How radical should expansion packs get?

For me? Hell yes, I would buy expansion packs, if they kept being as incredibly awesome as Twilight is sounding!

I say, the more radical the enhancements, the better! If the strategic depth of the game isn't improved significantly, it's really not worth my money. A UP that isn't a complete waste of space and precious oxygen? I'd pay for that! A revamped economic system? Sign me up! More ship components? Better invasions? Hell yeah! And since I have no doubt the AI will become ever more competent and interesting, let's have three cheers for that as well!

I'd also pay good money for sensor countermeasures such as cloaking devices, or changes to the battle system to allow inconclusive battles and make wars a more open to interesting strategies. I'll second the call for a revamp of the ethics system, as well.

I wouldn't pay money for multiplayer or tactical combat, though. The former doesn't hold much interest (and as you've argued in the past, wouldn't work too well) and tactical combat would be going a bit too far. I'd love for more strategy before battles, after battles, and during ship design, and I'd never pass up putting more polish on the battle viewer (while it was vastly improved with Dark Avatar, it's still not as interesting to watch as it could be), but micromanaging my forces should be reduced to the fleet level. There's more than enough room to make wars interesting without making the player go into the details.

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The Good/Netral/Evilthing needs to be fixed, as said by many here on the forum. Being good shouldn't always be a kick in the pants. Like the underwater cities, if the you let them live they will contribute to the game in some other way. They could give you a boost in extreme planet colonization research for example. If you just killed them all you get nowhere, so evil should get the boot there.

I think you kinda missed the point of morale choices. Evil choices always reap the benefits, but on the downside youll be more prone towards a evil alignment which will hurt your diplomatic relationships (especially with Good aligned factions).

Its easy being evil, thats how its always worked be it in a game or reality. But soon or later someone is gonna come knocking down your door and make you stop your villainous behavior. Thats something that is a lot less likely if youve gone on the morally good path in your choices. Thats also the real benefit of making a Good choice.

You cant have your cake and eat it... unless your evil and steal someone elses cake that is.

Yes thats true, but don't you think good races need some sort of benefits too? Even if they take a loss at the start it should pay off in the long run atleast. And even if you are a good zealot, you have crappy bonuses any way.

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I don't post, or log in often but this deserved a post.

Yes I would be willing to pay for more expansion packs. How many? At least 4.

I would love parts that move, glow etc, or pretty much anything else. The only feature I don't want is multiplayer.

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Neilo

Join Date 04/2006

+128

Ship jewelery alone would make me buy an expansion pack. A revamp of the economy sounds great, but i will add my voice to no multiplayer. I would only buy that expansion if it was coupled with other great items that i wanted.

Keep the expansions coming but for my mind, leave out multiplayer, you don't need it, the AI is more than a challenge.

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I would definitely like a good evil revamp. All three should have positives for a variety of play types, as it is good only seems to favor those that like dealing co-operating, wheeling dealing with the AI.

I would love the good benefits to be long term benefits with the evil choices having more immediate effects, which is almost what it is now. As a side this more closely matches the Game Theory explanations for good behaviour.

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But the question is, would players be interested in another 2 or 3 or more expansion packs in the future? (or put another way, would there be enough players interested to pay for the cost of development)?

I think you know most your devotees(like me) on here would keep buying the expansions.

You had mentioned in a write up or journal when talking DA about how a certain percentage of the original game's buyers will buy an expansion for said game. Is there any research about how many of that percentage would buy a second or even a third expansion pack? Probably not anything reliable, but in business I know it's hard to take a, let's see how this one goes, attitude. I think the fans of GC2 appreciate your efforts and will continue to support it as long as it keeps getting better.

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I'm a twenty-hours-a-week type fanatic for these kind of games, but I have never bought an expansion pack for any Civ-type game. I just play the original version for years upon years. So I'm a lot more likely to buy your fantasy strategy game than a GC2 expansion. (I hope the fantasy strategy game is like Master of Magic -- that would be so awesome!)

Maybe if you could make your game like Magic:the Gathering where it would still be GC2, but each expansion was a new world with different ships to add to your original game. I just pulled that out of my ass.

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I can't say for sure for myself but the expansions packs have been pretty awesome so far. Actually, I'm pretty excited about the fantasy strategy game. Can't wait to see that.

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First of all, thanks for listening to us. Reading through these posts feels a bit like a mob shouting gimme, gimme!

But I can only add to that. Even though this complex game suffers somewhat from unintuitive mechanisms and game inbalances, the fact that Stardock continuously improves and updates the game, keeps me very excited about it and exept from multiplayer I will buy any expansion without question.

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Yes thats true, but don't you think good races need some sort of benefits too? Even if they take a loss at the start it should pay off in the long run atleast. And even if you are a good zealot, you have crappy bonuses any way.

