cynic2005

Join Date 02/2006

What I'd Like to See in Gal Civ 3

First of all, let me get this strait: Gal Civ 2 is a great game, and this is all thanks to great developers who work hard to meet the wants and needs of gamers. I do however, think that the game's design can greatly improve in certain ways, particularily when it comes to ship design. IMO, ship designing should be more in depth. I (honestly) feel that there is little tactical or strategic depth to slapping on weapons and armor or designing a fleet with small ships or a small fleet with large ships. I would like to feel as though I'm designing war machines and not (metaphorically) building toy space ships with Lego pieces that implement rock-scissor-paper tactics.

My Idea: First, I think that gamers should be able to design a ship from the inside out. The inside of the hull would include things such as bridges, reactors, medibays, weapon bays and even recreational facilities for example. I've included a much more detailed list of examples. But let's first talk more about the essentials needed for the inside of the hull. A ship should have a bridge (for capital ships), a cockpit (for fighters), or an automated control center to be tactically operational. A bridge requires two facilities: the crew's quarters and the ship's life support system. In addition to designing a ship there is a required crew amount needed to operate the ship. This is supplemented by installing the required amount of crew quarters. The crew can be further complimented by installing facilities such as a medibay, cloning module, and a recreational facility. An onboard computer is required in order for the ship to be logistically operational. A ship should also have a reactor to power the ship's engines, weapons, facilities, and modules. Hyperdrive engines are a must for steller and interstellar travel, and tactical engines for maneuvering during battles. Now, let's go over this list:

Command and Control:

-Bridge/cockpit: self explanatory.
-Automated control center: Allows the ship's onboard computer to operate the ship without the need of a crew and crew facilities. This can save immense space inside the hull. This also increases a ships range as there is little to no need for life support. However, the drawback is that drone ships cannot gain combat experience. Also There is no morale, and thus no advantage or disadvantage to having high or low morale
-Onboard system computer: An onboard computer automates much of the ships support systems, assists in targeting acquisition, and augments navigation and communication. More advanced computer technology can enhance a ship’s logistic value and weapons accuracy.

Complimentary Crew Facilities:

-Crew/troop quarters: Self explanatory.
-Medibay: Saves and prolongs the life of crew members, which helps increase experience and morale.
-Recreational Facilities: Traveling in the emptiness of space inside a tightly compact
hull can quickly get boring. Installing a rec facility will increase the crew's morale.
-Escape Pods: Some of the experienced crew members from a ship destroyed in battle can be transferred to newly built ships.
-Life Support Systems: A life support system includes components such as oxygen tanks, artificial gravity generators, and provides things such as heat to counter the cold vacuum of space.
-Stasis Chamber: Greatly increases a ship's range by putting crews in suspended animation. This requires little life support and less energy from the ship’s reactor.
-Cloning Module: Throughout battle, crew members often die. A cloning module insures that there will be replacements, which further decreases the amount of crew needed to operate a ship.
-Detention Hold: Sometimes enemy crew can be captured and later interrogated. Having a detention hold will make capture and interrogation possible (helps espionage endeavors).

Specialized Modules and Facilities:

-Weapons bay: Provides a storage area for ballistic ammunition, and determines how many rounds a ship can fire in a battle. Energy weapons do not require a weapons bay and may fire continuously untill the reactor power runs low.
-Cargo Bay: Necessary for freighters to carry their cargo.
-Launching bays: Gives a ship the ability to launch tiny-small fighters. The amount of fighters is dependable on the amount of launching bays installed. Launching bays require large amount of crews and thus crew quarters because of the need for pilots and pilot replacements (fighters have a small survivability rate).
-Cloaking Module: Ships remain undetected on the strategic map until they initiate
attack. This makes it possible to set up ambushes on fleets, transports, or freighters. Slightly decreases combat experience.
-Holographic Replicator: Using hologram technology, multiple holographic images of ships can be generated, confusing incoming enemies as they initially don’t know which
ship is real or not. This gives ships a defensive bonus, especially during the initial
part of an attack.
-EMP Jammer: Decreases an enemy ship’s accuracy by jamming sensors and confusing target
acquisition systems.
-Solar Panels: Allows ships to collect free solar energy, thus freeing up the reactor's
required amount that it must produce.

