While reading some forums I got this idea from a few different posts and wasn't sure which one to post it in so I decided to create my own.
On the topic of dead planets:
There is a ton of them around and it is aesthetically pleasing cause it adds a certain amount of reality to it considering the Goldilocks zone etc. This seems to me to be about the extent of their usefulness. With this in mind I think that Dead planets could become something akin to space stations. Not really colonizing a dead planet but put a way station of sorts on the planet. Their could be multiple uses for these types of stations -
1) A Refueling Station - Whether that be like a moon base or an orbital platform. Taking from another forum thread about the distance in which life support system would function. This would increase a ships range but nothing to drastic as to take away what a space station would give you. Also I would see this as nothing to expensive or extensive to make huge impacts on game play or functionality.
2) A Staging Area - I like this as an added strategic element to the game. When your starting to assault on an enemies area you could begin by taking out their planet bases/platforms to create staging areas for your attacks while you work towards their main planets. This of course would not be necessary to do in order to conquer their area but could ease the progress. I would also limit any bonus you would get from it to keep from unbalancing the game and keeping it as a fun feature and not a requirement.
3) Tech - In the tech area of the game these types of bases/platforms could be used as *minor* enhancements towards certain types of networks -
A) There was one forum post about the creation of space roads, traffic areas, and well other travel based ideas, these stations/platforms could be used as connecting points or something along those lines.
B ) It could be used in the creation of weapons such as planet destroyers (if they ever come) or add little tweaks or requirements for certain weapon systems based on the material or the type of dead planet..ex- need a certain type of mineral or gas that you can only get from said gas giant etc.
C) The creation of certain types of fields or sensor readings could be created by these bases/platforms. Use it as a scouting base etc. or create some kind of distortion in space near the planet that makes enemy ships passing move slower or have reduce sensor range etc.
4) Random boosts or Tiny Events could be derived from them - "an explosion at the station has set research back one turn" (nothing to extensive maybe even one turn is to much based on the number of dead planets and the number of the events would have to be regulated so they didn't happen every turn or all at once. This could be an added feature to the one already in the game for when you first colonize a planet.) '
5) Espionage - These types of bases/platforms could be used as easily infiltrated places to get sensor data or view an enemies' area and movements. So Less risky places to have a spy (I would suggest the view created by the spy be limited, not like being able to see a whole system but just enough to see passing traffic etc.)
6) Pirates - So the Devs said that pirates would be included in the game and i'm not sure if they are going to want them to be able to conquer your worlds or just harass but these types of stations would make prime targets for them and create more interactions between you and the pirates. (This would have to be regulated as to not force you to have to go and take back your stations every turn. Eventually allowing you added tech that protects against the pirates)
Now all these ideas would have to be limited in bonuses, cost, or effect of these types of additions. I would think they would work better as minor additions and extra stuff you could do then to make them a large aspect of the game and creating a million balancing issues. There is also a lot of these planets so their bonuses would have to be limited just so that no one could exploit them thus making the game to easy and losing its value. I would also like to note that the bases/stations health i.e. what it would take to destroy them or capture them be very minimal to reduce any kind of tedious task that could take hours and take away from the main aspects of the game. Also my intent is if these where to ever be created is that they be as maintenance free as possible. You already have so much you can do and will have to do so by adding a ton of maintenance with stuff like this would detract from the game. My intent with these additions is to create options and different avenues that one can take to creating their galactic civilization. Also I apologize if these ideas have already been spoken, discussed, or utterly decimated by those that wish to see us all destroyed.
I think everyone can get behind this.
I have the strange suspicion they will, and I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea. While I did (sort of) like the Terror Stars, I really don't want a return of genocide-runs. That was the worst aspect in the MoO-series.
Anyhow, Mormegil mentioned here and in the last Qt3 podcast, that there will be minable planets. So there is already something planned for some of the dead planets.
