I love how one can customize one's own ships in Galactic Civilizations II. However, I find ground battles to be quite boring. I would like to be able to customize my ground troops and vehicles. I would also like to actually watch them fight. How about everybody else? What would you like to see?
There should be some options open how ships are automated, like
(a) return to homeworld when no further target is visible
(b] mine asteroid until no upgrade is possible
(c) always choose nearest possibility to mine or explore
(d) avoid crossing enemy territory
I´ve seen strange behaviour of Explorer Ships or Space Miners, esp. when you have >10 of them. Space Miners only mine the first module and then search for another target. I don´t find that usefull. Sometimes they choose a mine at the other part of the galaxy, it´ll take them years to get there, during that time the mines near the homeworld would have been mined out completely. Then en-route they get killed by enemy ships... Same with Explorer Ships, sometimes they rush by an anomaly just because another Explorer had chosen that anomaly one turn beforeahead... and so on..
then, the "auto-attack" mode should be revised. right now, only enemy ships that are visible within sensor-range are recognized and attacked.... strangely, I can see protective ships orbiting an enemy planet even if that planet is weeks out of my sensor-range - and those ships are not targeted at all...
furthermore, the should be the option that my vessel will ony attack enemy ships which are protective on a certain planet, that way would keep the planet open for invasion
and I really like to idea that taxes could be set to planets independantly.
maybe there could be also an automated process be added to this, like "customize tax so that a planetary approval of N (e.g. 44%) will be set"
beacause it can get boring when planets have not their full population yet to constantly backcheck each turn if the moral has sunken due to increased population, and manually setting tax rates...
I think tech-trade should be revised. what point is in the fact Yor can built an Arcean Weathercontrolsystem when Yor are machines who shouldn´t have to care about weather at all? Or Torians built Drengin SlavePits which they would never do for they were there held as captives previously... at least there should be some penalty to using alien technology. it would make the different races development also more individualy...
Tiny ships should get an advantage to evade slow weapons like rockets or mass drivers... at least, there must be some advantage from being very small and hard to focus at.
and it should vice versa with big ships: every shot a hit
Carriers. A ship module that lets you carry tiny ships into battle. Unless you are score mongering tiny ships are completely useless.
TINY SHIPS ARE COMPLETELY USELESS!
I would really like to see a ship build queue, but specifically one that you can embed rally point changes into the queue, so you could give orders to “Finish the ship you are building, and send it to the currently configured rally point. Then change the rally point to RP Bravo and build 3 constructors, then change to rally point RP Gamma and build such-and-such.”
I would also like to see a research build queue or at least some way to specify what tech should be researched after the current tech is completed.
I would like to see some way to name starbases. It asks “Do you want to update starbase 141”, to which I usually think “I don’t know, which one was 141?”. Following are several good ideas. I would love to see some or all of these implemented.
Personally, I would like to see the whole rally point system given a facelift in several ways. First off, it is difficult checking or changing a planets rally point. If you are on the main screen, you need to click the planet, then click the planets shipyard, then click the rally point, then exit the shipyard and the planet, before you can change the rally point. Could this process be shortened? Here are some suggestions.
I would like an undo button! Specifically, frequently I move a ship through hostile territory one or two squares at a time. Move, look for hostile ships, move some more, repeat. Occasionally I will not notice that the ship I was moving has exhausted it’s movement points and that a different ship is now active. I will right click the square in front of the ship I think I am moving, the computer puts a destination notification up saying that a ship is moving that way, and will arrive in 8 turns, then skips on to the ship beyond that! I have no idea what ship I just accidentally ordered to move here! I would like to be able to cancel that last order, but failing that I would appreciate some way to tell what ship just started moving this way!
Some of these features that I have asked for might seem rather minor, but sometimes it is the little things that count, and if you end up doing a little thing 100 times a hour, it seems a big thing!
Oh yea, another big feature that I forgot.