Power and Propulsion Systems:

-Reactor: The reactor powers the ship and all of it’s components. A larger reactor is
generally more powerful, however it takes up more space within the hull. Larger reactors are sometimes needed depending upon the amount of installed energy weapons, shields, and special modules (such as a cloaking). More advanced reactors generate more energy and take up less space.
-Hyper drive Engines: Provides a means of propulsion for both steller and intersteller
travel.
-Tactical engines: Provides a means of propulsion for tactical maneuvering.

Weapons Systems:

-Energy weapons: can be extremely accurate, have long range, inflict minimal damage,
and have an unlimited supply of ammo but requires high amounts of energy (it draws
it's source of ammo from the reactor).
-Mass driver weapons: can be highly accurate, have short range, inflict heavy damage,
but require weapon bays with a limited supply of ammo.
-Missile weapons: can be decently accurate, have medium range, inflict maximum damage,
but require weapon bays with a very limited supple of ammo, since missiles take up much space.
-Mines: Ships with mines installed can lay a limited amount of mine fields on the strategic map. This can also be used to help blockade trade routes. A ship without good sensors equipped can easily run into a mine field. As mine technology becomes advanced,
advancement of sensor tech is required in order to effectively detect the advanced mines.
-Leeches (this could be a type of mine weapon): Drones that burrow themselves into the hull of enemy ships, eventually breaking hull integrity which strains life support systems, and causing further damage to the ship's onboard computers.
-Psy Weapons: There are two types of psy weapons, fear inducing and mind control. Fear inducing weapons can create immense fear, decreasing the enemy's morale and combat effectiveness. Mind control weapons can temporarily control the mind of enemy crews, causing them turn against their own.

Defense Systems:

No emphasis needed.

(Miscellanious) The introduction of morale: Morale is an important factor in warefare, as it can significantly determine the combat effectiveness of combating personnel.

-Genetical Engineering (Technology): Humans or aliens can be genetically engineered to counter the environmental hostilities of space, thus decreasing the need for complex life support systems. (for example, a species can be genetically engineered to be incredibly resistent to cosmic radiation).
-Space Acadamy (Building): Gives fighters and ships a reasonable starting experience.

You can see how there would be more possibilities to designing ships. There are multiple routes you can take. For example:

You can create a drone ship (saving space), install many weapons bays and missile weapons. This ship would act as some sort of powerful missile array.

You can emphasize on creating a professional fleet with high combat experience and morale, by installing corresponding facilities.

You can eliminate such facilities like a rec room, escape pods, and medibay to save more space, build a cloning module to save even more space because it allows a smaller crew, and use this extra space to build more weapons bays, or launching bays. The result is a much more powerful ship, but with less potential to retain/gain combat experience. I can imagine this as being a route that evil civs tend to take.

You could also use space to build more tactical engines, which will increase a ship's maneuverability and thus decrease the accuracy of enemy ships. (Side Note: Capital ships should be hard to maneuver, smaller ships should be very easy to maneuver). With the addition of EMP
jammers and a holographic replicator, you could make a ship that is difficult to target and hit. With cloaking technology and the ability to disengage or retreat from a battle, hit and run tactics would be possible. Of course, that would require lots of hull space and powerful reactors to pull off. But imagine both mine laying, ambushing, and hit and run tactics. You can gradually wear down even a superior enemy.

I think such things as experince and morale emphasis or the above can give a technologically inferior race more of a chance to hold its own defence or offense against a technologically superior enemy.

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Nice ideas, this would add quite a nice bit of strategy element to the game's space battles, though I would really like to see some better ground combat.

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I would like to see a 3-D strategic map. Space is 3-D, the planets should be 3-D. I would expect our video hardware & drivers should be sufficiently advanced by then that it finally makes sense in a Galciv3. (ideally we would have holographic monitors, but...keep dreaming...)

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I like those idea's but i think it is unlikely it will happen due to shapes of ships etc, unless you did it as an evil genius style drag a room for size, but i think this sounds more like a ship manager style game than a galactic overlord style game, and your upgrades how ever good they may be are focusing on a secondary feature of the game, the game isn't about making ships its about killing alien scum.

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Hmmm... Sounds like you're designing a Starship Designer simulation game?

It would be an interesting dimension to add to the game, but I wonder if it wouldn't end up in a micromanagement fest for anybody who wanted to build a new ship type?

I'm not sure what I'd love to see in GC3 just yet. The best sequels are those that make tweaks to gameplay that are subtle, yet profound. Some examples that were great ideas (even if the execution was problematic) include adding leaders to the Panzer General series, adding culture to the Civilization games, or adding secondary skills to Heroes of Might & Magic.

