There needs to be a button on the invasion screen you can click as an alternative to hitting the space bar. My keyboard broke the other day and this has caused endless annoyances.

Death Stars should add +% in diplomatic ability cause its 10000 time worse than nuclear nukes

The best change you can make is to make patches available on the GalCiv site like other game companies do with their games.

~SDC~

Alank287 (message #654):

Patches are already made available like some other companies do with their games: about once a month. Note that this is indeed far more common than some other companies are known for patching their games.

I'm in awe that there's a company as friendly, approachable, and willing to back their words with action as Brad Wardell's company is. Okay, that comment is viewable as 'sucking up', but it really is genuine so don't worry about it.

Trust you're enjoying the game anyway.

Damian


~SDC~

i dont know if this has been suggested before, but make it so you can SAVE governer settings from game to game. this way we wouldnt keep having to add new social projects every time we get a tech giving us one =]

So many great suggestions! Here's one that I haven't seen mentioned yet (of course with so many posts, I may have missed it)...

SHIP LOGISTICS
When clicking a ship, it would be helpful if a line appeared that that leads from the selected ship to it's destination. The line would appear on the map as well and be extremely helpful in ship logistics.

CONITNUE PLAYING
While I have seen the following suggested, it bears repeating...

When I played my first game, and won an economic victory, I spent so much time with that galaxy, building it and having short term and long term goals, that when I won, I was surprised that I couldn't continue the game. It really makes you NOT want to win the game.

Sure, I know different victory conditions can be set, but in any event, it's my universe and I would enjoy being able to play past meeting the winning conditions.

STARBASES
Yes, this has been already suggested as well...

It's very difficult to tell the difference between my starbases and those of the alien cultures.

ENEMY IN RED
It would also be nice if a selection could be made that would show all your planets, ships, etc. in green, allies in yellow, and enemies (anyone you are at war with) in red.

Thanks!

I am playing a game in which I built a massive starbase in a sector with a Drengin system. My starbase has the "reduce ennemy speed by 1" improvement. As a result (it seems) the Drengin system has built +/- 300 defender ships which are piled just one square away from their system. The Drengin have not moved them in dozens of turns. I keep blowing up a few units at a time in the Drengin stack, but they do not even fight back ??? BTW the Drengin empire overall has stopped almost any activities period, it seems, although they were the dominant force. The humans (me) also experienced a massive drop in morale/income which disappeared as mysteriously as it appreared after lasting quite long. Can't get that one either. Help.

~SDC~

Map suggestion: when I am in the Planet List mode, I would like to see on the map (perhaps the tactical version) which planet I have selected on the list i.e at the same time. Many decisions regarding production choice are based on where the system is.

~SDC~

Hiya. First time on the suggestions page, and given the number of suggestions preceeding this one, please forgive any kind of retread of ideas.

In no particular order:

A) I want to know more about the game setting. I'd love to have more story driven events... perhaps planetary revolts that begin five events earlier by signifying that one particular political power has had a strangle hold on a system, and the fervor is spreading... or rather a five event story arc that details my counter-espionage unit tracking down a Drengin infiltration ring... Little bits like that can really personalize the game experience. Some may argue that it takes away from the strategy experience, but that can be sidestepped by adding a flag in the options menu to not show any story driven events, yeah?

Alien and Human personalities. Currently, the aliens have their different musics, and some of the text associated with each race is characterized... but I'd love to see more uniquie identifiers to the different species. I'm sure its been brought up before, but how about different naming schemes for alien ships... along with popup "briefings" noting that a particular class of ship has been sighted flying alien colors, or something along the lines of:

"Commander, we've spotted a new Acrean warship, the beast appears to have a similar displacement and operational role as our Dreadnaught class starships. We'll need to exercise caution around this new vessel."

Little briefings like that can add spectacular immersion effects in the game. Another idea: more customizable/personable aspects to running an empire... maybe having different minister's pics bringing different briefings. Like a minister of Espionage, or a Research liaison or even an Admiral reporting on the progress or digression of a particular aspect of the empire?

C) Customizable Ship roles... maybe variations of weapon types... nothing too complex, just something like Phasers, Particle Beams and Missles, along with respective defensive technologies. This can allow for more of a variety when it comes to ships... for example a Beam Frigate for ship to ship combat and a Missle Frigate for less effective ship to ship combat, but with bombardment factors. This is kind of implamented with the Bombardment Crusiier add to 1.03, but I'm looking for something more extensive possibly?

D) A different way to oragnize what is being built on a planet and build queues independant of the governors. I'd favor a tree style organization of ships available, for example several "Classes" of ships with individual "Models" underneath... like a "Science Class" with Survey Ship, Star Hawk, and Ranger as sub models. This would visually help me organize what ships are available for building based on their role, and not their name... just a thought there

I'm sure there's more I can think of... I'll come back later

-Agillious

I would like, in addition to some of the other suggestions:

1) for auto-combat ships to not bother me until they run out of galaxy-wide targets. Currently, they pop up asking for me to confirm that I still want them in auto-combat mode every time some other ship destroys their intended target, and sometimes even when they destroy their intended target.

