The ability to create and use your own empires Flag.

Warships that can fire only a certain number of shots before having to return to base to restock ammo.

Ie: Missle Ship with 4 missles. Strong attack, but then strength is reduced to zero after 4 attacks.

I would like to have much more info available from the research menus. I am surprised we cant in the release version, and spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to click on this stuff for info.

1) Allow us to click and find out what the various items on the advance give.. like the stats of new modules and buildings. Let us click on the technologies they unlock so we can see those.

2) Allow us to choose a technology or build and return the technologies we need to research to reach that item. For instance.. its not enough just to see that a tech unlocks battleships. I need to know what other techs will be required as well.

I would also like to know more about populations. I want to know the real population as well as the taxpayers. The reason I need to know this is so I can evaluate a population drop against whether I am losing taxpayers or if people are dieing from a harsh climate.

Finally.. I would like to set the tax rate to autoadjust (as an option) to keep tax rate at the highest income sweet spot turn to turn.

Regards,

Artuk

Missile Jaming Ship

This ship reduces the effectiveness of missile ships & missles by 50% when they are in range. Thus adding a bit of strategy to combat actions.

doktorstick:
"I'll give you X to help you fight against Y" is functionally equivalent to "I'll give you X". The extra text is just there to let you know that a) They don't like Y either, but don't want to risk all-out war, and They like *you* enough to want to help. I'd be nice to have the option to say that yourself, but in terms of gameplay there's no difference (AFAIK).

freeradical:
The first two thing you want are already in the options list


~SDC~

Two suggestions:

1) Change the color on the radar/mini-map of my stations to match my planets. Other races work that way; it's a bit odd to have to integrate 'white crosses' and 'blue planets' when that's not how other races function. I know, it's a minor thing. But....

2) Other people have asked for this, but I wanted to throw my support in. A 'rally point' of sorts would be very, very timesaving.

Pooks

There should be an diplomatic option to declare war. Sometimes you don't want to be "sneaky". Instead you want to tell the enemy ambassador face to face yhey are going down.

Also, a suggestion I read in another thread. The fact you fight one "skirmish" with another race should NOT be an automatic declaration of war. Much more flexible and realistic diplomatically if you can claim the one battle was an "accident" due to hot-headed troops, etc. The enemy race would of course remember the incident and take repeated affronts as a declaration of war.

It's been mentioned many times, but I wanted to chime in for the sake of "the cry of the masses" effect.

I want Rally Points.

I'm going *NUTS* ordering my fleet of newly built starships from my 30 misplaced planets to leave orbit, select the ship again, and then order it to go here, there and next to that thing EVERY turn.

Micromanagement heck! (:( (:( (:( But the game still rocks.

The user interface changes, depending on how the game is played (good vs. evil).

Music: Does the tone of the music change as well? If not, I think it would be really neat for the music to change - for instance, have the game play creepy, evil music if you choose that path. Music has such a profound effect on the psyche, I think it would really add to the immersion factor.

~SDC~

Better integration of a player's alignment rating with their game decisions would make for a more immersive experience. Obviously GalCiv's inclusion of a morality barometer was influenced by the game "Black & White," including the visual feedback, but I don't think Stardock has taken it far enough.

Right now the random events are the only actions which influence a player's alignment rating. But what if most in-game actions had a morality stamp? For instance, selling some of your people (and their planet) to another empire would be ethically unsound, while helping out another empire being attacked by space monsters would shift your alignment rating towards "good." (btw I don't mind some humor in a game, but the space monsters idea is just juvenile and unsophisticated..how about an option to exclude them from the game?)

It would also be interesting to attach a "law" alignment to your empire and track that -- chaotic/neutral/lawful -- which would affect how other civs view you. Obviously a chaotic civ who responds irrationally to threats would be censored by lawful civs who are more likely to work within the framework of a U.N.

>Re. minimap on really big galaxies: the ability to zoom-out the main play window (turning it into a huge minimap). That way you could presumably get the entire galaxy in on a 200% zoom, showing starbases.


The above seems to be amply covered by the Tactical map, so feel free to ignore


~SDC~

Can we set it up so that if I leave the UP council I can still set up trade routes with the outlaw (minor) houses?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing?

That way I'm not damned if I do and damned if I don't when they demand my tech as payment to keep my ability to trade?

Thanks for a Great Game!
D.A.