Each of these took what was already a rich and successful gaming system and added another element to it that opened up whole new vistas of doing stuff and interacting with the gaming universe. GalCiv 2 did this by introducing ship design and a Rock-Paper-Scissor weapons and defense system which, while not revolutionary, adds a nice dimension to ship-to-ship combat.

I'm sure they have some ideas in the back of their heads for what might make GC 3 revolutionary and new. For myself, I'm hoping they let it sit on the back-burner for a year or two, just to mellow.

I'm excited about the fantasy TBS game that Brad's started mentioning!

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I have yet only played Gal Civ 1, but I wish the following things should be included in a Gal Civ 3:

* A 3D-model of planets where you can zoom into the planet surface itself.

* Planets will have many sorts of alien life-form that live on the different planets, depending on the environment of that planet (able to be seen in the zoomed in view mentioned above). The creatures may be used as resources like in Civ 4, but may also be dangerous (like in Starship Troopers or Rancor in Star Wars)- Creatures are created randomly (but according to the environment of the planet) with a "Spore"-like engine.

* Much better and more advanced ground combat.

* You start in 1946, and begin with the man´s first attempt to explore the solar system with satellites, landing on the moon, SETI-project, probes into solar system. Like in Civ 4 time is running faster (in years) here to not make things escessively slow and boring until the real interstellar race begins.

* I know there are no sounds in space, but I would love to hear the rumbling of engines from the mighty spaceships in the game.

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Like omg. Like some ideas ppl think they sound good. but in practically. No.

Don't want to over complexify the game to the point where its more perplexing than Space Empires. (My thoughts on the original post). I do agree at some point, the devs should pat themselves on the back, enjoy some R&R. At some point later eventually do a sequel.

3D- maps. Can be good, can be bad. Depends on implementation and controls. Example of Bad, very bad: MOO3.

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For me, I'll keep the list short, too.

What I'd like are "perks" for playing the tougher levels of the AI -something more than just achieving a higher score or upping my rank on the Metaverse.

What I'm looking at is the game simply becoming more and more difficult to achieve goals I've already gained before -victory, galactic wonders, technologies, etc. It'd be nice if there were special events, technologies, weapons, wonders, etc, only available in the advanced AI (like painful and above). Like Diablo2 - there were items you could not gain until you played Nightmare level. That would help keep the game fresh for me

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I think the majority of the ideas in the first post rather overcomplicate the game.

My idea is hopefully pretty simple--instead of ground battles determined by numbers, perhaps ground battles would have you advance army divisions from tile to tile on the planets? To enhance the strategy ahead of just numbers, attacking from the side or rear could be more effective.

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I would like to see a Galciv3 that has a 3-D galaxy, where you move ships in the x-y-z directions. But I can't figure out how you would design the user interface to be able to do that.

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I would like to see a Galciv3 that has a 3-D galaxy, where you move ships in the x-y-z directions

Frontier and it's sequel already did this. Problem is that the realism simply proved that space comabt between ships moving at significant fractions of C isn't possible unless they are on exactly the same course at virtually the same speed. Any skew at all means that you are out of range before you even know someone else is there. The 3-d map worked but added nothing but frustration as well. Sometimes relism is counter to actual fun.

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Oh I LOVED Frontier! The only problem was, there was no way to win, per se. You just kind of wandered around, conquering planets.

But that's not exactly the kind of 3-D I had in mind. Frontier was 3-D kind of like Doom or Halo. First-person. There was another turn-based 3-D space game on my trusty old Apple II+ (the name escapes me, though), where you had a 3-D view of the galaxy. I just have this ideal picture in my head, where you have a 3-D hologram of the whole galaxy, much like you saw in Star Wars II. Navigating it would take some getting used to, but once you did, it would be highly addictive.

If it were just a matter of drawing the galaxy in 3-D, rotating it around using your mouse, etc., that's easy. Existing video cards can do that. But how would you move ships around? How would you do an entire human interface? The industry probably won't be ready for that until maybe 2010.

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I personally like to see better ground battles with unique graphics dedicated to each invasion tactics and add invasion defense tactics. Add more tactics to space battles such as fleet formations (set this when fleet creation), flank attacks, stealth attacks, reinforcements, simultaenous attacks, disable ships for capture, ship/soldier morale and chances to retreat in battles (if have at least 1 move left) due to battle morale etc.. perhaps even a ground equipment research subtree to further power up the soldering ability and make them appear in the invasion graphics too. Can also create a bit more simple commands to ships/fleet like follow the leader, return to a target planet/starbase, search and destroy/guard within sensor range from target location, etc... to lessen the time a player need to spend on controlling every one of them.

