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I apologize if any of these are redundant. I have skimmed much of the forum and read a healthy chunk, but I have not reviewed it all so it is possible some of these suggestions are redundant with ideas already offered up here. Without further ado, here's a little list of my ideas.
--Seperate civilization achievement notifications into galactic and faction scope. Personally, I want to be notified whenever a Galactic Wonder or Trade Good is completed by a foreign power, but I am annoyed to get a notice every time someone builds a Technological Capital or an Omega Defense System. I believe some people might like the "small wonder" notifications as a better way of tracking the progress of rival powers, so I do not believe there should be no way to get those notices. I just recommend that there be one toggle for the truly unique stuff that most players will want to know about even in huge games and the "one-per-faction" stuff that is much less important and can amount to clutter insofar as even the minor races often build some capitals.
--Create an option to deactivate centering on mobile vessels at all. I am annoyed by the way the map gets jumpy at the start of a game when I am manually guiding the early survey effort with my flagship. These graphics are sweeter than anything else I've seen in the genre (though I haven't had a chance to try that new Star Wars product yet.) I like keeping in close until my empire spreads out to the point where where a symbol-based view is essential to keeping well-informed. For that matter, I probably would zoom in for dealing with regional issues more if I was not bothered by the jumpiness of the map while following a vessel under manual control. I believe players will be better able to appreciate GalCiv II as an artistic achievement if it were more comfortable to dwell on zoomed in views. Of course, this would also require a new hotkey and/or console button, a "center on current vessel" as a little-used but still useful alternative to "find next vessel." If at all viable, I think an option to toggle camera tracking of a ship in motion in the standard main view would take a metaphorical rough edge out of an experience that, at its best, leaves one unaware of any rough edges.
--Further diversify ship design classifications. Specifically, I would like to have the option when I save a vessel for it to be a "this game only" design or a "keep in the database" design. Perhaps just keep calling some "user" designs and others "game" or "temp." In one of my more advanced games, screwing around with the building blocks, I made a poorly designed warship surrounded by what appears to be a gigantic old-timey pair of headphones. Now every time I develop the mediocre engine technology used in that design, I am informed that it is one of the requirements to produce my ridiculous and useless "Walkman" warship. Though I will delete it next time I have all the other technologies in it and I remember to go for the delete, in the mean time I get a reminder of my goofiness every time I research a constituent tech. As an extra (and very cool) idea, it might be worthwhile to build right in a "sandbox shipyard" feature where players could view, edit, create, save, or delete any user ship designs without actually starting a game. Being extremely fancy about it, I could see a system of "ship sets" with player control over which designs occur on shipyard lists and in new technology notifications. Perhaps user-defined "ship sets" is more of a GalCiv III idea, but I believe the "shipyard sandbox" would be a big hit with fans right now.
--21st century strategy games are getting sophisticated enough that it can take more than a few moments to transition from settings for one type of game to something significantly different. Getting all the tweaks just right reminds me of tuning analog radios -- you know what you want, but it can take a little time to make all the right adjustments. Of course, presets were the logical and elegant solution to that. On the screen immediately before a new game actually begins, it would be nice if an alternative to confirming settings was something like "confirm and save as preset." Then, on the screen immediately following the choice to set up a new game, five or so buttons linked to these presets were available for instantly configuring every option to emulate a previous set of startup conditions. This may seem tricky, but since it is all about game setup it may involve mucking about simpler components of the product.
--Create an option to issue empire-wide orders that elevate a particular category of projects in the social queue. My original problem was that new factory upgrades were occuring at the bottom of long queues when, if near the top, they would accelerate the completion of the rest of the series. I thought if it were possible to sweep factory upgrades empire-wide into high priority positions (either the top slots or the top slots not already showing signs of progress.) As I was writing this though, I realized that a "sweep upgrades" order would be useful in general -- pushing research projects to the top could soften the impact of a technological slump, and the same goes for markets with economics. If you feel disadvantaged in the pursuit of a political goal, letting farm upgrades cut to the front of the line might be just the trick for staying strong. These sorts of orders would not make or break a game, but it would be a real time-saver since they are useful now and the process of manually advancing all those projects up their queues can be laborious. It could be as simple as inserting a "social project" feature to the "governors" tab of the Civilization Manager, then letting players select a specific type of project to prioritize in the queues.
