I would like to see an auto adjust for the money and influence points during trade. That is to say, if you trade a technology or ship for money you put your tech down and click on money and there is a button that will put it at the last "green" ammount (which would auto-adjust if you added tech for the opposing civilization to trade also). Maybe a little lazy, but I think it would be a good input and would save a little time.

I would humbly like to request an in-game clock function and/or alarm so that I have a chance of getting to sleep at a reasonably sane hour

After playing GCII now for a few days - I have a few 'GUI suggestions' that I would like to offer:

Civilization Manager - Colonies

- It would be nice to have a indication of undeveloped squares next to the Planet Class. This allows us to see at a glance whether we should review the planet for the next social project or not.
- It would be helpful for a mouse over of the approval rating to show us what is effecting the planets morale like it does in the planet screen.
- It would be very helpful to have the ability to sort production by weeks to complete as well as project name.
- It would be very helpful to have a function to show us if a particular planet is focusing it's production (perhaps by highlighting the background) on Military, Social or Research (and allow us to change it from this screen).

New Screen: Starbases

Similiar to the Colonies table. Shows starbase name, sector, number of modules installed, current attack/defense ratings, whether a constructor is in route, what type of starbase it is or what type of resource it is mining. Clicking on the starbase name closes the table and centers the map view on the starbase.

New Screen: Starships

Similiar to the Colones table. Shows starship name, sector, Fleet number, current attack/defense ratings, status (waiting for orders, guard, sentry, auto, etc.), any modifiers, and if a upgrade option exists (perhaps a drop down window with additional options if necessary) and it's maintenance costs. Clicking on the starship name closes the table and centers the map view on the starship.

Foreign Stats Screen

I really am not in love with this screen design, I would rather see this information displayed in a table view with catagories above and race names to the left for comparision purposes.
- However, if we continue the current screen, I would like to have the screen not change views and cycle to the top tab when cycling through the different races. For example, if I'm checking to see what everyone is reseaching, I would rather just click the race button. As it stands now, I have to click the race button and then the Misc button (as well as scroll down) to get that information. Too many clicks!

Senate Vote

This is not the UP vote. Why have us click a button to vote when the results are predeterminded? Just adds another click and mouse movement. Just show us the results of the vote and allow us to click the close button. Either that or have something that we can do to modify the vote.

Speaking of the F1 bar though (ship bar), it would be nice if we could filter this bar down to a particular ship type. Sorting isn't bad but filtering's better when it's just a particular information type you are looking for.

How about either a build queue for starports or a checkbox that allows you to continue to build this ship at (only) this starport or perhaps even better a box that allows you to put in number of the ships that you want to build?



That's my list so far! Hope some of these make sense to more than me.

If possible adding a "Build at all starports" would be excellent. As i find it tedious going to every starport and changing ships every time i need to change production.

Re: starports, in addition to a checkbox to continue to build the same ship, it would be nice to have a autolaunch checkbox.

Re: Diplomatic screen, options to 'what would it take to make this deal work' and a credit autobalancing button would greatly be appreciated. Also, when dealing with other Civs that I would like to have as friends, it would be nice to always have another option to ask for a gift rather than it being asked as a tribute.

Tech Trading: I'm fine with a no tech trading option, but I would rather see the AI be a bit more tigher with it's trades. It seems that all the AI's trade a bit too freely than the human player - I would like to see the aliens hang on to certain techs a bit better. It would be nice to have the game create a text file of all the AI's tech trades to see who traded what to whom and for how much that you could read after the game.

I also would like the ability to change my game colors after the game starts if I notice that my colors are being used by another race in the game if possible.

I also would like to see a better way to manage custom ships. I totally agree with some of the posters that have mentioned that they would like to keep their ships separated by custom created race name (which would mean that I would also like to be able to select between difference custom races when I begin the game - yes I know that can't be tweaked in a hour or less ).

Ability to set home planet for a frieghter.

Just build it, put it in orbit of the starting planet and then launch it and send it to the AI civ. The trade route will alaways begin at the last planet you orbited. (I'm pretty sure that's the way it worked for me last night!)