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Oh, I know what I would like to see in a Galciv3, and this one's MUCH easier to implement: a real-time-strategy Galciv! You're constantly monitoring your planets and building stuff, launching ships and transports, rallying them to the other guy's planets. When you get in range, they automatically fire. One game would take hours on end, but nowhere near the days it takes to play Galciv2 now.

The Warlords series (from SSG games) was successful porting their turn-based series to Warlords:Battlecry, which was RTS, so it's been done before. And let me tell you, Warlords:Battlecry 2 was at least twice as fun as their turn-based equivalent. And then you've got Rise of Nations, which is basically a RTS Civilization. Also wildly fun, without destroying your real-life in the process. I'm just not aware of anyone else attempting a 4X space RTS game yet.

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What I would like to see in the next Galciv game is:

1) Permanent Wormholes. There should be some of these, and if your technologically advanced enough, the ability to create them. They could be treated and owned like a strategic resource, since they give the ability to instantly travel anywhere in the galaxy. Also, they could be very crucial in the ability to wage war.

2) A better planetary combat system and scenario. Lets face it, thought the ship battles are alright, planetary conquest is way too simplified. It is also quite unrealistic, for I don't foresee that any race, including us, will be able to properly equip billions upon billions of troops anytime in next 500 or so years, let alone 2200. I personally think that there should be a maximum number of troops that one can have in reserve that can be loaded onto transports. This max number can then be based on technology, population, type of ruling party, type of government, etc. In fact this could be interesting, for the availability of troops will have to be taken into account before you go out to bash heads around and will make conquest victory a lot harder (and defending somewhat easier for those non-violent players like me

). Also, we can have a separate tech tree to increase the number of max troops and/or increase their effectiveness, much like the way logistics work now.

3) Another note on planetary conquest, I think there really should be tech tree devoted to improving the weapons, defenses, and even the strategies employed for the troops. Right now, all it is is just pushing the space bar and crossing fingers.

4) I would like the ability to colonize moons, much like the way planets are colonized.

5) I would like to see natural hazards and barriers in the game, such as black holes, energy clouds, etc. There could also be improvements made to be able to deal with them as well.

6) oh, and don't forget carriers!!!!

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What I would like to see... (some have already been mentioned)

1. 3D map of the universe, the downfall of this is as explained above. But, it could be that the only combat that takes place then would be near a planet. Could be that there are nuetral star bases where a conquered civs remaining ships could go. This could make for an interesting situation in trying to conquer another race. Or yourself trying to survive to rise and reign supreme from another corner of the galaxy. The 'neutral' star bases could also be places of commerce and espionage.

2. Make the loyalty of a planet in line with its contentment with you. I had a planet rebel while having a high (70+) loyalty rating. I understood this as it was a cultural victory, but the contentment rating should have reflected this. A long while later, all my planets were conquered in one fell swoop by (don't recall the race). I was enjoying an average of 80% satisfaction, had more money than I knew what to do with, the strongest economy, and the first or second most powerfull military. Yet was overthrown without a shot being fired and lost ALL my ships. The game indicated I should check the forums for hints to avoid this. But with the rating that I had, this seemed highly unrealistic. Seemed more like you're winning so we can't let that happen. This was the first game of Galactic Civilization, and was playing in the normal mode on a small or medium sized map, I should have been winning. I downloaded the demo then purchased the game. Now I wonder if I shouldn't have. Losing all the planets that way was very discouraging. If I don't find that hint in a reasonable (short) amount of time, I may well never play again.

3. Better ground combat.

4. The means to reinforce a planet with more troops, doing this may cost more from the treasury as a reflection of the added cost to support the troops, etc.

5. Perhaps the means to hire mercenaries. These would be very costly, and could perhaps even be bought off by the other side. I see them as being very expensive, well trained and equipped, but with shaky loyalties.

6. Make starbases conquerable.

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Hello,

I'll try to pipe in here: wonderful comments thus far - I have picked the right game and the right company to put my video game energy behind.

I am LOVING everyone's suggestions. In response to the first guys' suggestions about ALL the custom elements for making ships: I think that's WAY over the top and would bring the game to a standstill.... they're really, really cool ideas, and they're well thought out (was interesting to sit there and read all of that), but I just don't see the practicality as others have already agreed.