--Speaking of time-savers, another labor intensive GalCiv phenomenon is the tech bake sale. An empire with a crashing economy but plenty of advanced technologies can keep up a full head of steam through peddling minor techs to many different races. I did notice the proposal for tech auctions in another thread. It certainly has merit, though as a simpler fix I propose having a diplomatic option to simply designate one or more technologies as available for purchase. Sliders could be used to exclude purchasers below a particular level of attitude or unwilling to exceed a minimum bid. Then those who wanted to buy the tech(s) on the block would all do so simultaneously. Though it is, of course, ideal to maintain a healthy economy and a strong research base, when the former is weak and the latter is strong, balancing through tech sales does feel like using a bucket to bail out a leaky ship. Economic mismanagement should create a leaky ship feeling, but I believe Galactic Civilizations bailouts should have a high-tech low-labor feel to them. General tech sales might even be less than a true time saver since they might not offer the same diplomatic benefit of personal haggling, but they would really minimize the intrusiveness of economic bailouts on the game's fun factor.
Of course, my general assessment of the game is excellent, even though I've had precious little opportunity to play through it (and I relish a challenge, so I have not been playing simple scenarios or less than Intelligent opponents.) My overall advice to developers would be to take some time to celebrate a job well done and to reflect on why this game is such an amazing experience. Obviously there are still some quirks to be sorted out (I agree that idle social queues should impose no cost, for example) and hopefully it is a stepping stone toward the emergence of a new dynasty in the genre. I have tried most of them, and certainly was a MOO and MOO2 addict. Not since MOO2 though have I really felt good about just losing a night here and a night there to my own galactic saga. It is funny though, when you sit and think about it, how electronic entertainment still has so many growing pains ahead. I really dig the aesthetics in GalCiv 2, and it feels ahead of the industry curve in terms of ease of use (I believe complaints about the interface, at least in this case, are mostly an inevitable result of complexity rather than any really crude or archaic design choices.) Still the road ahead seems to stretch for quite some distance, and in the mean time I am more than happy to be entertained by the game's present incarnation.
Regards,
Adam Weishaupt
P.S. Oh, if there is not some way I have already overlooked, I would totally dig a "toggle hardpoints off" button in the ship design screen. Certainly it is important that they be visible when planning the layout of a vessel, and they are a convenience when assembling one as well. However, for those of us who take to decorating our creations, removing the big red arrows would be useful for assessing the work in progress. Then again, if that feature already exists, my bad/good thinking, team!
--Seperate civilization achievement notifications into galactic and faction scope. Personally, I want to be notified whenever a Galactic Wonder or Trade Good is completed by a foreign power, but I am annoyed to get a notice every time someone builds a Technological Capital or an Omega Defense System. I believe some people might like the "small wonder" notifications as a better way of tracking the progress of rival powers, so I do not believe there should be no way to get those notices. I just recommend that there be one toggle for the truly unique stuff that most players will want to know about even in huge games and the "one-per-faction" stuff that is much less important and can amount to clutter insofar as even the minor races often build some capitals.
--Create an option to deactivate centering on mobile vessels at all. I am annoyed by the way the map gets jumpy at the start of a game when I am manually guiding the early survey effort with my flagship. These graphics are sweeter than anything else I've seen in the genre (though I haven't had a chance to try that new Star Wars product yet.) I like keeping in close until my empire spreads out to the point where where a symbol-based view is essential to keeping well-informed. For that matter, I probably would zoom in for dealing with regional issues more if I was not bothered by the jumpiness of the map while following a vessel under manual control. I believe players will be better able to appreciate GalCiv II as an artistic achievement if it were more comfortable to dwell on zoomed in views. Of course, this would also require a new hotkey and/or console button, a "center on current vessel" as a little-used but still useful alternative to "find next vessel." If at all viable, I think an option to toggle camera tracking of a ship in motion in the standard main view would take a metaphorical rough edge out of an experience that, at its best, leaves one unaware of any rough edges.
--Further diversify ship design classifications. Specifically, I would like to have the option when I save a vessel for it to be a "this game only" design or a "keep in the database" design. Perhaps just keep calling some "user" designs and others "game" or "temp." In one of my more advanced games, screwing around with the building blocks, I made a poorly designed warship surrounded by what appears to be a gigantic old-timey pair of headphones. Now every time I develop the mediocre engine technology used in that design, I am informed that it is one of the requirements to produce my ridiculous and useless "Walkman" warship. Though I will delete it next time I have all the other technologies in it and I remember to go for the delete, in the mean time I get a reminder of my goofiness every time I research a constituent tech. As an extra (and very cool) idea, it might be worthwhile to build right in a "sandbox shipyard" feature where players could view, edit, create, save, or delete any user ship designs without actually starting a game. Being extremely fancy about it, I could see a system of "ship sets" with player control over which designs occur on shipyard lists and in new technology notifications. Perhaps user-defined "ship sets" is more of a GalCiv III idea, but I believe the "shipyard sandbox" would be a big hit with fans right now.
