Before this entire thead dissolves into pointless bickering, I would like to make a suggestion for what I want to see in GC3 (Now THERE'S a novel concept! ) It would be nice if range and maybe also speed actually scaled up depending on what size map you were playing. The way it is now, on tiny maps range is basically a non-issue, while on immense everything is too slow. Might be best to even things out just a little there.
I thought range already scaled. I know on smaller maps my ships cannot travel as many sectors initially as they can on larger. But speed does not scale that is true and needs to be fixed.
In line with the idea that this is Galactic Civilizations, maybe we could slow speed down/nerf range a bit, such that tiny/small galaxies are more in line with a "normal" game-and perhaps this would make people somewhat less likely to continually request galaxy sizes larger than immense (myself included).
I want bigger maps, four immense maps stitched together big! So big that I can have every standard major race in the game + one custom major race on the map and having no one start with in five sectors of each other. With up 30 minor races. I want all this just for the ridiculous size of it all really. Also so I can spend a month playing one game just for fun.
More complex trading would be nice, not the freighter type of trading but that'd be great to. It's nice that I can push a trade and get maximum value for it. But I'd like to see the AI get upset over this practice. Maybe even go so far as to decrease the value of your trades. Basicly if you are selling something or trading to get maximum value, expect the AI to start weighing your offers more in its favor.
Lastly, it's more than likely been stated alot. Make starbases mobile! Even if it is just 1 parsec at a base level! However, if ships speeds scale with map size its speed should as well.
EDIT: Nope got more!
Dockable starbases, so that you can put ships in them like you put ships in orbit on a planet. The ships could attack when the starbase is attacking, having ships take damage instead of the starbase. Allow ships to get repaired when inside a starbase, faster than one out in the open but not as fast as in orbit on a planet. Don't remove weapon attack modules though as they are still useful early game and this would be more of a late game solution.
Tactile combot. Like chess, but with spaceships and lasers. Kind of like Heroes of Might and Magic if anyone here has played that. With a 'quick combat' option for people who don't want to deal with it for whatever reason. I personally like that sort of thing. An option to redue a quick combated battle manually would be nice as well.
Mother ships, unless they'd be too much like starbases. Big, truely massive, ships that are intentionally design to dock smaller ships and provide them with bonuses. Kind of like the current fleet modules in TA but I am thinking more along the lines of Carriers from Starcraft. Maybe still groupable with other larger providing them with a bonus as well but not as large as the bees of the hive get.
An option for really lazy people to have all habitable planets preassigned to the races with enough population that each one has a small profit. This would mostly be for people who perfer the political phase, earlymid to mid part of the game where you build the infrastructure, over the colony rush phase. If the metaverse exist in GalCiv3 migate the score of this quick start in someway.
United Planets priliminary voting. Where midway through the year you have the option of submiting a bill of your choice to the United Planets. Where your IP at the time of submiting the bill is counted in favor of the bill. Have all the AIs vote in a fimilar fasion and the winning bill is then selected and voted on.
A galactic production resource, along the lines of the military/economic/influence/morale ones that already exist. Maybe throw in a pop growth one as well.
Last one. Detatch the Research slider from the Social and Military sliders so that it is now a Production capacity slider for Research points. The old Production capacity slider would still exist for Manufacturing points and Social/Military sliders would provide the same function as now.
The slider system was great in GalCiv1 when every planet could have every improvement only once and the sliders were only one level of divison of your resources. In GalCiv2 the planetary titles were added which created a second level of divison seperate from the first meaning you lost out on productivty even at 100% Production capacity.
I like the idea of dividing your resources amongst the planet tiles instead of the sliders. It just feels more strategicly pleasing to me. If you absolutely MUST keep the sliders as is for whatever reason. Make just ONE planetary improvement that produced Production points that are then divided at the slider level only.
OR have the Production capacity slider be tied to your net income in someway and then have the sliders allocate it. With planetary improvements offering small % bonuses instead of fixed values.