I agree to some degree that there needs to (maybe) be an RTS version. Check it out: make it so the game has the option for the player - if someone wants to play the game in 'Turn based mode', so be it, if they wanna play it in 'RTS mode', so be it. Let the player decide. I know that sounds (willy nilly as hell) - this is coming from a non programmer/etc... it's just a feature that I think would make the game 10x cooler than ANYthing else on the market simply for it being a truly unique feature.

I am going to wait until this latest EXP comes out for II before I make my wishlist here. Although, I do have a couple suggestions:

A. When taking planets over: PLEASE, give the player the option to have THAT be the "RTS" matchup between races.. I think that'd be THE coolest. Obiously, some won't want to "fight" everysingle one of those planet conquests 'by hand' in an RTS fashion, but maaaaaan: that would be SO cool if I had the option to do that - AND - if choosing that option made it so I could have a slightly better chance at winning (since I'm doing everything by hand in a completely different game mode.. ala RTS) VS. doing it the usual (hit spacebar and pray mode) way, that would be some pretty cool incentive to do each of those fights by hand.
B. If doing that ^ isn't an option, AT the minimum: add 'something' to those fight scenes - I like what others have already said about making the graphics reflect whatever techs you've teched up and depending on the type of attack you're coming with.

C. PLEASE make it so functionality has a PART to play when designing ships. And by this, all I mean is to simply make it so - for example, weapons need to be in a functional position on the ship... if you've got lasers facing backwards, then those lasers would ONLY be able to fire on ships behind that ship. I think that would truly add whats missing when making ships... it just seems silly to me to be able to willy nilly put an engine in front of guns for example... only to know that it makes no difference.

I'm SURE that's ^ easier said than done - for the player to know/understand how to use it/implement it is one thing, but I can imagine it being pretty damn hard to program the AIs to understand this concept.

Anyway, those are my suggestions for now.
Since buying GalCivII DA almost 2 months ago... I have played nothing else... I am hooked.

Fyi, this is my first 4x strategy game and I am in love,

Chr*s

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Time for some more easily-implemented suggestions, based off what exists:

1.Planetary invasions shouldn't take such a short time. Conquering a planet in one week is ridiculous. Based on your invasion tactic and the numbers of troops involved, the time should be set in an order like this, from longest to shortest:

Information Warfare -> Traditional Warfare -> Gas Warfare -> Mini-Soldiers
-> Core Detonation -> Tidal Disruption -> Mass Drivers -> Nano Swarm(the Yor speciality).

Tactics like Core Detonation, Tidal Disruption, and Mass Drivers would eliminate a number of defending troops before the actual invasion begins, while Mini-Soldiers, Information Warfare, Gas Warfare, and Nano Swarm would increase the number of defending troops eliminated each turn. Invasion tactics wouldn't affect advantage ratings at all, but the base number of troops each side looses per turn would be based on advantage ratings.

While the invasion is taking place, the attacking transport/fleet is stuck in orbit, even warships, provided are part of the invasion fleet. After the invasion, the transports are scrapped and the warships remain in orbit of the newly conquered planet until they are launched. If this orbital invasion fleet is eliminated while the invasion is still going on, then the defenders can bring in reinforcements in Transports or even Colony Ships. These reinforcement ships are also trapped in orbit and scrapped at the invasion's end.

A planet undergoing an invasion loses all production, is fixed to the morale level it had at the start of the invasion, cannot be entered by a third party, and loses all it's trade routes and influence, and it's maintainance cost is doubled until the invasion ends. The planet cannot be culture flipped either while the invasion is going on.

2. Governors for asteroid mines. This feature could even be implemented in DA 2.0. Seriously, in a large/huge/gigantic/immense galaxy with abundant asteroids and enough stars, any planet with a moon and a decent PowerPlant can get a massive industry boost by focusing all your asteroids on it, even after the asteroid beams are depleted. However, the current system means that all-for-one mine assignment is an extremely tedious process.

3. Divide the construction time for upgrading asteroid mining bases by the number of space miners working on them. If the base Construction Time for a level 2 upgrade is 10 weeks, 2 space miners will get the job done in 5 weeks, 3 miners will do it in just 3 weeks and so on.

4. Life Support modules increase the amount of time a ship can stay out of orbit, not how far it can go. By 'orbit', I mean a ship must have to return to the orbit/stack of one of it's owner civilizations planets OR military/economic starbases. Influence and Mining bases wouldn't count - they'd be too busy in their own specialized jobs to resupply ships.

