How about adding a clock with an alarm feature?
I've noticed that the hours tend to slip by when playing this game.

I would like to see more made of the influence points. Currently, they are not worth much since you never know what the GP council is going to vote on. If you could tell what they were going to vote on, you could end up trying to wheel and deal enough influence points to try and win the vote. Or if you don't care much about the outcome of the vote, you could gouge any race who needed a particular result badly.

I imagine this would require a fair bit of coding to work well, however.

Tradegoods should be tradable to all civs, but they should be based on a monthly service fee thats doesn't expire until you or the other civ cancels it.

As it stands now you trade a tradegood to another civ for anything you can get in the diplomacy screen. This greatly diminishes the value of you leasing a tradegood to another civ in the long run because the benefits eventually wear out yet that civ still gets the bonuses from the tradegood.

If you could negotiate a monthly fee that would last as long as the tradegood is being traded then you would continue to get benefits even years down the road as long as you keep trading that good. And since you have a monopoly on it you should be able to lease it to everyone.

This could open up lots of possibilities for diplomacy like threatening to cancel a contract if a specific situation is not met. But more importantly indefinite lease possibility will provide an enourmous incentive to trade the tradegood to other civs. Think of it as them/or you importing the tradegood, thus recieving its bonuses, therefore paying you a small montly fee for as long as the good is imported, which should be indefinite until you or the other civ wants to renegotiate the monthly fee or they fell like its not worth it anymore.

~SDC~

Also posted in its own thread, because I didn't notice this one. Oops!

First off, I adore this game. Seriously. Well done, Stardock! You should be proud.

Of course, there's some things in the course of playing the game that have irritated me a bit, and while it seems that a lot of them are known or are being fixed, there's a couple that I haven't seen:

1. Could we please be able to change the sort order in the build section of the planet screen? Alpabetical is great if you already know what everything costs or how many months it's going to take to complete, as well as what it does, but otherwise it's driving me nuts to have to scroll through to find the things I need to make.

2. Can you please enable keyboard scrolling for things like the planet social and military projects, the starbase module creation, the planet and ship list, &etc? I'm going a little nutty using the mouse for *everything*.

3. On the Governors page, can you please show the same info as you do on the Planets page for your build options? I've no idea off the top of my head whether I want an Info Net or a Neural Net first, and I probably shouldn't need a pencil and paper pad to figure it out.

4. Can you make it so that we can "park" terror stars? Or at least set them so that they don't cycle through on a "find"? Most of the things I'm constructing at this point are constructors, and while I'm delighted that you're going to set it up so that I don't have to double-click on each one of the buggers to bring them to the star map, I still have to be careful about where I click so that the terror star doesn't go haring off into the Wild Black Yonder.

4. I see that you fixed the issue with galactic wonders and trade in build queues -- did you also fix the problem with the queue not passing over Capitols if they've already been built in your civilization? I swear, each and every one of my stars was building something I totally didn't need at one point or another, to the point where I now micromanage the entire deal (which has been its own sort of fun, but then, I'm a tad insane.)

5. Can you include the ability to go "back" to a star system on the list of things you've done, in case you mess up and forget, for example, to set up a social project?

6. Can you set it up so that I can double-click on a ship in the star map (especially in stacked tiles) and have the info screen for the ship pop up? I find it difficult to ensure that I'm opening the correct ship on the larger display.

That's it for now. Again, great game!

"I would like to see more made of the influence points. Currently, they are not worth much since you never know what the GP council is going to vote on. If you could tell what they were going to vote on, you could end up trying to wheel and deal enough influence points to try and win the vote. Or if you don't care much about the outcome of the vote, you could gouge any race who needed a particular result badly."--Quote by MojoJojoUK

Another thing that would be neat in regards to this idea is the ability to discuss the upcoming vote with other civs in the diplomacy screen, or find out which way they are planning to vote through espionage. Some issues might not be important to a race so they would be more willing to answer a questions in diplomacy about which way they are going to vote. And they could ask the same questions. This would work well with diplomacy because information is just another thing to be valued. One exciting thing about this is that in diplomacy you could agree to vote the same way on issues to counter another race or in exchange for other things. You could also find out which way a race is going to vote and sell that information to another race.