I love designing new ships, but the “connectors” to place new components on the ship seem too small. I select a component, and try to place it where I want it, I wave it around but the piece does not “lock” into the ship. Usually when I finally manage to get the component to “lock” into a connector on the ship, the tiny motion of moving my finger onto the mouse button causes the component to “undock” and float around free some more. It is very difficult for me to get components onto the ship in any way other than to press the “place component” button that just puts the component on the back of the ship.
One solution, if possible, I would like to see the component docking less sensitive. You don’t need to get the component quite so close to the ship connector.
But my other idea is even better…
In addition to a “place component” button and a “remove component” button, Add buttons to move the selected component forward, aft, right or left, and to rotate it.
Each ship could have it’s connection points divided into rings from forward to back (maybe 3 rings for small ships, 5 for large).
By default the “place component” button will put weapons and defense systems in the forward rings, and engines in the rearmost ring. Other components would default to the middle of any ship they are placed on. When you press “place component” the computer puts it somewhere. You can then tell it to move the component right or left within the ring it is in, or to move it forward or aft to a new ring of components. With an upgrade such as this it would be much easier to quickly develop great looking ships.
I think it would be great if GC3 were to make the jump to RTS. Also, i think that the research tree is a bit redundant and confuse, A BIT, nothing else.
Make the campaign a bit more accessible, and torse in some better graphics, and it's the perfect combination
1. Change the way the techs work. At the moment it feels like 90% of techs have an effect that just adds some arbitrary percentage to a score/attribute, so it feels more like a grind and less like finding a cool new thing. No more "+10% fertility" or "slightly better laser gun" technologies. Have them do things that are distinct, interesting, and have a clear effect on the game.
2. Connected to the above, remove all the fiddly little "laser III" style weapons. Have weapons with more interesting qualities. Lots of different types of damage and effects that allow civs and the ships you create to feel more unique.
3. Remove limitations on how many improvements can be built on a planet. Have planet quality refer only to population size, industry rate, instead (and maybe have certain improvements depend on a certain level of planet quality to build). To stop spamming of a certain improvement, have only one of each type available to build on a planet.
4. More resources, that have unique effects, and can be found in a variety of places both in space and on planets. For example a fast propulsion drive might require "unobtanium", which can only be found on certain planets. Give resources fun and scifi themed names, not the current generic ones like "influence resource".
5. Allow useful things to be done to non-habitable planets. We could build unmanned mining facilities to exploit rare resources, millitary facilities, etc etc that act to improve the habitable planets in the system. Maybe even in late game you could terraform them.
6. Allow the construction of wormholes between systems, allowing instanteous or near-instantaneous travel between them. This will speed up combat and introduce a new dynamic to warfare - disruption of supply lines when enemy ships destroy wormhole gates to cut off distant systems from support.
7. Connected to the above two, have a generic "worker" ship module that creates stations, mining facilities, wormhole gates, etc. These work like miners rather than constructors, i.e. they aren't "used up" when they build something.
8. Have the concept of mixed populations. Currently when you conquer a planet, the native population dissapears and is replaced entirely with the soldiers. This is not only unrealistic, it implies that every single planetary invasion is accompanied with mass genocide! Instead it should track the percentage on each world that is of a certain race, and give you the option to either commit genocide, to enslave them, to give them limited rights, or to embrace them as full citizens of your empire. Depending on how you act, what the galactic situation is, and the character of the race itself (are they aggressive, freedom loving, etc?), this can have different effects. Treating them too harshly might lead to protests (that disrupt industry) or even full rebellion; however giving them too much freedom might cause the same thing. Over time, if they act peacefully and are given full rights, they become assimiliated and cease to have loyalty to their original empire. Of course, if they end up getting conquered again by their original empire, these traitors may face some harsh punishments for their lack of loyalty...
9. Remove the good-evil system, instead replace it with a simple system of values or policies, i.e. slavery vs. caste system vs. egalitarianism; democracy vs. dictatorship. If you act badly, however, for example committing genocide or slavery, or using terror stars, you can still expect other civilizations to look on you poorly.