I'd second a 'civilization stats reset'. I scuppered the humans all to heck playing them and would like to reset to defaults when playing another race.

Button to move all auto-pilot ships, so you don't lose a turn.

Button to go to a ship with moves left If you are fiddiling around in the planet screens and want to go back to cycling through your ships, space bar doesn’t always do it.

Tech costs mouseover in the diplomacy screen, or at least sort them by cost rather than alphabetically.

On the GNN the "ship is built" message should have a launch button.

Give us an option to get one of those right border icons for ALL construction options, including ones where there is still something in the queue.

Button on the planet screen (social queue) to queue all upgrades (in case you deleted them earlier because you had a building priority)

Small icon in the planet screen to indicate that a structure CAN be upgraded (whether or not the upgrade is in social queue)

Show available upgrades to a starbase with a button on the starbase info screen. I have to move a constructor there just to find out what I could build that there are no good upgrades available.

Allow upgrades or copies of standard ship designs if possible.

When you upgrade a ship eg: from Fighter MK2 to Fighter MK3, then change the names of the ship to match the new model name if the user hasn’t customized the name eg: I have a ship called Fighter MK2 26 (default name), when I upgrade that ship to be a Fighter MK3, then change the name to Fighter MK3 26 or give it a new random name. Only exception would be if the user has customized the name of the ship since it was first built (which very few people do.)

Show the ship waypoint LINE if the ship is selected or have a toggle waypoints on main map keystroke, like CTRL-G.

Starbase radius before building.

Message informing you of AI races go to war with each other or do treaties.

Clicking a square with multiple ships, cycles through the ships in the square.

Option/Toggle to make Class 0 planets invisible

System time on the screen

Tool tips don’t pop up easily

All sliders are hard to drag for me and clicking to the right or left of a slider on the bar should move you a larger amount (pagedown)

Option to put an icon or flag on ships to show their race. You could turn it on or off.

AI should not be so quick to share weapons and propulsion technology

I didn't see this in the first couple pages, but I haven't checked back and the thread has gotten huge:

In the planet screen we are able to focus the planet's work on a single area (social, military, or research) with a button. How about a button to de-emphasize one of those. I tend to find myself in a funding dilemma because the majority of my worlds need a particular sort of production but some of them would simply be wasting that money.

For example, worlds that have no social improvents to build are getting no benefit from the money I have allocated for social projects in the economy screen. I could set it to focus on either military or research, but early in the game or on small maps I have a lot of worlds doing both and don't want to shaft one for the other. I'd rather just set social to 0. The other option currently available is to set social spending to 0 and just focus on it with the worlds that need it; this is really only advantageous when a minority of my worlds have anything to build. If I could de-emphasize (unfocus?) social production, the focus would be evenly divided among military and research, which would be ideal.

Another example would be worlds who have no starport and have shields that are going unused (usually small worlds where it's not worth it). I often have these worlds focused on research, but if they need to build a social improvement I have to unfocus them, and then the planet is wasting production on some shields. I'd like to be able to just de-emphasize shield production and focus evenly on social and research.

I'd like to see a small chunk of the minimap or galaxy map while in the planetary view screen. Sometimes, early in the game, if I'm deciding if a planet is a front-line millitary production planet, or a back-water research planet, I forget where in the galaxy it is. Then I have to leave the planetary screen to see where it's strategic position is so I know what kind of planet i want to be, and thus what facilities to concentrate on. And then I cant remember what planet it was to go back and start buidling.

I'd like to be able to access the ship action buttons while the ship is stacked (constructors have to be on a square all by themselves to chose to construct).

Two comments:

1) The default galaxy map music is nowhere near as nice as the music for GC1... I'd rather have the option to switch back!

2) I'd ike to have a button to optimize the amounts of cash and/or influence being offered or requested. Open the cash screen, click the "optimize" button, and get the best offer the aliens will accept given the current other things on the offer/request list.

#2 would solve my biggest gripe: the painful micromanagement in trading with the AI.

When I click on a ship in the main map, I would like to see a line from the ship to its destination. It's too hard to use the autopilot line on the mini-map to see where a ship is going.

