6 ways I think this game could improve

Agreed on all counts.

Does make it seem a little two-dimensional, doesn't it?

I find myself getting to the point of guaranteed win, and losing interest.

Too much like work mopping up the galaxy.

Agree 100% x 100!!  These ideas would make the game soooo much more interesting, immersive, and challenging.  I would like to suggest three other ideas that fit within the theme of the OP...

1) Being able to claim areas outside your influence in the name of your empire.  For example, I happen upon a sweet cat 16 planet or important strategic resource... but I don't have a ready colonizer or constructor... I can claim the planet or resource in the name of my empire and declare it off limits to all other factions.  Other factions can of course choose to respect or not respect the declaration based on many of the considerations mentioned by the OP. 

2) being able to mark areas as "No Go" zones so when I do stumble upon a monster or pirate stronghold, I can mark the area and not worry about my autonomous ships wondering through... until I'm ready to deal with the threat of course

3) In regard to the OP's concern regarding occupied planets flipping - there should be a game mechanism that uses size of occupational forces compared to conquered population to determine likely hood of planet flipping.  This mechanism does not have to be linear in effect either -  for example, some conquered planets may be more rebellious than others and require considerably more resources to control.

Two additional ideas of my own, not necessarily in line with the OP's theme:

1) Some sort of espionage system

2) Fleet admirals and invasion/occupation generals

Loving the game though and find myself in that "just one more game turn" frame of mind that I haven't felt with other games!!

I have yet to encounter an espionage system that I actually found enjoyable in any video game I've ever played. The best are the ones that I can ignore without any real issues, the rest are irritating or sometimes infuriating to varying degrees. Pay virtual money to get a coinflip between "nothing happens," "you failed and lost something," "you failed and ticked off your neighbor," "you succeeded and ticked off your neighbor," and maybe "you succeeded and your neighbor's a clueless idiot." What fun! What excitement! Oh, and don't worry, the computer can do exactly the same to you, and most systems more or less don't allow you to do anything at all to counter it, and when they do allow you do to something to counter it, it's usually "pay even more virtual money to reduce the success rate of hostile espionage actions." Whoopee! Just what I needed! Virtual slot machines, except usually without even the minor redeeming features of real slot machines!

There are very good reasons to not permit ships to retreat. You think cleanup is a pain now? Just wait till you have to engage a ship with 50 movement 51 times in one turn to kill it. Oh, and you have to do that for every. Single. Ship. that the computer built.

1. This is scheduled for 1.5. Check the road-map thread.

3. NO, NO and NO! The experience I had in Endless Space of having 8 of the AI's fleets attacking me in one turn and all retreating makes me opposed to any retreat mechanic. Also what joeball123 said.

4. Target their planets that generate the most influence first and make sure to destroy any influence starbases they might have nearby. It is odd they flipped after 1 turn, it usually takes 10. Also population affects morale, so those 50 billion soldiers you had on one planet were making it flip faster. And why would you even station that many on one planet? Also consider building some influence starbases of your own around newly captured colonies.

Typically true but i hve flipped and had my newly conquered planets flip in one turn.  It will show >10x influence and there is nothing you can do about in in time.  The trick as you point out is to take out surrounding, high inf planets/C starbases.  If i see a class 16 that i want, i invade nearby low class ones and blow them up.

Considering the pandora box that would open if you could retreat from battles, I would argue that it isn't worth it. If you keep an eye on your ships, you already can use superior movement to avoid battles. Maybe there should be some alarm if a ship detects enemy units so you can alter it's course.

As for the influence problem after invading: I just invaded a planet deep within the enemy and guess what - the whole area turned to my influence zone. So no, I don't think that part needs to change, you just need to change your tactics.

The point "Being able to claim areas outside your influence in the name of your empire." brought up by CMDCM ... so of course everyone claims everything they see. What's the point?

The other points I can agree with.

/signed. 

Love this list. 