10. Minor races should be kept, but changed considerably. There should be a lot more of them, and the category should basically consist of all pre-space or pre-interstellar civilizations. They can either be exterminated, enslaved, or persuaded to join your empire (see point 8 above for possible repurcussions of this). They should provide unique bonuses that make them a strategic resource. It may even be possible for them to become a full fledged civilization given the right circumstances (e.g. a random event that has them using a salvaged ship to reverse engineer an interstellar drive).
11. More "terrain" in space. Nebulas that slow movement (but contain valuable resources), black holes, quasers... Basically all the wonderful and varied things that science and science fiction have imagined to make up the universe should show up in game. This might also include giant space monsters that attack ships.
I would like to have complete visiblity within my civilizations influence borders. ie: no fog of war.
A lot of the big ones have been said but I'll try to touch on everything that's been in my head:
On combat: tactical options for fitting your ships
Right now, there's no reason to choose one type of weapon over another aside from trying to exploit your enemy's weakness. Ships fitted evenly with 1:1:1 ratio of weapons don't really do much more than ships fitted with 1:1:0 or 1:0:0 except for the fact that they each "roll" seperately and might do slightly more even damage. Ships sizes have nothing to do with how maneuverable they are or how easy to hit they are, sensors are worthless in combat and especially worthless after eyes of the universe.
Ships that are 2 sizes smaller than their opponents receive a bonus to evade, a bonus that increases exponentially with size reduction. Because of increased mass larger ships would rarely move as fast as small fighters as they cannot stop/alter their courses as easily. This should be represented visually and by the aforementioned negatives to hit smaller craft.
Sensors offset these negatives to a degree. The more sophisticated the sensors the more easily larger ships can track and strike at smaller craft with fixed guns.
Each type of wepons system has special attributes. Beam weapons are the most accurate as they travel the fastest through space but do the least amount of damage. They are best for smaller ships. Missiles track and carry a fairly heavy payload so they are the all-around weapon that works well against most ship types. the drawback could be that since they travel slower, other weapon types would always receive the first strike. Mass drivers would be the most powerful weapon type but very innacurate against smaller ships. It would be the main anti-capital ship weapon.
Each type of weapon has a HEAVY and LIGHT version for dealing with different threats. specializing in one weapon would actually punish your empire in the long run as you'd have a harder time vesus differnet types of ships. It also makes no sense that a certain type of weapon only has one configuration. Essentially, the heavy version of a weapon has its own damage bonus and accuracy penalty, whereas the lighter version does less damage but is more accurate. This doesn't negate the bonuses of the seperate weapons systems though, a light version of a mass driver is still less accurate than a heavy version of a laser.
Defenses have hitpoints rather than armor ratings. Having a group of 1 attack fighters against a huge ship with large defenses still would mean nothing though, as they're unlikely to penetrate their defenses. Having shields, armor and point defense decrease with use however woul allow smaller ships to wear down heavy defenses rather than bounce harmlessly off. Without this option, there really is no use in still having smaller ships, as they mean nothing versus larger ones.
These options already give a far greater range of tactical options when fitting ships. Will that tiny hulled fighter be equipped with lasers to deal with enemy fighters, or mass drivers to be anti-capital ship support? Will you make enough room in a capital ships hull for lasers and sensors, or will you deck it out with huge mass drivers to annihilate enemy battleships? Will some ships be created to specifically hunt other ships or will many be readied for many different threats?
Tactical combat = probably won't happen, so allow the player to set "priorities"
Rather than creating a real-time combat system, players would be better served with a scaled back way to interact with battles that doesn't put them in the role of admiral or captain, but still allows them some control. Before battle commences a screen would appear that lists the ships in the battle and allows the same type of "intelligence report" that you could see in any other part of the game. The player can then select individual ships and set their "priority" from a drop down menu. These priorities could be:
Huge/Large/Medium/Small/Tiny ships
Strongest/Weakest ships
Ship with armor/shields/point defense
Ships with modules (troop ships, carriers)
This way you can seperate your anti-fighter fighters versus your "bombers," Your anti-fighter gunships from your heavy attack gunships etc.