Like in real politics, with this option you would find races working with or against each other to push their own agendas (unlike the current situation where you have know idea which way a race will vote). I realize this would probably be hard to implement, but from what I've read and seen, Diplomacy is one of the key elements of what makes this game great and this would improve that.


~SDC~

The UP resolution to ban Terror Stars shouldn't appear until Terror Star technology has been researched, or is being researched.

I got that one about 6 turns into my most recent game, when most Civs didn't even have Weapons Theory yet. How, exactly, is the UP voting to ban a weapon that not even theoretical physicists have dreamed of yet?

- Ash

~SDC~

I'd like to see a shuffle option for the mp3 player.

~SDC~

Needed:

1. Zip downloads for updates for those of us with dial-up internet access. That way we can update the game without an inpossibly large download if we need to re-install the game in a year or two.

2. Give us the ability to turn some or all of the random events on/off during the game set-up. This should impact the score.

3. Have the game save scores locally so that we can upload them at our convenience.

4. Use the right-click on the mouse! I should be able to get a pop-up describing buildings or ships when I right-click on them.

5. Right now, all espionage/destabilization expenditures apply to all empires. I should be able to spy on one alien race but not spy on another.

6. Optional pop-ups before major actions such as colonisation.

7. Zoom in/out of the map screen. I find everything, including the planet management, R&D screens, etc. to be too large and clunky. If they could be shrunk down, I could see more.

8. An edit feature for this board!

Even if it's been mentioned, it should be mentioned again...

Difficulty sliders for the minor race AI!!! There's nothing like being forced to watch a resource 3 planet suddenly turn into a resource 15 and have uber-Godlike minor race come kick your butt.

Got another one...

When you lose an election, instead of just having your bonuses turn from positive to negative, simply lose your bonus (have it go neutral), and gain the negative of the winning party... For instance: (forgive me if I get the numbers wrong, I'm at work ATM... you should get the idea though)

You are Fundamentalist...

You win an election, you get a 20% bonus to econ!

You lose the election to the war party, you get 0% bonus to econ (back to normal) and get a -20% penalty to diplomacy.

Then, you'd get a different negative penalty depending on the party that won. It'd add a ton of variety... There's a thread about this idea here:

http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=29222&MaxReplies=

This is in it's own thread, but I figured it should be here also.

Anomalies are great but I think they might be a bit superficial in providing depth for exploration. Instead of simply flying a survey ship over an anomaly and getting instant results it should take time to discover what that anomaly is. Perhaps anywhere from 1 to 24 turns. When your survey ship flies into an anomaly you could get a message with an "estimate"(not an exact number of turns) of how long it will take to understand the anomaly. You can either except this estimate or cancel and look for another anomaly.

This would allow for strategic decisions in which anomalies you choose to explore and how many survey ships you choose to build (for fear that one might get tied up discovering the secrets of an anomaly for 20 turns or so). Another interesting thing this could do is allow new techs to be made that allow survey ships to increase their ability to uncover the misteries of an anomaly quicker. Also, since you've implemented new techs this would mean that some races survey ships would be better(faster) at uncovering the misteries of an anomaly. These techs would have to be early game techs so that they can be used for my next option in the paragraph below.

The fact that it now takes a number of turns to discover an anomaly's misteries can be used to add another strategic element that would allow competing races to research the same anomaly at the same time. Whoever uncovers the mistery first is the one that gets the bonus. Thus competing for anomalies would be more exiting and add another element of strategy. Races that have researched more "anomaly discovery techs" could actually still uncover the secrets of an anomaly another race was researching even if they didn't get there until a few turns later.

The graphical situation would have to be redone though. As it is now, survey ships fly over the anomaly. If multiple ships are going to be allowed to compete for discovery of what an anomaly does then the devs would have to make it where the survey ship researching an anomaly stays in the adjacent parsec to the anomaly, that way another ship can still see the anomaly and move in to try and discover its secrets first. If the ship is allowed to be in the same parsec as the anomaly then another ship entering that same area would be attacking it. I'm sure the devs already realize this.

In another point, I have seen no anomalies that do bad things. Is the universe only full of fruitful anomalies? Perhaps an anomaly could destroy your ship, or damage it, of infect your empire with a plague(only for a certain # of turns, etc, etc...

In doing this it would probably be better if anomalies had higher values associated with them, instead of simply 1% bonuses.



