I also agree we need more buildings requiring resources. I like the black market idea. I would like to see better diplomacy.

How about a subterfuge option for our spies funding pirates to attack a particular CIV. We dont need to control it, just fund it.

Evil races could allow pirates to operate from their "dead" class 0 planets. Why wouldn't evil be in league with pirates?

Could be put into your Pirates DLC.

Previously I mentioned that I wanted a simplification of the bonus/adjacency/production system because it is needlessly difficult creating a trap to AI and new players. I recognize this is probably not going to happen because it would present yet another dramatic change of mechanics.

Realistic stuff I would like to see.

1. Tweek/balance planet invasions.  A transport with 3B population can conquer 10B without much fuss even when the invasion screen numbers suggest otherwise.  It just feels like something is wrong with this.

2. Research production rollover.  When research is complete I believe all excess research is lost.  This makes me unhappy.  Planetary production rollover would be nice but less irksome to me.

3. Increased diplomatic options.  Every game I play just turns into conquest.  If I don't have one of the largest fleets then some AI declares war on me.  If I have the largest fleet then I should be utilizing it for more than just deterrence.  I can't cultivate any meaningful alliance that will last.  The AI pretty much just dogpiles the weakest civ over and over.  In a game like Europa Universalis there is a lot that a player can do to cultivate friendships and alliances which allows for a wider style of play.

4.  Starbase and planetary strategic zone of control.  A mechanic so that a starbase/planet, appropriately upgraded, can restrict an opponents fleet from moving past it without engaging the starbase in battle.  Initially a 1 hex adjacent zone of control for military starbases would provide the player with a large range of strategic options.  Interceptor drones could upgrade 1 additional hex.  Military starbases should only be buildable in your own influence controlled space or in neutral space.  This is a strategy game after all.

5.  Planets should always be automatically equipped with a full sensor package which upgrades automatically.  It is silly that a small ship with sensors should be able to lift the fog of war better than an entire planet.

Last I checked planetary production rollover is allready a thing, hover your mouse over the empty space in the build queue and you get a tooltip. Shipyard production rollover is also a thing, no tooltip though. Research rollover I believe exists, too, but the UI doesn't communicate this well. What's confusing about research rollover, is that you can't use it up immediately (different from ideology research points), but it is used when you are ending your turn.

No, research points roll just like production points, but there is no tool tip to see it

Guess that just wasn't obvious to me but I am glad to hear (or I was just being dense about it).  Is there a limit to the research rollover?  

I don't think there is, but it's hard to diagnose.

Something that Exula said in his exulant first post prompted me to mention something that kinda bugs me.  In GC2 you could see the relations between civs.  I found it important for playing the diplomacy game.  This is almost entirely hidden in GC3.  It shocked me to learn, when I wanted Altarian to attack Yor, that the blue guys really admired the psychotic bots.  It would be nice to have some place to centralize this info, with maybe an espionage-like report describing some of the particulars (like, they are trading; like, they have similar sexual appetites).

And there's a long history of "active" minors in GC2, mostly in mods.  maiden666's Future Worlds has done an excellent job of giving them their own tech tree, though much of that is in service of Trade Goods which don't exist in GC3.  IIRC, Tolmekian offered several variations on active minors, including letting them colonize - a very interesting facet indeed.

At present, minors are useful as annoyances, always nagging me to attack the civ that's bullying them, and as trade partners when the rest of the universe hates you.  Not much else past the early game.

 

 

Given the mounds of research I get in some of my empires, I can force some Research build up and rollover by taking one tech at a time, then let it cue up along a branch of one tech type.  I can then accumulate enough Research to completely fill up a previously untouched tech branch in one turn.  Easy in late game.  For example, I can leave the espionage tree alone then fill it all at once.  If there is a limit to the rollover, it is big enough not to matter, even in extreme usages like mine.

I tried to do this at small scale when I first tested it out and concluded that rollover wasn't happening.  Obviously my conclusion was faulty and I must have been doing something incorrect.

Thanks for letting me know just how mistaken I was!

>Research rollover is a thing. 

>I like the idea of planets getting auto sensor upgrades. I mean, really... 

>About diplomacy: I don't agree that the AI is all a bunch of warmongers. I find it possible to make friends in this game. Of course, you can't make friends with everyone in a single game, some of the races will be warmongers, and that's okay. I don't want the Drengin to sit there and watch me, as the Altarians, tech to a science victory with no fleet to defend myself. That's super boring. Unless I've made someone an ally, they really should be keen on attacking me if I'm defenseless, the AI should be opportunistic. Even the concept of an alliance is roleplaying and it's an AI that is not playing to win, but I think that is okay when it is a challenge and takes a lot of work to make someone an ally. Other than that one exception, I think the AI should be playing to win, and I know a lot of people feel the same way as I do - they want a challenge. This notion that most players are lazy and just want to win the game and don't want to be challenged is simply false. I'll prove it to you. Look at the sales of Xcom. Nuff said. 

Well i dont like the idea of less different kinds of improvements. 

Now as far as the base game. I thought it is great. That doesnt mean i didnt think the economy couldnt be fixed. It just got to some point your money would fet used up with stuff. Im not happy with low adjancencies. The yor needed help in the beginning. I still didnt like what they did to the yor hub. I still would prefer the planetary wheel on planets. I didnt like coercion it ruined the wheel. I didnt like administrators. So no its not like i pretend this never existed.

Ugh. I'm dying to tell you about what's coming in the next expansion pack! Some of you guys are going to loovvvve it I think.

Just my 2 cents here. 

 

I am a long time fan of stardock and galvic. I have been playing your games for years and loving it. I got burned out on playing galciv though around the time mercenaries came out. I started playing stellaris after that and really liked that game. Just a week or so ago I pulled up galciv to play again and was really lost. I felt it was a completely different game than what I remembered. It may be just that people tend to not like change but it really turned me off. I played for a few hours and have not gone back to it yet. Based on this single experience I would not buy crusade at this time. I am not saying crusade is bad i'm just giving my honest first impression. If I go back and play it more I may find that I really like the changes made and change my mind. 

I totally agree with an earlier poster that said you should have made this galciv 3.5 and sold it as a different sku. That way I could go back and play the game I loved and also try out the new systems in a new game. 

I also miss the dev videos that paul and the team used to do going over the design decisions. I really looked forward to the videos during production and it helped me understand the decisions that were going on in making the game. 

 

Humph. I'm dying to know, lol.