Cloaking, detection and spy ships
in an effort to make sensors more useful after eyes of the universe are created, a ship stealth tech tree could be available allowing the use of a cloaking module. This would allow for true stealth ships and stealth attack ships. the way it would work is that there are 5 levels of cloaking and 5 levels of sensors. If the cloaking level of one ship is higher than the detection level of the other ship (adding more sensros doesn't help) then the ship is not detected whatsoever. If the sensors one one ship is more advanced than the other ships cloak, then it is detected. If they are even, then either the ship pops in and out of view, or the enemy cannot determine the size of the fleet or strength of the ship. This is important when dealing with my last point:
The AI assigning strength levels to certain sectors, fleets and planets
The AI as many people say isn't the best. What I think is the worst part is that the AI doesn't properly attack or defend their land with their ships. As soon as war is declared, enemy ships head straight for their targets single mindedly, no matter where they are. The Ai instead should assign importance to certain planets, and assign danger to enemy fleets:
Planets with high production, research, economy or with special trade goods or improvements should be seen as more important and more worthy of defense than small class 4 planets with no real purpose. Enemy fleets that are large and well armed, or troop transports heading to undefended planets should be seen as more of a threat than weak fleets or single ships.
With this setup, the AI will be quick to rush to the aid of an important planet that has even an insignificant enemy force near it and would respond by sending a large number of its forces to intercept. A constructor or freighter would receive practically no attention while this is taking place, unless there are a few ships close to it that aren't needed in the battle. this means that the Ai properly defends it most important outposts and planets while trying to destroy the players most important fleets. this can also mean more strategic depth for the player: sending a moderately sized fleet to an important planet would draw enemy forces to it, while another moderatlely sized fleet with a troop transport can attack and take over a smaller world.
Anyhow, those are my thoughts for now. Sorry if there are spelling mistakes, for some reason spellcheck isn't working with firefox anymore...
I would like that constructors could be set to have more constructing modules on them. When building many starbases it can get sorta tiring having to;
1) Watch them all move around after every turn!
2) Having to mass produce them - Why not give a more expensive option?
On that - I would like an option for quick moves.
I'd also like some better diplomacy. I mean why not vassal states? It could make the minor races actually useful other than "places I need to invade before someone else".
Between solar system I would also love to see more "space", bigger maps and more systems. So that habitable planets can be a bit more rare sorta on a realistic level. All in all I would like more galactic scale maps. I am dreaming.
I would also like uninhabitable planets to be turned into mines of different kinds. I mean the bring things do consist of material. If I had a giant stellar empire I would make use of it. Mine the planets dry! I need a fleet to invade those ape people!
The planet display is great, but could use some work too. Earth for example - When I have "Aquatic World Colonization" why would I not fill up the sea with cities and factories? And Barren World - Why would I not fill the desert? Give us a choice to make use of the planet to its extremes!
When making customized races - allow us to make use of template planets (If this is available I missed it).
A lot is mentioned by other ppl before i fully aggree with. GalCiv 2 is a very nice looking game but
a bit to simplicistic on a strategical and tactical level for my taste. I personaly found Space Empires IV
in this respect a bit better balanced and more challanging.
Uh, how about multiplayer? Interest in the game doesn't last long after figuring out the AI weaknesses.
May have been mentioned before here if so sorry for repeat.. I hate having Having warships of another civ sailing through me territoy to attack another civ or just sailing through without consent seems unrealistic..
How about they ask for permission or agree to some treaty or something to cross your SOI and you can decide if you want to let them pass this may include benefits or not such as improved/bad relations with the civ etc. and also to seek consent when constructing starbases in sectors you own i just get spammed with other civs SB's near my worlds.
This. I have friends who really loved MoO and MoO2, and have enjoyed other strategy games, but who simply cannot wrap their heads around the way the GC2 economy works. The system doesn't make the game bad, it just makes it nonsensical. The jarring break between resource allocation in GC2 and resource allocation in real life just asks for confusion.
Thirded.
It may be that I've been playing the game so long I take it for granted, but I really have no trouble with the GC2 economy and its controls. The way I see it, you can either control resources on a planet by planet basis (too tedious) or do it on a galaxy wide basis (not enough control). Trying to provide both planet wide and galaxy wide controls would be extremely confusing. The developers went for a minor planet control (planetary emphasis) with a primary galaxy wide control (the sliders in domestic stats). Seems to me like the right way to go there, but I'm probably in the minority with that opinion.
