Empire building going mental in GalCiv3
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GalCiv2 Forums
GalCiv2 Forums
Let's face it. No matter how great GalCiv2 is, it can get better with some fundamental changes. Don't get me wrong, it really rocks. I know it's a long shot, but there are a few things I really want for GalCiv3.
Groundbattles. I admit I haven't had the change to try everything in GalCiv2 just yet but still, there are always ways to improve it. I'm thinking some sort of RTS mode, although very limited and entirely optional. But basically, you recruit a bunch of "heroes" and try to send them to the planet of your choice. If they arrive successful, you can switch to a RTS mode where you control your characters on an actual battlefield and try to take over a certain points like radar stations, SAM sites, headquarders and things like that. Each of these are buildable by the player, of course. The more you have, the harder it is to infiltrate your planet. However, if you successfully take the planet, you get a fully operational planet complete with defenses as you don't actually destroy anything other than enemy soldiers. This way a player can choose to pretty much ignore displomacy, space warfare, technology and all that. It doesn't matter how great guns your soldiers have if you know how to take advantage of them. A bigger gun doesn't work if you don't know how to use it, you know.
A second thing I could want are Wonders of the World (yeah, like in Civilization). These things take a long time to build, and even more importantly, your governors can't build them on their own. The enemy AI can, but only since there isn't a human player involve on their side. But as for you, as the only player, you need to micromanage your chosen city just like you do in Ceasara 4, Civ City: Rome and all those. This will be real-time of course, and 1 week in the game will advance the space empire one turn. Your governors take care of your empire anyway, and the AI doesn't really care if you are there or not.
And governors. Yes, them. Sure we have them in GalCiv2, but they are too primitive. It would be a lot more fun if they could pretty much take over your entire empire if you let them, and perhaps if you do a bad job? This means you can let them do all the chores you don't want to do, and you can even send a governor with a colony ship when colonizing other planets. This way you send the oclony ship away on it's own to a chosed destination and don't have to care about it again. If you check back 50 turns later, it have advanced into a great city complete with a spaceport and a bucket of spaceships, all on it's own because you told it to. This way you could even focus entirely on creating a space fleet, groundbattles or whatever you want. If there is anything at all you don't want to do, have the governor take care of it.
And one more thing. The Deathstar. You all know you want it. What's the use of a big empire if you can't imtimidate the others with your big, planetsize combat station? Just don't call it Deathstar, as that might be copyrighted. But on the other hand, that goes back to the Wonders I was talking about. Only one of you can build a Deathstar, and yes, it will be able to blow up entire planets (over, say, fifteen turns to let it charge up the energy needed and let the other player have a chance to retaliate). And retaliate? Sure, why not? Build a great ground force and bring them to the Deathstar, and the star can be yours! Or send a massive force of capital ships, fighters, bombers and everything else you can come up with, and perhaps manage to destroy the Deathstar before it can blow up your planet. But then again, of course the Deathstar have a hangar of it's own.
And one more thing. If you do decide to go with the city builder idea, why not have it as an optional game mode on it's own? This way if we want to build a city, we can do it without thinking about what's going on in the rest of the universe. Same with the ship designer. Why not let us design ships in a different mode, kinda like the Star Creator used in The Movies? This way we could do what we want to do, without being forced to do other things like colonizing the universe.
But I'm just thinking aloud here.
Groundbattles. I admit I haven't had the change to try everything in GalCiv2 just yet but still, there are always ways to improve it. I'm thinking some sort of RTS mode, although very limited and entirely optional. But basically, you recruit a bunch of "heroes" and try to send them to the planet of your choice. If they arrive successful, you can switch to a RTS mode where you control your characters on an actual battlefield and try to take over a certain points like radar stations, SAM sites, headquarders and things like that. Each of these are buildable by the player, of course. The more you have, the harder it is to infiltrate your planet. However, if you successfully take the planet, you get a fully operational planet complete with defenses as you don't actually destroy anything other than enemy soldiers. This way a player can choose to pretty much ignore displomacy, space warfare, technology and all that. It doesn't matter how great guns your soldiers have if you know how to take advantage of them. A bigger gun doesn't work if you don't know how to use it, you know.
A second thing I could want are Wonders of the World (yeah, like in Civilization). These things take a long time to build, and even more importantly, your governors can't build them on their own. The enemy AI can, but only since there isn't a human player involve on their side. But as for you, as the only player, you need to micromanage your chosen city just like you do in Ceasara 4, Civ City: Rome and all those. This will be real-time of course, and 1 week in the game will advance the space empire one turn. Your governors take care of your empire anyway, and the AI doesn't really care if you are there or not.
And governors. Yes, them. Sure we have them in GalCiv2, but they are too primitive. It would be a lot more fun if they could pretty much take over your entire empire if you let them, and perhaps if you do a bad job? This means you can let them do all the chores you don't want to do, and you can even send a governor with a colony ship when colonizing other planets. This way you send the oclony ship away on it's own to a chosed destination and don't have to care about it again. If you check back 50 turns later, it have advanced into a great city complete with a spaceport and a bucket of spaceships, all on it's own because you told it to. This way you could even focus entirely on creating a space fleet, groundbattles or whatever you want. If there is anything at all you don't want to do, have the governor take care of it.
And one more thing. The Deathstar. You all know you want it. What's the use of a big empire if you can't imtimidate the others with your big, planetsize combat station? Just don't call it Deathstar, as that might be copyrighted. But on the other hand, that goes back to the Wonders I was talking about. Only one of you can build a Deathstar, and yes, it will be able to blow up entire planets (over, say, fifteen turns to let it charge up the energy needed and let the other player have a chance to retaliate). And retaliate? Sure, why not? Build a great ground force and bring them to the Deathstar, and the star can be yours! Or send a massive force of capital ships, fighters, bombers and everything else you can come up with, and perhaps manage to destroy the Deathstar before it can blow up your planet. But then again, of course the Deathstar have a hangar of it's own.
And one more thing. If you do decide to go with the city builder idea, why not have it as an optional game mode on it's own? This way if we want to build a city, we can do it without thinking about what's going on in the rest of the universe. Same with the ship designer. Why not let us design ships in a different mode, kinda like the Star Creator used in The Movies? This way we could do what we want to do, without being forced to do other things like colonizing the universe.
But I'm just thinking aloud here.
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