I  usually play with auto launch, but thanks to the planet/ship screen I find this is still happening that still I have colony ships that are still parked at planets. I think this is do to error of mu own. Also this sometimes happen I might be beginning a turn, and your friends want to leave right now, so this leaves me with the option to clear out my Gnn news, and shut down the computer. Later the planet/ship screen is my best option to check out what I missed the side boxes aren't there when I restart and load the game.

I think most will prefer the revise due conomics which are derived from population. Factories and research centers magnify production but they don't generate it unto themselves anymore.  Hence in such a system approval as a population control becomes really problematic IMO.

i think if approval returns it'll be to add a new dynamic (for instance, to expand on the political element of game play where trying to undermine each other's governments become a strategy).  Hence, approval ratigs have too much future potential to be used up as a soft population growth counter.

A good point, I rely on the GNN and notifications a lot. So I try to always save my games at the end of turns as those are goners once you reload.

This sounds very interesting.

I agree I am interested in what is being done with approval. Hope it's better!!!

Better or different, it would be nice to have something to worry about! Because so many people can't always behave properly! They might object to their work going on non-stop in the mines with zero entertainment, while being beaten all the time, for no reason whatsoever!

Not that I would complain getting away with that... But still... it feels a bit too easy. We should at least have a riot now and then. Just because it is the proper form! He he!

Generally speaking, and this is the purpose of the alpha and beta, is to try new things.

We purposely made the founder elite be $99 because we wanted people who were truly committed to the GalCiv series walk through our new ideas.  If the new ideas don't work out in practice, there's plenty of time to change them.

The biggest problem I see with these so-called "early access programs" is that they're not really designed to incorporate player feedback. The whole purpose imo is to get player feedback early.

We're a community. All of us all want the best game we can make.  And here we are talking about it. It's just awesome.

Damn straight it is!

Fate,:beer:

The $99 - I paid it because I knew this game would be good given everything going for it at the time.  

I doubt many of my ideas would get implemented- my theory is to fire off as many shots as possible, and let the devs figure out what works. 

I wonder if this was the idea behind Planetary Annihilation - though I haven't messed with that much (and promising expansions/DLCs for free for the $99 folks was a great way to do it better- even if it likely cost you a bit of long-term money)

Well, if your idea gives devs a new way for something then your idea would be implemented.

I doubt any of us could produce such a gem that it would miraculously slip into GC3 without any adjustments.

Did not hesitate long myself either before putting my money on the table either. I am just glad at least one developer is still making games while thinking customers. Been burned few times rather badly.

There are plenty of good devs out there- they just get overshadowed by the bad ones.

Folks like Lab Zero deserve respect as well.

Just one thing the ideas you throw out make sure they improve the game. Please don't throw out ideas for the sake of ideas, but make sure they will improve the game. If it is an idea you don't know about that would be one thing. If it was an idea that you knew wasn't good, but you couldn't think of anything good then I hope you don't do that. But if you have good ideas then I would like to hear them.

Frogboy, yeah, I hope approval makes it back! 

I really think that dumping it totally is a big mistake. It pretty much hurts the immersion, after all...

There are two innovative solutions, mentioned somewhere earlier:

- Approval as a part of influence. You set high taxes, have autocratic government etc.? You will start to loose grip on your colonies.

- Approval in a BOTF style - rather than current rate, think of it as a pool (for every planet and empire), that slowly recovers over time. And you have events that both add and take away. Examples: Every time your empire loses a battle, you loose small amount of approval. For peace loving races, going to (declaring) war creates a big approval hit. For warmongers going after peace. Random events. Etc.

Of course there are modifiers that affact the everyturn recovery of approval, like taxes, technology, occupation armies, buildings etc. Going under certain level = rebellion.

Yeah, and mainly the fact that you actually LISTEN to us is awesome!

As of current early access concept (apart from SD and few other companies), in most cases it is actually consumer bait and it will come under significant pressure soon.

  to you! (and 2fate as well :))

Having a complex economy and colony management system makes the game better.  Simply trying to build the biggest most numerous fleets is to linear.   

If  a race that could research faster and have more efficient manufacturing or better combat ships with a smaller population than one that simply spams colony ships and then mass quantity ships, that would add depth to strategy and more planning.   

I'm not sure how the lack of approval will affect colony management tho,  it did add a layer of depth to the mass quantity theory of victory.

That's exactly what approval should do. Approval as the population cap was kind of silly, since it essentially meant that you just didn't build farms past a certain point, because god help you if you put a high tier farm on a really big food bonus tile. I mean, if approval is the population limiting thing, what is food doing? One of these two things is redundant.

Approval can be so much more, now that the game also has an ideology system. Is your empire built entirely upon the ideal that you're a superior race and everyone else is food? Then why are you making peace with everybody? That's degrading to your people's traditions, and they are not going to just sit back and cheer for it. The Terrans OTOH probably would.

Enemies can plant spies to do propaganda campaigns to lower approval. Capturing other races planets could result in negative approval there if they don't like you, until you can win them over (or eat them, as the case may be...).

There's a lot of ways to use approval based on ideologies and what you're doing in the game, beyond a simple cap on population. (You could get that by making farms have diminishing returns instead.)

Cheers!