I like your suggestions and the use of dead planets as well. Perhaps any improvements/bases on these worlds should be quite expensive to build and maintain ensuring the board doesn't overflow with things on each and every world that exists. Add to this that any structure on these dead planets needs to be within a certain range of something like a starbase or a resupply station/improvement that exists on one of your colony worlds. Building on these dead worlds would most likely need the specific researched tech (or techs) to build on them. With these (or other) specific criteria being needed these dead world bases would be fewer and farther between making them somewhat special and or important.
Also what if one major difference between dead worlds and colony worlds is perhaps the dead planets do not show up on the map as being 'owned' by the player thus allowing 'secret bases' to exist.
Just thinking out load. But I like the ideas you have for sure!
Also, does GalCiv2 or 3 differentiate between 'dead worlds' and volatile/hostile worlds that simply cannot be terraformed?
Thanks, i will have to listen to that podcast and I hadn't seen that post before. The more I learn the more I get all excited.
I like the secret bases ideas, adds a bit of surprise to the mix. That one variable in battle you can't predict and you have to adjust on the fly.
The price will have to depend on the bonus, spending a lot for a good bonus is alright, spending a lot of money for hardly a bonus at all not cool.
Yes in reality there are all sorts of ways planets not suitable for habitation could be used. For instance gas giants could be mined from orbit. Science bases could be established on planets with points of special interest. Millitary outposts, etc.
So yes they should allow you to do somethign with them maybe even terraform the solid ones in the late game.
I really don't want a return of genocide-runs. That was the worst aspect in the MoO-series.
How can you dislike the merciless slaughter of hundreds of billions of people? That's usually the highlight of my day.
Seriously though, I believe we should be able to simply "Glass" or otherwise devastate enemy worlds into a state that requires technology and production to reverse, allowing us to skip invasion. It's always bothered me that my hyper-advanced warships can shoot black holes and doom rays at anything hanging in space, but the moment something is placed on a planet...
I agree in the aspect that just completely destroying the crap out of a planet is awesome fun though I would say that it isn't fun all the time. I think an option to have fantastically awesome planet destroying doom rays of justice is a must so that you can play a game with or without them.
Not for me it wasn't I loved them , and if you didn't like them you shouldn't use them. They could always include them with an option to tuen them of for multiplayer if both sides agreed they didn't like the old death star scanario.
Myself I want Nova bombs
The Nova bombs from Halo?
No, bad econumdrum!
Seriously though, Nova bombs would be really destabilizing, unlike terror stars (which are slow and easy to counter).
I don't. Heck, the Yor are my favourite race, for crying out loud. I can't wait until I'm able to play them again, and complete the extermination of all biological life in the universe.
Why invade planets, and then having to deal with their upkeep and defence, if you can simply raze them? Just protect your core worlds and send your main fleet to destroy the planets of your enemies. There is nothing they can do to prevent this, if your ships are stronger. Suddenly, planetary invasion has become entirely pointless.
Anyhow, I know that there are genocide modules in the game-files, so there is no point in arguing against their inclusion. I can only hope, that Frogboy made sure, that the above scenario won't happen. On the other hand, I also hope, that those modules aren't so hard to get and/or use, that you might as well not have them at all (as was the case with the Terror Stars in GalCiv 2). There is nothing worse, than a pointless game-mechanic, in my opinion.
Because murdering everything and burning their planets to the ground doesn't give you anything, you just destroy the enemy. If you do a genocide run, it's a zero-sum game for the victor. They stand to gain nothing but their chosen military objectives.
True enough. Ever play Super Smash Brothers Brawl? There was a game mechanic called tripping that was either annoying to no end or useless.
Maybe a dedicated ship (like a spore ship maybe?) to bomb planets into the muck? I don't know. All I know is that I want my uber fleets of death to exterminate all life in the galaxy, without forcing me to invade and then simply abandon the planets (and by extension, render them useless). Sometimes, conquest for the sake of conquest can improve the game, and to at least a small extent you're correct that having unstoppable genocide would... trivialize some things.
