a real galciv 2 discussion

I like the structure and organization.

All I want is more races, anomolies, ships, diplomatic ability and sayings etc.

And a PBEM/Internet capabilities which we will not get.

~SDC~

Actually Frogboy has said this could be in Galciv 2, just won't ever be in 1.

~SDC~

I like the story events, like the one where the religious fanatics release the Dreadlords. Add some variety to the game, so it's not you battling it out with the five major races over and over.

~SDC~

Yup, finals time around here, so I've had to avoid playing GalCiv too much or else I'd find myelf playing all day and not getting my studying done.

More variety of ships would be a very fun thing. This may have been mentioned before, so feel free to smack me if I'm being repetitive, but is there any word on whether units would be customizable in GalCiv2, such as in Alpha Centauri or, (dare I say it?) MoO3? Or was that deemed to be an unnecessary complication? I don't really have a strong opinion either way (personally, I rarely find myself customizing units if there's already a healthy variety provided in the game), just curious.

Probably is a bit premature to be talking about GalCiv2, but it's good daydreaming fuel.

Brad says that ships in GC2 will be fully customizable, including your choice of weapons and defenses, with a rock/paper/scissors type of model using mass drivers/armor, lasers/shields, and missiles/point defense. you'll pick weapons and defenses in addition to chassis, engine, etc.

We just have to wait and see how much of this actually makes it into the game, though :notsure:

minable nebulas! Stuff with more than one effect (IE this increases Influence and Economy, but maintenance costs 20 instead of 10 BC.)

It would be nice if starbases could manufacture ships. First designate a size variable for ships. Example a fighter or missile would be size 1 (class 1), and excalibur would be size 5. The first starbase module upgrade for ship building would allow construction of class 1 ships, and the second starbase module upgrade for ship building would allow class 2 ships and so on. Also for each module upgrade to build a higher class of ship, there would also be an increase in starbase production. If ships are being built on the starbase the production bonuses would not apply to the star systems in the sector but instead are being consumed by the starbase. If building on the starbase stops then production bonuses revert back the planets in the sector. Ships would be more expensive to build on a starbase, say a +15% premium due to the expense of necessary supply lines (that's all hidden of course). There could also be a new animation for a starbase that has a ship hangar, so you can distinguish them on the starmap.

If starbases are then able to build missiles & ships etc., it would be nice to have a new module type like sensors & tracking. This would give advance warning to incoming enemy ships so you can fire a salvo of missiles before being attacked. Yeah sensor drones can do that, but it would be cool if the starbase went on alert and cross hairs lined up over the enemy ships that just came into sensor & missile range.
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Cool. A "Shipyards" add-on, just like the OS/2 version.

Bill

~SDC~

I'd like to see colony ships limited in capacity and have pre-requisites to build (shipyard size, etc). I like the idea of exploration before colonisation. The current situation of colony rush with cheap infinite sized colony ships, just doesn't appeal to me as much.

Paul.



~SDC~

Two things I would like is territorial integetry and some how a slower coloniaztion. Seems to me colonizing should be a slow continous process.

~SDC~

Slower colonisation. Make colony ship range and speed more limited in the early game and make them require a lot of techs to increase.

I think making colony ships somewhere down the tech tree would really cripple the human player more (well, on maso at least). The AIs already have such a high tech research rate that it wouldn't hurt them, and they'd have the colony rush, while the human player would be severely hurt by it.

JordanVmp, I disagree. What I suggest means that expansion will be slower, but the human player can still use tricks, like using a constructor to extend range, which the ai doesn't think of. Furthermore, if we think galciv2, the ai may not need the massive research etc. bonus it has on maso to be competitive.
The idea would be to provide different tech choices. Currently, all the ai have more or less the same tech strat, which is then exploited by humans who research the other techs.
Having different tech trees which require you to specialize a bit in each before the benefit would make for a more challenging and varied game:
You could go after +speed/range in order to get colony ships able to leave your home sectors.
Or you could research transports in order to steal the planets colonised by others.
Or you could build up a fleet and destroy every colony ship in sight. To make this optioon effective, bombing should be possible (damage a planet, either permanently or just harm the population and morale) from space.
So you could have options of either expanding at the cost of research in other areas (infrastructure), or turtling a bit until you're ready to take all teh outsreteched aliens. Currently, you have to colonize like crazy because it's the only viable option in a galaxy with many stars. If you don't, you'll fall behind and get crushed most of the time.

What I'd like to see...

1) More diversity in the planets, but keep it simple.
I DON'T want to think about different gravities or how much oxygen the atmosphere has, that will be to much micromanagement and stuff. But it would be cool just to split the PQ up into three values - agricultural PQ, economic PQ, resources PQ (or something like that).
The first is used to determine pop growths, the second modifies the cash gained from taxes and trade, and the third is for production. Would make it a lot more interessting to have different kinds of planets without adding to much confusing stuff and micromanagement.