The idea of retreat, as joeball123 says, would be an absolute PITA unless there was a mechanic by which you could only retreat from a battle situation before you took a certain amount of damage (10%, say). The game makes it so that any enemy that attacks you - and you attacking any enemy - takes out your navigation etc first, so that yep, you can fire your guns and stuff but you can't maneuver to actually shoot too accurately.

Agree with No 2, especially. Really looking forward to 1.5. C'mon December already!

You should be able to retreat only those ships with a higher tactical speed than the enemy.

This would give some meaning to thrusters, which ATM are just wasted parts.

not if used on kenetics (granted not great though)

I agree most espionage systems are too arbitrary and I don't care for the "lets build a spy" idea.  I was thinking more along the lines of investing in a spy network that would be helped or hindered by conditions such as: how well could your race infiltrate another race (physically and socially), how paranoid a target race might be (perhaps what level of benevolence, pragmatism or malevolence a race is).  Results of espionage efforts would be more subtle than other games (such as warnings of fleet concentrations at borders, warning of large scale production of troop ships. etc.) but would still provide another level of strategic consideration.   

Interesting point regarding retreat.  I hadn't considered that.  Of course there could always be a chance % escape attempts would not be successful (based on number of ships in opposing fleets, technology comparisons, racial traits, etc)

Thank you all for the responses. I'm glad to see some people like my suggestions and others have offered a good discussion about it!

a) This would make support ships more important rather than the waste of time that they are now. Tired of enemy ships retreating from a battle after taking some damage? Bring along ships with Hyperdrive Suppressors, which prevents enemy ships from being able to Retreat.

Additionally, the retreat mechanic can be tied in to the ships movement/tactical movement. Perhaps retreating costs 10 movement and takes you away by 1 to 3 squares.

b) I wish I was having such luck with influence, but so far no dice. I conquered 5 planets within the heart of an enemies influence and the influence area remained the same. The planets flipped soon afterwards. I still think that planets that have been recently conquered should be immune to flipping for X amount of turns because it makes no sense. If there was a few billion remaining population from the previous occupant and I then moved all my military forces off of the planet and continued to the next target, then I could see the valid reason as to how that small remaining population would stage a coup again to retake the planet and flip it. But as it stands it's bizarre and weird. After everyone dies they just seem to rise from the grave, dust themselves off and easily defeat an army of billions that just conquered them easily. It makes no sense to me.

The current game mechanics make retreat an incredibly awkward thing to allow. It's well within the realm of possibility for only one interception attempt to be possible before a fleet reaches its target, and the game already heavily favors whoever is on the strategic offensive at most stages of the game - how many ungarrisoned starbases have you seen defeat an attacking fleet? How about planets that successfully resist an invasion (discounting planets that are immune to being invaded)? Making it possible for interception attempts (and you will frequently get only one attempt) to fail even if the fleet that made the interception should have been able to defeat the intercepted force had the intercepted force actually stood and fought swings the balance even more into favoring the aggressor. Defenses regenerate fully between battles and there's already a very effective fleet configuration with a handful of extremely high defense tanks supported by large numbers of glass cannons, and being able to retreat from an engagement will only make that configuration even more powerful.

Then there's the issue that if I the player don't want my ships to be intercepted, it's usually within my power to prevent any chance of interception before my ships reach their targets. All it takes is a bit of care with movement orders. I don't think that removing the only real cost to screwing up movement orders, or at least making punishing a screwup require significantly more effort, is that good of an idea, not when being on the strategic offensive is already so heavily favored by the game mechanics. If I screw up and put my invasion transports one tile too close to that enemy fleet, I should lose those transports. I screwed up, either by providing inadequate protection for the transports or by issuing move orders that exposed the transports unnecessarily. Being able to have those transports retreat? There went the cost of that screwup; now it's just the minor irritation of having to sit through another boring session with the battle viewer for as long as it takes for the 'retreat' button to light up.