In a way, No. It should cost to be Good, being evil is always the easy way. Its what defines the universe, if you would suddenly start reaping benefits from morally good choices the universe would also align itself more towards a neutral alignment.

I mean, would saving a Planet of 500 million hamsters be a righteous thing to do if you would also in the process turn the planet into an intergalactic pet store and reap heavy economy boosts. No, because the morally good choice would be to leave them alone to begin with or even build a forcefield (with money out of your own pocket) around the planet to prevent anyone else dropping by to start a McHamster burger chain.

Whocj leads us to the evil choice, which would be to make burgers of the whole lot and increase your population growth.

Bytheway, does the above thing exist as a event or did I just make all that up?

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I would really like to see more expansions after Twilight of the Arnor. Also waiting 4 years for GCIII is ok but the time gap between the last expansion and the sequel shouldn't be to big.

For example, I would be open to revamping the whole economic system in a future expansion pack to help streamline it. I'd also like to expand the United Planets to allow civilizations to submit "bills" to the UP to vote on. I'd also like to see more types of ship components, more diplomatic options

These are all great ideas. Combat improvements would also be nice but i don't think that full tactical battle is necessary.
Multiplayer is the one thing i would not spend money for.

Cheers

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Yes thats true, but don't you think good races need some sort of benefits too? Even if they take a loss at the start it should pay off in the long run atleast. And even if you are a good zealot, you have crappy bonuses any way.

In a way, No. It should cost to be Good, being evil is always the easy way. Its what defines the universe, if you would suddenly start reaping benefits from morally good choices the universe would also align itself more towards a neutral alignment.

I mean, would saving a Planet of 500 million hamsters be a righteous thing to do if you would also in the process turn the planet into an intergalactic pet store and reap heavy economy boosts. No, because the morally good choice would be to leave them alone to begin with or even build a forcefield (with money out of your own pocket) around the planet to prevent anyone else dropping by to start a McHamster burger chain.

Whocj leads us to the evil choice, which would be to make burgers of the whole lot and increase your population growth.

Bytheway, does the above thing exist as a event or did I just make all that up?

All right, here are the good bonuses:

"Citizens are more loyal and less likely to defect if their colonies are under an opponent's influence (A loyalty bonus, but who cares? I'd rather have the moral bonus.)

The five most populous planets have no maintenance costs for their initial Colony (This is the only real benefit from being good. But I'd rather build the mind control center instead)

Trade income with other good civilizations is increased by 25% (What are you suppose to do if no other good civs are around? Useless if you go solo.)

Gain a Diplomatic Ability bonus when dealing with other good or neutral civilizations (Same as the above except for the neutral bonus.)

Unique technologies include Superior Defense (Supperior defense my foot! You just get a few defenses, not enough to match the psionic weapons.)

The Temple of Righteousness Galactic Achievement is only available to good civilizations. (This thing thing works only if you have other good civs around)"

I am aware that "If no one else like you is around" scenario works for all races. It's just that good civs have no benefits that will make them competent to fight in a one on one battle.

All of these bonuses suck. There is absolutely NO incentive to be good. You don't even get that happy feeling about making the universe a better place. Being good sucks and I'm just giving suggestions to improve it. If anyone else has better suggestions I'd like to hear them.

PS:That hampster scenario is one that would not help the good guys out in the long run. It's a bad example for what I was trying to explain: Sometimes the good civs should reap the benefits and sometimes the evil civs reap the benefits. Right now it's a one way street if you want to get benefits, you have to be evil to get them.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

The economic expansion is something I'd pay for, and quite simply- the UP is by far the weakest part of GalCiv II. Honestly, I feel Arnor should have the economic features.

What I think would work. Mini-expansions that cost $10 that tweak one thing released every 6 months. Affordable, keep the game fresh, could be done right up to GC3 development- and a good testing ground for that. This is your cash cow, you might as well milk it.

That said, when do you think you'll announce that fantasy strategy game?

(I'm just hoping it's how I imagine it)

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Yes, I will continue to buy GC2 expansions. Mainly for the reasons mentioned above. Keep up the good work.

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Yes thats true, but don't you think good races need some sort of benefits too? Even if they take a loss at the start it should pay off in the long run atleast. And even if you are a good zealot, you have crappy bonuses any way.

In a way, No. It should cost to be Good, being evil is always the easy way. Its what defines the universe, if you would suddenly start reaping benefits from morally good choices the universe would also align itself more towards a neutral alignment.

I mean, would saving a Planet of 500 million hamsters be a righteous thing to do if you would also in the process turn the planet into an intergalactic pet store and reap heavy economy boosts. No, because the morally good choice would be to leave them alone to begin with or even build a forcefield (with money out of your own pocket) around the planet to prevent anyone else dropping by to start a McHamster burger chain.

