Admirals, Captains and more

Good idea there. However, I would assume that making the AI capable of using the function properly would be extremely difficult at best.

If Moo2 can have leaders, I can't see how putting them in a game 10 years younger could possibly be any difficult.

Rather, it's just one of those tons of feature ideas that have been proposed that the devs just aren't interested in.

Worked in Moo2 and that was back in 1996

A brilliant idea that not many games have truly improved upon. It was the 5X in the 4X game, the leaders both planetary and naval both provide an advantage to a civilization that got them and assigned them properly, adding a captain with the ability to increase ship speed by 2 to a slow battleship can in theory allow it to cruise with the rest of the fleet instead of limping behind.

What more, the leaders gained experience the more you used them and losing a leader was a BIG deal. I remember having a industry leader on my most industrialized world, he helped me build my fleet double time. But having him assassinated or the planet invaded was a real risk. I also remember the time I got one of the galactic navigator captains that could fly right through black holes, this allowed my fleet to save 5 turns in attacking long range world with a black hole in the way. Though poor b**t**ds did have enough time to scramble a counter force.

OH and who can forget the Legendary Last Orion Loknar! - All hail the Admiral

Oh those were the day of pure joy

J

Damn you Featauril you beat me to it!

Just because MoO2 had it doesn't mean it's a trivial feature to add to GC2. The leaders in MoO2 were for your entire empire, they weren't assigned to ships or whatnot. You got global bonuses from them... and to the best of my knowledge the AI never used them.

In GC2, the AI would need to be able to intelligently handle assignment and management of these characters. Each race would have different priorities on what they wanted in a leader etc...

I think it would be a great component for an expansion, but doubt it's something simple enough for a free update pack. The AI coding would just be too complex.

Ditto for Zoomba. Moo2 had terrible AI and they never used leaders. Stardock would never alter the game so that one side had an advantage over the others. This means recoding the AI to take advantage of leaders intelligently.

Can't you put the leader of your empire (like bill in Altarian Downfall) onto ships? I guess its not quite the same but..

I'm pretty sure that was just Brad playing around.

he just renamed the ship, so if you like to RP like this, that's possible - just doesn't have any impact on gameplay.

Leaders that gain experience expresed in higher ability bonuses that would be even nicer. If i am not mistaken moo2 had the same system only that leaders would advance in time and you couldnt choose in what would they leveled up.

Mixing some rpg elements with strategy isnt that bad. Look at civ 4!!!

If its any concession, Ships gain experience.

After battles a ship will gain experience depending on how tough the fight was (For a pushover your ship will be hard pressed to raise the experience meter by one point, For a very narrow victory however you will most likely gain a level).

Admittedly the bonuses only apply to the hitpoint values but it is better than nothing.

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I would also like to say that just because it worked in Masters Of Orion II, Dosent mean it will work in Galactic Civilizations II...

But you can use your imagination on this one, The next time your fleet of puny size 20 ships look up and see a huge battlecruiser, Imagine a great leader in one of those ships, For that kind of courage they are needed.

The big problem there is the amount of micromanagement it entails. While some players enjoy manipulating every minute detail it does distract from the overall flow of the game as well as minimizes the big picture aspect of the game.

That is the one big feature I wish Galciv2 had that many modern stategy games have, personas to assign. It lends a real feeling of control, but more importantly it grounds an otherwise ambiguous set of strategic resources with a person, and a name.

I just lost my +5 fleet with battleship x

or

I just lost my fleet and with it Admiral Fergalon and his flagship

I think if properly implemented and balanced with the AI, assigned personas could deepen the sense of immersion into the story. It could be used as a story telling device for an expansion pack maybe? In any case, most sci-fi geeks like myself remember stories / tv-shows that have a good central charcter or group of characters (ie. Capt. Picard, Capt. Kirk, Ender Wiggin just to name a few). I'd like to see mediocre personas that give slight bonuses to certain things, but I would also like to see great personas that give out huge bonuses in one area but are crippling in other areas (might be hard to balance but i like the human aspect of "nobody is perfect").

I never played MOO2 before, but I did play rome: total war and they use leaders in their game also, and I really like the ability to use leaders, like someone said you tend to get really attached to the people and stuff. I would love it to be in this game, but it is not a big deal if it isn't. Although if you want to play a stardock game in which you do something like this wait a little bit for society, I read alittle about the game and this concept is in there.

Reminds me of Conquest: Frontier Wars. Players could attach one of several Admirals to a fleet (only one per fleet though) for additional combat bonuses against a specific enemy or ship type, and aside from general orders, you could pretty much leave the fleet alone, as the Admiral AI would handle most of the details.

This is a feature it surprises me has not been included, given the design philosophy of GalCiv (and so presumably galciv2) seemed to be to create a game with a degree of narrative structure. After all, this is the reason cut scenes, ethical choices, graphical bells and whistles etc. are put in - to increase the sense that one is playing through a space opera rather than crunching numbers. I am unsure why some people think this would be so difficult to program, given the excellent quality of the AI in other areas. How is the AI deciding where to place a character any different from deciding where to build a factory or construct a starship?
At the moment the only personal face we get for any civilization is their leader, but as in all space operas the really interesting characters are those not quite so high up the hierarchy - the advisors, generals, and hangers on.
I remember reading somewhere that religious crusades can occur in galciv2 - how much more satisfying if there is an actual character frothing at the mouth to give personality to this crusade. A space opera on the tv screen is only as strong as its cast of characters. Without Londo Molari the Centauri are just chaotic evil traders, without Worf the Klingons are just +20 weapons.
While I don't doubt that galciv2 will be excellent on it's own terms (I still enjoy the first one years on and fully intend to purchase the sequel unless the reviews are really awful), I want my time in space to be amongst dashing space pirates, desperate young blades, deadly assassins, and brilliant viziers who may plot a coup against me at any time. C'est la vie!

I also would like to have some (or just one?) Admirals. It would give your Task Forces a Face and something to identify with and not just a mass of ships to throw at the enemy.

Handling by the AI can not be so difficult, they can simply assign them to their largest fleets.