Add navigation arrows in the trade screen to change civilization. Its very time consuming to check each civ for trade status or other details. That or move the information hidden in the trade screen to the status pages. Would be nice to have it all on one page for a quick overview of the trade status.

~SDC~

Augusten (#57),
Re: declaring war and skirmishes
In a way these are both covered. If you make overwhelming demands and threaten the AI, their relationship with you will be markedly worse, much as if they were expecting war. I've had "incidents" with the AI where they immediately came to me to offer peace and apologize (a result of path problems in the beta). So, you could cause an incident, then immediately go to the AI involved and sue for peace. Just don't be surprised if they want some form of reparations.

Sebadoh (#60),
Re: "Black & White"
Just to clarify, the original GalCiv for OS/2 included the same moral and ethical decisions as today's version. Several years ahead of "Black and White" and likely different game mechanics.

End transmission.

~SDC~

Reposting what I had suggested and a new suggestion (3rd one):

1-
I thought you could send a package of coke for emergency anti-GalCiv-addiction but it's illegal...
This is why I though that adding a timer could be appreciated (MOO3 got the idea from Apolyton in the last weeks). Maybe this timer should also have a "bell" that would "ring" at a given hour you programmed to say you "A benevolent Torian will close your GalCiv session automatically just after you finish this turn, so that you can undergo your minimum everyday sleep/actions."
That would be an awesome advanced option... I know we see only good comments on Apolyton about MOO3's timer.
I know I would PERSONALLY use it
Link to Apolyton thread: http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81668

2-
Sometimes groups that are independant from the government can give a hand or be a bunch of trouble. A good exemple of this would be these secret societies that were ploting against medieval monarchies. Another good exemple are corportions and groups form by them (sorta Recording Industries Association of America, in bigger/more important).
Exemples of groups:
- Secret societies
- Religious-based groups with influence (type Scientology on google, you'll see)
- Corporation-based groups (they could even try to take their investments elsewhere if they're not pleased)
- Citizen organizations (Greenpeace...)
- Criminal organizations
- others
Of course, it's not only about "There is an independant political force named ***" but more "The presence of this type of independant political force is ***". Maybe sometimes a single organization big enough to be named could exist... All this is about the level of organization of certain groups of all kinds.
Besides, this can include the "terrorism" idea. It includes any independent group. An independent group can even be created/helped by intelligence I guess, and it could have influences of all sorts.
Apolyton link: http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80958

3-
In exchanges, it'd be nice if we could click something so it gets AROUND the best deal for something in money or influence. You click this for money and it'll get you the more extended loans it can get with the biggest amount. Not exactly THE best one since in reality we don't lose our time that much on pesky details... so sometimes it would be very close, sometimes little less, as if we had done it.

And one more thing...
I didn't tryed it yet, but it would be fairly easy to come with something like 3 or 4 constructors and a few good ships. In ONE month, without any response from the other, you have a pretty serious outpost... I do not believe in reality someone could come with 4-5-6-more(!) of these and build all in a month, without other responding. Cheezy? There could be a limit of constructors/month, the other just adding over and waiting to be used.

Some suggestions Based on about 4 hours of gameplay. Maybe Stardock has already noticed them, or maybe I just don't know how they've already taken care of them. Or maybe neither, but here goes:


(1)
In the planet projects screen, the screen that lets you select which military and social projects to build, currently the only way to have a project appear in the details area (the frame that is between the scrolling lists of potential military and social projects) is to select that project from the scrolling list.

Eg. I go to the planet projects screen to see what military and social projects are being built by planet X. When I get there the military project is in the details area. If I want to see the detailed info on the social project, the only way to do this is to scroll through the list of social projects and click on the social project. But the name of the social project that is currently being built already appears in the text box area that is immediately below the social projects scroll list. It would be intuitive and much simpler to also be able to summon the project details by clicking on the project name that appears in the box immediately below the scroll list.

(2)
When I am managing my planets, and am in any of the screens obtained by clicking on the planet, I would also like to see where that planet is on the galactic map.

Currently, the planets are only identified by name in the planet screens. I don't really pay much attention to the names of my planets, I track planets based on their location on the galactic map. So in order to properly manage each planet, I must leave whatever planet info screen I am in, find the planet on the galactic map, and then reenter the planet screen to give the orders.

When deciding which projects to build, for example, this would be a great help. Can this planet get away with building an infrastructure improvement, or is it in that sector with high Altarian influence and so it should build something to help with cultural resistance? It steems unnecessary and excessive to have to leave the planet projects screen to determine this.

