Crusade: What should go into the base game?

I disagree with this one, I don't think it would be that much trouble to add a button to access the Ship Designer outside a game.

I think all these should be added, especially #1 and #4.

Crusade is way better imo. Much more interesting to play and unlikely I would go back to vanilla.

I'd vote to port back what ever features makes future dev of the game easier and less prone to bugs. I guess people who prefer vanilla over crusade (do they exist?) would have a better idea of what should be consolidated.

I very much agree that Crusade is the best Galciv game ever, and even better than Stellaris in some respects (which is really saying a lot).

I would think that if you brought Multicore AI and the Multiplayer enhancements into the base game, then those would make the base game just that much better, yet still leaving enough of stuff in the expansion to warrant (maybe even mandate) a purchase for anyone interested in the game.

Cheers from Asmodean

I've seen the argument made that diplo needs to be further updated for base game. Its looks to me that diplomacy in Crusade is tied to systems like citizens, so how you would go about it,. I don't know.

Multicore AI and MP enhancements would be good to add. Although, do a lot of people play multiplayer?

Within this should be more sorting of item lists. The one I find most necessary is the inclusion in the GOTO ship option of unowned planets with sort capabilities for planet quality and distance from the selected ship (and not just ships with a colonization component).

On GC2 I used just about every sort that was available and I find the loss of those sort capabilities increasing the management time of my game play difficult.

I too am unlikely to go back to the old ways.  I have a full time job so I can only explore the game a couple of hours on two or three nights each week and for some more hours on weekends.  It will be months before I reach anything resembling a "level of expertise" with the Crusade elements.

I liked GC3, but I think I like Crusade an order of magnitude more.  At the same time, with SO many HUGE changes in the underlying mathematics, I feel lucky that I'm not angry with Crusade.  Coming from me, that says a lot, and it's actually a GOOD thing for this game.  I find the game interesting and incredibly complex underneath, with many many layers.  It feels rich and realistic and yet it does what it can to reduce everyday pedantry and fussiness.  As the saying goes, "life is 5% joy, 5% agony, and 90% maintenance." Well, if this was like doing laundry or painting my house, l wouldn't play it.

On big sparse maps, the realism fascinates and intrigues me and it makes me want to keep exploring the new dynamics by playing it rather than sitting down and calculating the best order of manufacturing, research, or financial improvements.  Even when I'm falling asleep at the controls, I still want to keep learning more about how it works BY PLAYING IT.  Yes, even though that requires attention and learning.

I'm sure Crusade has raised GC3 to a level that is much better than anything that could possibly be on television (got rid of TV a couple years ago and don't miss it anyway), and I'm not even playing any mods or multiplayer!

As for what features go into which part, I'm not sure I have a strong feeling one way or another.  I think Brad's 3 category lists are a good start.

It's pretty cool that work is being done to port some of Crusade's features into the base game. Not many companies would do something that considerate. But I feel it's a bit premature right now. There are some features in Crusade that are functioning well and are valid topics in the conversation of what should be ported, but I feel there is still plenty of polishing and bug fixing left in Crusade before it will shine as it was meant to, and that warrants more attention instead of what should be ported. While many of the things that need to be fixed are bugs that will be fixed in time, it's best not to put the cart before the horse. I know nothing about the schedule of the developer team and what their projects or priorities are, but when the bugs extend to simple things like spelling mistakes in tech, it seems more prudent to tackle the project of identifying things like that for fixing instead of figuring out what should be ported to previous versions of the game. Again, I think that porting features is awesome and I'm glad its being done, but it would make more sense to focus on getting Crusade up to full speed before looking back at previous Gal Civ versions and adding features to them.

@Frogboy, Well, I'm biased too, I've been along for the ride since OS/2 and I have to agree with you wholeheartedly, Crusade is the best version of all the versions I've played. I'm embarrassed to say, but I have over 3000 hours invested in GC3 and since I got to play with Crusade the intensity of the time I've spent has gone up. I hate to tell you but my wife doesn't like you very much Brad...

Out of the 5 features you're on the fence about, you can't go wrong adding them all but if you must limit how many, for whatever reason, then IMHO I would think #2 and #5 are the most important for the majority of players out there. You just have to add the flavor text additions, some of them are just priceless!

Once again, congrats to you and the team on Crusade!

Hey guys.  Man, I must say, making this game for you guys is its own reward.

I think we should probably find out how many Crusade players would even want to go back to the base game.