After several years of playing GC2 off and on, the number one thing that I don't care for in the game is the tediousness involved in building planets. I really get bored with all the clicking in planet management panels. For GC3, I'd like to see this resovled. Either improve the interface to vastly reduce the tediousness in fully building all your planets or change the nature of the game to elimate redundancy. It seems highly inefficient to be building planets with 10 of one kind of building. I should be able to build one building type then auto-upgrade it to the power of 10. Set it and forget it.
Another area where I'd like to see redundancy reduced is in starbase management. For example, why should I have to send 8 constructors to fully upgrade a mining resource. That's too much like work and not enough like fun. Same goes for upgrading any other type of starbase. Buildiing hoards of constructors to deal with starbases would be second on the list for things I'd like to see changed in in GC3.
Thirdly is ship movement. As it is, I always have to go to max zoom prior to clicking the turn button to get my ships to move instantaneously. Ships should move intantaneously at all times regardless of zoom level. What is the benefit of me sitting there twiddling my thumbs while my ships crawl accross the screen one by one.
I like many of the ideas that you guys have come up with. As for what I would want in GC3, I would like to see some way have have the damage and defense shown on the battle screen and not something at the bottom of the screen.
In other words currently the only way we can tell what is going on in the battle is looking at the numbers at the bottom of the screen. I far to often just watch the numbers rather than the battle. If I could see the attack and defense numbers somewhere visible on the battle screen I would be able to watch the battle, and see the damage being delt.
I'd like to see modules or weapons with special abilities, e.g. a weapon that can imobilize the enemy (thereby reducing its defence/attack/times-it-can-fire-a-weapon...) or a weapon that does relatively little damage overall but directly damages components.
This would make the combat more interesting and expand on the basic rock/paper/scissors system we have right now.
Another thing that bothers me a bit with GC2 is the scale of the game: Time-scale seems much to small for example. I just cannot believe that a civilization will go from barely invented spaceflight to full-blown galactic domination with higly advanced techs in a matter of a few years (or even decades, this should need centuries imho).Population is the other thing. Where do all the people come frome in that time? And is really the entire population supposed to defend a planet in case of an attack? Everyone, regardless of age, health, profession? Are there really 1 billion people in a lousy little transporter that will then be attacking the enemy planet?The pop growth would be much more believable with a longer time scale, also the game would feel more epic. As for the military, I would propose that only a certain ratio of the planets population will count as military wich will then attack/defend a planet. The population could be transfered afterwards by (passive?) migration.
to have unlockable textures for weapons and defenses (i.e. I could make a battery of harpoon missles look like a disruptor bank) that allow you to superimpose the texture of different components over the actual component, making it look different, but with the same funtion.
Also, I would like to have the invasion option of "Glassing" (ala Halo) which destroys all infrastructure on the planet and weakens the defenders considerably, allowing you to take the planet easier. This would act as an alternative to Tidal disruption that requires beam tech to activate (research knowledge).
I also hapilly endorse all other ideas listed here.
Just make it what everyone has been craving for years: an updated and better version of Master of Orion II!
GC3 should be an entirely new game.
It should have new graphics, a new story line... new everything!
It should bear no resemblance to either GC1 or GC2.
Maybe there should be no GC3 at all!
Let the series end, and come up with a totally new game in the same light but with an opposed spectrum. I am sick and tired of 'expansions' and 'variations on a theme' on how to kill the other guy. Let's see something totally NEW for a change!!!
How about something that does not require killing the other guy, for a change? How about something that requires resolving conflict in a peaceful manner to win the game?
Or, is that just too civilized?
I think its certainly within the realm of possiblity to see a whole new game, and yea, maybe they don't even have to call it Galactic Civilizations. Though I don't know about the no war idea, that might be kind of a reach. I'd like to see somthing all new, but even if its a continuation of the current theme, I bet I'd still like it plenty.
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