Exactly, you guys want some stuff that will show up once in a blue moon in the game, now's the time to ask.

Why not have a fleet of dread ships that come out of a worm hole and that this only cmes up every 2 dozen games (if that?)

Personally, I love when a game I've played a gazillion times does something surprising still.

For instance, we're working on an event where a handful of unhappy planets will rebel and form a NEW civilization. It won't happen often (like the space monsters) but imagine the guy who's been playing the game for weeks and bumps into this.

Or yea, space pirates who pray only on freighters.

GalCiv supports up to 32 civilizations right now. No special code. So there's plenty of room to do interesting things. Our only real limit is assinging them their own distinct color.

how about a space borne virus carried on an ancient comet? (bare with me!) this could appear and travel -occasionally - towards a planet if it reaches - the virus infects the planets pop and - back to the dark ages! It isn't exactly a civ but it could be quite exciting trying to destroy it - it could have the defense val of a major battleship and no attack value. It could even initially break up into smaller bits that neeed to be destroyed by yoor ships (or not - if to complex)

what would be coll (apart from the oportunity for a super image of the comet, tail etc) would be if it moved very slowly and technology had to be achieved in order to destroy it.

any fans of Dark Star here? What were those asteroids called they encountered at the end?

what about a temporary and moving anomoly (eg a cluster of asteroids) that have a large resource value of some sort (could even be influence) that move througb the galasy from time to time that again need some special tech in order to 'harvest them'

Enough about this stuff I know Brad is after imaginative 'pseudo races'from the 32 availabe so apologies for taking this thread temporarily of track Brad.

Ideas for very rare occasional effects.

- time warp. A worm hole turns into a time warp and the ship appears back at the same spot but with everything else being reset to the last autosave!!!

- Fleet rebellion. A fraction of your fleet (could be quite large) revolts and either joins another civilization or turns to independent ships (pirates?)

- Great Depression. Your civilization slips into a long recession (5-X years). Tax takings drop, moral drops.

- Internet Collaspe. Nasty virus destroys huge amounts of data on computer systems empire wide. Either
(a) All maps are lost / parts of maps are lost
(b) technology research is reset
(c) ships in space are lost / self destruct / only
1 movement until returned to base
(d) planet communications are disrupted and planets
act independent until revisited by survey ship

- Mutation. a genetic mutation spreads throughout your race changing some aspect of your genes. Change race settings slightly.

Paul.

How about a.k.a the Outsiders from GC Gold for OS/2? Can be a real pain.

What about some form of Galactic Core explosion that bursts through the map Destroying any ship not in orbit around a planet? That would sure mess up a game...

I would love to see:

galactic plague(sweeps galaxy or empire reduces population)

pirates---atttack ships

raiders---attack and keep planets(warmongers with bigger bonuses)

harvesters---attack, wipes out population, reduces planet rating by 1 or 2

I would love to see opportunities pop up where you could trade resources/money for techs and unique ships and unique social projects.

economic booms and depressions
baby booms(morale boost)
renaissance(tech boost)

Hidden worlds, black on screen until moved upon.

space hordes are cool

how about 1 terror star about early midgame from another galaxy.....that could really mess things up.

This is great...i love it when events do not happen in every game and when each game holds it's share of surprises... MOO3 will be released soon, but i must say that i'd rather have Galactic Civilisation in my hands...(and i am a MOO maniac!!!)
Great work!
just an idea:

What if suddenly there is a smash with a paralel word: we would suddenly face the same empire as ours (as big, same tech level etc...) but with a reverse identity (creating a war with your alter ego)...

For example: if you have choosen the path of evil, your opponent (human as yourself) will have choosen the path of good...

What do you think?

Pascal,

Your parallel world idea is great, but I would hate to have to be the one to code the support for it.

Gamma Ray Bursters--giant stars that collapse into massive black holes sterilizing everything for several sectors around. Depending on how class is exactly supposed to work you either have a bunch of high-class but empty worlds to be colonized, a bunch of worlds that have been reduced to their original class or a bunch of permanently uninhabitable class 1 worlds.