But I agree with most of the thoughts here.  Some of it, however, is a pure time issue.  How much improvement to Crusade are you willing to forfeit for the base game to get more features?

That is, the budget is the budget.  

I'm pretty biased here, but I think Crusade should be the focus. S'far as I'm concerned it is the definitive version of the game -- one which I can see myself playing for a quite a long time. I also think that the more support and attention you throw at it and keep the ball rolling, the more people will take take to it. I've noticed Crusade bringing new people in and it's getting a good response from many of the influencers in the community. 

But again, I'm pretty biased. I want the new direction to succeed and lay the ground work for more content and another expansion

---Duplicate post---

Ah, I'm with TheFunMachine here, I honestly don't see myself going back to the base game. So based on what you said above, I'm going to be selfish then and say just focus on Crusade as much as possible. With each expansion/improvement that happened to GC2 I pretty much ended up abandoning the previous version...

Frogboy,

Category 1:  

External ship designer I feel should be back ported to the base game as takes time away from the general game play and allows the player to create their ships outside of starting the game, it's just a convenience issue and many have felt it should have been there since the beginning.

All others I am in complete agreement with you.

 Category 2:  

Multicore AI -  This should improve the base game experience and for anyone who just purchases the game may improve their rating of the game.

Multiplayer Enhancements - Same as above would improve game play without "adding" features to the game at no cost for the enjoyment of the game.

All others don't see a huge up side to the base game and therefore I don't see the value in the effort to apply those changes.

Category 3:

Bug fixes - give me, hopefully squish as many bugs as can be seen

General AI Improvements - This goes along with the Category 2 (Multicore AI), if this is in that should be too...

Performance Updates - Always good to help improve the overall game

Graphic Updates - (Not huge for me), however, others may like this.

Balance Fixes - Never really had an issue with this, the random start in random generated maps has the largest pull on balance of the game therefore I feel that was okay.

Quality of Life - Don't really know what this means therefore I'd need more information to weigh in on this.

Apart from the above I would love to see some improvements to the MP game (once the Crusade bugs to MP are fixed and one is able to play MP again.) such as the follows

Bring Mega Events in (maybe just disable ones that would throw off the balance of the game giving one player over the other a huge advantage) keep the ideology events.

Find alternative ways if the above is not included of gaining ideology points throughout the game to allow for a similar feeling to the SP game.

As well as many other MP options to allow for a quicker or time moving game to move toward tournaments.

Thank you.

Principally you could port back everything that doesn't change the base gameplay for the people who don't like the Crusade approach. How mauch effort you put into that depends economically on how much people still play and prefer the base game and whether you will produce DLCs in the future that also enhance the experience of the base game players.

But egoistically I'd say don't sacrifice resources for the base game that could otherwise go into Crusade  

Being a True Neutral (RPG Term), is probably reserved for the artificial realm. I consider it not to be very human. No going back now, the ship has left the shores!

Anything above the MAINTENANCE level, is a bonus!   

To answer the question: 

cat 2 multiplayer and AI improvements are the only meaningful ones. There'll be like one guy who cares about flavour text don't waste time on it.

Crusade needs more love than the base game right now.

That is why the base is rated mostly positive and crusade is mixed.

Honestly I think the most biggest problem with this, "expansion pack" is that it is less of an expansion and more of a redesign of sorts.

I don't think it fixes the pacing anyways, the early is game is now a grind.

It constricts my decisions, colony ship and pragmatic constructors (to skip grinding).

I do that every game now. 

I really need an option to basically remove the new tech tree and tech traits out of crusade.

Crusade has missed an important middle ground and for me is retracting from the base game. 

I seldom post, and I haven't played much lately. After screwing around with crusade an hour, this looks great. Been more busy on twitter attacking Capitalism for its flaws and pumping up economically left positions (like Universal Basic Income).

If this is the future of GC3 - crusade - I say stick with it. Impressive to say the least.

I will argue that the external ship designer and the multi-core AI should be present in the base game....I believe that the AI and the ability to customize ships are 2 of the most core elements of the galactic civilizations franchise, and as such I think improvements to them should not be locked under any type of DLC...that being said, I don't know how much work it would take to backport those things so I'm understanding of your choice either way....

Everything else in category 1 and 2 I'm fine with being exclusive to Crusade...