--21st century strategy games are getting sophisticated enough that it can take more than a few moments to transition from settings for one type of game to something significantly different. Getting all the tweaks just right reminds me of tuning analog radios -- you know what you want, but it can take a little time to make all the right adjustments. Of course, presets were the logical and elegant solution to that. On the screen immediately before a new game actually begins, it would be nice if an alternative to confirming settings was something like "confirm and save as preset." Then, on the screen immediately following the choice to set up a new game, five or so buttons linked to these presets were available for instantly configuring every option to emulate a previous set of startup conditions. This may seem tricky, but since it is all about game setup it may involve mucking about simpler components of the product.
--Create an option to issue empire-wide orders that elevate a particular category of projects in the social queue. My original problem was that new factory upgrades were occuring at the bottom of long queues when, if near the top, they would accelerate the completion of the rest of the series. I thought if it were possible to sweep factory upgrades empire-wide into high priority positions (either the top slots or the top slots not already showing signs of progress.) As I was writing this though, I realized that a "sweep upgrades" order would be useful in general -- pushing research projects to the top could soften the impact of a technological slump, and the same goes for markets with economics. If you feel disadvantaged in the pursuit of a political goal, letting farm upgrades cut to the front of the line might be just the trick for staying strong. These sorts of orders would not make or break a game, but it would be a real time-saver since they are useful now and the process of manually advancing all those projects up their queues can be laborious. It could be as simple as inserting a "social project" feature to the "governors" tab of the Civilization Manager, then letting players select a specific type of project to prioritize in the queues.
--Speaking of time-savers, another labor intensive GalCiv phenomenon is the tech bake sale. An empire with a crashing economy but plenty of advanced technologies can keep up a full head of steam through peddling minor techs to many different races. I did notice the proposal for tech auctions in another thread. It certainly has merit, though as a simpler fix I propose having a diplomatic option to simply designate one or more technologies as available for purchase. Sliders could be used to exclude purchasers below a particular level of attitude or unwilling to exceed a minimum bid. Then those who wanted to buy the tech(s) on the block would all do so simultaneously. Though it is, of course, ideal to maintain a healthy economy and a strong research base, when the former is weak and the latter is strong, balancing through tech sales does feel like using a bucket to bail out a leaky ship. Economic mismanagement should create a leaky ship feeling, but I believe Galactic Civilizations bailouts should have a high-tech low-labor feel to them. General tech sales might even be less than a true time saver since they might not offer the same diplomatic benefit of personal haggling, but they would really minimize the intrusiveness of economic bailouts on the game's fun factor.
Of course, my general assessment of the game is excellent, even though I've had precious little opportunity to play through it (and I relish a challenge, so I have not been playing simple scenarios or less than Intelligent opponents.) My overall advice to developers would be to take some time to celebrate a job well done and to reflect on why this game is such an amazing experience. Obviously there are still some quirks to be sorted out (I agree that idle social queues should impose no cost, for example) and hopefully it is a stepping stone toward the emergence of a new dynasty in the genre. I have tried most of them, and certainly was a MOO and MOO2 addict. Not since MOO2 though have I really felt good about just losing a night here and a night there to my own galactic saga. It is funny though, when you sit and think about it, how electronic entertainment still has so many growing pains ahead. I really dig the aesthetics in GalCiv 2, and it feels ahead of the industry curve in terms of ease of use (I believe complaints about the interface, at least in this case, are mostly an inevitable result of complexity rather than any really crude or archaic design choices.) Still the road ahead seems to stretch for quite some distance, and in the mean time I am more than happy to be entertained by the game's present incarnation.
Regards,
Adam Weishaupt
P.S. Oh, if there is not some way I have already overlooked, I would totally dig a "toggle hardpoints off" button in the ship design screen. Certainly it is important that they be visible when planning the layout of a vessel, and they are a convenience when assembling one as well. However, for those of us who take to decorating our creations, removing the big red arrows would be useful for assessing the work in progress. Then again, if that feature already exists, my bad/good thinking, team!
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