2) If I click on an alien ship/starbase, I do *NOT* want to be instantly taken to my next ship needing orders. I clicked on it because I want information about it. Unfortunately, the game is rather inconsistent about this, it doesn't always happen, and I haven't figured out when it does happen.

I'm sure I'll think of more (I knew I had at least one more suggestion), but this is enough for now.

I agree wit h Thunderbolt about letting the governors have separate MIL/SOC/RES sliders.

Is there a place that tells you what sort of galactic events are going on (e.g. recessions or xenophobia)? And how about a quick way to see who has which Trade Goods and where the various Galactic Wonders are?

I'd also like to be able to rename my ships and individual planets (it's obviously possible to separate them from the star names, since we have 'Earth' in Sol). That's minor though.

-Miranda

~SDC~

Make Stellar Cartography more useful:

Many people appear to think Stellar Cartography is a fairly useless tech. There are no other techs under Stellar Cartography, so I suggest the following:

Make another tech available under Stellar Cartography. Call it Spectrum or Spectral Cartogrpahy (or whatever you like!), and have the benefit being able to see the dark purple systems. Those seem to harbor very nice planets, and might be a way to make people want to invest in Stellar Cartography.

This is useful since the alien races do NOT know where those systems are. I found one in the course of a game.. WELL into the game, that was uninhabited. It harbored 2 class 26 planets, a class 17 and a class 15. I went to war over that system. LOL

Just a suggestion.. if is is a moddable tech, please let me know.. I would love to add this one!

fleabitfox

I second the motion to create an 'autopilot off' toggle from the main menu, or in game. Additionally, instead of having autopilot happening when you double click a ship in the fleet list that is set to autopilot, do NOT move any autopilot until you click an 'auto move now' button of some sort. So imo, this is how it would work well:

1. Move your ships manualy that you desire.
2. Click the autopilot move now button.. all ships that have autopilot on will move until the end of their routes...

OR

2a. If you don't click the autopilot move now button, they move at the end of turn.

This coupled with the option to not skip ship moves left would give one enough control.

It is VERY confusing to double click on an autopilot ship, and suddenly, all your ships start going whacko and moving. Oft times you accidently move a ship you didn't mean to, or can't redirect a ship you would like to.

Thanks!

fleabitfox

I've noticed a few posts complaining that the A.I. planets sometimes defect too easy ( to avoid clean-up time) and that culture bombing is too effective.

Could they're not be a simple fix of a political party called the "isolationists" who are a bunch of xeno-phobes, this party stops planets from defecting to you and vice versa. let's face it defections are rare enough in history, anti alien propaganda would be real easy, It would have to knacker your trade thou.....


Seems like it would be a nice simple option

~SDC~

Add right click info message from Research Screen. I would like to right click on the military and social projects to see want they do. Can use the same screen that appears when you are building a social or military project.

When I receive a tech via trade, I would also like to see or be able to call up the same screen that appears when I research it. I can look at the techs research and can see some of the desciption in the bottom. However, if the tech description exceeds the space, I can not scroll to complete reading the desciption.

I would also like the ability to lock a slider. I would like to lock a slider at 20% and then just adjust the other two. It takes a lot of time to tweak between turns.

To maximize productivity you need to adjust the percentatge of the sliders each turn for social, military, and tech. This is a lot of micro-management. If extra (money above what is needed to build the project) would be returned as cash or would be carried over to the next project then I would forgo this necessary micro-management.

Managing these sliders for optimization is probably (should be) what the AIs currently do since it is nothing more then a program. A human must also do this to be competetive (unless the human likes wasting resources). I would like to see this level of micro-management elimentated. As long as I know the resources are not wasted I could skip all this tweaking every turn.

More interaction with UP

At the moment UP is like this body you can vote on but you have no say in, would be cool if you had some way of pushing for upissues.
eh. You can get an up issue put forward if over 60% of the influence in the UP allows it to be put forward.

ie: I want to push the issue of trade ships being protected, I persuade another faction to help (maybe in the diplomatic screen as a new option like alliance) our total influence is greater than 60% a UP meeting is called to vote on the issue of trade ships.

More diplomatic options, would really improve an already fine game.



~SDC~

A small thing, but: when you press F9, you get the tactical screen. When you press F9 again, it goes away.

The other function keys should perform like this as well.

Just thought I'd add more suggestions,

1.Add another missile unit, from Photon or Corvette Tech

2.I haven't fully explored the tech tree yet but, Intergalactic Casino, either as a Wonder or a Module

3.Built in cheats, if used the game won't be submitable to the Metaverse, and maybe it has to be earned.

4.Drone Carrier ship, possibly have it where if an enemy ship is within 3 parasecs it automatically launches attack drones which are about as effiecient as a star fighter but don't give EXP so it won't just power up enemy ships.

5.I don't destabalize often, but if you can't destroy target improvements make, it where you can.

I would like to play against an AI that is absolutely the best you can build...but doesn't "cheat". Can I play against your most 'aware' AI please without it having so many resources that I can't compete and get slaughtered.

Thanks for listening (great game, etc....)