Whocj leads us to the evil choice, which would be to make burgers of the whole lot and increase your population growth.

Bytheway, does the above thing exist as a event or did I just make all that up?

All right, here are the good bonuses:

"Citizens are more loyal and less likely to defect if their colonies are under an opponent's influence (A loyalty bonus, but who cares? I'd rather have the moral bonus.)

The five most populous planets have no maintenance costs for their initial Colony (This is the only real benefit from being good. But I'd rather build the mind control center instead)

Trade income with other good civilizations is increased by 25% (What are you suppose to do if no other good civs are around? Useless if you go solo.)

Gain a Diplomatic Ability bonus when dealing with other good or neutral civilizations (Same as the above except for the neutral bonus.)

Unique technologies include Superior Defense (Supperior defense my foot! You just get a few defenses, not enough to match the psionic weapons.)

The Temple of Righteousness Galactic Achievement is only available to good civilizations. (This thing thing works only if you have other good civs around)"

I am aware that "If no one else like you is around" scenario works for all races. It's just that good civs have no benefits that will make them competent to fight in a one on one battle.

All of these bonuses suck. There is absolutely NO incentive to be good. You don't even get that happy feeling about making the universe a better place. Being good sucks and I'm just giving suggestions to improve it. If anyone else has better suggestions I'd like to hear them.

PS:That hampster scenario is one that would not help the good guys out in the long run. It's a bad example for what I was trying to explain: Sometimes the good civs should reap the benefits and sometimes the evil civs reap the benefits. Right now it's a one way street if you want to get benefits, you have to be evil to get them.

"Unique technologies include Superior Defense (Supperior defense my foot! You just get a few defenses, not enough to match the psionic weapons.)"

What do you mean? You get 4 defenses: Subspace Rebounders, Dynamic Shielding, Telepathic Defense and Arnorian Battle Armor.

Subspace Rebounders and Dynamic Shielding aren't really great, and don't do much to stop the Psyonic Beam.

Telepathic Defense, however, is good enough to nerf the effectiveness of the Psyonic Missile to some extent.

Arnorian Battle Armor is supreme. No Armor tech can match it until Adamantium 2 at the top of the tech tree. It's compact, cheap, strong and increases hit points as well, severely demolishing the Psyonic Shredder's effectiveness.

Arnorian Battle Armor:

Defense: 6 Armor
Size: 4
Sizemod: 2%
Cost: 50 bc
Bonus: Hitpoints +5%

vs

Psyonic Shredder:

Attack: 10 Mass Driver
Size: 9
Sizemod: 4%
Cost: 150 bc

Telepathic Defense:

Defense: 3 Point Defense
Size: 4
Sizemod: 2%
Cost: 40 bc

vs

Psyonic Missile:

Attack: 6 Missile
Size: 10
Sizemod: 3%
Cost: 100 bc

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

This is a really interesting game biz question. I'm very happy with the money I spent on DA and will buy TA sometime this year. And I think that the notion of numorous expansion packs should be attractive to all of us who like to pinch a penny when it comes to our PCs--expansions to the current platform mean even more return on what you paid both for your system and what you paid to Stardock.

But I wonder how much of the GC2 crowd will end up fully distracted from the stars when we can finally check out NotMoM2 (please give it a name soon so we can nag more consistently

). I'm sure there must be a good share who have no interest in the fantasy genre, but I'd still be playing MoM in emulation mode if I hadn't already thoroughly played the frak out of it.

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My only point is basically UP and economics. But be careful not to over-design the economic systems. A simple change (such as making the sliders all able to reach 100%, thus removing the spending slider and letting you adjust spending independently) would be best. Yes, super cool new economic systems sound nice, but keep in mind the lesson of MOO3 . . .

UP things sounds wonderful, it would be amazing to be able to choose the bills to vote on, but it might be wise to prevent influence trading in that case. A wise player could gather massive influence and then use it to screw everybody. This is especially true if you have any 'embargo' or 'war' choices. Would suck to have stupid AIs selling influence only to have it turned on them to screw them over.

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"Speaking of which, it would be cool to guide your race from primitive society into the space age of Galciv2. Yea, I'm asking a lot that will probably never happen. Combine Sid Meirs's Civilizations, little of the Age of Empires series, Master of Orion, and Galactic Civilizations to get the ULTIMATE GAME! Yea, i'm asking to much aren't I?"

This game is already coming out. It's called Spore.

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Speaking of which, it would be cool to guide your race from primitive society into the space age of Galciv2. Yea, I'm asking a lot that will probably never happen. Combine Sid Meirs's Civilizations, little of the Age of Empires series, Master of Orion, and Galactic Civilizations to get the ULTIMATE GAME! Yea, i'm asking to much aren't I?

