game can come to mind.

2. Now planetary bombardment... now I have just read a great idea above but I like to add something else too it. Now have any of you played Star Wars Rebellion. Now go with me here, yes you have to research planetary bombardment ie should be in the middle or later part of the soldier tech tree. So then you would have to build a module on your ship to make it attack the planet... now the number of ships that can have it shouldn't matter. But in Star Wars Rebellion you had 3 choices to defend against planetary bombardment... A fleet orbiting the planet. 2 planetary defences(talk more about this later.) or 3 your best defence is a good offence. Now I think the normal planetary size should be uped a bit. Now you can build different types of planetary defences, shields, cannons, missles, macs, etc etc... Now your ships with the PB module can attack the planetary defences if you win you can invade, or soften the planet below with with more bombardments. If you lose you cry over your lost ships and try again.

3. Tactical space combat please... now for ground invasion... i dont care if you keep it the same but real time ground combat too would be cool but is not a must.

4. Trade needs to be way better and important. Yes TRADE SHOULD BE MONEY FLOWING THROUGH THE DOOR! WOOT! The more tech you research for trade should boost the survivablity of trade ships so they dont get shut down as much.

5. Starbases... need to be better hell the best ie largest hull ship need support fleet to take them out so military starbases maybe can attack twice as fast as normal ships (no engines so it should be able to hold its own.). All starbases can dock ships for repair and join fleets. The upgrades for starbases should also boost HPs on the spot as you get new tech ie like base tech one on the spot gives you 50more hps without constructor... now you would still need constructors for higher level weapons and defenses etc... Starbases should start at 100hps... and just move up. Later on constructor can do multiple upgrades ie 1 constructor ship = 2 upgrades, then 3 then finally 4 upgrades to bases. Military bases do most damage and support fleets in its sphere of influence(carrier like upgrades and logistic upgrades). Econ starbases,  generate small amounts of money but is limited by logistics (# of starbases allowed.) Boost productivity etc... ahh influence starbases can have loyalty boost to your own planets. Fine sure all bases move 1 par sec per turn.

6. Now for special tiles and planets... econ bonus tiles (100%-300%). Farm bonus tiles either just 100% bonus or 100% and 200% but make them rare to find. Influence bonuses 100-200% tiles. Also we could get social bonus tiles too.The bigger the planet the bigger the moral boost ie more free space ie tiles. Now for small things. Number of moons orbiting planets... they give different types of bonuses so say like social, military, econ, population and or research bonuses. Same idea applies for planetary rings. Now a passive bonus to system with asteroid belts. Small on so 10% to any of the stated categories. Also special types of asteroids. Some are generally well rounded with resources some are just specific types of bonuses that they give.

7. Expand on the diplomacy system and UP. Also more + and - for relations with new ideas.

8. Minors expand in middle to late colony phase or they just pop up randomly in the game from time to time.

9. More special worlds. Blue star systems or young star systems have volcano planets. Ice worlds. Planetoids. Running out of things but ya get my point.

10. When setting up races more customization options. Naming your sun, other planets. Moons too? Customize what your homeworld and home system look like. Customize a starting journal that you read at the beginning of the game. Did I mention more customization? Tools that help you easily add pics and your own music. More mega abilities ie Hive mind. More Governments to choice from... hell even customize your own. More abilities to choice from. Also choice to be a meatbag or a robot race or something different...

11. Bring back epic generator.

12. 12-20 players please.

13. Really HUGE EPIC OMFG NEVER FINISH THIS MAP SIZE THIS YEAR!

14. Metaverse new mode. Conquer the galaxy where different empires face off in different starting areas and make alliances or just own everything in site. Ya also bring in multiplayer ie in the first GCIII or first expansion if you need more time.

15. MORE TECHS!

16. Nebulas think Star Trek Armada I and II. They are many different kinds with different properties.

17. Player can design their own modules.

18. More mega events.

19. Balance out ethical choices. So each eithic category say good has great, ok and bad penilites.

20. More sliders and options in setting up games and custom races.

Will finish this up... so many ideas.

I would like to see "ship design licenses" as some special kind of trade good. Those would allow to build exactly that design, but would not include the technology or the ships itself. 

Another great idea form me....

Ships should show battle damage during the battles.

Graphics should be helluvalot better.

And anti-missile defenses should look better.

For example: Chaff. Make it look like actual GODDAMNED CHAFF!!!!! Because Chaff and Shields look too much alike.

But this is all (of course) on a more graphical level.

Ships weapons (when they fire) should also look more realistic (or as realistic as possible).

And I like the swiveling turrets idea.

Stardock has said this themselves, they used to be known as the company who made cool games, but those cool games had crappy graphics. GC2 they changed this (and you can tell from the difference between GC2 and GC1). I would say they did a hell of a job, especially since they incorporated the ability that the graphics 'scale' with monitor resolution. Something not seen in many other games at all. This means even down the road, if you have a graphics card capable of 3360x2100, the game should be able to play at that resolution. Not bad for a 'first go'. I'm sure with the experience the Stardock team has gotten from GC2, GC3 will look quite spectacular. Just look at what they did from DL and DA, to ToA. I give Stardock props.