Greetings Stardockians and Gal Civers!
I am very much enjoying the alpha! It is head and shoulders already above Gal Civ III in terms of re-playability for me.
I want to give a small bit of feedback and what would enliven the mid/late game for me but I am not sure if on the radar.
For starters lets talk about a related thread that Frogboy posted regarding the first 20 turns.
In that thread there is a debate on when to meet your neighbors. Some folks feel meeting another within 20 turns is good, while others would want a longer time prior to that meeting.
Some of the reasons given is the rush for resources and not having anyone around means a more relaxed play style. I lean towards this style of Play. This discussion has led to further posts about folks creating large maps (like I do) with dozens of large or medium sectors and selecting all 16 available races only to find out 2 or 3 of those races are in your starting sector.
One request which I'd like but is not critical is the ability of the player to dictate how many ai/civs start in your sector. I wouldn't mind one other but having 3 even in a large sector for me is crowded. Send them off to their own sectors and let them expand and get powerful!
So that is one point the ability to dictate how many ai per sector at map / galaxy creation.
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The next which is something I think the new map system can really shine on. I would like nothing more than this > Running into another empire (across the map) mid to late game that is equal or more powerful than me the player which has established colonies and powerhouse production planets for ship production in several sectors. I would also like to see real fleets of ships on par with the player has.
I ran into the Drengin two games ago and they expanded and colonized 4 sectors and were going strong.
What needs to happen is that empire needs to be able to build respectable fleets which threaten the player. Not just 50 small ships each with an attack value of 1. No I want to run into the Drengin on turn 326 after I have uncovered 2/3rds of a gigantic map only to find them solidly built into the remaining 1/3rd and shock me with fleets the same size and load outs! This would take the slog of conquering into a new paradigm. Now I need to quickly fortify those stream choke points with a starbase and a fleet and hope it holds!
Whether we need the old Gal Civ Precursor event which slowly builds the chosen civ to near god status with production and research and population bonuses or just teaching the ai how and what to research to get them there. Maybe espionage can boost the civ stealing needed late game techs like logistics, weapons and hull sizes.
These would mix up the late game challenge and one I would love to be shocked by.
