Please take this as sujestions from a fan. And not ill willed in the slightest.

#1 on my list has to be the option to NOT cycle automaticaly to the next ship after I move one, often I want to just look around where i am exploring before jumping accross the map. This pulls me out of the experience more often than not. The only real game killer in my book.

Change "New Save Game" to "Name your Save Here" or make it flash or something. It in unintuitive. My frind looking over my shoulder assumed we couldn't remame the field.

A hot key for "Done" like "D" or space, skipping a move is not nearly as likely as the constant need to clear dialog buttons.

TAB key or another to tab to the next ship whether or not if they have moves left.

I thought a MODing forum would be popular but hardly no one replied on my thread asking who else would like to see this. I just thought this is a sure way to expand and sustain interest in this title.

New colony ship BIK; reverse the frames order. it is boring this way. Start with the interesting stuff.

Ability to name Advisors.

In the tutorial that is missing as noted by Games Domain, early on introduce a few suggested setups likely to cater to the new player like small, abundant, tightly clustered. Random morality but with subnormal intelects. Infer that if you want the AI to come at you start with normal AIs and if you want to play safe learning play with fool. And rename "Fool" nobody wants to call themselves a fool, as implied by playing against this setting. "Out to Lunch" would work and Rookie instead of "Beginner." Remember these new players are going to seeing this setup screen a lot. Lets not insult them.

The still art is very good indeed. And if the species BIKs were sped up say 50% they would be very good too. But the music and sound effects. Well I think the reviewers are being kind because they like Stardocks level of support. Gamesdomain compared GalCivs music and effects to a Commador 64. He wasn't trying to be funny. And a LOT of people read that site. For instance the KABOOM.MP3, Star Trek phasers are funny for a project for just your friends. But for an international release it's embarasing. At least it should be. I have replaced every single sound. The default 128 at best audio sounds like one guy with a really cheap synthisizer. I liked the tempo overall. And followed these examples as I subsituted. Listen to the kaboom a few times in a row and look at a current calander to get the perspective, and then make yourself listen to the Drengin Event music about five times in a row. You'll get the idea.

The playlist selectioning in the built in MP3 player is a stroke of genius. Please do up the playability to say 360. Very few of my files are below 192.

All for now. Hope it was useful, I'm a populist. I care... I really do.

I've a simple suggestion that I would love to see implemented. I have no idea if this has been requested before.. I didn't want to read through 12 pages of suggestions (and there is no search). LOL

Anyways.. what I would find very useful would be a function to simply turn off ALL autopiloting for all ships. A simple toggle.. 'autopilot off'. There are times (during a battle.. early in the game) when I would like to micromanage where my ships are going. Additionaly, in the ship list, it is annoying (to me at least) when I click on a ship to bring it up, and it brings it up.. and moves it based on the autopilot. It would be great to just turn it off until I don't feel the need to babysit all movement, and then turn it back on. Any luck on this one?

fleabitfox

Thanks for a grand game!

1) On the point everyone is making about the number boxes for peddling money/influence:

It works fine, just it seems everyone would like 'Overwrite' the default behaviour, instead of 'Insert'.
I would add further, allow the space bar be used to overwrite without causing problems, eg Changing '100' to '10' by typing '10 ' (one zero space) instead of having to reach for the delete key. Allow the keyboard insert key to still toggle between entry modes.

2) On the planetary screen, a UI change.

Instead of clicking side arrows to change the method of sorting, allow a drop-down list instead so choosing a desired sort option is only two clicks instead of one+. In order to reverse sort an option, perhaps a check box to the right of the drop-down list that, when checked 'on' sorts the list in reverse and when checked 'off' has the list sorting normally (ie the default way it is now). This way sorting the list is a maximum of three clicks. Perhaps also do the same thing to the ship list to keep things consistent.

3) I'd like to vote for governor sliders.

4) Vote for a lockable slider with the spending to make adjustment easier.

5) Vote for sliders moving in relation to each other ala CivIII as suggested by others (more intuitive relation-ship wise between the sliders).

6) Vote for idle production to be returned to treasury (not to other planet's production) (dunno why, this seems fair and more of a challenge balancing spending).

