I have not preordered the TA expansion because it has been said to be content expansion pack mainly. I buy expansion packs for the gameplay enchantments, not content. Anyways DA was way too buggy for my taste, so I´ll probably get TA bit later on.

I definatly would like to see more expansion packs for GC2. Any of the next things will make buy a expansion pack:

- Better diplomacy / UP
- Tactical battles
- Better ground combat
- Better gameplay (stuff like: Space bar moves all automoves etc)
- Better UI

Well I guess people get the picture from that small list

What you are talking about is firing arcs. I don't know the devs stand on that issue.

Yeah, I would buy most future expansions. What I am least interested in is a multiplayer one, as it might decrease the single player experience. Although a hot-seat might be cool

Honestly- I can't see GC2 going MP. The game would be way too unbalanced in MP.

That said I am hoping for revamping of the following at some point

- Tech trade AI to work like the human. It just doesn't currently. To get a fair game you have to turn tech trading off. At the very least, I'd like to see a No tech brokering option.

- Espionage needs to be entirely redone, or have an option between DA/DL style. The feature was best in GC1, I wouldn't mind the GC1 system returning with some tweaks from BTS.

- The way economy , morale, and taxation works needs to be tweaked to be less gamey. The economics major in me is really cringing at the way it works now.

I'm against fire arcs. Look at the maneuverability our air to air missiles have now. Then imagine 200 years later, in space, that too, with missiles that travel faster than light, warping space as they go.

Effectively they'll be able to fly in any direction, and since the distances in space combat would be big, they'd have an omni-directional firing arc, especially with proximity fuses and increasingly powerful warheads(the Black Hole Eruptor creates a black hole upon the triggering of it's proximity fuse).

Thus your beam weapons and cannons will be the ones who suffer.

Since mass projectiles are more attracted by the enemies gravity then beams are, it will be the popular beam weapon line that is hit the hardest by the addition of firing arcs.

As for an espionage system, I think you should have to manually transport the spy to the target planet rather than 'teleport' them. If you have a trade route to the planet, the spy can hitch a ride on one of the trade ships that come by. Or you could put the spy on a new freighter and send it off on it's mission while establishing a trade route.

Otherwise, you could build a cheap, tiny fighter, put the spy on it, take the ship to the target planet and then gift it or sell it to the target race. Trojan Horse. That would add a suspicion factor to the gifting mechanism, especially if you're not friendly with that race. But, the main point is, that you wouldn't be able to teleport spies across the galaxy. That's ridiculous.

Count me in for as many expansion packs as you guys produce

1) it's what defines some peoples' universes: not every culture or worldview maintains a moralistic dichotomy between good and evil (Buddhism, for example).

2) this is a strategy game, not real life. good should come with some benefits that make it attractive beyond rold-playing value. evil seems to trump in 4 out of 5 games i play, and of the other 20%, Neutral takes it more often than not. i'm not talking who i play as or the way i play: i'm talking the AI. a human player can always succeed regardless of the ethical path s/he takes, but for the sake of more competative AI, i'd like to see Good get more of a boost.

i think if we're going to talk about changes for expansions, we should look at things holistically. i'm hoping the unique techs and planet improvements help to compensate for some of Good's weakness in TA. one thing that stands out in my mind is that Neutral is the only alignment that gets a unique building that can be used on every planet (NLCs, whereas the unique buildings for Evil and Good are galactic achievements). i'm not saying this is a problem; i'm only making an observation.

for me, the problem with the alignment choices isn't how much they'll benefit me and in what ways; my problem is how they affect the AIs.

the diplomacy & team-building side of Good might be a nice compensation, except that in most games the good AIs don't form alliances until very late game, if at all. it takes way a long time to build up close relations as a human player; i've only rarely seen the Good AIs never make it a priority. Good AIs should make forming alliances a major priority if it's going to be one of the perks of being good.

see, i don't think the major problem here is in the bonuses Good gets. it'd be nice if they got a bit more, especially in making it a more attractive option to human players, but i don't think it's totally necessary. but it does seem like the AI could or should be able to play according to its alignment a little better, and that's what i'd really like to see personally.

In a case like galactic civilisations 2 i think 1 or more expansion packs will do good to, since GC2 is a classic and people love to add new stuff to that game to continou playing the game (and keep it interresting).
I'd love more expansion packs and will buy them.

I haven't preordered TA though (yet), but thats only because the credit card we have at home expired (and i got a freaking 25% off coupon that will expire soon, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!)
Why cant i pay with ideal or something?

I've read (and posted) a fair bit of grousing about the aligment system, and this is perhaps the most cogent point I've yet seen raised. I'm sure it is too late to hope TA might show substantial changes in this area, but maybe the next pack? I'd never really thought about the tile improvement things b/c I'm in a Neutral rut, but both that point and the fact that Good AIs are bad at diplomacy are really worth dev attention, IMO.

I say you keep making them as long as you have cool things to add, and people to buy 'em.