Currently the minimap in the top right corner disappears when in the planet screens (I.e. when you click on the "Planet List" button). One option is to not overwrite the minimap, and instead have the minimap remain in place, with the planet list drawn below the minimap in the right frame.

More broadly, the minimap is so useful to so many different aspects of the game, eg. also trade, that it might be worthwhile to have it always remain in place. Make it one of the areas of the user interface that does not disappear or be replaced by other data. This would also reduce the need to recreate the minimap in other screens, such as the trade screen.

(3)
Related to the previous comment, have a button in the minimap that will show trade routes. This will make it much more convenient to determine where to send freighters - one click on the minimap's "show trade routes" button instead of using the "domestic policy" button and then digging through its subscreens.

(4)
Have the scroll bars autoscroll whenever they are left-clicked and held. Currently the user must click once for each item in the list. Clicking and holding does nothing.

(5)
When sorting the planet list, it's a little tedious to use the directional arrows and go through all of the sorting options till you find the one you want. Is there any way that this can be made simpler? Maybe add a drop down list icon to the right of the sort header to also let the user select the sort criteria from a drop down list. The same goes for the method of selecting sort criteria for the starship list.

Well, that's enough UI feedback for now. Great game guys. I don't know what the reviewers who complain about graphics and sound have been smoking, but the GalCiv sound and graphics are top notch. Anyone who is familiar with turn based strategy games will tell you that.

After reading the previews and reviews that harp on the GalCiv sound and graphics, I was blown away by the sound and graphic quality when I was finally able to see the game for myself. Congratulations, 1024x768, pleasing to the eye, clean, sound that fills in the atmosphere perfectly and is pleasant even after hours of play. What more could you ask for? As far as I'm concerned the GalCiv graphics and sound have gotten a bum rap so far by reviewers whose sense of what will work and what's good is way out of wack.

Ackattack, your first request is already implemented. Just click at the top of the queue on the word 'military project' or 'social project' (IIRC) the currenc project in that list is then displayed between the lists.

I myself would find it very useful to be able to see these details when editing the governor's build list. Right now in both screens where I can edit these lists I can only see the names of items and later in the game I cannot remember what items do what and what they cost. (maybe a popup hint with stats will already help a lot here).

~SDC~

When a planet is not producing anything it is still expending resources for this non-production, which is fairly odd. As mentioned before it would be nice to be able to stop production or even use production to make money. This combined with planetary sliders would be awesome.

~SDC~

Thanks for the info Biggy Boy. That helps alot. Though I still think that the project name in the field below the scroll list is also an intuitive place to be able to click for the detailed info. If it's easy to implement, that area should be clickable too.

Making the project details accessible from the governor's build list is a great idea.

I agree with your idea Ackattack. My hint was just to keep you going until it is implemented

~SDC~

Some way to change the size of the font used in text areas that have a scrollbar would be great.

Being able to increase the font size generally would be even better, but just covering scrollable text ought to be feasible without mucking up the layout or artwork.

Captain Bizarre (#64) - I was referring to the alteration of game visuals in Black & White being an influence, not the idea of tracking morality in general. Sorry if that was unclear. In Black & White the gameworld and the creature you control becomes more evil-looking or good-looking depending on the choices you make. Actually, I just thought of an additional way GalCiv could visually reflect your moral rating: change the player's ships to be more good- or evil-looking. Of course, that would be a bigger change as it would require new art.

I'd like to be able to type in the number of colonists you load onto a colony ship. Maybe even specify a default other than 'half the system's population' - I like loading 75 or 100, usually, and getting it to that number when I have 6000+ population in a system is a pain! (Drag to 0, click up to 75, one slow click at a time...)

~SDC~

Great Game Frogboy! I've been waiting for this since OS/2 Days! Some suggestions (since you asked):
Could selecting a ship from the list on right center and select the ship on the map? Seems like I have to double-click a ship, which then centers it, but also moves it, if there are any movement points left. Just a simple select and center would be great.
Same for the planets list?
Perhaps a list of all explored worlds, or maybe adding all explored worlds to the planet list then allowing a filter such as 'Colonized','Uncontrolled', etc. Sort of like MOO does.
A filter for the ship list, so I can see which only scouts, or only ships not in orbit, etc.
Is there a way to name ships? Used to be in OS/2 version, perhaps you can but I am not sure how.
Thanks for listening!

ap