Suggestions 1.03

I'm desperate for discovered anomalies to show up on my mini-map. Perhaps a toggle button on the little bar below the map to hide or show them.

I'd also very much like to be able to zoom in and out a bit on the main game screen, not just the mini-map.

These two things would make the game infinitely easier to play.

Thanks for starting this thread!

The ability to move ships from the military projects list to an inactive ship list. This way, the military project list isnt too cluttered.

1)Waypoints
2)A way to set density of stars in the galaxy
3)Extended Research menu
4)No limit to trade routes. Needs to be based on all techs that add trade routes, what the UP votes on, and treade goods.
5)Posibly more major races
6)More uniqueness to ships
7)Some menu for constructors, so they know what to do and automaticly update the star bases. All we have to do is set up a govenor list, and pick what star bases we want to follow them.

1-A way to filter ship lists. ie show only
battleships,show only dreds etc...

2- Rally points

3- Waypoints

4- Borders? a little ambitious but would be cool.

5- races who prefer and thrive on low PQ worlds

* Min/max difficulty setting when randomizing games (e.g., user selects "only choose race intelligence from 'intelligent' to 'genius').

* New military project--jump point. Allows ships to jump between two jump points on the map. Either implemented as instaneous jump, or super-accelerated movement (x2, x3) but you can't change course once entering the jump point.

* New military project--extensible ship. Uses constructors to add military modules to it; can carry troops.

* New military project--mines. Cloaked (hidden) from enemy and once "armed" cannot be moved (uses ship "i" menu to arm mine.

* Diplomacy--ability to tell Race X that Race Y is a threat and we should work together covertly.

* Diplomacy--ability to ask Race X for help against Race Y. Race X may then give techs, money, or ships.

* A feature (or three) that grants something more than a stat bonus.

/ds

--Monthly upkeep (maintenance) for each ship listed on its Info window (can't remember the cost of each ship-type).

--Along those lines, how about listing ship maintenance separately from military spending on the economic screen? Currently, I have to slide military spending to 0% to see what my ships/starbases are costing me.

--Carriers. You could put small ships inside the carrier (each ship would have a size, scouts are 1, starfighters are 2,etc.) and all the enemy would see is a single ship. Then it unloads... Can also be used on starbases in the form of a "docking bay" module. The other players only see the docking bay, don't know if anything is inside it.

--Designated Flagship. You can choose, after, perhaps, researching a new military tech, to designate one of your ships as the "Flagship of the Terran Military". The ship gets a nifty "Flagship" icon, a bonus to att/def/hp/speed/range (doesn't have to be a "big" bonus), and raises the morale of all your planets in whatever sector it's in (P.R. bonus). But if you lose it, your morale drops empire-wide. (This could also be done as an event.)

--Building-specific events. For example, after a number of Banks have been built in the galaxy, a Bank-related event may occur. The events would logically related to banking, like raising/lowering interest rates, failing institutions and scandals, and such. Can work with any building that mulitple races can build. Imagine a sport-related event that occurs only after x number of Stadiums are built, like a World Series-type event.



~SDC~

When the map is set to display military units, it would be nice to keep the starbases of the other races highlighted even though they are fogged. If the bases are destroyed the resource redisplays on the map, but I'd kinda like to have a better idea of what starbases to either destroy or to hover at until they're destroyed.

I like the mine laying idea, and the opposite could be a mine sweeper to "see" the mines and disarm them.

Rally points for new ships would be handy for late game mop-up.

some kind of warning before an invasion rather than press the space bar to repell one. After a few hours playing I am not shre where the spacebat is anymore!

Honestly, for me its all about the UI. There have been numerous posts as to UI improvements/streamlines that should be implemented before adding things that complicate it.

I'd also like to see much much much more in game documentation. I hate the fact that I have to keep Javascout's website perpetually open just to play. (luv the website, btw)

Some sort of tutorial. I was thinking that instead of an in game tutorial, how about just a standard .avi file. From the windowed mode you can record the game in real time, and show all the basics. Toss into some video editing software, add some voice commentary, highlighting of key windows, etc etc. Heck, you can create the same sort of thing for SDC for the people having difficulty with it.

A FAQ! And not one created by users either. And not the sorry one on Drengin.net either! I see the same questions being posted in the forums on a daily basis. On the galciv website, at the top, replace screenshots with FAQ and start posting these things with OFFICIAL responses.

Please don't make this game so complicated that casual gamers like me won't be able to play it. I was never able to get into SEIV Gold because by the time I got it, it was so tinkered with that it was just too overwhelming for me to learn. The beauty of Galactic Civilizations is that it is simple on the surface but has great depth underneath. Please ... keep it simple! Don't destroy it by adding layer upon layer of complications to it. Think of the 90 percent of us who just want to have a fun game to play without having to break our brains every time we sit down to play. Thanks very much for this wonderful game and your devotion to it and to us (the 90 percenters).

- Military zones of control which prevent races from building starbases/colonizing within. Not the same as cultural influence. Could lead to many new techs such as early warning systems, etc. as enhancements to sensor drones making them more useful.

- More races, random races at startup, race specific ships and even slightly different ships between races

- Instead of techs that add +10 HP,etc. to all ships, make this a mod we can add to ships. Holds true for planetary defenses. Also more varied ship types. Not looking for ship design here, just another layer to the game where tech gives advances that we can act upon instead of blanket bonuses.

- In game encyclopedia, ability to select far off tech and auto-path to it (see CIV). Along the same lines, pop-up information anywhere in the game for things like techs, ships, etc, especially during the trade screen.

- Military rating composed of attack, defense, movement, and HP instead of only attack. Should reduce agressiveness of other races especially for a player that builds many defensive ships.