I'd also wish that you would have to continue funding spies instead of just funding them until they find out all the information on a civilization and then never have to pay anything again.

Wow there's a lot of good stuff here.  We've put together a small list for this week's update and then putting the rest into what we hope will be called v1.01 for a few weeks from now.

The v1.01 will have a beta so you guys will be able to optionally try out beta builds if you'd like.

Apologies in advance for repeat suggestions.

I recommend putting some kind of zoom ability into the tech tree viewer. Take the current view as the closest view, and have the ability to zoom out from there.

Also, CiV4 had a GREAT option when trading of "what would make this trade work" and the computer would put in what it thinks the trade is worth. The player could then just use that, or modify it more... bartering! It would be helpful to see what the computer has in mind and help explain why it wouldn't take Basic Minituarization + 100bc for Missle Theory... but would trade sraight up for shield theory.

A FREE camera mode in the battle screen.

In the ship yard, the modifier blocks really don't seem to do what one intuitively thinks. I mean, when you look at their attributes, two of them "appear" to the do the same thing... until you use it.

Also, on the ship buidling, add a modifier that rotates the thing 180 degrees. Currently when you "flip" a hard point, it also goes upside-down.

Fix the item list readout underneath the ship window. When I remove an item, friggin' remove it! They just stay there, taking up space.

Any hardpoint modifiers should NOT appear in the attachment list, IMO. I was trying to figure out what the things did, and it ended up adding 20 of those things to my ship!

Hard point modifiers that can be used AFTER an item is placed would be helpful! Like, you add the winglike structure, you can THEN use the rotater thing on the wing to give some interesting effects to that piece.

A randomizer tool could be fun for the ship yard... might yield funny or cool results, or give the person a good starting point.

A versioning tool for the ship yard would be great. This would be probably a little more intensive, but it would helpful to track ship builds. What I mean is something that calls for the basic, module free, design of a ship and asigns it version 1 or Mk 1.

More effects on injured ships instead of JUST the elec arching thing.

The ability to ASK for help from other races besides "declare war on..." and asking for free something, which is usually seen as a demand and not taken well.

Here's a question. If i START with a science vessel (survey ship), why can i NOT build one? Granted it's a medium Hull, but if I made ONE... why can I not make more? I played a huge map and one of the first anomolies my ship found was a wormhole that put it on the other side of the galaxy. So I had no way to inspect all those rocks and crap around my home worlds for the longest time, as my little ship made it's way home (where's a transwarp conduit when you need it?) Along the way home, he passed up other wormholes, but I made him avoid them, for fear it would send him further away! I would not have been so concerned if I could simply build another one. Granted, if you have a high enough sensor/survey tech/value, you can slap that module onto a ship and explore them... but the wierd little cargo hull class ship doesn't look NEAR as cool as the survey ships!

That's all for now. Love the game, although my sleep hates it!

Maybe I'm missing this, but a way to look at what factors are influencing approval on a planet would be cool. Some times, the approval on my planets plumets for no real reason that I can find...

one thing from me, make the players can't see each other weapon/defense tech unless they are in better than neutral terms...

I would like to be able to see the ships and starbases in the diplomacy screan for minor races. I like to purchase that kind of thing sometimes, but it only works with major races. The minors don't show their material assets. Please change this.

1) Fix it so that you can take ship out of a fleet when said fleet is stacked with other units. Currently you only see the fleet icons with no way of removing a ship from a fleet.

2) Allow a ship to be inspected when in a fleet, I often upgrade my ships and the only why of keeping track of whats in a fleet is by renaming the upgraded ship each time its upgraded (ie DD Mk1 to DD Mk2).

3) Figure out a way of knowning how many upgrades are currently available (and maybe what they are) on a Starbase. Sending a Constructor to a starbase only to find out that you alraedy maxed it out is a pain.

4) Select in a planet and right clicking the mouse should allow the user to select a rally point to be placed on the map for ships built at that planet.

Concur w/Zugg...I posted this last week to a different thread...

