a good one would be that the united planets is divided into two opposing sides (good and evil) and the neutral factions have to be persuaded to join your side. this would give the good races a better chance in winning a war because they are better at diplomacy and so are more likely to get the neutral factions to join there cause, while the evil races would not gain as many additional allies but are usually more powerful anyway (this would create a sort of cold war situation with the new "good" united planets being like nato and the "evil" united planets being like the warsaw pact).

I always wanted the United Planets to split. To me the UP is slanted against the evil races, so why wouldn't the evil guys go and form their own where they aren't pushed around?

A mutation virus infects the whole galaxy turning every race into another race (with its inherent advantages and limitations.

So you may be playing one race and suddenly you become another race.

Or a matter-antimatter attack which, again, affects the entire universe. Every race that was evil is suddenly good and every race that was good is suddenly evil.Maybe every race you were at war with you are suddenly in alliance with and every race you were in alliance with you are suddenly at war with.

Or how about a universe earthquake which randly reshuffles the position of all the planets and stars in the universe. They are the same ones, they aresimply moved around.

#1 Mega structures

I especially like the idea of mega structures. Starbases are a great thing in this game, being able to add huge numbers of modules is wonderful. However, having grown up in the shadow of Star Wars, if I had a galactic civlization, I would totally start building planet sized space craft and etc.

Doesn't make for balanced game play tho--

so have them drifting through the galaxy, blowing up planets, and you can destroy them.


#2: Space travel makes the galaxy go round. Well, the galaxy got all squidgy and craft range is reduced by 95%, effectively landlocking spacecraft. Any colonies cut off from the others have lost contact, and become their own entities by the time the galaxy emerges from this.

Another variation on this is that "walls" tend to form between civlizations. So the event cuts off a large, dominant culture from conquest, while saving the smaller, weaker civilizations from certain doom.

#3: Moral decay

First it was the waltz. Then it was the bicycle. Now its cranial hyperwave penetrating gloviation. The older generation has finally had enough, and there is an old\young division in every empire in the galaxy.

Birth rates effectively stop for X years, or go negative as the old geezers off the young whippersnappers, upsetting the demographics of the empire.

#4 Black tuesday.

effects the dominant economy if it outstrips the others by too far a margin. Black tuesday hits. The markets have a collapse. Empires trading with this economy are hit badly as well. This event tends to greatly benefit evil, and more-isolationist empires. Those allied with the disaster economy have a hard time.

#5 Back to megastructures

The melenorme show up. They sell you an amazing space fleet, and a "dyson" style planet, 26 size, that orbits your home star, for some little critters on a moon of some planet under your influence.

Its free, basically.

This benefits the downtrodden empire with a fantastic defensive force and an awesome planet.


#6 Science is dangerous.

Anti-intellectualism becomes rampant in the most-advanced empire. The common folk rise up and destroy research infrastructure, smoke weed, and burn books. Some of the newest technology effectively dissapears.

Highly contagious movement.

#7 Its broke, and i can't fix it.

Corruption at the highest levels has given way to corruption at the lowest levels. The company contracteded to do general maitenence on your spacefleet was fakin' it. Flalse reports and etc. Your spacefleet effectively explodes, and the few remaining ships have one hp and need to limp back to port.

Effects the large military forces.

#8 Drug resistant oganism

Well, the quasiparrots of Vultar 6 are mighty beautiful, but the drengin got a little to personal with it and contracted Vultarial Mulbuttonism. Spreads rampantly through trade-connected populations, slower if not connected by trade.

Eliminates huge numbers of population.

More advanced socieities are affected more.

Sorry if some of this was posted already

oh and what about a galacticd collision:

happens in reality, just slowly.

The event peppers the galaxy with new stars, sometimes populated by new, angry societies.

Bad idea. You shouldn't force a player to play a race they don't want to play. A flame post might be made due to the annoyance.



Also a bad idea. Not only because of the reasons mentioned above, but also because a matter-antimatter explosion has much more in common with a nuclear explosion than with ethics.



Universes don't have earthquakes, largely because they are universes, and not planets named earth. But a reshuffling of planets would make an interesting mega-event, much like one I mentioned. This mega-event would only need a better explanation.

GalCiv 1 had terror stars, which I have asked that they return as a mega-event. I mentioned it back in post #5.



Cursed book burning, weed smoking, hippies. It might prove an interesting mega-event, as it will effectively slow down (for a time, anyways) the civilization that is dominating the galaxy.



Don't worry about it. A good idea deserves more attention.

I have an idea, although it's not too original.

Scientists everywhere in the galaxy become terribly absent-minded and can't say what exactly they're working on or how long it will take until they've finished it. You can steer them in the right direction by suggesting one of the colour-coded categories, but that's about it. All research is effectively blind - although you can still see on the tech tree what projects have or haven't been completed, you won't know which one specifically is active.

Hi all!