Beyond that, you have to decide how 'retreating' from an engagement actually works. Ships that win engagements the usual way remain in the tile in which they started the engagement; when one side retreats, does the other side, as you'd expect if said side initiated the engagement, follow? If so, what happens to any other ships which might be on the tile that the retreating fleet vacated? Who pays for moving, how much do they pay to move, and when do they pay to move? Can ships that aren't actually faster than their opponents at the tactical level actually escape if forced into combat, even if they're faster at the strategic level (and remember, a player who's paying attention can already usually prevent ships from being engaged as long as they're at least as fast on the strategic level as the ships which are close enough to potentially attempt to intercept them)? Do fleets retreat from engagements when the engagements are resolved quickly, or is retreat only an option if the player chooses to watch the battle in the battle viewer? Do defenses continue to instantly fully recover between battles? Can I retreat quickly enough that I can fire off a volley or two of missiles, do a bit of damage, and then turn tail before non-missile weapons can cause my ships any harm?

While I agree that thrusters do need a purpose, I'd far sooner see tactical speed have some meaningful impact on hit rates than see the ability to retreat from an engagement enter the game. Also, if the only thing that higher tactical speed really does for you is enable retreat, then ships that are able to retreat are also more likely to need to retreat, as they're the ones that spent the most space on otherwise useless thrusters. They can't win because their opponents spent that space on things that actually provide combat power, they can only delay (possible exception if abusing post-engagement defense regeneration or range advantage is possible).

These type of questions and problems are exactly what game designers are supposed to solve - that's what they're paid for. 

Losing everything in an engagement or winning absolutely is too black and white for my tastes in a strategy game. I should be able to make fast and heavy hitting ships that I can use to harass an enemy but which get curbstomped in a stand-up fight - that adds tactical and strategic depth to the game. It makes it worth it to bring along ships that are fast along with the lumbering giants so that they can pursue ships that try to flee. Having everything just line up and shoot one another until one side dies is like Napoleonic Space Wars except instead of the ability to retreat or fall back every battle is a mass-slaughter. 

Additionally, the ability to retreat (as figured out by the game designers and programmers) improves the value of available technologies. As I mentioned earlier, you could research "hyperdrive suppressors" which, along with signal jamming, actually give you reasons to build ships whose entire purpose is support and whose addition is an invaluable contribution to any fleet to cut off an enemies ability to retreat, reduce the enemy fleets effectiveness in space while boosting the defenses/attacks of your own ships. So not onyl has the game acquired greater tactical and strategic depth but now a greater variety of units and technologies are more desirable instead of the brute force massive ships + as many guns/shields as can fit and/or carrier drones which is what it is now. 

And it's not just that, but being able to order your ships to retreat just makes plain sense. 

Last night I threw a few Tiny and one Small ship at a pirate space yard, banking on their high amount of Kinetic damage and shielding to a) deal enough damage and b) negate the space yards energy weapons and take a few casualties from their missiles/kinetics. 

Instead they all died. I realised this would happen after I watched the first ship get turned to space junk in the first 10 seconds, but instead of hitting the "abort" button and telling the rest of the ships to get the fuck out of there (which a real space commander would do in such a situation when they realised they underestimated their stationary opponent), all I could do is just watch as ships fly around an immobile object, pinging away at it uselessly until they all die as if all the crew were suicidal. 

It's ridiculous.

This game is, as explicitly stated by the devs, not about battle strategy.  It's about civilization-scale strategy.  Offering the kind of tactical control (retreat/hit-and-run/etc) you want has been repeatedly rejected as it would change the focus of the game too much.

You're the emperor, not the admiral.

What we really need is for fleet composition and ship roles to have the kind of impact and strategy that the devs meant for it to have.  I'm sure (or I hope) they're working on ways to make it more meaningful.