~SDC~

It's VERY ANNOYING when I've been building something for 10 turns, click on a new item that appears to get some info on it, and then realize that you've just lost 10 turns of productions.

Suggestion : SAVE the current build status of an item until the end of a turn. If it says four turns left, keep it four turns left even if I click away from it and come back later. You can clear this temporary status per build at the end of the turn.

Sam_F7

Some stuff:

Ability to sort planets by research output.

Drop down menu system as opposed to buttons to change between various sort options.

The ability to right click within screens like the governor and diplomacy/negotiation and get details on things. Like for techs especially.

A button that auto sets the max tribute an AI will concede once you have selected a term. For example, you offer 5 techs and select the tribute option on their side, setting 50 months as the term. Press the autoset button and the tribute value is autoset to whatever max value the AI will pay, instead of the player having to trial and error it. If you cant/wont do this, at least make the cursor starting point within the number boxes on the slider screen be AFTER the trailing digit instead of on top of it. Very annoying, surprised this wasnt caught in beta.

olaf

Forgot to add support for auto-scout feature.

Also would like to see something like the feature in civ3 where you can either choose something from their side and ask what they want for it, or choose something from your side and ask what they will give for it.

olaf

Have information screens about a particual systems moral, its income, its production that will let you figure out why you have a particular number (IE 50% moral breaks down into 45% for global moral + 55% building moral + 200% for planet quality - 250% for having 22Bil ppl... or something like that)

List population growth somewhere for the system.

Have a list of building for a planet listed somewhere... and maybe a way to destroy non-wonders.

More more more screens like sector influence and stats but on the smaller planet/ship scale.

More options to tweek beginging of the game for number and severity of events.

Other than that there is a ton of balancing and AI coding you may have ahead of you if you choose to do so. I will let other ppl address those issues.

Don't remove the resource icon off the starmap when a starbase is built on top of it. While it is handy to know that that resource is now being mined, its more useful, tactically to know that the resource is there, rather than having to remember "oh yeah, there was a resource in that sector"

I would sure appreciate if there was a button (or at least a key combination) to be able to see all the colony ships and constructors not moving / in orbit. Colony ships and constructors that are in flight I don't need or want really to see. I do need to see the ones not moving / in orbit since that means they're waiting for instructions where to go. I hate having to scroll around on the ship lists for these. It would really help speed up the end-game when GalCiv (like MOO2 before it) becomes pretty micro-management heavy.

Another button (or key combination) that would be sweet is an enemy/pirate finder. Hit this button and it takes you to all hostile ships in your view and by hitting it again, it takes you to the next one. A flash of such ships makes you aware of them but then it's such a pain to find them on the larger size maps.

Somebody mentioned this before, but I really like to see the description of each improvement in the governor screen. As it is now, I have to come out and go to some planet to manually see what costs what and does what each time something new comes up to add to the list.

If it's not too much to add, why not just add the same description screen you see on the planet map in the middle of governor list? No wasted time that way.

Also rally point is a must. Too much time wasted to see if some planets contained needed but unmoved ships.

Lastly when you give move orders to every launched ship, the turn automatically ends even if there is a newly created ship in orbit, just waiting for my order. I lost track of at least about 10 ships at various stages of a game, and sometimes even knowing about the newly created ship, wasted a turn because I "forgot" activate that first before I give orders to my launched ships.

Perhaps you can do it the civilization way where new units flash out from the home planets until some order is given, even after the turn they were created. This would really minimize all the wasted time looking that newly created ships.

By the way I love the game. AI is especially superb. It acts very realistically and intelligently. Never seen anything like it before. Anyway since this is a suggestion column, I'll cut the praises short. Great work!!

This thread is way to big to read. Sorry if these are already in the works or have been mentioned before.

*I'd like somesort of graphical diagram of the research tree available in game. Perhaps an interface like in Civ 3 where you can select a option farther up the tree and it will automatically research everything needed to get to that option. So say I want to get to anti-matter ASAP and I don't care about anything else... It will research all the requirements one after another for anti-matter automatically, and then finally anti-matter before demanding I manually select a new line of research.

*The game is sorely lacking an in-game enclopedia/help system. For instance in the research menu... You select a line of research and it shows you all the stuff you can get. I should be able to click on those things like a hyperlink for a pop-up description. Right now I can't get the description for what the heck an aphrodisac is until after I already researched the required field, or have played the game before and know what it is. For an example of this what i'm talking about, you badly need something like the Civlopedia in civ3.

