1) Races more unique. Every race should get specific content.For example unique improvements, unique weapons, unique defense or something similar which other races can't have.BTW with DA seems Stardock is on the right direction with Unique Hulls and Unique Abilities.In GC2 differences between races were really a few.
2)One thing which i don't understand is why this game don't have a system like in CIV4 of governments or civics.It would simply give this game a strategic depth uncomparable.
3)Land Invasion more complex.Posssibility to enslave other race citizens instead of a policy of genocide everytime.Vassalization of ther civs (can't understand why Stardock didn't introduce this concept instead of the strange implementation of Surrender)

1) Cloaking Tech
The single most wide spread concept in Scifi and they don't have it
2) Better UP diplomacy
As it stands it is kinda cheasy
3) Better diplomacy in general
I want to threaten people EX. "Give me the tech or I will destroy you with all of my force" or promise to help later EX. you tell someone to declare war on your enemy and you promise to help in 50 turns when you are more prepared for war

1. Make planetery invasions end with the capitulation, not the elmination of one side or the other, based on a surrender bar, dependant on morale, loyalty and courage. If the defenders capitulate then they become citizens of the attacker's empire, if the attackers are defeated then all transport modules are replaced with colony modules on the attacking transports.

2. Allow you to have alien populations on the worlds that you conquered, which are less loyal and able to rebel against the ruling civilization, to rejoin or recreate their old civilization.

3. Add a system of political leadership and improve the political system generally, to make it make more sense and make it more interesting.

I would go for a better UP\diplomacy model, minor races be a little more aggressive, and if I could only have one thing I would really....REALLY like to have some solid borders on territory.

I have a few that I haven't seen here.

1) A fleet management screen. When I have 200+ ships the current ways of managing them is slow and tedious.

2) The ability to manage planetary improvements from the colony management screen just like you can from the planet/ship list.

3) A button to make all of you ships on auto-movement use up their movement BEFORE the turn ends.

Scincerely,
Scintor

poor devs..they havent even finished and gotten DA out yet and here we are complaining for more!?

if the attackers are defeated then all transport modules are replaced with colony modules on the attacking transports.

I'm curious as to what the point of this would be.

If you are invading a planet, then most likely there aren't any planets around to settle on your own. Plus, if you just got defeated, then wouldn't you not have any people to put in the modules?

In no particular order,

* A way to gather intelligence without harming other empires
* Diplomacy upgrades to add choices & make the UP more than semi-random events
* Starbase improvements for management & to enable enough constructor investment to make a starbase able to defend against your own best fleet

Darnit, I'm greedy. Three is a start. I like many of the ideas in this thread so far.

1) The enhancement of Plametary Ground Combat in SOME significant degree, tactical or otherwise. Its far too cursory and random...a slot machine. Random is the opposite of strategic.


2) Expanded UP gameplay...able to wheel and deal, set agendas and force votes. "Political" victories.


3) Ill reserve judgement till I see the full expanded combat in retail DA, but I want to see starship combat expanded in significant fashion, whether in full tactical sim or otherwise. I spend an hour designing my captial warships, naming them, and getting otherwised attached to the character of my empire...I want to see them in some more expanded fashion than the handfull of auto resolved battles theyll then be in before the end of the game. I want there to be a real reason to build tiny hulled warships, and that bigger is not always better. And I would like there to be more specialized combat ability modules than the simple rock paper scissors system...tractor beams, mines, regenerative repair capability, cloaking fields (get over it...its a science fiction staple...make it work), boarding parties (% of capturing ships), etc.

1) Races more unique. Every race should get specific content.For example unique improvements, unique weapons, unique defense or something similar which other races can't have.BTW with DA seems Stardock is on the right direction with Unique Hulls and Unique Abilities.In GC2 differences between races were really a few.

This feature *should* be included in the GalCiv2+ mod, which will be coming out some time after DA is released.