Don´t get me wrong - but, please "fix" this "speed limitation"-mega event. Give us some tech to research, to bring back the "normal" ship travel speed. It is very boring to play a large or gigantic map, when only travel with 5 parsecs/m is possible. For me this is the reason to play without megaevents. A great step would be, to choose between some megaevents wich could occur by random - before starting the game.

Well, i know, my post is not the answer to the question above - so, forgive me please.

Greetings from Germany
Jochen

Isn't that the purpose of a mega-event?

I don't think the randomness would be too much of a problem. If you own enough planets that it's hitting you harder than anyone else you should have the resources to win the game already, it's simply a question of siezing the opportunity.
As for timescale, it would need tweaking and scaling. You want to cause the player to rush, but still allow enough time for a chance of victory. You don't want a small galaxy dying too quickly, or a large galaxy taking too long.


Pain and pleasure really. A pain if you're in that situation, a pleasure if you happen to be the one behind in the tech race. It would certainly lead to some interesting situations.


What might be interesting is having all of the minor races combine to form one major 'race', especially if they decide to use this new found power to payback the other races who've been pushing them around all those years...

Metal Scarcity

A metal-eating virus spreading through mining colonies has depleted a substantial amount of metal used for the construction of starship internal structures. The production time, purchase price and maintenance cost of vessels above Medium scale are doubled for the rest of the game.

I would very much like it if the universe could be slightly more organic and submersive. So my ideas may seem vague but prefixed with that concept hopefully you will be able to see where I am coming from.

1. A corporation starts up that builds a string of starbases that civilizations can use at a fee for trade stops. make more money but diluted at first. The corp offers protecting. But then as they rise in power they submit their own requests to the UN.

2. The UN can change in the same way that governments do. So it starts of simple but soon breaks into left and right / good and evil fractions. new UN's are formed and NATOesque bodies etc etc

3. Civil wars break out within AI or your own civs that potentially split the home worlds in the middle. (this would involve invasion like combats that destroy buildings and reduce populations in the same way.

4. Different energy (and chronologically more efficient) source become avaliable and genereally can only be found in a certain quadrant of the galaxy giving a new economical edge to which ever civs happen to inhabit that quad of the galaxy. Like finding oil but it changes throughout time.

5. Unions form up mid way through an average game and your government has to be responsible for them should they go on strike. I understand that some might be upset about the terrorist idea and understandably. But I think the unions could simply rebel and incorporate this concept. Random explosions would make life more fun at least in the latter stages of gameplay.

6. I love the idea I read about civilizations not surrending OR giving their homeworlds away but just abandoning them starting another colonization rush (colony ships not transports must be produced to colonize).

7. I also love the mercenary fleet idea. They turn up in the galaxy and offer their services (not necassaerlly to the highest bidder) buit perhaps a civ that has the same ideals, religion or simply race as them.

8. Someone mentioned an assasination of a pop icon or something. This is exactly the sort of thing that would really make it feel like a realistic and thriving galaxy with 'individuals' actually living lives inside it. The pop star could be John Lennon(esque) and cause a major turn to pasifism in his untimely demise or could have been an outspoken warmongering news caster (Bill O'Reilly) and cause the opposite effect on the civilization they're from.

9. On the same sort of flow I liekd the idea of marrying off your royal family as assets to help gain alliances with other civs. I wouldn't like to see the resulting off spring however... Torian and a Yor anyone!?!?

So basically I see these 'event's as timed things that keep the galaxy interesting as it nears the latter stages but without just turning things on their head. I don't like the idea of screwing with someones game just for the hell of shaking it up a bit. But if they seem like the organic growth of a civilization they it would be fairly reasonable to expect.

Warmest regards

VanCam

Bugger, everyone already thought of the same things... ok ok ok... well hows about this then...

10. Suddenly and inexplicably all the spaceships in the galaxy can only go 5 parsecs per week and the game gets dreadfully slow and annoying.

HAH, and you all thought I was dumb.

oh

New ideas. Posting first one now. The second one needs some work.

Doomsday Device

Insert corny James Bond story line here...

After the hero stops the doomsday device, he proceeds to confront to the villian. The villian, in his last act of evil, proceeds to transmit different versions of his doomsday device to all of the major races in the game. These versions are ones he never had the resources to build.

The transmited blueprints come in 3 versions:
-A super attack module.
This attack module is a little bit more powerful than the ultimate weapons, but is a lot more expensive too. The powerful races might have little use for this version, due to its price, but the weaker races might consider this a "holy grail" in which they might survive against the stronger races.
-An anti-ship, kamakazi drone.
This version is a unique ship with immense attack, 1 hp, no room for room for improvements, and a base speed of 10. Very expensive, but it should be devastating aggainst all but the strongest of ships.
-Doomsday invasion tactic.
A transportable version of the Doomsday device. It can cause a level of devastation beyond that of any other invasion tactic. Its also provides a bigger bonus too.

how about ion storms in the galaxy increasingor decrasing research on planets.