*The current "tutorial" is absolutely worthless. For newbies i'd like to see some major handholding for the first 3 turns of the game, and a good run through of all the various interface screens and their purposes.

*Don't waste time and space on the movies. You see them once, you snicker... and then never care for them again. I also would like a way to turn them off (like that one movie of the welding on the ship at the very start of your game).

*The work with the space stations is great... but i'd like to see some major efforts with the ships. Perhaps customization of weapons, armor, and engines. Overall I dont' want the changes to be very effective... but mostly cosmetic and minor. I know that folks will gravitate towards the one single ultimate combo (making the ability to select worthless) and also many just want things quick. Just some minor tweaking... THat way a star figther isnt just always star fighter. Give some flavor to the different groups ships other than boring +10 to all weapons type bonuses.

*Definately an auto-scout for scouts and droid probes where it just runs around and tries to remove fog Also for the surveyor, I'd like auto-survey to make them to run after anomolys and after they run out, they just start auto-scouting to remove fog.

~SDC~

Oh yeah...

*All the races should be in the UP council even if you haven't found them on the map yet. Its rather lame when you've only found the 2 evil races and they keep raping you in the council until you uncover the rest of opponents.

*A damn search function for the forum

~SDC~

Metaverse Scoring:
With one game done and a grand scor of almost 300 points, I look forward to a scoring system that:

1. Includes all games played, win or lose.
2. Some bonus for winning.
3. Takes into account galaxy size, difficulty level, time to victory, and empire size and assets.
4. With the potential for hundreds of empires I want to see LOTS of empires on the map, not just the top few. This should be on a larger map, perhaps one that must be scrolled. Also, perhaps have a smaller "strategic map" showing only the top 30 or 40 empires.

I would like the ability to demand a star base when negotiating for peace. If I am winning a war, I should be able offer the loser peace in exchange for a star base.

- Matt Lepinski :->

~SDC~

UI Suggestion

Under Government | Governors, when you select an item to add to the governor's queue, display the statistics of the item. This way, it is easier to choose what items should be build in what order based on cost, maintenance, and benefit.

/ds

Another sorely needed feature is a way to see a breakdown on what exactly is contributing to your various bonuses. Like more detailed drill down options in the stats tab of the domestic policy screen.

Many people have reported various bonuses not seeming to work, like from trade goods and starting bonuses. This would be a good way to see if they are working or not.

olaf

Here's my list in order of priority:

1) Searchable in-game tech-tree inspired as closely as possible by the one in CivIII. yes, this will take significant effort but it is an absolute must for this games final polishing. At the very least, we need to be able to click on hyperlinks for a given tech and trace forward all the way through the tech tree. Also, we should be able to click on any item which appears in a given tech window (i.e. social, modules, military etc.) and get the description window for that item.

2) An in-game fully searchable indexed manual, again, like the CivIII civilopedia. This game is going to be updated constantly for at least a year, WE NEED AN IN-GAME, ON-LINE MANUAL WORTHY ENOUGH TO KEEP UP WITH THE CHANGES. Also, this approach would provide the level of detail needed to document this sophisticated game.

3) More individual control for taxation and funding for each planet. This could be accomplished by one slider for taxation and a slider(s) for social/military/research. These could be hidden as advanced options to keep down clutter. Also, I see no need to change the A.I. for this. This is a micromanagement, control issue, which, while likely to give some improvement to human game-play, it will go more towards human satisfaction than tipping the balance for the already difficult AI. The AI won't need to deal with this.

4) Feedback on factors affecting morale for each planet. I personally feel that the morale model is excellent, so please do not change the game mechanics. It is challenging and realistic. It makes so much sense that people are hard to please in the game. We just need something to inform us of whether it is a war or the planet or the population etc. that is causing the problem.


5) Please give us the option to change the speed of the ship action (moves and combat). Echoing what at least one previous poster said, I can not see what is going on and this really hurts the game immersion when you have no time to watch the battles (if desired). A simple "slow, medium, fast" option is all that is required, or better. A better control of scroll speed on the mini-map and main map would be useful also.

Thanks TECH TREE, TECH TREE......

~SDC~