Later in GALCIV2's life you could even do booster pack things, for 10$ or something. They'd be more than an update but not a full blown expansion pack either. Maybe they could have tonnes of ship parts or updated graphics or some other cool stuff like that. Of course they would probably have to be digital only.

you mean it? even though my spelling and grammar were atrocious?    thanks GW. i certainly had no illusion that this or other AI changed would be included in TA. it seems to me it'd bundle well with a re-vamped diplomacy expansion. i didn't want to get into this, but particularly i think perhaps something above 'alliance' would be a good method to address Good's weaknesses. i'd call it a 'treaty organization' for lack of a better parity. it's esentially a club where all the members are allied with all the other members.

it seems to me that's what'd be needed for a true diplomatic victory. how to invite new members/join is another question - perhaps a voting system similar to the UP. then when an AI picks 'good' it can make creating a Good-aligned treaty org a priority. perhap joining an existing one wouldn't be possible (for the human or an AI) until you reached close relations with at least one of its members. perhaps you/the AI would even have to wait X turns until the organization could meet to learn your/their fate.

i'd even say that a treaty organization including all remaining players should be the real requisite for a diplomatic victory. it doesn't seem all that diplomatic or victorious if you've got an alliance with everyone else, but they're all at each other's throats.

just some further thoughts - i mean, this is a forum about future expansions, right?

Yup, it's always bothered me that you don't need to actually get everyone to get along to get the "galactic peace" victory.

a way to improve one race's view of another race would be a nice adjuct along these lines: some sort of peace brokering ability beyond - "i'll pay you to stop this crazy war" - would be a nice addition (as long as it wasn't tedious).

I would buy expansions as long as they added a significant amount of things to the game.

One thing I would not do is buy an expansion where the chief additional feature is multiplayer. An updated economy, particularly the goofy "fully-staffed factories means empty labs" thing is something I am certainly interested in, although that alone would (obviously, I hope) not be enough for me to buy one.

A lot of people seem to have some sort of desire to turn this into MoO 2, or maybe what they wish MoO 3 would have been. I must confess to having never played the series, but the requests for "tactical" combat (whatever that means, I'm not really sure) and such seem rather unnecessary to me. I suggest that people who want to turn this game into MoO 2 go play that game instead. Sorry, I just had to get that off of my chest.

Mostly the kinds of features I personally would be interested in are additional race abilities, additional techs that actually do something different, maybe a little more differentiation between weapon types other than Shield A is best against Weapon A (although I'm not sure what that differentiation would be, really), additional ship abilities, better in-game descriptions of things (which, really, I think should be part of a patch and not just in an expansion), the OPTION to make it so that going of one edge of the map brings you around to the other edge (which may not make a lot of sense realistically, but then neither does 2D space; I feel as though starting near an edge rather than the center is generally a not insignificant advantage), and I'm sure I could think of plenty of other things, many of which I'm sure have been brought up elsewhere.

Anyway, my real point being that I'd be willing to pay around $20-$30 for additional gameplay elements, but I don't really care a lot about additional campaigns or multiplayer in this particular case.

I'd tend to agree that the MOO2 nostalgia is thick around here, and I'm not sure it's the best influence. Personally, I like GC2 a lot more than I ever liked MOO2. I was more of an Ascendancy fan, myself, but I don't feel compelled to filter my perception of GC2 through the lens of that earlier title.

I'm not wholly opposed to tactical combat per se, but I suspect that it's not worth the resource investment to me. Getting the AI to be competitive at it alone would practically take up the resources of an expansion, I would think, and I'd rather see that time and money put elsewhere. Certainly it's something to think about for GC3 (again, assuming it's even possible to make the AI competitive) but I think with GC2 the better idea along those lines might be the ability to make a few pertinent tactical decisions before the battle that can alter its outcome. That'd add some additional sophistication and depth without leaving the AI, and thus ultimately the player, in the lurch.

Continue to make expansions aslong as you profit of'em.

And I'm not interested at all in GalCiv.

Too many expansions will lead to too any versions - making a decent strategy/tactics discussion impossible.
Even now - someone like me who is hardware-bound to DL finds the different versions of DA confusing.
I've bought TA - hoping that there will be a low end graph setting.

But things will get ever more complicated in the forum if we have 5 or six versions around - and Player1 has addon A, B, and C, Player 2 has A,C and D and player 3 has B and E, and player4 has them all!

Very confusing (and quite a task to make sure all is balances and compatible!).
On the other hand - you're the clever ones...

i disagree entirely. if players are unable to specify the rule set under which they're playing and discussing, it's their verbal laziness, not the fault of the developers. if people specify the expansions they play with, there's no problem whatsoever. plus, StarDock hasn't said that the expansions would work like those of EverQuest (buy the ones you want). they may in fact be linear (that is, you need DA to get TA, TA to get the next one, etc.).

perhaps rather than laying the entire responsibility on the player, SD could configure the website such that a player's online avatar displayed what expansions they has purchased (if the player so chooses) next to or beneath MV medals.

also, you might not be as hardware-bound to DL as you think. when they backported an update for their new graphics engine, i found i was able to play on huge and gigantic maps again (granted, i can't max-out all the planets to abundant without getting out of memeory errors midgame, but i don't like managing that many planets anyway). of course, it's your computer so you probably know better than i.