- Military buld queues like social. The current, build this after this method doesn't adequately work. I'd like to be able to say : Build 2 of this, then 1 of these, then repeat. Per govenor still works.

- Terraforming technologies to make the end game more interesting as low quality planets are brought into play.

- Keep up the good work

Top request: No additions to the game for at least a week so that you and your developers can catchup on sleep.

Make the planet filter a dropdown so that I can use one click to go from sorting by Production to sorting, for example, by Plant Quality.

How about a 'Find Planet' dialog box?

The ability to lock the Economic Sliders.

The ability to type in a value when loading Colony Ships and Transports.

Filters for ships so that I can see *only* Constructors or everything *but* Constructors.

I agree with vampiere, Alien starbases should not be fogged. My Economy brings in billions of credits, I am sure I can afford an admin assistant that writes down the coordinates of a star base that does not move (at least not till later). "Hey Angelina, I just received word from the survey ship 'USS Hero' that one of our future enemies has built a starbase near a military resource at coordinates xxx,yyy, we may want to remember that some day, can you write it down?..."

I completely agree on Waypoints and Rallypoints. And also, I would like to see an auto-explore option for scouts and other ships. These features would eliminate about a third of the mouse clicking per game for me.

I agree with travathian.

Far more important to me in the immediate future than spiffy new features are fixes to make the game more playable, primarily UI fixes.

SAVE the music volume, SAVE the way I have my planet list, mini-map and technology list set up, so I don't have to do all that each and every time I load a saved game.

Make [Enter] work in dialogue boxes. Put a scroll bar in the technology screen. Make each function key a toggle, so I can press it once to activate and a second time to close.

I posted a host of UI suggestions in the old suggestions thread, but that seems to be gone now.

I would really appreciate that much more for 1.04 or whatever than new features.

Different galactic shapes, like multi-arm galaxy and stuff :/

Maybe nebulas? with inherited bonuses/disadvantages to make some good tactical decisions.

Ability for anamolies to respawn?

I'd like to see a heavier constructer. Late game on a big map I just have too many of the little ones to manage. Some of my planets can crank out a constructer every 2-3 turns. I usually have to assign orders to 5+ constructers every turn. I'd like to see one that costs 5 times as much and has 4 modules and a bit more defense (maybe a little more speed as well).

Auto explore would be nice, rally points would help with some of the micromanagement. I agree with other posters that having resources become invisible once they have a starbase on them is less than ideal. It's even hard to find my own resources once they have a starbase on them. I'd prefer not to have to F9 all the time, especially when I have to send 8 constructers to a starbase to make it useful.

For an expansion I'd like to see an easier to navigate tech tree. Something along the lines of Kevin Kuphal's 4th point above. At least I'd like to have easy access to information about what is available 2 techs from now, or what things I need for Battleships.

I'd like to see ship bonus anomalies regenerate at a faster rate. By the time I get rangers, there's usually not very many left. It would be neat to build a ranger, and give it some time to run around picking up powerups to become a supership for the late game.

Also possibly for an expansion, greater visual differentiation for powered up starbases. Something where I could tell at a glance "Oh, I already put a bunch of defense modules on that one" or "That one doesn't have very many mining upgrades." I think this might be accomplished by colored lights (the color of the modules in the upgrade screen). You could either add more of them or make them brighter/bigger as more modules of a certain type get added.

Good game though, and I respect how hard you guys work to support it.

Thanks,
Redshift

Corvette Tech Missile

Resource Allocation Locks so you can keep funding on a specific percent when changing the other two

Starship Carriers

More options from destabilization(ie improvement sabotage or making people vote against their political party)

More invasion options (such as building Tanks and Mechs prior for a bonus to your advantage, no risk to planet quality or improvements but pretty pricey)

And maybe if it's not too much trouble, split War party into two different groups, Offense(+20 to weapons +10 to soldiering) and Defense(+30 Hit Points, +10 Defense), Exploration party maybe?(+2 Sensors, +1 movement, Luck)

I already posted this elsewhere, but 2 purchase buttons (1 for military, 1 for social queue). Right now, if the "wrong" queue is showing, one has to scroll to the proper location in the other queue and click on it (to avoid changing what's being built). 2 smaller buttons, side by side in current location, would do nicely.

How about making Corvette Technology a pre-requisite for Battleship Technology? According to the description, the BS uses photon torpedoes, but there's no link between it and Photons.

Disbanding a ship that's in orbit returns a percentage of its cost as BCs (get some good out of finding ships that have become obsolete).

This one's probably a little too much: a rare wormhole anomoly that creates a permanent, two-way wormhole. The end points would be the wormhole where it's discovered, and another wormhole anomoly. Any ship entering one of the end points will be instantly moved to the other end if its in range at the other end point. It gives an advatage to both you and your enemies. The tricky part would be putting it in as part of the path finding, or getting the AI to use it.

It would be nice to be able to have buttons (or hotkeys) for going through all your vessels and planets. Like "next" and "prev" planet/starship buttons. That way it would be easier to go through all your planets and see what's going on around them.

~SDC~

Now:
1. An option to turn off ship movement animation
2. Some graphical indication of whether or not more (defense, mining, production, culture) modules are buildable at a starbase.
81. When buying a project, it should fill up to (complete_cost - 1_turns_production), not just (complete_cost)

Later:
79. Techs (untradable?) that are made available only by choosing particular political parties (just 3 or 4 per party, mind you).
43. Some kind of refund for nearly complete achievements/trade goods.
61. Another vote for uber-constructors.
115. Separate metaverse score tables for each galaxy size.


~SDC~

(1) Rally/way points, including "send new ships from here to ..."

(2) Auto-explore setting for scouts

~SDC~

A Collapsable ship list (by ship type) would make it slightly less tedious to scroll through the list.

Stars visible though the population blobs on the minimap would also be nice.