1) I want bonus tiles on planets to be more commonplace, w/ more variety in types. For example, a +50% planetary defense tile, where if you develop it that makes your world really hard to invade...without espioniaging it first...heheheheheheee
2) Better AI.
3) A way in the end game to dramatically boost your income the same way you can dramatically increase your industrial capacity. Right now you can produce huge outputs, with industrial sectors, quantum power plants, + economic starbases, but you can only make little improvements to your economy. The money can't keep up.

I really like that idea about the "move all autopilot ships but don't end your turn just yet" button, though. That mistake has burned me more than once.

1) More in depth diplomacy. I'd love to be able to make truly complex deals, and have the AIs try to make them with me. For instance, let me contract out civs to do tasks for me. Lobbying the other side for trade, paying them to research a tech for you, and issuing diplomatic requests ("Move that goddamn influence starbase or I will!") would be nice... as well as more "under the table" kinds of deals, like slipping an AI money to cripple a civ with espionage, or coordinating with them to get them to effectively aid in your surprise attack... or lead them into a trap!

It'd also be nice to be able to put additional pressure when making a demand/trade: accept, or we WILL declare war on you.
2) Better United Planets. Being able to set the agenda, consult with others to see how they'll vote (and if you should be buying their votes), as well as simply making the UP more influential. As it is, the effects of a resolution are rarely game altering and meetings are too few and far between to make a difference. It'd also be nice to see things like "peacemaking" missions, or "liberation" resolutions, where either war or tribute to the fighters is mandated of all UP members.
3) In depth ship design... I'd love to see more variety in the ships, and more strategy in how they're designed and used. Targeting modules (increase minimum damage per shot), evasion modules (the opposite), modules to allow you to convince ships to attack other ships first (ie, make your ship look more/less dangerous by comparison), cloaking device, anti-cloak sensors... and that's all just off the top of my head. Even more options would be available if you extended the rules of the ship combat, or got rid of the rule based system entirely and moved to simulation (without tactical control, of course!)

Its nice that we can make the ships look however we want, but it'd be nice if they could ACT however we want, too!

1. Heroes added. Great for extra roleplaying and makes it more fun I think.

2. Updated/Expanded role for minor races. Smarter, and more unique. Maybe be able to get them to join your empire peacefully.

3. Expanded ground combat.

This feature *should* be included in the GalCiv2+ mod, which will be coming out some time after DA is released.

What is this galciv2 + mod? Is this a Stardock mini-addon which will be available for who buys DA?

Good topic.

1) I agree with the people who want a better, more interactive UP...the UN in Alpha Centauri was about right, giving you the ability to raise issues, buy votes, or (after the right techs were researched) elect yourself supreme leader. Actually, while we're on the subject of Alpha Centauri, making the GalCiv 2 government more like AC's society modeling would be sweet. GalCiv's Imperium/Republic/Democracy/etc thing was pretty uninspired. (Though to be fair, I liked the Senate. It's nice to have to worry about morale for reasons other than rioting.)

2) I also agree with whoever mentioned Master of Orion-style heroes. Those were one of my favorite parts of MOO2.

3) I wish there were exotic alien ecosystems. The environments in Dark Avatar sound like a step in the right direction, but it seems none of these space empire games ever try to give you fascinating alien ecosystems like you see in science fiction. It'd be great if I could colonize a planet, only to find it's something like the Chtorran homeworld or Arrakis, with empire- or galaxy-wide consequences.

Man, three's not enough, I need another.

4) I've said this before, but I wish there were more alignment things. Like, it should push me closer to Evil if I start wars against races who have never done anything to me, especially if they're Good/Neutral. (It still bothers me that I can start an unprovoked war, invade an enemy planet, commit a genocide literally a thousand times worse than the Holocaust, and still be "Saintly", but oh no, doing the event where you trade with the criminal kingpin, THAT's eeeeevil.) There should also be empire "policy" things you could do - like if I want to be more Evil, I could pay (and get bonuses) for slave labor, prisoner medical experiments, or whatever...or relief programs, homeless support, or something if I want to be more Good.