5. Very large, and slightly expensive 'Supply Modules' could also be fitted to dedicated supply ships that can resupply a certain number of friendly ships before having to return to an econ/mil SB or a planet itself. The better the supply module, the more ships it can resupply before heading to the nearest planet/starbase. This way, if you can set up a sufficiently strong supply system of starbases and supply ships, you can mount a dedicated long-range offensive without wasting shipboard space on Life Support.

6. In a somewhat more ambitious idea based off the above ideas, weapons could have ammunition supplies.

All beam weapons in Galciv fire their energy beams through mirrors or crystals, according to the tech descriptions, so these mirrors/crystals would eventually wear down after a number of firings and have to be replaced. Mass drivers, of course, would have super-dense slugs that could also be quite large and, of course, in finite supply on board the ship. Low-end Stinger and Harpoon missiles would also be quite large, but from the Photonic Torpedo level, where the warhead is enclosed in a spontaneously-generated energy field, the size of missiles would shrink drastically at each level of progress thus allowing for more to be carried in that finite supply.

Thus, each time a ship fires a certain weapon in battle, a round of ammo for that weapon is expended. If all of a ship's ammo is expended in a battle, it's a sitting duck unless it has fleet mates who can still destroy the enemy. If both ships/fleets in a battle run out of ammo on the same round, the battle ends and both ships are kicked out to an adjacent parsec. Like Life Support, ammo can also be resupplied by Military/Economic Starbases, Planets, and Supply ships, and the weapons carry enough of it that it isn't too big a concern, just as life support in the current game isn't too big a concern.

7. Reduce pop growth rates by 80%, make Troop and Colony modules much smaller in capacity, but increase tax income accordingly so that a 1 billion population can generate as much as a 5 billion does now. This can be countered by reducing start pop to 5 billion and starting treasury to 2500 bc.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

The big thing I want to see is more realistic economic system.

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The thing i want to happen is to be able to play land battles and space battle like an rts game.I also want to design land units, etc.

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It would be awsome if the title for Galciv 3 to be Galactic Civilizations 3:Apocolypse.

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1.Faster load Menu. Cool Looking.
2.Change most settings on the fly without restarting game
3.Use mods ,change mods without restarting game.
4.Faster saves within game to avoid long save waits
5..Black hole effect to ships, Resources next to black holes to force player to go, Anti Black hole Tech for ships e.g Turbo Thrusters (small frequences of damage will occur to starbases and ships continuosly loose damage until destroyed), Anti gravitational Fields help (fractional damage or 2 hitpoint etc).
6.Pollution made to planet reducing soldiering because of certain powerful Factories, (Evil race Improvement) .
7.Big Astroid to build small colony with Starport (construction 50% slower than planetary Construction, 50% less soldiering.
8.More art work for Full body features of e.g iconians wearing leather suits with long coats. Very cool. Pictures of cities of different races. All can be seen in Diplomacy Screen when u choose history of Race.
9.Visual 3D Space gas clouds and stardust.
10.Tech to go throw some gases because of engine failure explosions and warp drive failures.
11.Ascension for neutral and good races
12.Introduction of different Galaxies, Bigger Galaxies to Take advantage of 256mb, 512mb Graphics Hardware.
13.Always see my race potrait.
14.Customizable Race Potrait.(clothing, Cloak, Size, Age appearance e,g long beard)

New Tech and Technology:
1.Nano Viruses to attack Yor Collective and reduce their soldiering abilities and Ship Logistic points.
2.New sensor technology to see Cloaked ships
3.Cloaking technology. Visible to AntiCloak sensors or until attacks
4.Medical Improvement For anti Biological Solutions and Plagues
5.Biological Engineering for Biological ships,Weapons
6.Gene manipulation to increase research skills and Soldiering abilities as well change appearance.
7.Texture Effect for bio Armor (i.e Arnor Bio Armor),Hull textures to go with other advanced armor
8.Introduction of energy cells for ships. Ships can engage a certain number of fights before docking to recharge. Advanced solar cells will help recharge on the fly but will take some time.
Engines use the least energy compared to weapons. (Theory:When a certain level of energy point is reached a ship cannot engage another ship as the energy is conserved for the Engines).Puts enficies on player having a starbase or repair post outside enemy territory for repairs etc.

