They left out one choice on the poll.

That's the worst idea ever, hey, lets have multiplayer where the experienced person has a massive insermountable advantage.

I can't help but feel that a 3D environment sounds good in theory but would be very awkward to navigate. You'd have to turn the camera constantly, and you still wouldn't be able to see everything properly. Keeping research from each campaign mission to the next might be a good idea, if you lengthened the research time perhaps.

Keeping research from each campaign mission to the next might be a good idea, if you lengthened the research time perhaps.

YES!

And the 3d enviroment would be kind of odd though, maybe in say the tactical side of the matter it would work, but when moving it into the general parsec, it doesn't matter if it's at the top or the bottom of the parsec, it's still in that area. And the polygon like galaxy would be odd to navigate and see what's going on.

So you could move several fleets on a single parsec without overlapping them on a single space?

But how many movement points would it take to move up and down on the 3D graph? Maybe, instead of a set number of parsecs per week, depending on the engines you have, you would have a certain number of seconds to control each ship, eliminating parsecs altogether, and allowing for much more coordinated attacks.

Making a three-dimensional grid would not be a logical problem at all.

Movement points could remain in effect and simply account for a ship's traveling in the "new" direction of up-and-down as well as the "usual" two planes. Indicating exactly where in this three-d system of coordinates you want your ship to go would be a little tough. I can imagine trying to click on a specific "cell" of space would be very difficult with the current interface and graphics of GalCiv.

However, there have been 4X games with three-d environments before. See: Ascendancy (From 1996, I believe). In that game, of course, interstellar travel was handled in the Master of Orion fashion by having isolated star systems connected by warp gates or what-have-you. Ships crossed the great in-between by entering the warp lanes and popping out in the distant systems some time later depending on their engine power.

Still, travel within the star systems themselves, between the planets and various warp gates, was done in three dimensions. As I remember, the player would move the mouse on the X and Y planes until he/she found a desired spot and then hold down a key (perhaps it was "Z") and then the marker would freeze at those X and Y coordinates and allow the player to move the destination point in the Z plane, or up-and-down, until the desired point was locked in. This is similar to the way ships are maneuvered in the Homeworld series. Anyway, it worked in Ascendancy and that was not only a great game, but one that accomplished this "feat" many years ago.

As a follow-up, here are two screenshots from Ascendancy (1995, in fact):

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/1460/ascendancy6eg.jpg

The first screen shows a view from within a star system. The large blue orb is the entrance to a "star lane" and you can see how vessels are at various locations within the system's three dimensions.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/8277/asc18sg.jpg

This screen shows a "galactic" view of all the interconnected star systems. The lines are "star lanes" along which you can see ships as tiny triangle icons on the lane. In Ascendancy, ships couldn't reverse course or encounter one another while in the lanes.

Kingmaker, I see where you're coming from but how do you think games like... Diablo 2 (I know it's way different, but it's the concept that matters) worked out? I mean a level 99 could join a level 1's game, or the host could make a level restriction and everybody got along just fine. I don't see it being that much differently for a game like this.

Zepath thanks for the screeshots, I've never seen that game before. I believe a 3D system would work, if there was one at all I see it being sort of like Spore, where you can zoom out all the way and be able to see all the stars.

I don't think 3d environments would provide very much in way of gameplay. In place of that I'd prefer a non-grid-based approach to the strategic map.

I just cant see how the human mind would be able to comprehend a full scale 3d map with 100's of ships on it. It sounds neat but in pratice would be a bear.

I just cant see how the human mind would be able to comprehend a full scale 3d map with 100's of ships on it. It sounds neat but in pratice would be a bear.

God help us when we really try to colonize the galaxy, then.

ALSO LEFT OUT:

Hot sexy alien women (i.e. Elerians)

God help us when we really try to colonize the galaxy, then.

Actually it's imho not that hard to understand a 3d enviroment in space, if some sort of homeworld like aproach is being taken. Homeworld was full 3d in space and after some learning it was quite easy to understand and use.

But what I dunno is: would the benefits of a 3d map outweigh it's disadvantage of being more complicated?

If the player received a bonus for attacking an enemy from a weak side -- meaning they were undetected until just before the attack -- by striking from "above", "below", or some other angle or if the player were able to coordinate multiple attacks from a number of sides, he/she could receive a significant combat bonus or a guaranteed first strike. That's one theoretical advantage to a 3d map.

There is also the realism factor. I know that's not much of an appeal for everyone and we are talking about a game and not the real universe. However, playing a 4X game in three-dimensions does appeal to me for the level of realism it would convey. Nevertheless, if this idea is going to be discussed any further I think it would do us some good to think about the real concerns a civilization would face trying to organize and defend an empire in three-dimensions. How is the security of friendly space managed? Would it be harder or easier to contain other races? How would a civ expand in such an environment -- outward in ever-broadening spheres or in some other way? Would it be easier to avoid hostile empires by skirting their domains? Etc.