I would definitely like to see an expanded use of dead planets. As it is, they're nice to add a little flavor to the game, but if you expect me to run an interstellar empire I'm going to have a hard time believing I can't do SOMETHING with every chunk of unclaimed rock I find in space.
I'm all about this in almost every way, no surprise given my own thread on the matter.
I'm also all about being able to simply bomb a population into oblivion. In a way it's much like the process of razing in the regular Civilization series. However, invading and overwhelming a population or fighting until your force is wiped out is a much quicker process than dropping bombs all over a planet or vaporizing every individual citizen: Total annihilation, if you try to do it right, takes time! The Korath probably wrote novels about the finer points of an honest, unapologetic genocide. So if you make it take longer, say a week/turn per billion people there, suddenly invading is still important.
But ships are now truly dangerous and the invulnerability of planets early in the game is gone.
Long story short, it could probably be made to work.
The original idea sounds to me like having cheap Starbases.
A planet destroyer is a good idea, you can always have the galactic council (or the name it has as I do not remember it right now) to bane them, that they can only be used on lifeless planets or that they have to pay an absurd amount of BC to fire it on a populated planet (kind of a tax). Also, it can add more features, for example, you shoot at a star to produce a gravity alteration that sucks all the planets in its system and, after a few turns it stabilize to produce a mass of rock where you can harvest one of the hardest and/or more valuable resource in the galaxy.
I really like the banning idea. It even adds a certain kind of intrigue to it if you put in an ability to betray the treaty but in doing so puts you at war with all other races.
Yes the Terror Stars were a disappointment in GC2. Too heavy an investment in production of Constructors for a cumbersome outcome. GC3 seems heavily populated with "Dead Stars", can't see the point of their existence but I suppose it's perhaps a bit too early to expect any hint of any Terraforming-Colonizing techs or mechanics yet even given the number of "uninhabitable" planets around. Survivalism seems to me a weird strategic direction to take a next generation game.
Having read the review of "Sid Meier's" new "Alpha Centauri" remake [Civ5:Beyond Earth], Firaxis are going to give Stardock strong competition to achieve success with GC3.
Interesting. I hadn't seen anything on Sid's new AC2. I'm not sure there will be much competition between the two -- at least in my mind, I've always seen the Civ series as a separate animal from the GalCiv series. I'll end up owning both, of course...
Dead Planets . . .
I will admit (if it's not exactly against the rules) to liking the way that MOO II did it. Later in the game one could get the tech to allow you to create Artificial Planets and it used the dead/barren/gas giant worlds in a given colony's star system. Don't know if that would work here, but it is a precedent.
But maybe we ought to go back to Gal Civ 2's approach. Instead of a dead planet, it ought to simply be barren. What is the difference?
Well, n equivalent settlement on a dead planet would be less efficient than a space station because it would need more exterior maintainance (since most dead planets still have an atmosphere of some sort, and therefore weather) and because ships would need to use more fuel/power to get in and out to compensate for the planet's gravity. I'm not sure if it would also have some positive over space stations that would make it worthwhile
You could have it as an extremely expensive terraforming tech - one which required setting up on a planet and took time to develop into a fully formed world & set everything on these planets to have an increased maintenance cost?
I suppose one thing that could make building a settlement on an uninhabited planet as opposed to a good ol' fashioned space station worthwhile is resources...
I don't see competition between the two games at all. If anything, they're complimentary
As long as the United Planets doesn't resemble the World Council in Civilization 5. I cannot understand what possessed anyone to include a United Nations that cannot be defied, is set up without your consent (as in, set up by you since you reached the correct tech level well ahead of your rivals), and the only way to turn it off is to mess with the files in the game folder rather than in the game itself.
In other words, I had better be able to defy the United Planets and threaten them with my superweapon arsenal
for example, you shoot at a star to produce a gravity alteration that sucks all the planets in its system and, after a few turns it stabilize to produce a mass of rock where you can harvest one of the hardest and/or more valuable resource in the galaxy.
Ooooh. I'd love to see that concept in the game
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