I agree on all of this. I thought point 1 was very good but also heavily agree on retreating. I hate how ships can`t retreat in battle. Some have said this would be boring, having to chase down retreating ships. Well I don`t agree. Retreating of ships can be limited, possibly, so they can`t retreat forever. Endless Space has ship retreats and that works just fine. It also makes the Alien look like it actually prizes its life or does not want to to uselessly lose its ships in a no-win battle.  Retreats should definitely be put into the game.

Retreating in Endless Space does not work fine. If one of my fleets attacks an enemy fleet and the enemy fleet retreats for the rest of the turn my fleet can not attack any other fleet even if it still has move points left. And again I stress 8 enemy fleets attack in 1 turn, all retreat. And sometimes when an enemy fleet retreated it just disappeared, it was nowhere to be found on the map.

While your argument for bombardment makes sense, it would be very unbalancing. Essentially, the first species to develop long range ships and weapons would permanently dominate the game, making game play linear and formulaic, as there would only be one path to winning.

Agreed, though many are coming in 1.5.
 

Agreed in principle, but that's a major, fundamental change that probably cannot be just dropped into the game at this stage. Lots of stuff is basically set up to rely on the war on/off state. Being realistic, this just isn't gonna happen.

Disagree, for most of the reasons others have listed above. Among other things, the combat portion of the game is pitifully easy to exploit already. Retreats would make it more so, while adding horrendous micromanagement for chasing down ships. For retreating to be incorporated in any reasonable manner, there'd need to be a major rewrite of the whole module... which just isn't going to happen. These things don't exist in a vacuum, even if the game is set in one.
 

This is actually kind of a L2P issue. It's unlikely that all their planets are projecting huge inf. There'll be one or two 'key' planets, which, when taken out, will collapse the whole thing. Identifying and destroying those is pretty much how you knock out an enemy empire. Often, just killing the enemy home planet will cause them to lose 50% of their influence bubble immediately. 

Agreed; I know this is meant to slow down warfare early on, but frankly it's ridiculous and leads to situations where you have one side completely dominating it'[s opponent but unable to do anything about it because they can't build big transport ships... despite building colony ships that are also basically big transport ships.

They actually already do; there's a hidden stat called 'war endurance' which is directly affected by these things. It'd be nice to see this stat come out of the shadows and have some more impact, though.

 

Yeah, this would be nice.

Oh, and one other thing -

Um, no. You don't show up with a list of demands and then when someone points out flaws or problems say 'oh, yes, well, that's the designer's job'. The designers are paid to design a game, a closed and complete mathematical system. They have done. You want changes to be made to that design. You are usurping the designer's role by asking for the changes, and then abdicating that responsibility the moment there's implementation problems to be solved. Well, in that case it goes back to the designers, who can quite rightly point out that they already solved these problems by not implementing the features in the first place. 

Suggesting stuff is cool, and some good ideas often come out of it, but you need to be able to argue the case as to why it's superior and the problems it causes aren't insurmountable. Saying 'oh, someone else will find a way round that, I'm a big picture kind of guy' doesn't really cut it. Joe (and several others) raised quite a few major problems with implementing retreating; if you want to see retreating added you need to be able to offer solutions to those problems rather than just dumping the details of making it work on someone else's door - especially if those guys already concluded it wouldn't work and so didn't implement it.

I didn't "demand" anything. I made a list of ways I think the game could be improved. In this case the designers are inifinitely more familiar with both the gameplay and the mechanics at work behind the scenes than I am.

How does me being unable to devise a water-tight solution invalidate the idea?

It`s the knee-jerk reaction you`ll get from some who will do everything they can to prevent you from putting forth good ideas. Ignore them and focus on the guys that matter- the Devs.

Generally, they have no idea what the Devs can do so can`t speak for them.

Your ideas are good.

See, that's just unconvincing. You're making a suggestion, and then in the same sentence disavowing your own qualifications to make that suggestion. It makes your point much easier to dismiss if your back up for it is 'hey, don't ask me how it would work, it'd just be awesome if it did'.

