you can't win wars by just bombing the hell out of it. it did not work on the germans its not going to work in the game.

Eh, blowing up the star system trumps any sort of orbital bombardment.

If you want the planet though, play with the Super Annihilator ability and send a spore ship in. It technically bombards the planet with a organism that kills off all life, terraforming it into a toxic planet and then the ship lands and re-colonizes.

Now that's a swell idea that *sounds* like it should not burden the coders or game engine.



If there is in GC2, it is a well-kept secret. Maybe you're remembering GC1, which had an automation command that would keep a ship cruising around a single sector?

But I'm really posting b/c I'm having some play time and have just remembered something I've wanted to see for a long time in the click-conservation category: Change the Planet/Ship List so that when you sort by Ship Building or Project Building, the Nothing entries are all clustered at the top or bottom instead of in alphabetical order.

No, I may be thinking of WC3 though...lol I'll have a gander when I get home to see if I'm just smoking something and thinking of another game as you said.

Probably true, as long as they make it look at the miner's top speed, not the 1 it has while in the asteroid field it just finished.

I thought it already did this?

Yup, I was thinking about some other game...

You might be confusing the Civ Manager (full-screen) with the mini-list (sidebar).

You're right, I am thinking of the civ manager. I can honestly say I've never used that sort on the mini-list.

More or less everything which is already mentioned in the Please Slam My Game thread... plus some of this;

ShipYard;
- Would allow us to pick a texture map of any given race or ships, clip & paste a region and simply drop the intended graphics on the mesh polygons while being dynamically adapted and resized to fit. Better even than Spore's creature creator, in fact.
- Selected structures (to be attached) would have a hard-point in focus and visually available to us (in a secondary popup, camera included) to freeze it for later use.
- Green or Blue (..) arrows alternatives to the default Reds.
- Yaws (etc) cue balls would be twice as big to precisely detect the current angles.
- Resizer would also need to be wider or give numeral cues to pin-point at 25% rather than some horizontal lines 1/4 to the left hovering above a semi-transparent kinda rule which is never exactly on the cusp.
- Replace a component from within already attached framework instead of a warning box stating i must start all over again with everything done over the last 15 minutes or so.

Editors;
- Compatible with DA.
- Spreadsheets are absolutely essential in the map one.
- Custom planets loadable and configurable.
- Add a new 'Race config editing asset' from a pool of either mod(s) located resources or using similar functions as the current 'Create opponents' principle & options.

Gameplay;
- Stun me with a real Espionage system.
- Constructors automation.

Maps;
- Break the sector only rule by allowing irregular placement limits of anything assuming the grid themselves can maintain pathways & reasonable distances between dropped objects.
- Fill the immense surroundings loop void.

Planets;
- A 'Details' popup for them along with the corresponding 'Intelligence report' button and spinning screens which could also be considered for Espionage integration features.
- Queries = Tile names... annoying flaw fixed for good.
- More Terraforming enhance levels than just three.
- Colonize extremes at integer ratios instead of rigid percentages steps, include the enhancement potential calculations while you're into this.
- Underground, surface, atmospheric, orbital... either as the standard 12x6 (yep, 4 times 72 is actually equal to a whopping 288 available tiles, to each his own domain and potential!) squares grids or as triangular (indirect hexas) based connectivity.

And, 3D space using three layers.

That is ALL i ask for.

freeman in post 51:

you know, bombing the hell out of everything may not win wars, but a few well placed nuclear weapon strikes, or a big asteroid do a lot more damage that bombs. planetary bombardment is a good idea.

my thoughts

since at the end of the tech tree, your ships can fire black holes and doom rays anyways, why can't I destroy entire planets. the spore ship is nice and all, but shouldn't that ship with 200+ beam attack be able to turn the planet into a barren rock? maybe I could swallow the whole planet with a black hole? (evil is kinda my thing)

Because you can destroy whole star systems instead   

Miner automation has to be the number one annoyance for me - so much so, that I just don't use them at all anymore. Nice idea, generally well implemented, but completely ruined by the lack of a viable automation process.

what about those annoying AI colonized class one and two planets that I'd just rather blow up than pay the maintenance and defense costs for? then blowing up the star isn't an option.

Are you mad?  :NOTSURE: Those PQ 1 & 2 planets terraform into anything from a 13 to 19.

If you really must, you can easily destroy any colony you own from the colony screen after taking it.

But but...those planets turn into tasty asteroid fields after you blow up a star. I think the coined term was "Terrorforming".

Well, the point behind orbital bombing is more in line of what's going on. You're bombing them in the first place when you invade. What if you want to destroy their infrastructure but not commit the troops? If we want to use WWII analogies, the Allies did that to the Axis with some moderate success. Sure, the factories & such could be & were rebuilt, but that meant the consuption of resources & time that could have otherwise gone toward tanks, planes, ships, bombs, guns, etc. Same idea - I want to smack some lippy alien down but I don't want to take over their planet. I want to crush their economy & make them rethink their attitude toward me. I'd fully expect the AI to be able to do the same thing to me (not that I'd not swear a lot when it'd happen! And I usually don't want to destroy a colony I own, because that ruins the planet forever. I'd like to maybe consider colonizing it later when my economy can support it or I need it strategically or I'm just being a jerk to the AI & colonizing anything that I can to deny them the chance... :>

As far as orbital blockades, parking ships all around the planet can be fun, but that's not what I want. I want the blockade to reduce the planet's economy. Mining bases no longer are able to beam resources to the planet, morale plunges, population declines, etc. Same kinda of idea as the oribital bombardment, but less destructive. They're both - in my mind - means of flexing muscle without making much more of a committment that the fleet(s) you might already have. Furthermore, both should have the chance to blow up in your face - allies of the blockaded/bombed planet's civilization should come running & all sorts of other diplomatic things. The UP might get involved. For that matter, there could be some of these events added as UP issues (a la modern-day Iran, North Korea, what-ever.): "So-and-so is rumored to be building a Terror Star. The UP has decided to impose an economic sanction on them by blockading X planets. How many planets to you feel should be blockaded for the next 3 years?" or something like that.