1- Conquerable Starbases, see this thread:
WWW Link

2- Espionage revision as a combo system, new and old. Spies + General info. Maybe a Spy training center and you can't build spies without it or something...

3- Though I'd like better diplomacy options and the ability to simply talk to the other AI races, I'd much rather prefer more variance in the planetary events that occur and the effects of choosing between good, neutral, and evil.


4- I'd also like to see Heroes and UP Missions, but that might be better suited for the next expansion, methinks.

While I suspect this exercise is largely pointless, here's my two:

1) Change how constructors and starbases work so you only need to make 1 constructor per starbase. Once the starbase is constructed all you need to do to upgrade it is pay money over time. Starbase management is one of the few micromanagement parts of the game and it is tiresome. I don't understand why exciting space and land combat is simplified, when boring infrastructure management isn't. I know you can set waypoints etc, but I just to make a starbase and then forget about it and move on to more important things like killing my enemies.

2) Revamp diplomacy by including a hidden credibility rating for the player. Many people so far have been saying that "the UP needs work" or "I want to be able to make threats like the AI does". Any such change would be cosmetic. As previously stated, humans have an advantage over the AI in diplomacy because we can lie and cheat and backstab.

A player's credibility score with an AI would boil down to these factors:
Positives:
Actual AI defences are of the same family as the Player's actual weapons. (+2)
Player is already at war with 1,2,3+ races. (+1, +2, +3)
Player has a 10%/20%+ lower overall technology level. (+1,+2)
Player has a 10%/20%+ lower true military score (ie do not count starbase bonuses). (+1,+2)
Player has a ships killed/lost ratio of less than 3. (+2)
Average player warship and transport speed/galaxy size is low. (+2)

Negatives:
Actual AI defences are not of the same family as the Player's actual weapons. (-2)
Player is at war with noone. (-2)
Player has a 10%/20%+ higher overall technology level. (-1,-2)
Player has a 10%/20%+ higher true military score. (-1,-2)
Player has a ships killed/lost ratio over 3 or higher. (-2)
Average player warship and transport ship speed/galaxy size is high. (-2)

A positive credibility score would mean the AI does not see you as a threat with the reverse true for a negative one.

This credibility score would feed directly into the relations rating. Get to far ahead and even your allies will come to see you as a threat.

I would definetly like to see better, more exciting combat, possibly procedurally generated battles (I know its hard Stardock but most computer nerds wet themselves when they hear those two words). More animations, maybe Homeworld style battles (but purely simulated, no tactical involvement) by which I mean ships don't take it in turns to shoot at each other, well, that is, they do, but to us it doesn't look that way, they sit there levelling broadsides continuosly while the computer does the number crunching behind the scenes. And then ships should realistically break up etc etc. Battleships should fire broadsides, cruisers and frigates should circle a target, fighters should line up attack runs, I know its a dead horse but you can't really argue that it would rock.

I'm curious as to what the point of this would be. If you are invading a planet, then most likely there aren't any planets around to settle on your own. Plus, if you just got defeated, then wouldn't you not have any people to put in the modules?

Ummm, normally the attackers break before they are all dead.

Ummm, normally the attackers break before they are all dead.

True. But, one wold think that in the process of being routed taht some of thier transports would get blown up. But even if they didn't, I still don't understand the whole colony moduale thing. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying that I don't understand it.

Very difficult to only choose three, especially given all the great ideas being tossed around here.

1. Hybrid spying system, with DL-style "passive" spying and DA-style "active" spying.

2. A revised invasion system that separates civilians from military. Planets would be occupied and not simply wiped clean of their former occupants (unless the player wanted to kill everyone). The I'm still uncomfortable being aligned "good" while I slaughter billions during invasions.

