If you change leaders like that then i would have no reason to use them.

Please dont lessen starting cash there is,already not enough.

Of course you would still have a reason to use them (leaders). Given my example, let's suppose you generate 10 citizens over the first 100 turns of the game. 

You could a) hire 10 scientists for a 50% boost to science, or hire 10 leaders. Your leaders could be boosting science by 40%, so it's a slightly smaller buff. But then, let's say you want to switch priorities because you've just been attacked. Now your leaders could switch to a ship production boost of 40%, which is something your scientists could not do. 

As it stands right now, there is no reason to choose any citizen other than a leader for an empire wide boost. One choice is strictly superior to the other, which is nonsensical. For one thing, it's bad for the AI, because the AI might do something stupid like hire 5 workers for a 15% empire boost to SC instead of just hiring 5 leaders for a 30% boost. 

Also, I think the empire wide boost needs to be nerfed anyway. On a large map it's quite common to have 15-20 planets. When you have that many planets it's basically always better to get a 6% boost to all of them instead of a 30% boost to one of them. It should be rebalanced. As I already said, citizen leveling should be sped up too. As it stands right now, you could settle a citizen on a planet right at the beginning of the game, and their bonus would only rise to ~40-50% by the end of the game. Most citizens won't get much beyond the initial 30% bonus. Leveling should be MUCH faster imo, close to 2x as fast. That would open up strategies to play tall.  

Choosing admins is quite compelling.

Ive used diplomats and spies.

One thing I have struggled with since GalCiv2 is what actually drives the economy. Most other 4X games I have played (Civ 1-6, Endless Space 1, MOO2, Stellaris) have a way more intuitive system: a planet/city of size eight has eight space for eight ’workers’. These workers work tiles, which you can improve to yield further resources. Simple!

GalCiv is different from that. This is not bad, but it communicates its economy system very badly, IMHO. When you view a planet in the planet view, what is the main thing you notice first? It’s the planet tiles and the improvements on them (I think that they put a lot of love to graphic details. In particular, I appreciate that the layout of the continent reflects how the planet is shown in the galaxy map). But what is it that drives the planet economy? Population and external sources that yield Raw production. They are not graphically represented, but are two small numbers that you have to mouse over to see what they are doing! In addition, a size eight planet has by default the same amount of population as a size sixteen planet. To quote from PCGamer diary: “I was being stupid, of course. […] My fallacy had been to assume that high-quality planets—since they have more buildable land - were larger.”

So, wether it’s population or buildings that are the main drivers of economy, I want it to be represented intuitively. With the present model, it could look something like

Population ---\                                                             /->Social buildings->Social Prod.

                        =>Raw Production=>Morale modifier=-->Science buildings->Science

other sources-/                                                           |->Ship manuf. buildings->Ship prod.

                                                                                    |->Financial buildings->Credits

(trying with ASCII art...)

Before, a city would give you a +1 population.  Now it's 10%.  I see what you mean though about the 10% stacking up.  It really should be more like 0.1 population flat rather than the %.

Is that to tie it more directly to the number of tile, i.e. planet quality?  Ultimately, how is that different from +10%?  The effects stack, but at a progressive rate.

Ok, since crusade introduced new aspects to the game, it missed adding other basic UI options based on those aspects.

• Colony Filtering
  • Under Govern I can sort/view the colonies based on planet class, population, etc, but I cannot sort based on food production. Need to add column for food production.
  • Same goes for under "Planet and Colonies" tab from main screen.
  • Sort by Type of planet(Barren/Water/Frozen/toxic/Radioactive/Other), this is critical for determining what type of planet specialization is needed.  Otherwise you need to go through and count the number of planets.
• Resource Listing
  
  • When you mouse over a resource it lists the locations/planets where you are collecting this resource, but then I have to go to other menus to try and find said location/planet. I should be able to simply click on the planet from the popup and it should take me there. 
• Diplomacy to TECH tree
  • I should be able to quickly look at my tech tree when making a trade, otherwise you need to cancel the trade, then click all the way out of the diplomacy screen, Into research, find the tech in question, then navigate all the way back to the trade.
  • Search Factions who are offering specific tech or resource for trade. When you have 30+ factions and need to go through each one to find a specific resource, it is extremely painful (do you guys even play the game?)

...

I have no suggestion on how to effectively do this..

But make Tall civ's viable...

with the way the resources are now you have no choice but to play wide... 