2) More alliance/diplomacy options, and some real covered operations, secret service stuff.

3) Some interesting stuff on the map other than planets and anomalies. Nebulas, for example, which reduce sensor range when flying through it, or black holes which suck up every spaceship that comes to close. Would give the whole combat more strategic depth.

4) More events that have consequences for a long time and lead to other events... like, if you enslave the natives on a planet, there should always be the chance that they later revolt against you.

4) Cool things Stardock comes up with which I never would have thought of.
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I'd like really humanlike AI, especially how they act in diplomacy. It would be amazing if they had so much situational awareness that you could have simple "conversations". For example, bargaining back and forth by starting high and then conceding points until you both agree. Trading map information by regions, for example, you want intel on the Drengin all the way across the galaxy, so you trade your information on the Altarans to the Arceans in exchange for their Drengin data. I could go on all day, so I'll stop now

I think you should also be able to obtain information about AI map data through espionage.

But the main thing that really bugs me about GalCiv warfare at the moment is that the only way to take a star system by force at the moment is complete genocide. The entire population are treated as soldiers! I would like to be able to take over a planet and enslave its workforce. Sure there will be civilian casualties in any war, so depending on the invasion method, a certain percentage would die.

This would mean you would need a scale somewhere that selected what percentage of the pop you wanted to train as soldiers, and what you wanted to train as workers. Then, when the population grows, the two totals would grow proportionately to the values you selected. There may even be improvements, such as a 'Battle Clone Lab' that churns out troops (Maybe a wonder? or one per civ thing?) This would also mean troop transporting became important for reasons other than invasion...

Oh, and on the ship design front, maybe things like troop carrying ability, cargo holds, anomolie exploration ability, extra sensor range, cloaking and other special ship abilities should be includable into any ship for a sacrifice of space that could otherwise have been used for weapons, defence or engine.

Also, how about the ability to build a special kind of pirate vessel. One where, if it wins the combat, instead of destroying the enemyship, it can board it with troops. If the defending ship also had troops on board, there would be a battle, and the winner would obtain both vessels, including any cargo. I like the idea of playing an empire that makes part of its wealth through piracy, like England in the time of Liz 1. And I'm sure there are others here that would also like such an option...

Oh, and another idea. We should also be able to alocate defensive escort to trade vessels, rather than just have them flying back and forth unprotected. I think both empires involved in the trade should be able to stack escort vessels onto the fleet. It would be the only time a fleet could contain ships from more than one empire...

...or something like that.

This is false.
You can use an invasion tactics which turns a certain percentage of the enemy population to your side when you fight. It requires 2200BC if I remember well, and the planet must ahve low morale for it to work, but it exists, thus it's not always a genocide.

Well, I kind of agree with AntonChanning : the whole population shouldn't count as soldiers. And even if you get 20% of them to switch sides, having these 20% help you kill all the 80% left still looks like genocide to me (specially since we are talking about billions of people !
(it would be like Rwanda in a planetary scale!)
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Actually really it isn't, because 'population' always refers to taxpayers only. I think thats in the manual and has been repeated by Frogboy.

~SDC~

I stand corrected about population and taxpayers!

But killing all of a kind still is genocide, even if they are taxpayers.

From Merriam Webster online:
Main Entry: genocide
Pronunciation: 'je-n&-"sId
Function: noun
Date: 1944
: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
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Nastavnik: Good to see you back on the boards!

Has anybody played Star Trek: Birth of the Federation? It tried to simulate enslaving a population after invasion. Let me tell you, it was easier to exterminate all life on the planet than it was to try to put up with the constant revolts. Given the choice in this game between enslavement and genocide, I'll take genocide anytime!

Ahem...disregard that little blue smiley face...I seem to have very evil tendencies today!

I still think its silly that all taxpayers are soldiers. Oh I was aware of information warfare as a tactic, but thats hardly what I mean either. What I am looking at is more strategic over a long term. A strategy of economy/research and production, or a strategy of defense. It would be nice to experiment with that. To have that level of control.

Hello Theoden,
It has been a long time indeed. Real life got to interfere with most of the playing time
These last days things are getting back to normal (ie. just the usual crazy stuf), and I've been catching up on the changes in the game: my last version was 1.05.
It seems a lot harder now, and so far my choices have been between enslavement and being cooked for dinner.
"But I'm not dead yet"
And I'm looking forward for the beta of the expansion.

~SDC~

Some basics about a GalCiv 2:

• Ship Design
• Fleet Battles with Logistics
• Dozen or so races
• 3D engine (2D map still)
• Zoom in/out
• More detailed colony management
• More story elements
• Much better graphics
• Much more Metaverse/Empire integration

Multiplayer is something we haven't decided on.  We've decied to make The Political Machine multiplayer and depending on how that goes we may decide to do it in a GalCiv 2 but odds are that aspect won't be fun since we aren't willing to compromise the single player experience one iota for multiplayer.