Kind of Bored right now, just traveling along and decided to do something useful since i have no coding to do.

I wanted to give some feedback to the development team about The GE Series. Im currently developing my own MMO-RTS that has very similar concepts to GE but plays similar ot star-craft and i spend 3 years investigating how to improve the Space-3X Series of games. Here's what i found out and my feedback.

Major Problems

Some of the major problems iv noticed with all strategy based games, like GE II, III or Endless space, Etc is that there is this massive build up managing planets.

I have taken another route in my game by created a sim - based effect and just having the sims build based on an empires allegiance to a doctrine (war, Peace, trade etc).

then i added in the current planet mechanics on a much smaller scale giving planets 1-3 slots, and making these for unique technologies like planet shields, cloaks, defense etc.

This way you're really only modifying defense, which takes little time to deal with helping focus on more combat or trade oriented aspects.

On that note we get to the next point, combat.

Combat

GEIII Cini-Style of Combat is neat, but it really takes away the fun of micro-combat play, which is a challenge, by having this style you remove that challenge, dull the game, and focus everything on RNG - Accuracy based combat. In some ways i see good in this (for example giving true value to accuracy) But in other ways and for the most part it's negative.

Please look into Changing to player-interactive combat for upcoming games (or patch this one for it).

Trading

one of the things i looked into with trading in my game was more interaction with the player. I wanted trading to be more of a focus, but only in a positive rewarding way. Let me see if i can put this into modifications that can be adapted here in GEIII

Imagine the current trade routes (lines) were color'd. Each trade route generated X Resource, + X Credits a turn.

After 3 turn, it decayed to 80% of its normal value

After 5 turns, it decayed to 60% of its normal value

After 7 turns (or more), it decayed to 30% of its normal value

The Idea would be that as time progresses the trade goods become over stocked in that area (Roleplay/storyline). People could choose to leave it there if they

dident want to focus on trading, but if they wanted to optimize they could change it out to another planet, to refresh the benefits.

Resources for trading with that planet would always grant a min of 1 and whole numbers.

Trade Based races or technology would start you higher then 100% of the value.

In this way you turn trading into a fully focused aspect of player interaction having to navigate and upkeep all the trade routes.

Minor Problems

Among my issues with GEIII are the following

Devoided planets are a absolute waste of space, and i do not agree with their existence at all. I believe some small config alterations may be able to turn

them into habitable or usable objects but you really need to work with this. Addtionally they should option'd off to be removed fully in the map editing

part of the pre-creation game editor. This same applies to normal asteroids.

Nebula's Really need more flavor. Iv already modified my files to get both positive and negative benefits out of them, like improved speed, sensor range and

so forth. Having a starbase in a nebula that grants x2 range on sensors, but removes 50% Shields is a great example of the right direction for these awesome

objects. the green ones look especially pleasing to the eye, and others (like the pinkish/white ones) Need to be visually improved.

Blackholes

These are really awesome, and it would be cooler to see more interaction with them. one such idea is a temp-based resource spawn or cause them

to move and swallow up things. They are the ultimate eye candy at the moment.

Pulsars would be nice eye candy.

Frozen, Toxic (etc) Planets These are really neat, and i have taken the liberty to modify my files to make them spawn more so then

the normal habitable planets. It has created a very interesting game dynamic. Additionally, If we could some how modify the races

to utilize and favor specific types of colonization it would provided an exceptional game play experience

Hull Sizes (mass). The ships space is WAY to low. It needs to be increased by around 2 times it's current amount. The limitations

are to restrictive, we need more space to customize our ships better.

Functionality.

Functionally speaking the map is wonky.

It's hard to see other empires unless it's a border. It would be neat to have a big "Empire race symbol" on the minimap that sort of really stood out.

The Turn based game play makes the game dull and boring. Please look at swapping to at minimum an option for Real time game play.

The Game becomes really slow and boggled down. This has been single handedly the greatest drawback this game has had. you need to fix this.

This problem should be addressed in a future game.

Thanks for your time.