Further to that, there perhaps should be a penalty for returning budgeted production to treasury for idle queues, perhaps on the order of:
1st government form: 35% spent, 65% returned to treasury (imperial control)
2nd government form: 45% spent, 55% returned. (more corruption with new government form)
3rd government form: 30% spent, 70% returned (maturing society)
4th government form: 15% spent, 85% returned (mature society).

Perhaps use the above suggestions as a base and further adjust what is spent, what is returned by the morality of the civilisation. More evil = more corruption (thus more spent and less returned to treasury) to an extent. More good = less corruption (honour, honesty, etc being prevalent morality). The more evil or good, the greater the adjustment.

Perhaps for evil civilisations, make planets further away from the seat of power (planet where government is based) more corrupt and those closer less corrupt. Stationing of powerful units over a planet reduces corruption a wee bit. Make things tougher for being evil >


Enough from me for now, hope this post is of help.
Damian

~SDC~

Forgot: Search function on Metaverse so I can find my name with a search instead of having to sort through 50+ screens (as will probably become the case later on).

A 'Your score has been entered to Metaverse' option to acknowledge receipt. My apologies if you've already got that, it seems to me that the way to get a score entered is to finish game, exit summary screen then hit the Metaverse button.

Perhaps a vote for a very clear 'Submit to Metaverse' button on the final summary screen, just above or to left of the exit or done button?

Thanks again for a great game that seems to ... warp time, somehow

Damian

~SDC~

This game needs a GalCivilopedia, ala the Cilvilopedia in the Civilization line of games, with hyperlinks from wherever a tech or game concept is mentioned. After over 10 games I am still baffled by most technologies, I usually have no idea what I am trading away in diplomacy. Takes too long to alt-tab out of the game and pull up info on a web site just to see what a tech is.

There should be a better "defender" style ship that has great defense, poor offense, and that doesn't cost as much to maintain.

How about a way to lock an economy slider?
So modifying military won't change the locked research slider, just the social slider.

Two more suggestions and I'll not pester this thread any longer.. for now, heh.

Something that would be very helpful would be a way to click on a star system, a resource or a starbase (or even an enemy ship) and find out what ships are enroute to this destination. Perhaps click and holding the right mouse button over a destination, and using the wheel on the mouse (or some other useful key/mouse button) to scroll through all ships enroute. This would be very nice, IMO. The 'autopilot' routes is nice.. but not as helpful as this would be.

A GalCivpedia would be great.. but nicer would be a solid strat guide. Heck.. I would pay for one!

One that covers ALL the details in the game. There are tons of small details that could be explained better than are as outlined in the manual. No offense to what is a wonderful game, but the manual IMO is lacking. It has the basics to get you going, but that is it. It isn't just this game.. almost ALL games are short in the documentation department anymore. This makes me sad. (:(

For instance.. the #'s by a star system. I have no idea what those are. I asked in the forum, and was told that is the # of ships enroute to the system. I thought perhaps it might be something like this.. but I was hardly positive. It is not quite intuitive enough to simply guess how everything works. A in detail strat guide would be wonderful.

fleabitfox

Love the game! Hate the sleep deprivation...

I would like to see the planets be a little less generic. I think you could do something like the planet specials in MOO by adding modifiers up front, and making them visible before colonization. If you did it to a small percentage of the overall planets (like 10%?), it could create some interesting tactical decisions, and make a few more of the flotsam planets worth working on. It looks like the game supports this feature already (random events add bonuses to planets), so you'd just have to find a way to add an icon in the planet browser to indicate it.

Maybe it is just me, but I would like the option to only see the next available choices in the tech tree, NOT the full tree.

I just played my first game and it was fun trying to pick and choose the right stuff for what I wanted to do.

I don't want a road map in the game, it makes no real sense to give the whole thing away. It's like Edison inventing electricity because it will allow him to create superconductors down the research path...

On the other hand having an idea that electricity might be used for light bulbs is only one step removed and much more realistic.

Oh, one other thing that I noticed as a sort of graphical aside.

The cursor is the standard windows cursor... it is just kind of dull.

