Some ideas...
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
I just found this HP by pure accident yesterday and took some time to read through all the threads concerning gane features. I'd like to add some of my thoughts on that. (I don't own GalCiv and therefore don't know ANTYHING about the appearance or mechanisms of the game, so please don't flame me if I propose things already in the game or impossible to implement.)
TECH
There should be severals seperate trees, each for one field of technology - Colonization, Weapons, Force Fields (Shields etc), Planet Improvements, Computer Technology and so on - you can think of some more fields (Or take a look at MOO2). You an call them general trees.
And there should be style-trees or something like that. One for each style of play: merchant, militarist, technocrat, politician etc. At the beginning, each player should be able to select any style-tree by researching the first tech in that tree. Upon completion (and therefore choice of play-style) the other trees should NOT be unavailable but the costs for the first tech in each tree should be 5x as it was in the beginning, making it not impossible but extremely expensive to follow more than one path of style. If a player chooses to research a second style-tree, make the costs in the remaining 2 (or more) style trees 15x that of the beginning cost. And additionally limit the number of techs researchable outside the first style-tree, for example allow the players to research 6 techs in the second tree and 3 in the third.
The technocrat-style player should perhaps be allowed to spend research points on two separate projects at the same time to show his excellent researching ability.
SHIPS
There should not be types of ships to research as the defender or battleship but classes (i.e. different hull types, ranging from scout class over battleship to titan or something similiar). Each hull type has some amount of space to be filled with components - computer, weapons, warp drive (or not!), shields, special equipment (extra fuel, colonization pod, troop pod, sensor phalanx, enhancement of weapon or shields (multiphase shield equip...) and the like). This place rises as construction tech advances, and the place of the components shrinks as the appropriate tech advances. Each player may design ships as he sees fit. You can easily build a fleet containigs ships with super defenses but litte attack rating or you can build super fast scouts with advanced sensors to investigate space. In this way, you have to research bigger hulls and some extra parts like colonization pod to build colony ships, which would make the costs of colonizing other planets more realistic (i.e. higher
). AND no-one could colonize in large scale right from the beginning. You coud compensate that by giving each player a Scout and a colony Ship.
PLANETS
I take it that the planet rating (1-30) is a summary of how good it is to be colonized. In that number, I assume, are factored Temperature, Atmospere, Pressure, Climate, Gravity, Minerals, Agriculture possible, a few other things and - Size of the Planet. I think that a smaller planet should not be allowed to have all colony enhancement to be built. Assign each improvement a size from 1-3 (or higher for really huge buildings like your capital) and each planet a size according to its rating. Then a player can only build a limited amount of improvements. To build more he has to imrove the planet in its rating (terraforming etc.) or destroy other buildings that are not that important to him. Additionally there could be a tech in the construction field of research that reduces the size of the improvements (mikro-construction or the like).
RACES
If a major race is eliminated early in the game, replace it (like in Civilization), for example by elevating one of the minor races to major. This could be because the minor races took over some artifacts from the extinguished race thus becoming major. OR another unknown race could arise several turns later taking the place of the eleminated major race. Think of any possibility.
If an empire gets too instable, split some planets apart, forming new minor races. This could also happen to a player...
The politician-style player would be able to take minor races into his empire as protectorates - still independant but contributing to his fund, research and navy (more or less, according to the power of the minor race). Any other player would only be able to form an alliance with the minors, with perhaps only the militarist unable to ally with them.
EVENTS
As said frm others before, these should ABSOLUTELY be random, in appearance and effect. Also, i suggest that early in the game the events shouldn't have a great impact on the game like handing the tech of titan hull over to a player or raising his funds by 10... It should be a minor drawback or favour to succesfully (!!!) investigate an anomaly - which requires some sensor equip in the ship doing so.
Later in the game the effects should be more dramatic like a star becoming a super nova and the empir has to spend a substancial amount of research points and production to counter that. (This would be an enhancement for diplomcy, asking the others for help...).
Or pirates raiding trade routes, diminishing the prfit or destroying the route completely after some time. Ships (capable of fighting...) must be assigned to hunt down the pirates (this command appears in the menu only when the need arises).
Check MOO2 for some nice (and nasty) events.
These are the thoughts that came to me while reading your threads yesterday. At least, this is what I remember from my thoughts ...