Ships, Sattelites and Starbases:
Costly Biological Ships (regenerate,components,Animated parts, Vulnarable to Biological Weapons).
Planetary Sattelite Long Range Sensors (Upgrades: cloak sensors, Resource detection>> anomalies, Star Systems and formations of star systems.Player will not know there has been a formation of a new star system without the Long range sensor).
Carrier Ships that can carry Smaller ships. (When smaller ships not deployed no armor,shield or hitpoint bonus).
Scout Drones (self Destruct Mechanism to ram ships >>reasonable damage to ships without shields etc).
Repair Ships and Outposts.
Starbases More expensive and bigger and replaced with outpost and sattelites for smaller tasks.
Wormhole travel tech
Expensive Stargate Technology (stargate numbers limited by Logistics)

Advanced Races Access to:
More Music To compliment Iconians(the older races)
Use of Wormholes For Huge ships equiped with Wormhole travel tech, Collasping Wormholes and formation in different locations.
Stargates, expensive ,distant travel limited by energy or energy drained from nearby black holes.
Stargates have advanced Armor and shield Technology; Upgradable, Very High Hit Points.
Mega expensive Warp enabled Starbases. Starbases without anti gravitational upgrades explode near black holes after a short time.
(still number limited by Logistics)
Hide ships in Pocket Universe (not upgradable , Stationary) Can only be done once.
Planetary Destruct System as improvement. To avoid ego being bruised when planet about to be conquered or to avoid tech being stolen. Near by ships loose hitpoints from destruction.

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I'm loving most of these suggestions although with one major caveat: alot of what makes this game so fun is an overall lack of micromanagment. One can micromanage if one so chooses and can easily maximize his score, however the game is still very playable and winnable(sp?) without the extra effort. If we start having to supply ships with ammo or bring them back to port every 10-20 weeks then the game becomes a micromanagment nightmare, I also wonder what would happen to loading times on large galaxies with 8 or 9 opponents. Still awesome idea, now onto my own.

1. Ambassadors. In my opinion a great way to enhance the diplomatic aspect of the game would be to assign ambassadors to represent your intrests to other governments and the UP. Early in the game you would have access to relatively few generic ambassadors. However as you progress up the diplomatic and influence branches of the tech tree you would have access to ambassadors with enhanced abilities. Say you wanted to tech trade with the Torians then you would send your ambassador with the greatest technical knowledge to Torus. Am ambassador who could increase your influence ability would be useful at the UP.

2. Notwithstanding my previous comments on micromanagment I would like to see ground units added to the game. They don't need to be expensive and you wouldn't necessarily need alot of them but I feel it would be realistic then just loading 1 or 2 billion civilians onto a ship and having them fight to the death with another 6 billion civilians on the other planet. Some ideas that spring to mind are:
i> Light Infantry: standard starting military unit available for both attack and defense.
ii> Mechanized Infantry: Infantry equiped with heavy weapons and light vehicles. attack & defense
iii> Atmospheric Fighters: Fighters capable of participating in planetary battles. attack & defense.
iv> Anti-Air Battaries: Emplacments designed to disrupt an invader's air superiority. defense only.

There are many more possibilities but this gives an idea what could be possible. Advancing up the weapons and defenses tech trees as well as a seperate ground unit tech tree could grant additional types of units. As well as improve the abilities of units you already have. ie from laser rifles to plasma blasters.

This leaves the question of what to do with surviving enemy civilians which I also have an idea for but I don't want to go on all day.

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Just a few of my own ideas... for GalCiv3

Alpha Centauri had a lot of good features and keyboard short cuts that GC2-3 would benefit from, particularly the "go to" destination.

There are few improvements i`d like to see in the interface and the game play, but i doubt we will see them in the TA update. Would be nice to see some of the non - agressive game play options beefed up, as it can get a little too Invade & conquer oriented.

1. Would be nice to see which "tech & remaining weeks to discovery" you are currently researching when in the "Colony Management" view screen for each planet... this way you can cycle through your planets whilst altering the "military, social and research" spending and get instant feedback on how this will effect the "discovery" speed of thecurrent tech. Also include the "current tech" being researched in the "Civilisation Manager - Colonies" screen... so that you get quick feed back on how your "spending" decisions, effect the research time to the next "discovery".

2. Ship Experience: Would be nice to see this included with the other ship information when you click on a ship(appears on the right in the main galaxy window). Otherwise you have to double click on each ship to get a separate "pop-up" window to fins the info.

3. Espionage: All though this has been improved under DA, there is still plenty of scope for improved game play options as in Alpha Centauri. Some of these options would only appear if you have "researched" further up a spy-espionage tree. Thus, when you place your spy on an enemy planet, you would have a choice of options, dependant on your "spy tech level".
Options could include:
Sabotage - Military / Social / Research / Economic (with an option to destroy, delay, disrupt, assasinate scientists etc.

