I won't be able to reply till later today, see you guys and feel free to comment or discuss.

I don't like the planet development screen in GalCiv 2. I found it easier to figure out what a planet did or could do well if I could place specific planet improvements near each other in certain arrangements. For instance, starports, navigation centers, and counter espionage would fill one row. Another row might be a farm and morale building, another row would be all factories, another all labs, etc.

Basically, having a grid where open tiles were placed randomly (or semi randomly), and randomly placed bonus tiles, did not make it easy for me to keep related planet improvements together to make it easy for me to read. Adding the OP's suggestion to the game would only make that more difficult. I would rather have a screen that made it easier for me to read things, than to worry about more details I have to consider when placing planet improvements (since I value improved readability more than yet more bonuses).

Question, what is the violet cylinder tanks at the bottom right; if that is the space port, than what is the little purple thing to the middle left that just takes one square?

 

Also, if you had planet squares to develop I would think you would need a selection to choose from, not just Farming. Perhaps Farming, mining (industry needs a lot of resources), and private/rural (boost population (thus taxes too) but drains food supply less than urban residential).

 

This said and done, such an elaborate system would only work in a game with a few habitable planets (and most would be total crap so you had very few cities and development sectors). High quality planets like these would be super rare. In such case, a very in depth colony/city management system would make sense, in a game like GC where you can have a considerable number of worlds, not so much.

 

Personally I think they only need to polish on and implement a few improvements to the current system they already have (and make it so that you don't need to re-tweak the econ sliders every turn to be optimal), and offer more tools to manage large number of colonies in the late game. Doesn't mean the idea you have is not good, just not sure if it will improve GalCiv.

 

Now if I ever go into game design, and I need a guy to help me come up with something for colony management, I know where to look .

I don't like the idea. You replace a easy system through a much more complicated one, increasing the management factor by 5-20 depending on your planets because instead of 1 grid, you have to manage x grids per colony. I can't see the benefit, it would just increase micro management enourmously. Think about a GC game with 30 colonies (which is not so much, depending on the setting you play) this would become unplayable in my eyes.

 

I found the GC2 colony development not that bad from the basics. For GC3, there'd be of course some more eye-candy (like a 3D view of the map) and for useability a simple stats overview (e.g. a table) telling you what special buildings you have on the map (maybe a list with the "one per planet only"-buildings you know about and a simple green/red visualization if it's built or not).

 

It's about finding a balance between play-ability and how easy the system is to understand and use, personally i think the system in Civ II was fine if a little under polished, and the last thing you want to do is make things over complicated. Yes i'm sure there is a part of us all that would love to manage individual cities on a planet but with a game the size and scope of Gal Civ i don't think its feasible without creating some major, potentially game breaking issues.

Of course there is ways around this like with AI governors, but the UI would have to be a notch up from whats already in the previous games and if you look at examples from other genres simple is better (City management from Total war games, the HUD from Civilization V and the management of a system of planets in Stardrive ect).

3D on the other hand is an idea i'd be leaning towards with some trepitation, though going towards a 2.5 approach might be more feasible and maintain simplicity. 

If it ain't broke, Dont fix it. Just perhaps give it a polishing.....

It's not ONE planet anyone worries about. We just don't want to deal with three hundred of these crapholes every game, and anyone who does want to is an idiot. Don't assume people want to play tiny maps.

 

That's totally fine, i just didn't fancy the prospect of micro managing every city on the planet with one of these screens and it taking up ridiculous amounts of game time.

 

Feel free to point out where i'm wrong, just try not to make it personal, your discussing game concepts not creating a flame war.

I took some time to look things over again, and it appears that each "city" is effectively a GalCiv 2 planet unto itself. You place planet improvement on the city tiles and must do so for every city a planet has (the number of which is equal to the planet's class). Taking this into account, this effectively multiplies the number of operations a player needs to take by the planet class. I haven't factored into account the number of tiles a city has, only that you must open up a city and place planet improvements on each tile.

If you want to get picky, then take into account that a GalCiv 2 planet had the potential for 72 tiles (6 by 12 grid), while you cities have the potential for 99 tiles (9 by 11 grid). The average GalCiv 2 planet didn't use that many tiles, in fact very few had even half theoretical maximum. Your average good planet rarely got more than about maybe a quarter of max possible. Your cities however, appear to use the maximum number of tiles by default (or so it would appear at first glance). Even if you only placed things by double clicking things on the available to build list, it would be enormous amount of clicking to get anything done. And you haven't said much about the farms outside the cities.

At the rate you are going, you might as well create a new and separate game. Lets call it Galactic Cities, Galactic Planets, or something like that (think SimCity in space). You might be happier with SimCity in space.

I'm sure that you could argue that you don't need to develop every world personally. Instead you could just hand the job over to the AI. In which case, I would ask, what was the point of even adding this system in the first place?

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I'm not trying to be rude here, but you seem be unaware of how much work your idea will cause.

Not at all. I've enjoyed strategy games since finding PTO II on the Super Nintendo. I don't tend to play many of them, but the ones I do play I play the hell out of. I still fire up the SNES to play PTO I and II on occasion.

It's not that I find this planet scheme "too difficult to understand" or anything, it's just too complicated to fit well into the concept of a galactic civilization. It adds complication solely for the purpose of being overly complicated without adding any sort of strategic depth at all. Even the people saying they like the idea would be cursing it as the replacement "constructor spam" annoyance mechanic of the game, or if it was automated well enough people would simply automate it and ignore it. Either way, it's not worth anyone's time to put it in the game.

Answer this question: does this suggestion do anything for the game that simply giving planets more tiles wouldn't do? Making improvements less powerful and letting us build twice as many of them would accomplish pretty much the same thing without adding complexity for no real purpose other than "it looks cool".