I'm just looking at this as more options for the players & AI to utilize. The biggest problem I have with the current system is the absolute requirement of having a troop transport to invade. Those troopers were once civilians laboring happily (more or less) under my autocratic rule & making the Empire money & goods. When they're cooped up on a transport, they're not doing me a whole lot of good until after they've successfully invaded something & have pounded their swords back into plowshares. I guess, then end run is I'd like to be able to inflict economic damage on my opponents without incurring too much of an economic cost to myself. I could add a petulant whine about MOO2 letting me do that, but... (guess I did anyways... )

To me, the hallmark of an excellent game is the amount of feedback it generates. A lot of these ideas, sometimes a bit grouchy-sounding in tone, are still the result of individuals being genuinely engaged with the game. Personally, I'm excited at being able to have some level of participation in shaping the direction of the game, even if none of my suggestions are even considered. Just being able to participate in such discussions makes the game more worthwhile in my mind because there *are* so many engaged individuals.

Happy Day! I found out that my wife is going up north with friends for the weekend! I love her dearly, which I'm sure I'll remember when I finally log-off my marathon game session sometime Sunday night! Shooting for 48 straight hours! Yay me! (Truthfully, I'll be lucky to hit 12 before I fall asleep & drool into my keyboard. Sigh... So much for getting older...)

I would like to be able to determine a planet's position from its colony management screen.

After a colony has its first 2 factories, I decide whether it will focus on military, research, or economy. As things are now, after my 2nd factory is completed, I have to close a planet's colony management screen, open the civilization management screen, find the planet whose destiny I'm about to decide, click on it in the civilization management screen, close the civilization management screen, double click on the planet whose destiny I'm about to decide, click on an empty tile, and finally double click on the building I've decided to build; a total of 9 clicks.

In my current game, I have 121 planets. 121 x 9 = 1089 clicks.

A very hearty second for that. At the very least, it seems like we should have the same "center on planet" functionality that applies to your selection in the master Colonies list.

In addition to the major infrastructure-building overhead Glideslope describes, this situation also affects new starbases. If a new starbase is deep in my territory, I'm likely to dedicate it to constructors. But if it is a frontier area, or one of those wild outliers tucked in the back waters of another civ, warships might be the better choice.

Clicks? Yep, that is in fact yet another second to none priority over reducing some micman principles as much as possible. But still, building just a single mining starbase (or as stated above for the asteroids productivity patterns) takes a heckofachunk off my planning thoughts by enforcing me into complex navigation through a maze of multiple screens.
Not far from a Governor type, even Researching techno pathways (or pre-determined sequences) could use such kind of automations.

I'd kill to be able to launch ships from the Colony Management screen. I can change what all my colonies are building, why can't I just launch from there instead of going through four screens per planet?

That's a good one, you get the shield symbol indicating ships in orbit - so why not make it clickable to launch.

Another vote for this, and for something that has been mentioned in the past... more keyboard please! Give us a keyboard shortcut for all common buttons (such as "Buy", or "Accept" etc).
Alternatively, user definable hotkeys.

Feature: when you click on a Rally Point, it would list which colonies are sending ships to it. Clicking on the colony name would bring you to that colony in the galaxy window where you could do normal Rally Point stuff.

that will be a genicide run and stardock has said before they don't whant that

pet peave request -

Objective- When a civ "gifts" ships to another civ, have those ships warp to the nearest planet of the recieving civ, which is then reset as the ships "home" planet.

The reason for this is when the AI is given ships, most of the time it unfortunately does nothing with them or sends them on a futile cross map voyage, or in the case of when the player is gifted, the ships are so far out of the current theater of war that the only real use for them is decommission. I'm unsure obviously, but i'd guess part of the issue might be in the way the AI handles "out of range" - a help here for the AI would be some form of "if this ship takes more time to reach point XYZ then it takes to build, and is of foriegn design, decommision"

This could also be done for when planets are purchased/surrendered via diplomacy as well - move the current inhabating ships to the nearest owned world and reset as "home" thereafter.

Conclusion -Over all - i think this seemingly innocuous bit of change would enhance the benifit of the gifting/exchange options in game. Planetary fleets would no longer attempt to guard a planet unowned while gifted ships can be acctually used as the force multiplier they were intended to be, regardless if they turn out to just be defenders with a 2 speed rating.

a secondary reqeust would be some option to lessen ship range in regards to the larger map sizes. For referance, load up a small galaxy map, take a look at your survey ship's range, then do likewise for an immense map. - Range seems to be based on a percentage of map size, id like to see that percentage lowered on larger maps, which in turn would slow over all game play, cut down the AI's options in regards to war time decisions, therefore allowing it to make better ones, and gennerally allowing the larger map sizes to feel more "epic".

Is this a normal occurance? I have never been givin a ship...just cash. I do tend to play small or tiny maps. Would that affect it?

Indirectly, perhaps. AIs tend to give ships to you to aid in a war against someone they don't like. If your wars don't last very long or there's only a couple AIs in the game, you likely won't see this.