Post your debug.err file in the usual reports thread... someone at SD will suggest a remedy if your PC specs prove a solution is probable.

In the meantime, most of us write UPWARD compatibility recommendations to staff.

I agree that it could be changed to "shipyard". I could mod that, but in my opinion that is more trouble than a little thi9ng like that is worth. Still, good thing to tell the devs.

Having done a little work with real UN procedures (my school has a UN simulation team, if you can believe it!), I can offer a few suggestions as to what to do:

Each race can move to sponsor a resolution. They are can either by written using an in-game editor (it would be pretty basic: just a few check boxes for things like nutral ground and number sliders for things like war tax and starbase module limits) or chosen from a set of them that the game makes depending on situations.

Then, you get to hail each of the races and try to get them to sign the resolutions (you can trade stuff: both the regular diplo screen stuff AND changes to the resolution [those only if you have no races on board] to get them to accept). If you can get X number of races (I'm thinking 50%) onboard, it goes to a vote.

In the vote, the races vote with each race recieving votes based on population. The current influence trading will be scrapped in place of trading the actual IPs that make planets culture-flip. If a resolution gets 50% of the vote, it passes. Each resolution gets voted on individually.

I am invisioning this process actually taking multiple turns. You create resolutions and submit them on turn 1, then three or four turns pass, then you vote. In that time, you get two other diplo items to trade with other races: Vote "Yes" on [resolution that you select from a drop-down menu], and Vote "No" on [resolution that you select from a drop-down menu]. Obviously, if you get a race to agree to either of these, they will vote in that way. If you agree to one, you get to see how the others vote, but you cannot choose which way you vote (becuse it has been predeternmined).

Maybe have the option (both for you, and the AI) to vote against your promise, but take a hefty diplo penalty with all races, and a bigger one with the one you cheated. This also decreases the in-game value of your promise a fair degree.

The only had thing I forsee in this proposal is getting the AI to value resolutions and decide if it likes them or not, and how much. But I'm sure that if it can be done, Brad can do it.

I concede, I wouldn't mind having tactical *options*, some kind of devisable order of battle kind of thing, but I'm not sure I actually want tactical *control* as such.

It's a strategic/political game - I just have difficulty coming up with excuses why the President is ordering individual battles, et al. On the other hand, being able to say "Attack the escorts first" or "Concentrate your fire on that Super Star-Destroyer", well, I can get behind that - {G}.

But if I want actual tactical combat - I have this pretty copy of "Starfleet Command" - {G}

Jonnan

I add another couple of points that I forgot:

14 - Pirates and privateers. Why not make pirates a permanent faction or a minor civilization insted of an event (like barbarians in Civilizations) and have the option to contact them and use them as privateers against the other civs? Of course you have to deal with loyalty problems, some risk of backstabbing, etc.

15 - I don't know how, but there should be some way to deal with a multiracial population in your empire. Would you let aliens settle on your planets and become citizens? What social problems this may carry? Also, if the population incrase is due to both births and people living on the planet that acquire citizenship, why you don't have to deal with all that people living in your colonies without being part of your empire?

That does not give anyone the right to stop posting.

We're going to get this post up to 2000 replies.

So pretty much. you are able to influence everybody's cultural, economical, political, etc. decisions.

I like it!!! Sounds like fun!!!

First line of defense against invension since any Transports are a one shot affair; but, i'd use any of them again as many times as i wish cuz troops *must* conquer (or be defeated by!) planets and shouldn't colonize.

Aka -- Tactical combat.

allllllmost as implemented in TA, the constructors "concept" must be somehow automated or handled differently than it already is.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before. I'd like to see more political and economic instability. Maybe more options for directing the economy. Right now its pretty straightforward. Except for the odd recession, which has nothing to do with how you are running your economy, the economy just keeps growing and growing. And while it is very idealistic, politics is not a straight line toward a utopian future, and I can't see the Drengin and Korath as anything other than despotic autocracies at best.

RT. As long as we already have simulated conditions or results, i really don't see why we can't have any control (complex or simplified, btw) over ANY combat phases or even determine by ourselves which specific AI ship in a fleet must be destroyed first rather than wasting 3+ minutes worth of computerized decisions ***favoring*** their defensive or offensive capacities. Which is precisely what tactical means are rather than press play & watch.

TB. Master of Orion did a pretty good job at it. GC3 has to do much better than X-Wing & Flight simulators, otherwise they might as well hand over planet surface developments to an algoritm too and be done with interactive gameplay.

Another few ideas. 

Why is a space port a "on ground" construction?  Can space ships in that era simply launch and land anywhere they please?  Why not ditch the whole space port/ship yard thingy.  If there are factories, then starships may be built.

Looking at the astronomy picture of the day (for today) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0906/Korona_oreshko1800.jpg I think of vast regions of space which are nigh impassible.  Those "dusty" black nebulae whose "dust" particles may be the size of planets should be like the forests of Age of Empires II which you could not pass easily and maybe, just maybe the Yor Collective is hid somewhere in such a nebula and is feeding on unlimited resources and is growing immensly in technology and power but their race remains completely unknown until the climactic end of the game when they emerge and the player had better be ready!

Perhaps as a special event, a minor race desides to become major.  I also think that the minor races should have votes in the UP.  If a less influencial race can garner their support, they can have their way in the UP.  Unity itself should multiply the combined influence by 1.1, or 1.2 depending on how many races are united (1.#)

Perhaps also once Star Federation has been researched, minor races could join your Federation...or later suceeeeeeed.....(well, that's federalism).  At least it's supposed to be.  They still retain their identity.

Also, I'd like to be able to delegate the ethical decisions and tell my delegate to always go ethical or evil or middle and perhaps save the big decisions for me.