I would appreciate some reaction to this rather long post (aside from flames) to see if my suggestions are helpful and possible to realise (maybe in a later build). Please feel free to correct me in my assumptions and give me a better understanding of the gamne and its mechanisms because I don't own GalCiv (and probably won't buy it, sorry).
Nazghul
TECH
There should be severals seperate trees, each for one field of technology - Colonization, Weapons, Force Fields (Shields etc), Planet Improvements, Computer Technology and so on - you can think of some more fields (Or take a look at MOO2). You an call them general trees.
And there should be style-trees or something like that. One for each style of play: merchant, militarist, technocrat, politician etc. At the beginning, each player should be able to select any style-tree by researching the first tech in that tree. Upon completion (and therefore choice of play-style) the other trees should NOT be unavailable but the costs for the first tech in each tree should be 5x as it was in the beginning, making it not impossible but extremely expensive to follow more than one path of style. If a player chooses to research a second style-tree, make the costs in the remaining 2 (or more) style trees 15x that of the beginning cost. And additionally limit the number of techs researchable outside the first style-tree, for example allow the players to research 6 techs in the second tree and 3 in the third.
The technocrat-style player should perhaps be allowed to spend research points on two separate projects at the same time to show his excellent researching ability.
SHIPS
There should not be types of ships to research as the defender or battleship but classes (i.e. different hull types, ranging from scout class over battleship to titan or something similiar). Each hull type has some amount of space to be filled with components - computer, weapons, warp drive (or not!), shields, special equipment (extra fuel, colonization pod, troop pod, sensor phalanx, enhancement of weapon or shields (multiphase shield equip...) and the like). This place rises as construction tech advances, and the place of the components shrinks as the appropriate tech advances. Each player may design ships as he sees fit. You can easily build a fleet containigs ships with super defenses but litte attack rating or you can build super fast scouts with advanced sensors to investigate space. In this way, you have to research bigger hulls and some extra parts like colonization pod to build colony ships, which would make the costs of colonizing other planets more realistic (i.e. higher
). AND no-one could colonize in large scale right from the beginning. You coud compensate that by giving each player a Scout and a colony Ship.PLANETS
I take it that the planet rating (1-30) is a summary of how good it is to be colonized. In that number, I assume, are factored Temperature, Atmospere, Pressure, Climate, Gravity, Minerals, Agriculture possible, a few other things and - Size of the Planet. I think that a smaller planet should not be allowed to have all colony enhancement to be built. Assign each improvement a size from 1-3 (or higher for really huge buildings like your capital) and each planet a size according to its rating. Then a player can only build a limited amount of improvements. To build more he has to imrove the planet in its rating (terraforming etc.) or destroy other buildings that are not that important to him. Additionally there could be a tech in the construction field of research that reduces the size of the improvements (mikro-construction or the like).
RACES
If a major race is eliminated early in the game, replace it (like in Civilization), for example by elevating one of the minor races to major. This could be because the minor races took over some artifacts from the extinguished race thus becoming major. OR another unknown race could arise several turns later taking the place of the eleminated major race. Think of any possibility.
If an empire gets too instable, split some planets apart, forming new minor races. This could also happen to a player...
The politician-style player would be able to take minor races into his empire as protectorates - still independant but contributing to his fund, research and navy (more or less, according to the power of the minor race). Any other player would only be able to form an alliance with the minors, with perhaps only the militarist unable to ally with them.
EVENTS
As said frm others before, these should ABSOLUTELY be random, in appearance and effect. Also, i suggest that early in the game the events shouldn't have a great impact on the game like handing the tech of titan hull over to a player or raising his funds by 10... It should be a minor drawback or favour to succesfully (!!!) investigate an anomaly - which requires some sensor equip in the ship doing so.
Later in the game the effects should be more dramatic like a star becoming a super nova and the empir has to spend a substancial amount of research points and production to counter that. (This would be an enhancement for diplomcy, asking the others for help...).
Or pirates raiding trade routes, diminishing the prfit or destroying the route completely after some time. Ships (capable of fighting...) must be assigned to hunt down the pirates (this command appears in the menu only when the need arises).
Check MOO2 for some nice (and nasty) events.
These are the thoughts that came to me while reading your threads yesterday. At least, this is what I remember from my thoughts
...I would appreciate some reaction to this rather long post (aside from flames) to see if my suggestions are helpful and possible to realise (maybe in a later build). Please feel free to correct me in my assumptions and give me a better understanding of the gamne and its mechanisms because I don't own GalCiv (and probably won't buy it, sorry).
Nazghul