In responce to post #37:

I agree with all of your points except 1.



If you play your cards right, you can get a +35% bonus to defense, and a +5% bonus to hit points. Those bonuses last well after Psionic weapons and superior Defenses become obsolete. For me, its reason enough to be good (though I would like the other issues to be fixed).

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In responce to the original post:



I suppose you could. Maybe it would be worth creating a poll for the ideas.



2010 as best case scenario? I'd be happy to wait until 2012 or something if you need it. Just do a good job when you make it (like what you guys usually do).



I'd be satisfied with one last good expansion. Address some major issues, add in a few features, and fix a few problems, and add in that major influx of content that you guys said you were making.

Unfortunately, as I see it, GalCiv2 has too many problems at this time. To fix them all would effictively require a new game altogether, or a *lot* of expansions. Instead of a lot of expansions, what I would rather have is a good sequal, and some explainations why some things ended up the way they are, and why they have not been fixed yet. I can think up some good answers myself, but I would rather get a responce from you guys.

I would especially like to see a dev post about ethics in this game.
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Questions:

I'll write some up later in another post when I have more time.

Well, let me think about that. YES!!!

Without MP , does it really matter how many versions you have?

I don't care what you guys do, but make planatary combat invasion animation much more exciting. It would be awesome if it was cinematic style. You see Drengin slaughtering torians with your phasor technology against their laser technology. Or you see that Thalins kicking but with good melee skills (they have multiple arms after all). When you choose asteroid collision planatary invasion tatic you get to see it, etc.

ANYTHING is better than the current system of atari soldiers that all look the same running at each other firing the same mass drivers, unrealisitc looking crane tanks and Jawa sand crawlers.

You guys boast about ship combat and better planet graphics, which are impressive. But no more atari graphic combat animation. I want to be excited when I go to war!!!

What problems are you referring to that need to be "fixed"?

I certainly don't feel burned out on acquiring expansions. I would think that one, at least, as meaty as DA, and as TA seems to be, would be a viable project into next year.

One thing that I think is important to keeping people interested in expansions is to keep the integration solid. Keep doing Gold editions after the fact to consolidate everything into one package. Keep making the entire story portion playable in the latest version of the engine; I love the fact that I can play the DL story with the DA engine. As far as I am concerned, DA functionally supplanted DL, so there is no game-play reason to go back to DL, but it is important to have the full campaign story available in the latest version of the engine.

BTW, I have always supposed that things like the in-some-cases radical race abilities rebalancing between DL and DA represented improvments based on playing experience, rather than story driven changes. Am I correct in this? I never finished the campaign within DL, and when I go back to it I intend to play it via the DA engine. However, if there are story driven reasons why the Altarians, for instance were inherently Lucky and Creative in DL, but instead became great at Research in DA, then I will go back and use the DL engine to get the correct story experience.

drrider

Starbases defenses, economy, and a few others I can't think of right now.

Right now, the big one that bugs me is the how ethics are set up. Its bad enough that *I will* research "Xeno Ethics" early in the game to minimize my encounters with them.

The problem is that good is needlessly punished for being good. The impression I get is that good is stupid and incompetant, while evil isn't. Its like good thinks that to be good, one must make ethinical decisions in such a way that it eliminates the possibility that someone can come along and say "wait a sec, they did that to do this for themselves.".


Lets look at one of these random events:


Alright, so here, good leaves the inhabitants alone. No attempts at communication are made. No attempts at negotiating for the knowledge of how to build those domes. You don't even know if they would be willing, or wanting to leave.

Maybe the surface of their world was ravaged by some cataclysm and they sought shelter under the sea, never expecting that they could walk on the surface ever again. The devastation might of been so overwhelming that it would of been considered absurd to think that it would ever recover, so they never bothered to monitor things. Considering the lack of hyperdrive before humans came along, the idea that they could leave their planet would too be absurd. But if someone were to interfer with their society, that someone would be able to provide a devastated society with some hope.

In any case, I'm not argueing that every case needs a happy ending. Some situations can be impossible tasks. I'm also not saying to give bonuses to good right away in all cases. I'm would be satisfied if it were made possible to earn some these bonuses. The underwater colonist might offer to give you their domes if you were to build them a colony ship (which would be a special project), or they might join your society and will seek to understand how their ancestors built those domes in the first place, possibly unlocking a new tech, "Under Water Domes". These domes could provide a research bonus to certain planet types (ones with lots of water), or to provide additional terraformable tiles to certain planets (with lots of water).

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What I'm saying is, I don't want to dread getting an ethinical event. I want to see them as oppertunities which, after a little effort, provide rewards, and not as ways to cripple my civilization.