I know, this is the most irritating mega event. It doesn't destabilize the game, it just prolongs it and makes it boring.

How about this instead:

I Brake for Nobody

All ships must move at least 5 parsecs a turn (or up to their maximum speed).   

Most of the events posted are too extreme for my simple tastes. Ones I like are:

- Minor race becomes major race, with bonuses (300% industrial and 100% economic) that make it a true threat.

- Pirates. Make 'em big, bad, and mean, give them a base or few on PQ 0 worlds, in short, a threat to trade routes, starbases, and smaller ships everywhere.

- An invading horde, i.e. the Monguls in Medievil Total War II.

- Civil War in the largest power on the map divides that power into two equal factions

a asteroid floating through space at 1 pc a week and if it is heading to your planet you must destroy it with a ship.

it could come lose from a mining cluster of asteroids

I like this one beacause it would make races have different advantages over eachother instead of everyone having the same old boring Doom Ray. It just doesn't make the races seem unique when everyone has the same stuff! Ofcourse since that mad scientist sent it to all the major races I suppose it's still the same....oh well

I like the giant monster idea. Make the monster come out "When the stars are right."

----my ideas
A transcended race appears and tells all of the current races that they are stupid and gives them all research technologies except the tech victory.

A transcended race appears and tells all of the current races that they are stupid and gives them all technologies except the tech victory.

A transcended race appears and tells all of the current races that they too smart for their own good and takes away all technologies.

An energy wave that causes stupidity courses through the galaxy decreasing research rates of all races.

A new food is developed called 'soylent green' increasing the maximum population potential of all worlds by several billion. (This might make the game a bit too hard though as your approval would go down the tubes in a heartbeat)

All universal translators are infected with a virus forcing all races to communicate in 1337 speak.

Through advanced science, it is discovered that this is actually just a game called Galactic Civilizations II. Upon hearing the terrible truth that their lives are just a computer simulation, unrest spreads throughout the galaxy/game.

One of your worlds is destroyed to make an hyperspace bypass. It leaves behind asteroids.

Ok DamnedChoir, I know how black holes work. The idea with the parsec thing was thats its field of gravitational pull, because having everyithing under the galaxy under its pull, with closer objects being under much more stress as it reaches the core of the black hole or its event horizon is OTT.
The 5x5 parsecs in real life terms is an incredible distance. But in game we only see this as a small distance.
I was trying to simplify the fact that in this game, a black hole event is basically a glorified tornado.
Theres really no need to over-complicate how black holes work within the game, as that would take a long time to work out, etc etc. I think as it is its fine.
The I, Robot mention was simply a way for people to properly understand what I was trying to explain. People often relate to explanations if they have something that with which to relate it with, and I related it to I, Robot, so thusly I picked it as such.
Plus, I, Robot wasnt such a bad film so I dont see why you have to go 'Dont mention that film, yeuch'...

And of course the last point... So what if that 'space locust' thing has been done to death. The game has so many film references in it, such as warp drives (star trek anyone), AI robot rebellion race (2001 anyone), which are the Yor, even the Terran flagship is a blatant reference to the Starship enterprise from star trek.
Thats whats cool about the game is its cultural references. So I'm retrospect, the game is filled with 'done to death' things... I love the subtle references in the game, and if the developers make a Mega Event with super hunter aliens with acidic blood that infest planets, are you gonna start complaing the game is doing things to death?

I'm glad you like. I came up the Doomsday Device as a means for races with laser III weapons to compete with races with Doom rays. Like I said, they would have little value for the races who already had Doom rays, because the Doomsday weapons would be several times more expensive, for a little more attack power.
________________

Anyhow, two more ideas. I'm still working on that other one.

#7 Mass Donations

The population throughout the galaxy realize the troubles that their governments have to deal with. They in turn decide to donate additional money to their governments to help it compete.

Effect:
Each civilization receives an additional amount of money equal to what they would be getting if taxes were set to, lets say 10%.

#8 Charity work

Like above, but people instead offer their services in the form of free labour to military production, social production, and research.

Effect:
Whenever you focus production to military, social, or to research, your population helps and provides additional points to that area of focus.

This isn't probably a Mega Event......It would be cool if you could add a new type of Constructor to the game which I'm thinking could be a Shipyard Constructor. How handy would it be if you could send off an Shipyard Constructor to some far off spot on a map and set up a Shipyard to start churning out ships.

This kinda thing should be used for pirates....

Perhaps a new research project could be added to the tech tree in much the same way as for the galactic plague, to overcome the effects of the speed limitation mega-event. If that research led to a new ship module (a Hyperspace Stabiliser maybe) then it would pose an interesing dilemma to whomever researches it first - whether to fit the new module to all ships right away, or to give the module only to ships that need to go faster than speed 5.