Frogboy, this nerfing of everything and killing of potential strategies really bugs me.

Natural counter to population exploiting should be approval. It should be really painful to maintain morale of high-population planet and low approval should have severe consequences. Not some minor effects as it is right now, but severe production maluses, damage to buildings and eventually, rebellion.

Killing everything that is "overpowered" doesn´t seem to be much of a solution for a game like Galciv is!

Exactly. Haven´t tried it yet, but from changelog it clearly seems as culling of tall strategies, which we SO MUCH wanted to introduce.

Sad...

Looking at low moral colonies, the penalties are in the 10% range. The 25% raw production bonus from high moral is substantial, but the loss from low moral isn't. Moral feels more like a system for a bonus, rather than a problem to be solved.

GC3 is a really good game and I love that the developers take pride in it and are asking how to make it better.  I think you guys nailed a lot of the interface like the negotiation bar.  That makes it so much easier and faster to make a deal.

The typical trajectory of one of these games has multiple phases for me.

1. Novelty.  What are all these shiny new buttons/races/techs/ etc?!

2.  Exploration.  Increasing difficulty level playthoughs to explore the game mechanics.  Win, increase difficulty, win, increase difficulty.  I am the best!

3.  The wall.  Once I get to a high enough difficulty the computer stomps on me. 

4.  Research.  What in the heck is happening with food and cities?  What exactly does "+25% research" mean?

5.  Spreadsheet.  Build a spreadsheet to help illustrate the game mechanics for myself.

6. Victory!  Beat the snot out of the AI on harder difficulties with my new found understanding.

7.  Remorse.  Did I really beat the computer or did I just exploit the game mechanics?  What is the difference?  What is the meaning of life?  Why am I playing this game? 

8.  Sabbatical.  Until the next game is released.

If you can eliminate the spreadsheet step then the game will be better for me.  It becomes unfulfilling when there is a complex interaction between multiple components which only acts as a trap for a casual player or the AI.  If there is one optimal choice in almost every instance then why provide a choice?

The example of population and improvements to production has been discussed at length.  Production is simply too complicated.  In vanilla gc3 to calculate hammers you need to know your (raw production+bonuses) * (raw multipliers) * (wheel split) * (cumulative of racial, planetary, improvements, and adjacency multipliers).  No matter how you tweak that system you will end up with a numerically superior choice which may not be intuitive to the player.  My desire is to abandon the multi-step multipliers.

Simplify the system and simplify the bonus/multipliers.  Make it clear what the choices are so the player is acting strategically on a high level.  Maybe divorce population from social/military construction and make population fundamental to research/income.  A player could build a smog-filled industrial world with minimal population and have specialty planets dedicated to finance/trade/tourism and research filled with people.  That forces a choice that is clear for the player, research or production with lasting repercussions.  The lore can even account for this because the Drengin would just have a slave pit world and the terrans would have a robotic factory world.  Citizens invent and make money. 

I would prefer not to have hardcaps on things.  Morale is a softcap on population if the penalties are harsh enough.  This would force the higher population planets to be higher class because there will be more required infrastructure to house, feed, and satisfy the population. That seems intuitive to me. 

My only other complaint is that there is no effective defense or zone of control.  I can't bottleneck my opponent or control the terrain at all.  Why isn't my military starbase a space castle that the opposing fleet must neutralize instead of flying straight by?  Why can't my planet install defensive weaponry that could bombard an orbiting or passing fleet?  When I completely control a solar system why can anyone just fly straight through?  Why have I mastered interstellar travel but I can't put a ginormous railgun on the moon?

Streamline and clarify the mechanics then we the players get to appreciate the quality of the AI without the obstacle/crutch of the planetary production confusion.

Hello:

I like many of the ideas above, like improving the military starbase more. For one, have the effects it can generate be available right away.

Other suggestions:

- Have stable wormholes. Very important for playing large maps. They can be guarded and fought over

- Have the ability to build a stargate. It starts as one special constructor. Build a stargate at one location. Move the constructor to a new distant point, build the receiving stargate. Travel then can commence from point A to B. 

- Space is boring. Have more mysterious objects or regions in space where weird, powerful, mysterious things can be found or events to occur.

- Have ancient races like the First Ones from Babylon 5 flying around the galaxy

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. - Doug Adams

Space is mind-bogglingly boring, too, lioneljoe.  And any traveller therein prays that it stays that way.