It would be kind of cool if the cursor also changed based on your alignment.

Thanks for all the continued work, it's great!!!

Just remembered another thing.

When listening to my own playlist, it is kind of annoying when some events occur that they supercede the playlist for their own music and then go back.

Would prefer an all or nothing. Either all the game's music, or all mine.

Thanks continued.

Hi, love the game.

That being said, although I've posted this rant elsewhere, I was disappointed to find that my beloved terror star, for which I used 4 or 5 constructors and spent 5,000 b.c., would take approximately 3 YEARS to reach the target. No fun at all. It would be simpler and quicker to a) conquer the target via transports, or culturally assimilate it. While both strategies are viable, I wanted to experience the sadistic pleasure of detonating a star.

Call me sick, that's fine. A movement rate of 4 would be much more reasonable while preventing the terror star from upsetting game balance. Most ships in the late game have a movement of 6-8 anyway, and should have few problems intercepting the battlestation.

Thanks for listening,
JD

One more thing:

One of the daunting tasks in Galciv is keeping track of my ships, especially once I pass the one hundred ship range. While the ship listing helps somewhat, I have some ideas as how to organize the information in a more user-friendly manner.

First, let me name the fleets.

Second, let the fleets appear in the ship listing:
Fleet Ticonderoga
-Battleship Redoubt
-Battleship Avenger
-Battlecruiser Intrepid
Fleet Sol
-Dreadnought Invincible
-Battleship Enterprise
..and so on.

Thanks!

JD

increase terror star movement rate to something like 3 or 4

If this has been suggested already sorry for the repeat, but wadeing through 10 pages of posts to see if it's there isn't exactly my idea of a good time.
Also, if this feature already exists and I just missed it somehow please tell me so, but I haven't seen it yet.

Anyway, what I would like to see is essentially a straight port of a diplomacy feature from Civ3. I'd like to be able to drop a tech (or star system, or unit, or money, or whatever) from the Civ I'm dealing with into the trade window and have a button I can hit that says "What may I offer you in trade for ?", and have it automatically pop a tech into my trade window that they would take as a fair deal. Likewise, I would like to be able to drop a tech(or star system, money, etc.) into my trade window and ask them what they would be willing to offer me in trade for it.

Part of the reason I want this is because in Civ3 at least, if you repetatively offer unfair trades to a Civ it will just piss them off and steadily worsen your relations with them. In my random poking around and attempts at offering trades so far in GalCiv it hasn't seemed to really affect my diplomatic relations with other Civs, but then I haven't pushed it to it's potential extreme's yet either (ie, offering dozens of bad trades consecutively).

Ian

I apologise if this has already been suggested, lots of posts here.

Events that describe events within your Empire and impact Empire wide bonuses and policy. For Example: You belong to the Federalist party but there is growing support for a member of the Technologist Party do you:
A: Challenge him to a debate to discuss the issues (no effect positive or negative)
B: Begin a smear campaign digging up dirt about his college years when he spent time on the Drengin Home World and partook in some of their more reprehensible customs (+5% approval rating).
C: Arrange for an "accident" to occur that eliminates him (+10%approval)

Perhaps there is a planetary governor that is involved in a economic Scandal and is siphoning money from the treasury, or perhaps there is a popular movement to provide aid to a minor race..etc.

I think these kind of events would make for a more immerive experience and give the player more of feeling of being an important galactic leader.

Toggle to turn of all auto-pilots. Important.

Ability to remap the shortcut keys.

~SDC~

Bye the way I was refering to say Colony_Leaving.bik would be better if the frames were in the reverse order. As for me I disabled it. The mini_Colony.bik is awsome and has some of the sound I have left intact on my personal use MOD.

~SDC~

God, I'm critical today

Also, when a colony finished building something, the game brings up a menu notification. Sometimes the menus contains several notifications (i.e., colony 1: Constructor, colony 2: Defender, colony 3: Colony ship).

Maybe I'm a sub-normal moron, but I find it difficult keeping track off all my respective colonies' locations. It's not like Civilization III in that there is no geography or landmarks to help me identify colonies.