Doesn't Civ 3 have a victory condition of building a colony ship and setting up a colony at Alpha Centauri(8pc away)? Isn't that how GalCiv 2's sandbox starts out(slightly). And you start out in ancient times.

Well personally I think the addition of the Terror Stars is a big leap.....now we only need carriers!

I just wish there was a lot more depth to the game, and by depth I mean the fun kind of depth. Not the kind of depth that makes the game confusing. Like having unique techs per race. I like the Drengin Slave Pitts a lot.

The only race-unique buildings we know for sure yet are the Arcean Aerodrome(increases empire-wide ship defenses) and the Drengin Slave Pits(high-output manufacturing improvement).

The Krynn will probably have some super-espionage building, the Korath will probably have some 'genocide chamber' style things, the Thalans may have super-hive factories, the Terrans... what would they have?

Terror Stars are a 'cool' addition, the most destructive way to attack an enemy planet yet. Now we can attack planets in 5 ways:
-Culture/Influence
-Spies
-Planetary Invasion
-Spore
-Terror Star

...and maybe more we don't know.

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But the question is, would players be interested in another 2 or 3 or more expansion packs in the future? (or put another way, would there be enough players interested to pay for the cost of development)?

Well, that is hard information to get from an informal online poll I would think. I, like most here, would of course continue to buy expansions for this game, it is an all time classic.

Purge (reply #10) really has it right on though. You know better than us the cost to develop an expansion. You know the fatigue (or lack thereof) with this code and product that your developers are feeling. If the team can be inspired to keep working on this product, then your profit margin for TA should give you the answer you need.

I for one hope it makes you enough money to justify more expansions.

- Wyndstar

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I will keeping buying expansion packs as long as they add to gameplay. Twilight does add to gameplay as it adds the esential feature of difference to each race (Ps if you can make the interface different for each race I will be very very very happy.

One thing I would like is dead simple, many game have it, and I am sure it can't be that long to code. AI govener auto-build option, I love playing the huge maps, and felling like I rule a galaxy, not just a few soler sytems, but late into the game having to mange 10-30 build orders a turn really bugs me. This will be even more anoying with the new TA size. I think that a tick box option for an AI govener (who makes dessions based one the dedicate options for planets [not sure what the real name is]). CIV4, and MTW2 (Both Turn Based Games) have such an option. If you do this I will be won over and will buy every Gal Civ II, and III expansion pack.

Another thing I would like would be Colonies (Not very important, but more realistic).

Some more late game gameplay changes.

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I think they should be thinking on making GalciV III, so twilight of the Arnor should be the last expansion but I'm open to the idea of regular updates with stardock central for GalciV II after the expansion. I mean look at Heroes series, they went up to Heroes 6 I believe and they haven't missed a beat, granted the company has changed. But you have to try our new ideas, the only way is a game from scratch, personally espionage is important to me. I can't wait to see the update were going to get regarding espionage before the expansion. Frankly, althought were greatfull of the expansions were getting for GalciV II, but some ideas like mine and others are to sophisticated to be implimented in an expansion. But if stardock decides to continue with expansions beyond Twilight of the arnor, it's not like I'm not going to buy them either.

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I like to see more expansion packs.

I like the idea of carriers, battle stratagies before battle, and some upgrade to UP.

What I really like is a new modules for ships, each modules give the ship a bodyguard and act like a support for the ship,kinda like battle drone from Command & Conquer: Generals. if the main ship that the modules is equip with are gone the drone are gone as well. The drone can be design and customize just like the main ship.

The drone modules can add new gameplay to GCII
can use to act as a decoy so the main ship won't take too much damages.
can help increase the ship def for every drones that have shield def on.
can help increase the ship repair rate.
if the drone modules are use on a large or capital size ship it can act as a carriers.

The drones can be cheap to expensive depending on the component that are use to make it and if it get destroy it can be rebuilt inside the ship ( automatic button for it would be nice) or at a planet for quicker rebuilt time.

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This game is already coming out. It's called Spore.

Wow, that game looks awesome. I just wish the creatures looked a little more realistic. They look like clay Dr. Seuss creatures. Has a real good concept though and I might get it for that reason.

It actually looks like black and white I a little.

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I dont think TA will fully satisfy the potential of galciv2
which is a great title. With the active forum like this game has, certainly not.

Yes, I will be fidel to StarDock and buy another expansion as long as
company maintains their service/quality.

For multiplay: I guess given the company's faith in good ai
and relatively small percentage of potential customer who wants
multiplayer mode, MPmode wont see the day of light.
(by the way, even the hotseat/e-mail modes are demandeing feature?)

Carrier: Carrier means fighters. Not small ships which acts exactly same
as huge/large ships.
I've read on tactical game sticky board, but bring the maneuvability.
Every type of wapon should have area of coverage. Can huge canon
pointing at one direction can hit fast moving small vessels?
Ever played homeworld?

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