A variation on the time-warp idea above--powerful ships you haven't built yet appear from the future to help you but you have to remember to eventually create them or else risk a horribly fractured reality! Whatever that means.

-Robert

How about some sort of world-allegiance scramble? every so many games, after 60%+ of the worlds are colonized, some sort of sub-space anomaly scrambles the allegiance of all of the worlds so that now your planets are scattered all over the map.

various planet based events--festivals, gold found, disasters, etc..

A time-space anomaly that reduces the speed of ships by 15% for the game or for x turns.

A monster that did not destroy ships and was actually very friendly and lonely, except that the smell of his body is so bad that it drives morale through the floor until the monster is driven away by your ships. You wouldn't be able to kill it.....and a few turns later it would show up somewhere else.

Abandoned space stations or terror stars might be an interesting find.

An abandoned dysonsphere(a star system surrounded by a giant metal sphere) that cannot be opened except to put all your research for x turns into learning how to open it. Inside would be 2-5 class 24 planets.

You colonize a world that turns up a unique artifact that is actually 1 of 7 pieces. You must find, trade for, or obtain the other pieces to make the artifact whole. When it is whole it gives a huge boost to tech by 50-75% and two free techs.

Same thing as above but it keeps your morale at 50% on all your worlds.

Just a note on my personal preference for this type of thing: I have no problem with events, especially rare one, that add interest to the game but nothing annoys me more as a player than to find the game designers throwing in random elements that do nothing other than screw the player.

Tytan's "allegiance scramble" idea falls into the second category. All his other ideas fall into the first category.

Good point there.....that is pushing it a bit...............

SuperNova, wipes out all planets within 1 adjacent sector and reduces planet class by 10 for planets within 2 sectors and by 5 for planets within 1 sector.
Sector is left with a black hole that eats all ships entering it.
Could be scaled down a little for smaller galaxies.
New tech added late in the tech tree to utilize a black hole for various enhancements.

SpaceRift that sweeps through a sector making ships disappear. Tech added to understand spacial rifts.
Once researched can go to sector with a survey ship and recover all ships lost.

(The special events should always have a minus/plus)

typo
correction reduce by 5 for planets within 3 sectors

'SpaceRift that sweeps through a sector making ships disappear. Tech added to understand spacial rifts.
Once researched can go to sector with a survey ship and recover all ships lost.'

Seems to me that the existing _*D_Phasing techs and their branches already cover that last part.

You are right Arturus. I knew the idea came fro somewhere

Events that sets some kind of temporary objectives, like "control planet X under N time" or "evacuate all population of planet X before an asteroid crash in N monthes". Or political event-objectives, like "ally with this minor civ". These type of events would reinforce the sens of epic of the game, with the player being a part of an universe instead of the competitor of 5 other omnipotent beings in the galaxy Especially if failing to complete the task would bear no real penalty, unlike the great political reshaping discussed above. Perhaps have those kind of event count by providing influence or cultural advantage ?

I've run across things like Richelieu proposes in other games, sometimes they are annoying to the point of wondering what the game designers could have been thinking when they included them in the game.

For example: Capture city X in the next ten turns. Later on in the game you discover that city X was all the way across the map in the heart of some other country's territory. There was no hope of even learning where the city was in ten turns let alone capturing it.

If no penalty is incurred then people may adopt a "what's the point" attitude. Yet if a penalty for non-completion is in place then you risk pissing off the player when too many "impossible" missions turn up.

These sorts of events also tend to detract from the feel of a strategic game and run more to a feeling of playing "whack-a-mole".

Mmmm, yes I have come across some stupid events like that, too. Th problem was that the objective was really "randomly" selected, and it was not realistic neither strategic. Who would risk a war to capture some remote city in the heart of another country ? While it is far more realistic to have border problems with some countries. I suppose we're better off without these kind of event unless they are really well thought...