It's not like the devs could've included retreating but forgot. They consciously decided not to put it in. Of course, they also consciously decided on several other things that turned out to be bad ideas, and have shown evidence of being willing to go back and change things... but they need to be convinced that it would work. You aren't going to achieve that by telling them that you have no idea how to make this balance but it'd be really cool if they went away and thought really, really hard about something they'd already decided probably wouldn't fit.

Follow through on the suggestion. If it's watertight, awesome. If not, then we look at the holes and think about how it can be improved until it is watertight. Enough people dislike the idea of retreats for it to be easier to just ignore than actually attempt to do well. So tell us why you think it can be done well.

Yes, I usually agree with more than half the suggestions someone puts forward when I'm trying to discourage them from suggesting stuff. It lulls them into a false sense of security so that they can be trapped in a mutually unacceptable compromise later.

No, I'm disavowing my qualifications to implement a suggestion in a way that makes the majority happy with its inclusion because I lack the expertise to do so. I know my limitations. Absence of that expertise does not take away my ability to see where things could improve. I think a house would be fantastic on a block of land. Do I know how to build it? Nope. Well, therefore I'm wrong.

Maybe they did? Maybe they thought something wasn't needed but then significant player feedback informed them that it was. Perhaps they didn't think of it. Perhaps they didn't think it important until said feedback. Perhaps they didn't have the time. Perhaps they were unsure if people would like it. Perhaps they just didn't think of it. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. There are multitudinous reasons why they might not have implemented these features. 

I'm sorry, but you don't know that. At least I don't think you do, unless you are yourself a developer and have sat in at their meetings. Things that might seem obvious in hindsight can often be over-looked at the time. 

I'm under no illusion that I'm going to change this game one iota, but I felt the desire to express the ways in which I think the game could be improved and, going by feedback in this thread (including your own), a lot of my proposals have been met well. Once again, my inability to deliver a method of execution due to lack of expertise does not invalidate the idea itself.

 

I've already contributed by getting the ball rolling on the discussion, as I lack both the insight and expertise to come up with a way it could be implemented doesn't mean that other people don't. Perhaps someone else see's that suggestion, likes it, and does possess the know-how to make it reality. 

Again, my inability to come up with a mechanical solution doesn't invalidate the idea. It's an idea that's been the most controversial, and not everyone is behind it, but a significant enough are so I think it's worth considering.

 

Great post. Nasselus nailed it succinctly for me. 

• No retreats, keep as is.

On the note about Jammers. They are VERY effective. They simply make your opponent MISS and if you stack the modules along with the Thalan exclusive tech, the enemy misses alot! I always work towards them and use command ships to escort my battleships. 

• I would like it if War was not always triggered if we destroyed another ship, HOWEVER that also means you can (and will) have MANY of your ships being lost to any ai who happens to want to kill you, knowing it does not provoke war.
• Perhaps a cumulative diplomo penalty that triggers war after say 3 or 4 successive ships destroyed each within 1 or 2 turns triggers war. This penalty goes away after 5 turns (one set of penalties at a time). 
• Lets bring Pirates in as a 'special' faction, one that is neither a UP voter but can be given intercept or raider missions commissioned by ai or players to destroy or pillage trade routes. Pillaging of trade routes is IMPOSSIBLE to prevent unless you find and destroy the pirate factions planet or star base. You would get a per turn notification that 'trade route to Altarians is being pillaged by Nova Star Raiders' and you lose both credits and respect/influence while its happening. Now you can kill the route but also take a hit (diplomatically)  as you are too wussy to deal with the problem. 
• I would like diplomacy that is not always we hate you until we attack you. How about we dislike you and your prices for trade go up. We wont trade techs till you do x, y or z to raise your standing with us. Something with a bit more choices and more Stardock/Gal Civ flavor texts...

Lots of good ideas!