BIGGY!  -- MULTIPLE MONITOR SUPPORT.  Show the map on one screen, other screens show manager screens and so forth.  If you get two cards supporting two monitors each, why not support up to four monitors with which to rule the galaxyahahhahahahahahhahahaahaha...ehm...sorry'bout that.  Was I on?  uh....No I was kidding about cutting of his...oh the mike wasn't on for that?  Well why didn't you tell me?  Now everyone wants to know.  shutting up.

I'd like to turn off the "________________ research complete" announcements.

Why can't I make any ship my flag ship?  What if it is destroyed?  I can't have a flagship then?  If I try and name a ship "The New Americans Flagship" I run out of room in the name.  But my starting flagship's name is that long.

I'm a big Civilization and sci-fi fan, so from the start I thought GalCiv would be the perfect game for me, but I lost interest because the gameplay just didn't grip me like I thought it would; parts of the game were frustrating or simply distractingly nonsensical. Anyway, I thought I'd return to give my suggestions on how GalCiv3 can be made, in my opinion at least, better. Apologies if any of these things were changed in Twilight of the Arnor; I didn't get as far as that expansion. 

1) 1 Year = 1 Turn

Whose idea was it to measure time in weeks? It made no sense at all. The vast changes that occur in your societies and empires over the course of a game, not to mention population growth, can't be reconciled with only a few years passing.

If 1 year is 1 turn then 1 space on the board is (roughly) 1 light year. Ship speeds can then be measured in terms of multiples of the speed of light. Very simple, very neat, very obvious... at least to me.

2) Blind exploration

I know in real life we know exactly where stars (and a lot of planets) are in the galaxy, but exploring the map would be more fun if we had no idea where to look, and in a choice between gameplay and realism I have to go with the former.

3) Slower initial colony/empire growth

I found the 'territory grabbing race' at the start of every game very unsatisifying. Planetary Settlement tech requirements mitigated this somewhat, but I would go much further. Establishing an offworld colony should be a long term investment; it should be a significant period of time before it produces more than it costs you. Rapid expansion would therefore be counter-productive.

I would get rid of all the 'gifted' starting ships and put a much, much lower limit on the number of colonists in a colony ship, perhaps as low as 10,000 to begin with. Population growth would be augmented by migration from your home planet, but still slow. Colonies wouldn't become comparable to a home planet until around mid-game.

So instead of a territory grab, initially colonies would be built only for a specific and immediate need; to acquire resources, gain strategic advantage, or perhaps ease overpopulation/free up space on your homeworld.

4) Rework the economy system

The sliders don't make sense. They just don't. Admit it.

The last reinterpretation I heard was that they were 'population sliders'. But then why does the population level itself have no effect on lab/factory output?

One way to rehabilitate the sliders would be make them separate and refer to funding level. You can fund your labs and factories as much as you want, but over 100% their efficiency starts to drop and each unit of research/production costs more and more credits (this could also replace instant rush buildings). The separation between ship building and colony improving should be made on a planet by planet basis.

5) More in-depth planet management

The planet management is rather simplistic. Your population grows until it meets your food cap, or morale drops below 40%, and then neatly stops. There's no starvation, no discontent, no overpopulation, no pollution. The future shouldn't be an automatic utopia; the way you manage your empire should impact your citizens more. Do you pursue sustainable development or pollute your planets to maximise production? Do you divert more land to living areas as your population grows or encourage emmigration to the colonies? Do you provide food and medical care for all or just rely on the secret police to keep order?

I also think energy itself should be an important factor in both your economy and the management of your planets; we know how sensitive todays economies are to the price of oil, and in the future energy is only going to be more and more important. Ensuring you can provide power to all your labs, factories and starships could add an extra dimension to the game.

6) Increased role for resources

Resources should have a larger role in the game. You should have to mine for rare metals to build ships, collect tritium from gas giants for fusion power, search for isolated pockets of antimatter to create weapons etc. Defending your strategic resources and trading for others would become a huge part of the game.

7) Rework starbases

Apparently there's a starbase cap, but I got tired of building millions of constructors before I ever reached it.

Starbases should be less time-consuming (for the player) to construct and build up, and should have a lower cap which forces you to make some difficult choices about how you use them.

8) Handicap larger empires

The game shouldn't be over when one civilisation has conquered another's territory; the benefits of owning extra planets should be reduced and delayed.

The current planet conquest model seems to assume you have to face the entire population of the enemy planet in one big battle; this hardly seems realistic. With control of space, and the ability to destroy targets from orbit, large scale resistance wouldn't last very long, and taking nominal control of the planet shouldn't require hundreds of millions of ground troops; you can largely bully the population into surrender. After the short-lived large scale resistance, a long-term guerilla resistance should begin, which would prevent the extra planet from being an immediate benefit and generally make it less valuable than one of your original planets for a considerable period of time.

Additionaly you shouldn't be able to get extra research/maufacturing capitals etc by conquest.

9) Improve tech trading

Before the first expansion, tech trading was easy for the player to exploit. After the expansion, tech trading was always ridiculously unfair to the player. Surely some kind of balance could be found, possibly by introducing Civ4 style limits on the extent of tech trading.

To be honest I would consider getting rid of tech trading and just having research treaties. You can't just be 'gifted' knowledge and immidiately start using it; it takes time to spread knowledge and integrate it into your technology or society. I would also try and reign in advanced civilisations slightly. So for example, if anyone has researched a technology, you get a bonus while researching it; if you have a research treaty with a civilisation that has researched it, that bonus is doubled.

Pazarius.....that was one of the most in depth replies I have seen up until now.

And for the record, those are all really great ideas.

Keep up the good work.

That means.....KEEP POSTING!!!

If we don't, we'll never get to 2000 replies.

We've barely gotten past 1200!!!