Hunter

I noted earlier that GalCiv and world politics have a lot in common. Since my "real-life" area of expertise is policy, development, and healthcare, there are a couple inclusions I think would be really interesting in the game.

Currently I'm working on the US's global arm fighting the SARS epidemic. If you consider interplanetary colonization, exposure to alien microbes (with absolutely NO immunity), and globalization (on a galactic scale). An epidemic could have major consequences on productivity, military size and effectiveness, population size (growth and reduction from mortality), and industrialization. South Africa is an excellent example. South Africa's industry is failing because many of its workers are to sick to work. The South African Defense Force (SDF), the largest military on the continent, is a house of cards, because over 50% of their people are HIV positive. Taken together, industrialization is difficult at best-impossible at worst.

A game like GalCiv can't model all those things. However, you could have an event, like the Xenophobia event, that lasts several turns and effects several areas of the game. If you did this with an epidemic it could lower production, population, and morale for a set amount of turns. It could also make the medical center upgrade more effective. Rather than offering fringe bonuses, the medical center could offer protection against frequent outbreaks.

If you think about it from a biological standpoint, space colonization would be frought with MANY epidemics. Probably wiping out whole colonies.

Would you think about it as an addition?

I'd like to be able to change the text on some of the tabs. For example, on the Tech tree page I get confused with "Archive" and "Available" I'd like to change "Archive" to something like "Available" or whatever .Sounds daft I know but then again, I am an Alien....

~SDC~

Here's a few suggestions I've come up with so far, some of which may have already been mentioned....

1) All filter-lists (planet/ship/tech/etc.) should be made as a pull-down box rather than cycling through all the available options.

2) Tool-tips for those three buttons in diplomatic exchanges (minor, I know).

3) Some indication of how balanced a diplomatic exchange is...a la Europa Universalis 2. Basically, a displayed bar with a marker in the middle which markes a "fair" exchange and a line indicating the current level. One can then add items on either side until the line reaches the bar. A quick option to add cash to make up the difference. The balance line can even be offset to the left or right of the bar's centre so one can get an idea just how much of a tremendous diplomatic advantage (or disadvantage) we have. As a bonus there can also be a "grey area" around a fair trade in which one can ask for slightly more than what is fair. A roll is performed and if succesful you get what you want at the cost of a slight worsening in relations. On the converse one can offer a bargain to a civ (less than a fair deal) for a slight improvement in relations; but not as much as a freebie outright.

4) Include buttons for trade routes on the mini-map and trade by civ on the mini-map graph. Very useful for identifying which sectors can use boosts from starbase modules. As it stands now, one has to go into domestic affairs, then the trade tab to determine whether it's a good idea to put that new module that boosts trade on a particular starbase.

5) Need a description for the various auto commands when a ship is double clicked. Call me dense but I always forget the difference between "sentry" and "guard".

6) The ability to select a ship on auto and see it orders without inadvertently cancelling them.

7) Customizable empire icon. Customisable ship lists.

8) An indication somewhere of the number of trade routes free/left. I've lost track of how many times I've built a freighter only to have it stand idle outside a star because I'd already maxed out my alotted number of routes.

9) Info on the lenghth of outstanding leases/tributes, how much, and to who they are being paid. Good to plan when I'll be coming into some extra money

10) Keep influence by sector figures and sector influence colours on the mini-map hidden (represented by "??" perhaps), until your ship has actually visited that sector. As things stand right now one can get an idea of where the empires are, how widespread they are, and how well they are doing by using the sector influence button on the mini-map, or by playing "minesweeper" with the show influence button in a randomly chosen sector. And without even visiting those sectors. A quasi-cheat/bug if you will. If the figures/influence are hidden there's a greater incentive to explore.

11) Here's a bit of a weird one. I get very miffed when my ships get diverted from their path because of a non-hostile ship appearing in it's way. Especially as one is exploring space there's supposed to be a little thing we call the Z-axis present
My suggestion is to remove collision detection for ALL stellar bodies (ships, stars, etc) for vessels on a pretermined route (auto command). One can rationalize it by saying the ship passed over (or under) the body in question. Note that if one right-clicks on a ship as the intended destination instead of empty spece your ship will attack as usual. "Hang on!", some may cry. What if one wants to attack an enemy vessel that is sharing the same space with an non-hostile (say a freighter?). Simple, I say. Have a dialog box pop up asking for your desired target: the the stack of 5 starfighters, or the lowly cargo hauler? Pick one, the dialog closes and battle ensues. Hope these ideas get considered. Thanks!


~SDC~

How about a single location on the main page listing latest version available for:

1. Drengin.net subscribers
2. Stardock Central users
3. Standalone patch downloaders
4. Windowed GalCiv users

Sometimes a patch is being discussed in the forums and I don't really know if Stardock is messing up or it is a Drengin only patch.

I forgot to mention, it would be great if the four version listing mentioned in the previous post also had a "most recent update" date and time, so that we knew how up-to-date the info was.

How about allowing the player to set the default for autolaunching ships to "on"? Several times, I have discovered a planet (often one that has defected to me) will have a slew of ships ready to launch that I hadn't noticed... often with ship types that I really don't need.