3. Diplomacy improvements. I'd like to be able to threaten enemies when they come too near my boarders, or warn my friends of the impending danger of another civ. As Jeznob noted, the AI would need to be smart enough to call my bluff when I made threats I couldn't back up, or when I'm just trying to damage relations and cause trouble. I'd also like to see more flexible treaties, or a least a larger variety of them - perhaps intelligence or map sharing treaties.

That's three, but I have to also cast a vote for UP improvements. How about a second expansion focusing on diplomacy and UP?

What is this galciv2 + mod? Is this a Stardock mini-addon which will be available for who buys DA?

Nope. It is a community mod, the team of which I lead, which hopes to make the game even better and add lots more content. Find out more at TBSModder

Some really excellent ideas!

I would like to see the following as my top 3 picks.

1.) Tactical Combat Option- I dont want to remove the auto combat feature as sometimes it comes in handy for battles that are not that important. When the rubber hits the road though I would like more control over a battle with MOO style interface that allows you to control ship attacks based on the combat abilities of the ships you create. This would allow things like strategic sniping of transports within combat fleets and other things.

2.) Race Specific Abilities and Options. This is a tough one as game balance is always an issue. As it stands now you can pretty much have the same type of civilization bonus no matter what the race. I think that each race should have something that no other race has the option of having. Whether this be a specific type of end game weapon, defence, structure or ability.

3.) Enhanced Planetary Combat-This breaks down into 3 catagories

- Pre Invasion- Softening up the target with various weapons like the tidal, mass drivers etc

- Actual Invasion - I see soldiers, tanks and other land based combat wrapped up in some sort of tactical screen. Depending on the PQ of the planet this might take a few weeks or even months to get control of a planet. The type of tiles you are fighting for might give bonus's or negatives to an attacking force based on the race. Allow a defender to resupply from other planets troops supplies equipment to tiles not yet taken over by an attacker.

-Post Invasion- Seperate population base into combat troops and civilians. This opens up moral issues, revolts etc unless an invader sterilizes the plant and starts from scratch. This of course would impact your good evil rating and lead into other interesting possiblities.


Granted all these things are a programming nightmare but hey its fun to ponder the possibilities. Really liked the external ship builder idea too.

I would definetly like to see better, more exciting combat, possibly procedurally generated battles (I know its hard Stardock but most computer nerds wet themselves when they hear those two words). More animations, maybe Homeworld style battles (but purely simulated, no tactical involvement) by which I mean ships don't take it in turns to shoot at each other, well, that is, they do, but to us it doesn't look that way, they sit there levelling broadsides continuosly while the computer does the number crunching behind the scenes. And then ships should realistically break up etc etc. Battleships should fire broadsides, cruisers and frigates should circle a target, fighters should line up attack runs, I know its a dead horse but you can't really argue that it would rock.

Why is this a dead horse? This is not a major change on how battle works it just makes engaging in battles more fun and gives more value to ship design as you will want to see your ships in action rather than just autoresolve that you do now since its so damn boring to watch the current battles.

Not like the devs will add everything that they find in this thread, or even read it.

Do not be so sure. The Stardock team is pretty good at doing things the players have suggested and many of them scan the forums on a daily basis.

Now for my 3 things I would like to see in no particular order.

1. A more interactive and versatile U.P. I would like to tell the AI to get his stinking Influence Starbase the heck out of my space, and have it mean something.

2. A make over for the current ground assault screen. The tacky bobbing tanks and big square blocks gets on my nerves. A simple make over would do, but it would be nice to be able to add some customization to it as well. I mean we can customize almost every aspect of the game as it stands now, why not ground forces?

3. Fleet Battle Screens similar to the existing Planetary Assault screen. Give me options on attack formations, strafing runs and retreating. Like when I assault a planet I can choose Information Warfare, Mini Soldiers and Seismic Assault. I do not want to control every aspect of movement / angle / velocity so on and so forth... I would just like to be able to choose from a list, a single overall strategy.