Looks familiar, gang?

I think we're getting very near to consensus on the Invasion tactical model & principles.

I'd re-use Transports, though.

except those in a corner.

I think it would wrk quite well.

And that's generally how things go in a war.

The farther you go behind enemy lines, the more difficult it is to send resources to keep your war machine going.

Both Napoleon and Hitler proved that when they tried to attack Russia.

I am going to post soon... also just scaning over all the replyies... just double checking, got a few pages left. Lots of good stuff! 

I thought after a 1000 replys it would slow down but its still kicking, keep it up!

Just making sure I will not repeat anyones ideas on my bit on espionage, planetary invasions, planetary defenses, planetary bombardment, and defensive tactics against invasions.

LOLZ

Been there, done that.

The day when a game like that comes out...

It better be good. Or I will assassinate every member of that company myself.

Nothing personal of course, just business.

But seriously.

There are no good, "Play while doing homework games".

It is near impossible to make such a thing.

I think we need one more slider in the race config area.

Not all races are going to kill everything on the planet and then send in their own species to resettle said planet.

The Yor would.  The drengin and korin would keep them as slaves and food stock.

I guess I will add my opinions on the matter.

First of all, I would like to say that both Sins of a Solar Empire and GalCiv II are among the best games I've ever played! Kudos for Stardock for creating such great games. So, here's what I think would make the game better:

-Dynamic Map: Other than asteroids and the occasional anomaly, the map is basically just a passive background in which stuff happens. I think the map should be made a little more dynamic, such as having black holes, or having a supernova go off once in a while. As well, certain regions of space can affect the speed of your ships, or the sensor range. Or even combat ability.

-Ability to trade/lease special resources: I like the special resources that give various improvements to your society (e.g. military or economic resource), but, once you "conquer it" with a starbase, I would also want the ability to lease it to another civilization for profit for a certain number or turns. Something similar to what they have in Civilization, where you can trade strategic or luxury resources for a number of turns in return for profit, or other resources, etc.

-Ability to fund terrorism or rebellions: In Sins of a Solar Empire, I liked the fact that you could fund pirates to go out and harass some other empire for you. I think that this feature should be in GalCiv III, except in much more depth. Like, you can use spies to fund pirates (or terrorists, or black markets, or rebellions, etc.). These terrorists could be funded with anything, either with cash or technology, and they would help do your bidding for you.

-Black Markets: There should be black markets, which would have an impact (mostly negative) on your economy. As well, you should be able to either attack it (or support it), and you can even decide to buy stuff from it, like weapons. The size and effectiveness of the black markets would depend on the government style, your economic health, your ethical alignment, and of course the influence of other alien governments.

-Ability to improve effectiveness of the fleet: Sure, one way of doing this is to make your ships more powerful, but there should also be a way to increase the likelihood that they will win the fight. Like, have research options that would allow your ships and fleets to have better tactical ability (like dodging weapons), or better strategic ability (like, they will form certain formations, etc.) As well, you can organize the ships in your fleet to attack in a specific way (e.g. first send out small ships, and then big ships, or something like that).

Those improvements I think would certainly make GalCivIII even more awesome, and make the game more fun and complex at the same time.

No offense but Multiplayer? Do you guys even realized how pissed off people would be if there was no Metaverse.

I'd like to see a better trade system with actual goods to trade. And I think there could be a few special planets around the galaxy that have certain unique trade goods, like the Spice in Dune. You could only trade a good to another planet that didn't already have the trade good. Also, there should be the ability to trade within your own empire. Maybe that trade would be at a smaller percentage of regular trade, maybe not, but it makes no sense to not be able to trade to your own planets.

Diplomacy has improved over where it once was, but I think it could still be improved more. The best diplomacy model I ever saw was Alpha Centauri.

There's always some faction pissed off about something or other. The hardcore MP crowd are, well, hardcore. Just like the hardcore MV crowd. I'm just hoping most of that arguing dies down by the time GC3 goes RTM. The Elemental crowd is still very small, but there's no shortage at all of fiercely held competing opinions.

And speaking of Elemental, we should all be ready to see no MV in GC3, which will be based on the Elemental engine. It might come back, but there's no sign of an analog for Elemental and so far there's every intention to provide some form of server-based multiplayer. I'm just hoping that the game doesn't lose too much dev energy to that stuff, and it sounds like the devs feel that way also. Demigod's been a 'rich' learning experience, apparently.

Re some commodity trading, I'd be surprised if we don't get something like that in GC3. See Brad's Elemental thread Re-thinking 4X economics. My real hope for GC3 is to see them take the Elemental work a step further and enable civs that do not use any form of currency internally and maybe not externally. Still can't for the life of me imagine why Yor or Thalans would have use for money, but then I've watched too much Star Trek...

I remember that episode, can't remember who said it, though. Anyway, they would have to have some kind of credits in order to do business with other civs, wouldn't they? I don't think the Ferengi (or the Korx) would give you something because they are feeling all warm and fuzzy about you.

As far as your comment re: no trade income, what are you talking about? There is trade income from trade ships, and if memory serves, there is an inherent "trade" income from tourists, too. Besides, it's just something I'd like to see. I'm always looking to make more cash! I think trade within your own territory should come earlier, too, since you don't have xeno barriers to break down.

However, even an imperial currency would have to be based on something. Our currency today is only based on itself. No gold or silver standard. Say if you were Drengin, would your currency be based on the value of your slaves? Some other race maybe base their currency on their influence. In this way there is a dynamic to the currency value, like we float currencies today. Sometimes it is worth more, sometimes less, sometimes it crashes, sometimes there is hyper-inflation.

On the currency thing, I just want the game mechanics to consider both use value and exchange value and treat any 'modern' currency as pure exchange value, the way our world currently works. If you have a sufficiently sophisticated culture/species, e.g. the Yor, distributing resources is a matter of putting specific things in specific places. Putting money in the mix just adds a needless layer of abstraction, unless you have a strong cultural need for it.

On the trek-nerd channel, sure you can find examples of things like Crusher saying 'charge it to me' on an alien world that uses money, but you never hear them talk about pay grades in Star Fleet, the cost of a ship refit, or anything like that. When the Ferengi are in a story, it seems pretty clear to me that the Federation folks think their love of money is quaint at best, or unwhoelsomely primitive at worst. How could Quark's nephew joining Star Fleet been the scandal it was otherwise? There's no Profit in the Federation.