I hope this isn't a RTFM moment, but there's a minor annoyance on the trading screen. Once I decide what I want to trade (say Tech X & Y for Tech Z), I then try to balance the deal by tweaking influence and/or credit sliders....those just are tough to operate...it seems like they are too sensitive when I mouse drag them...and typing in different increments and then using cursor-left or cursor-right to find the "sweet spot" isn't much fun, frankly (and it seems that sometimes the color-coding has some lag in changing from green to red).

I would really love to be able to set up the basics of the "deal" and then either press the middle mouse button or double-click or something to have the game auto-balance the deal with credits, influence points, etc. As emperor/president/whatever, I want to set the broad-brush guidelines and let my State Department minions work out the fine print.

So if I'm missing something, I'm sorry...if not, what do the rest of you think?

And then a later followup...


I hadn't realized the mouse wheel worked here; that will help. Will have to give it a try.

My point is that emperors wouldn't be negotiating the nitty-gritty like that...tweaking the fine points of the deal is for the State Department to do.

It reminds me of some of the comments in the Civ4 manual about eliminating things that weren't fun and finding alternate ways to get the same effect.

If I decide on what techs I want to trade, after that playing with the sliders is:

1) taking up time I'd rather spend doing something else
2) not really enhancing game play

How about this:

Choose techs/ships/planets to trade, then have a "negotiate" button with a slider (i.e., do I want cash, influence, or some balance of the 2). You hit it, the system pops back with their offer, which you can either decline or accept.

I would like to see, as in GalCiv1, that hitting space bar when there are no units selected will automatically find the next unit, or end the turn. I like keyboard shortcuts.

I would love a screen that lists the techs the other civs have which you don't, and those that they do not have that you do. Some users modded Civ 4 advisor screens to show this information, and it is MUCH nicer than calling up each leader, one at a time (especially in games with lots of minor civs in them).

Being able to see at a glance which civs are potential trading partners would cut down a great deal on the relative tedium of the tech trading game.

Category: Ship builder
Type: Shortcut
Explanation: I'd like to press the "del" key to remove the currently selected component. It's faster than finding the remove button.

The best would be if we could determine military, social and research production for each planet.

In my point of view , I would forget all these central "spending rates" things. It would be grateful if I could build ships in one planet with full production and researching on the other with the same throttle. I think that's a bit stupid that I can't build ships on one planet with full production (as far as my budget allows of course) because I need to build up a building on an other planet or I want to research fast on a third.

I would do the following:
Delete those spending rates from central budget and put them to the planet window. Each bar would represent what rate are the military/social/research production is working. Military and social are mutually exclusive.
Example:
I have 1 basic factory and 1 basic research facility: so my maximum capacities are 8 mp and 5 tp. If I set military bar to maxiumum, i produce 8 mp, that costs me 8 bc. If I set it 50%: 4 mp costs 4 bc. I can use up the remaining 4 mp to social if i want to by setting social bar to 50%. If I set it higher, the military bar will be lowered automatically.
But If I want to I can set research bar to maximum apart from production bars.

And what if I can do this on each planet? I can build ships fast on one planet with eg manufacturing capital, while I "research" plenty of 'tp's on another with eg technological capital. And meanwhile I can make new planets build their social buildings fast instead of producting 1or 2 tp or needless military mp.

In game notepad!

For years I've been waiting for a 4X game to let me keep notes (attack here, build this, keep eye on that) within the game. Sure, I can alt-tab and use windows notepad, but that's clunky and possibly crash-prone. Pencil and paper's the other option, but it seems crazy to do that when I've got a fully functioning keyboard right in front of me.

I tend to play in short bursts with days in between so actually remembering what the heck I was doing gets tricky sometimes, particularly with big maps. A bare bones notepad would be a blessing. A more fancy-pants version would let me attach a note to a planet, ship, sector or whatever, but that's maybe getting a little complicated.

Thanks, and great game too!

i have some more ideas

- give fleets a behavoir that the player can set. options like: attack strongest, attack weakest, attack ships with sensors first and things like that should be there to choose.
- if you load a game dont open the researchscreen and your homeplanet, i dont think it is necessary

greetings