To alleviate this (assuming I'm not alone), allow us to (in the "construction complete" pop up), to highlight each colony and also the map to center on that colony. In the above example, I would select Colony 2 from the list of completed items, and the map would center on the colony and/or the smaller galaxy map would place a box (or similar highlighting) around the colony in question.

Did that make sense?

Hope so, peace

JD

I was coming in to post the idea to filter the planets and ships list by various things. Mostly the ships, for type, orders, etc. But since I see that is already posted, I second that idea. Also the rally points for newly constructed ships.

Fix: Map not centering on selection unless "Find" is clicked a bunch of times.

Hmmm... another one. Find button seems to work funny for me.

Assume I have two ships that the find button goes to at start of turn, A and B. Halfway through turn I turn off the autopilot on ship C. Then, clicking on find tends to do this for me: A B A B C B A B C etc.

Could we have the Find button just go through the list 'one-way' (A B C A B C A B C) instead of reversing direction through the available ships list (A B C B A B C) which is what it tends to do at the moment.

Many Thanks
Damian

~SDC~

I posted this in its own thread, but I'm going to put it here as well:

I just wanted to throw out a suggestion that it would be cool if somewhere (on the Domestic policy screen, somewhere, perhaps) we could find a detailed breakdown of exactly how much Tribute we're receiving from each alien race, in addition to the total amount per turn.

Something like:
Drengin 10bc/turn - 20/50 turns
Altarian 50bc/turn - 5/15 turns

Those latter numbers would tell you "what turn of the agreement you're on/how many turns the agreement was for."

The main use of this, to my mind, would be so I know just how much tribute I'm getting from a particular empire if I'm considering going to them to ask for more tribute. I've had games where I was bringing in a combined 500 bc/turn between 3 different empires. Then, a turn later, I'm down to 400 bc/turn. Obviously I know one of my tribute agreements just expired. But I really don't know with which race. Now, I want to try and get that amount (or more) in tribute going again, but I don't know which race to approach for a new deal. Certainly, I'd hate to go to the Altarians and ask them for more money per turn if they're already paying me 200 bc/turn.

So, someway to know exactly where your tribute is coming from and even when it's about to expire would be very handy. I should note, btw, that to set these tribute agreements up, I tend to trade technology (probably a lot more tech than I was able to get away with before the recent updates). I certainly haven't been using any deliberate exploits, but simply trying to find a way to bring a good positive cash flow into my empire so I can keep my spending maxxed out.

Anyway, thanks for listening.





~SDC~

1) Major races' stats screens don't display home planet anywhere. Odd, when the minor races screens do.
2) Would be nice to see and sort by the operative governor on the planet list, particularly because the governor usually designates some sort of high-level type in one's strategy.
3) The tactical/standard map switch on the planet list would be appropriately promoted to the main interface. I actually use it most often with the ship list. Kind of silly to have to duck in the planet list first.
4) Display the maintenance on the double-click ship details somewhere. Right now, one has to go to a planet and look on the military construction list.
5) Have a stat bonus breakdown sceen with bonus sources (i.e. +N% anomaly, +2 Trade Routes (Trade), +10 Speed (Impulse Drives), etc.
6) Stat bonuses are only displayed in the tech picklist. Display same information in the "You have researched blah!" popup as in the picklist, since I've generally forgotten the bonuses by the time the research is done.

~SDC~

1) The espionage settings for minor races have no sliders, but instead we are force to click the left/right arrow buttons over and over and over (:( - very tedious. Please put in slider controls as with the major races.

2) It would also be nice to have an auto-repeat behavior when you click and hold on an arrow button, say when scrolling down a list of researched techs, or planet list.

3) When looking at the list of techs in the diplomacy screen (say, when trading techs) it would be nice to be able to right click on another civs tech and see what it does, so that I know what I'm getting for my trade. Since my civ doesn't have the tech yet, they should be telling me what it's for.

4) Why is the control for toggling between the standard map and the tacital map only available when I choose the planet list from the control panel?
:notsure: It doesn't belong there, IMO. It should be available at all times, say next to the stellar infulence button on the main map.