Steal: Techs, Money, Research Points, Influence points

Blame another "race": set up another race for your deeds.

Reduce Morale or take over planet: Have to be big credit cost, low % chance of success, require highest "spy tech level" to attempt. Option of an Espionage Module for "Influence SS", would improve % chance of Espionage if fitted and enemy planet was within sphere of influence.

The more damaging choices would have a lower % of success or higher chance of capture etc. The higher your "spy tech" level the higher the chance of you succeeding. You could add a financial cost fee against some of the options and / or pay a fee to recover your spy after "an operation". If you choose not to, you loose your spy if you are successful or not. Should be an option to make a clean getaway (for a fee) or try to blame another race (% chance of being caught doing this etc.. for which there should be serious consequences for the "Spies race" ie: Fines, Loss of influence, loss of treaties, Diplomatic loss, WAR.

Not sure how the AI would play the "Spy options", but it would make fun gameplay for the human player. The "Spy - sub tree" levels would have to be quite expencive to research, so both AI & human player would have to consider how much they want to expend on gaining espionage options.

4. Survey: Currently, anomalies and space junk provide the human player a big boost in the game. Would be nice to tone the "bonuses" down a little or make the bonuses better but harder to gain IE: Introduce a "Survey" subtree off the Sensor Tech tree, which you have to research to unlock / discover some of the Anomalies/SpaceJunk in the game. Prior to research the anomalies/space junk carnt be surveyed/unlocked or may be even seen on the screen? But once researched (improved/advanced survey module fitted) they can be surveyed/unlocked with a bigger/better bonus/tech discovery etc.
This could also apply to "pre-cursor" tiles on planets. (A bit like the "terraforming" tiles options).
If you research to the highest level in the "survey sub tree" you could have access to a "Planetary/Galaxy tech building" that once built, unlocks/discovers/provides bonus "pre-cursor" tile/s and/or technology or space ship etc or major pre-cursor "Galactic Achievement" that could reshape the game if you or your enemy discover it on their planet.
As with the espionage, the "survey tech tree" would be expencive to research, but might prove a worthwhile option, depending on your game play. It stops the game becoming mainly an invade / conquer strategy.
I wouldnt think this would be too hard to code into the game

5. Planetary Resources: This is an option i would like added to the game.
At the moment, we colonise or conquer new planets, improve their PQ, terraform, build up populations and construct ships, buildings, research techs. Apart from planetary moral, there is no impact on the planet.
I would like to see the planets resources dwindle, or polution or production decrease over time unless you research a sub tree of "Planetary Improvements". This would have a big impact on the game, as you would be left with the choice of "stripping" a planet bare of its resources as quickly as possible, before it decreases in PQ or "resources" or you choose to reduce "production- research" to increase the longevity of the planet etc. By introducing planetary resources into the game, players could use various options of play ( this could involve Race Modifiers, as some races are less industrial, militaristic or destructive). You would be left with the option of husbanding your planets existing resources or researching "ECO-techs" to increase/improve/recycle or extend your planets PQ/resources or conquering more planets in order to maintain your Races expansion.
Each planet could have a variable amount of resources (choice in game options)which the player may or may not know about (might have to research tech to have an accurate idea of PR (planetary resources)). The PR would then decline dependant on some of the variables i have outlined above. Eventually, without any action on the players part, the planet would exhaust its PR or become too polluted or toxic to produce any thing as well as support/feed/water the population etc.
So it could come as a shock that your PQ 18 Planet that you have built up suddenly starts turning into a toxic dustbin! (And looks like it from space etc).
Alternatively, the "Survey" tech tree outined in Para 4 "Survey" might unlock or discover "pre-cursor" technology or a pre-cursor building tile that can reverse/halt or improve your planet's "PR" state. So if your spies find out that another race has discovered or has built/building a "PR" project/tech/building you may wish to intervene, invade, steal, sabotage etc..

Like i said above, all the ideas included from para 1 through 5 are ideas for improving
and extending gameplay. Some might not be practical or achievable, but I would like to think that there is scope for some of the ideas to be considered or improved upon. For those that havent played Alpha Centauri, take a look, its still a very good game and a lot of the game play in GC2 can be traced back to it. I particularly like the "cut video scenes" when you "invent-discover-build" a planetary improvement... this would add a lot to the "bells & whistles" overall sense of achievement in GalCiv. It wouldnt take too much to introduce these.

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