I decided to play through to the bitter end to win. It really was the bitter end because it was a lot of whack-a-mole starport destruction until I could take every single planet. This was rather dull.
[Suggestion] I liked in Gal Civ 2 when you were defeating someone, the would surrender and give their worlds to another faction they were close with. It really added a new dynamic to being a bully as your war could actually help your enemies. Hopefully that is part of the diplomacy build coming.
[Suggestion] Ever think of making culture buildings also help with tourism and approval?
[bug] When I took over the last Alterian planet, they had a small fleet left. It left it the Altarian colors, but changed the flag to me. However, I could not control it or attack it. Something was missed here.
[Suggestion] It just seems something ought to be done to make a planetary defense that can attack enemy vessels within a certain range. It seems to me, a planet would launch every nuke it had if necessary to clear the skies. Perhaps it is a building with a recharge rate so you can't just spam defense.
[Suggestion] the player and it looks like the ai as well, can see when a starport is built EVEN when nothing is there to observe it. This makes it easy to build one fast, low firepower vessel to run around and cripple the enemy. IMO, you should only know about it IF you have LOS.
[Suggestion] currently to put a ship on sentry (please let me do that even if the enemy is in my sensor range) or guard, I have to click idle ship, command, sentry, idle ship, command, sentry. I would like at least one of those commands available on the main screen when the ship is selected. Then if I choose sentry, it automatically goes to the next ship. Even if I click pass, I have to click "idle ship" to go to the next one. If I hit the space bar, it will jump to the next one, so something is amiss.
[Observation] Taking over a planet is way too easy. We don't have the formulas, but it seems to me that I can take over a world of billions of people with barely any loses. This can't be right, no matter what my tech advantage. I was the Iridium and slaughtered even the Drengin with military buildings with minimal loss.
While I understand Brad is the AI guru and he won't start until October, it was mentioned in the Dev talk that some are working on the basic AI. These are some suggestions that will hopefully be fairly easy.
[bug] AI when backed into a corner (your ships are literally sitting on top of their worlds) will still try and build starports when their is no point. Even when they do, I saw them build colony, survey and other ships that were worthless in the predicament. They would have been better off building planetary defenses, which usually they do anyway.
[bug] The AI seems to not have building limits on several buildings. When I invaded planets, I got to see what the AI did with them. For the most part, they built horribly. That said, I was surprised to see several tech capitals, even on non-research and smaller worlds. Also, one planet had 4 market places! The Altarians had multiple social matrix buildings. Lots of cultural builds, which don't really do much IMO.
[bug] Several AI planets had cultural and military buildings and no farms or hospitals, etc. There is no point building manufacture and research improvements that give a % bonus when your points per turn is under 9-10. You are better off making growth buildings to increase your population and get more points for all three (four if you count the starport) buckets.
[Suggestion] the AI will attack your starports (good!) then if you don't replace it, they just back away, then you can build your starport again. They should be as cruel to us as we are too them.
I am probably forgetting some things, but that is enough for now. I think I will take a break from the game for a week or two and see what is in the next patch. Considering how early it is in development, it is surprisingly good. Keep up the good work!
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[Suggestion] There is a lot of space on the planet screen, please put the govern screen circle and sliders to the left side. It is a PIA going planet to planet, click govern, do my thing, click done, click the arrows on top to the next planet, rinse, repeat. It is like I am being punished for trying to ensure my planets are in good shape.
[Suggestion] Add something when I have eliminated a faction, currently nothing is said. CIV does this very well, there are times when I laughed my rear off at their comments. I know Stardock could do it even better.
Thanks again