Back porting can be a pain to do. You have put considerable effort into Crusade and made it a big departure from the base game. It really is more like a GC4 than a GC3. Some of the improvements you have in mind may back port with little or no effort, and maybe the back porting of them should be attempted. But IMHO this should only be on a case by case basis, not generally.

Working on two versions of Galciv wouldn't, imo, be as satisfying to anyone as much as focusing on making one the definitive experience. Galciv 3 can already stand on its own and had a good run. Work on Crusade should be the exclusive priority

I am not going back to the base game from Crusade. Therefore, from my POV, back-port as little as possible (bugfixes, etc).

In reguards to what should be ported, please consider that a more positive first impression of someone new to the series will mean they are more likely to pick up DLC and review well.

Now the itty gritty:

Multicore AI
This is needed less than most people give it credit for 'if' it takes a lot of resources to back port - then don't

Flavor Text additions
Makes the world more appealing and interesting, just throw it at the base game  it's never going to be a reason people buy a DLC

Word on the Street
This although in a similar position to flavour text, I would not put it in as not only is it listed as a featrue of crusade, it fits in with the citizen based play-style for the same reasons

Multiplayer Enhancements
Just yes, if you ever hope you want miltiplayer to take off in a bigger way this needs to be in the base

New Influence System
I'm on the fence with this, if the old one was problematic then yeh, if not, seems like a waste of recources

Most important task for both games ...

1.) MP ALL doing their turns at the same time ... ALL AI and humans 
and a time limit depending, how many planets are in the game of course you could turn that off optional.

2.) Custom Civs at least for the human players ...  

____________________________________________________

Without MP Stardock would only have sold me a version, now brother and friend also bought the complete gold version, but dislike me now, because that two points are missing :-/

5. New Influence System

Is new influence system going to be a currency? I posted something about one week ago.

"Influence as a currency-influence generated by planets and starbases are now used for diplomacy options such as tech trading, treaties, and declaring war, etc. With some treaties requiring influence maintenance. Civilizations can trade and conduct diplomacy with each other anytime instead of waiting X amount of turns. Players must now make the decision on what to use the influence points on. No more civilization A meeting B, C and D early game and immediately trading 30 techs between the four civilizations, higher techs required much more influence to trade. Influence points can also be used to affect the United Planets. I usually skip influence structures in my games, this change would make influence structures and starbases more useful."

4. Quality of life improvements

A. Ideology screen- Icons added to ideology screen. If mousing over icons, it shows the stats of the structures. Similar to icons on planet tiles with resources if players mouse over them. Allows players to see the stats of structures before hand.

B. War score: After war starts, points are rewarded for ships destroy, planets capture, legions of troops kill, etc. Civilizations are more likely to accept peace if their war score is low, or they could ask for help. Keeps individual and team war scores, players can see previous scores.

C. Event log-I really missed the event log from GC2. "The X civilization colonized planet X in year X (turn 10)"

"X civilization declared war on the x civilization in year X (turn 50)

D. Auto renaming of starbase- if you upgrade or change a starbase to a specific type of starbase, the naming will automatically change to that type.

Ex. "General Starbase Earth 123456" name will change to "Mil Starbase Earth 123456" if you upgrade it to be a military starbase.

E. Black market: Civilizations can buy, sell or trade resources from the black market. Number of resources available depends on how much other civilizations have sold. Can "Order" or "Fill Order" Players sometimes run out of resources too often.

F. Colony Capital Relocation-This has long frustrated me since the beginning. When colonizing a new planet it puts the capital in a random location instead of asking where to put it.

G. "A better tech tree interface/UI - Similar to Endless Space/Endless Legend or Civilization: Beyond Earth. Their tech tree is a web going in four directions, left, right, up and down, that means you get to see all techs on the same screen at once, no more clicking/scrolling back and forth between screens in each tech category. Players can zoom out and zoom in, filter by tech, name, search, queue research, etc. The tech interface in GC3 might be good 10 years ago for GC2."

I really hate the outdated tech UI/interface after playing other 4x games. Posted back in April 2015.

No plans going back from Crusade.   Imo just do w/e is easiest. The players who hate crusade will probably not hang around long even if a ton of work is put into gc3 and if they like og GC3 so much to quit Crusade the base game is fine for them anyways.

I just had no idea there was soo much Crusade hate to justify so many dev posts so my guess, and i hope i am wrong, that they have some internal #s about Crusade that has them spooked?

Hopefully this title still gets some updates dlc etc to keep it polished and fix anything that isn't where they want it.  Would love to see more mod support.