Just repeating myself, but make the ship designer more than just cosmetic.    Steal from something like Gratuitous Space Battles and allow us to designate  behaviors of ships in battle.  

Also make every part have some functionality.    I don't want or need tactical combat...  this game isn't about that and I am glad you have never tried to force it in, but combat should be more than just the current "All ships rush in at maximum speed and then go pew pew pew with their rock/paper/scissors weapons vs armor combos."

if this was going to be realistic then I would say the has to be a chance of failure. 

not just cutscenes, but most reading could use more in galactic civilizations. Techs...

the ship designer I always felt was superior in galactic civilizations vs. endless space. 

I hope as far as blind research stardock would make that an option I could shut off. I two not the ultimate, but I think in dark avatar. They had creativity where you could get random techs you could not research. They should bring back that ability. They replaced that creativity where it would have you finishing the research of the current tech. 

i agree that three was a little stake next to two in this area. 

yes make a native Linux version please. 

Since the topic "combat improvement" has already been discussed (my 2 cents, a tactical mode would be too beautiful but also too difficult to implement), I'll go with my wishlist for another topic that I really enjoyed in GalCiv3, the Ship Designer:

 

1) first, standardize the textures among the various shipsets; it was a real pain to find the perfect part for the ship you were building and being unable to use it because its textures made it stick out from the rest of the hull like a punch in the face;

2) add more single color parts. Add also plain forms (plain cubes, cilinders, pyramids and so on) which can easily be mixed with the other parts to obtain particular shapes;

3) aside from simple strips, there are really few light parts, so you should add more with various shapes (like a ring of light that can be use for hypergates or the spheres of light used for GalCiv3 Relics);

4) a big improvement could be the possibility to add pauses during the animations of a piece (for example, making a piece turning to the right 30°, then pause for a second, then turning back to the left).

 

So far, these are the first things that come to my mind, maybe later I'll find something else.

However, speaking of combat, there's something I want to say: if I got right the "Map of maps" feature, the new game map will see the various star systems grouped into star sectors, which will be linked by star lanes for travel. If so, this would give a new purpose to the Military Starbases, as you can build them at the end of a star lane to create a choke point if you're at war with another sector (before they can enter your territory they need to destroy your space fortress).

On the note of Alpha Centauri, thinker mod (improved ai) is really awesome, Alpha Centauri fans should go try it.

One thing I note that Alpha Centauri really did well, is it managed to give lines to its characters, and have them say things. That's a field that most 4X doesn't do well, and results in sort of pale cultures with empty characters. Santiago discussing how she was going to create the next generation by mass cloning all the greatest members of the previous, Yang's declaration that those unable to feel pain or boredom or other unpleasant emotions cannot possibly be oppressed, Zakharov's final stand against the power of an alien god- all of these were epic plot moments, but also epic moments of character.

Oh, and I'm also on Linux. It feels like the population is strangely high here? Are Linux users just vocal, or do we like 4X? I generally don't advise companies to really support Linux, given that the statistics I've seen is that we're vanishingly rare, and wine generally does its job anyway. But Linux support is always a good thing. Even unofficial support, aka, trying it out on wine and seeing if there's a problem, would be cool.

For me, I'd say less reliance on mining.

One of my issues with recent strategy games - and one reason why I've played them a lot less - is because they're starting to feel like mining simulators. Like, I respect Stellaris for many reasons, but I've never actually finished a game. Partly that's because I feel like they've made it over complicated, but partly it's because I feel like I spend all of my time building mines and waiting for resources to come in so I can actually do something.

I want to spend more time exploring, expanding and building critical infrastructure. Mining resources on the map should give me bonuses to production, science, etc, but shouldn't be necessary to build or do anything. Further, I feel like, at least with certain kinds of societies, these mines should happen automatically if the resources are in my territory and I set up certain basic infrastructure. Like, if I'm playing a race with a private sector, all I should need to do is make sure the resources are in my territory and within range of a star base or a settled planet, and Big Al's Mining Company will go out on their own and set up a mine. At that point, all I should need to do is make sure there's a large enough navy to keep Big Al's ore haulers from getting pirated.

About combat, I think it could be a good idea to take some pages from "Battlefleet Gothic: Armada": give the player the possibility to choose the fleet's initial deployment formation, then choose the ships' direction (as a group or individually). The ships then will lock on and engage the first enemy ship that enters their weaponry's attack range.

This will allow to keep the classic GalCiv triangle, both offensively

 

- Missile will be the first to engage (longest range but weakest damage)

- Beam will be second (medium range and damage)

- Kinetic will be last (shortest range but highest damage)

 

and defensively

 

- Point Defense (strong vs Missile, neutral vs Kinetic, weak vs Beam)

- Shields (strong vs beam, neutral vs Missile, weak vs Kinetic)

- Armor Plates (strong vs Kinetic, neutral vs Beam, weak vs Missile)

 

but also will give some tactical option to the player: for example, he can send the main force to attack head on and move around a small group to flank the enemy or hide a group in a nebula or behind asteroid to perform an ambush.

 

I think it sounds like the team is sharing your perspective on this issue.  Brad mentioned in an interview (I think it was) that he didn't like the GC3 mining mechanic of having to upgrade your 137 starbases 50 times each - going through lists and lists of things and clicking "upgrade" over and over again. 

It sounds like (again, none of this information is solid by any means) they're looking more along the lines of the model you're proposing where you get some new mining tech, then just upgrade all of your mines once (like some better mining technology becomes available and the people running the mines just start using it).

We'll see though, but I think the tedious tasks (such as mining) are looking to be deemphasized..

For the asteroid mining I really would love to see the return of the mining ship that went out and built the asteroid mines...  that was SOOO  much better.

Starbases could also be automatically upgraded with maintenance ships or such...

I personally found the ship designer to be one of the best parts of Gal Civ ( I know I'm in the minority).  After taking time to learn it, it was actually pretty intuitive.  I like to make a MK I version of a ship that is fairly simplistic and by MK V it looks fully fleshed out.  This allows me to create narratives about the evolution of particular ship classes.

My wish is they magically finish IV by July.

Now back to reality.

LOL

I hear you, but I must say that I am looking forward to the alpha and the chance to actually help to forge this game. 

I would prefer that they took as much time as they needed to make this the best game possible (although I do understand that budget restraints will tend to push in the opposite direction   )

Since planets are resource generators now, I hope we can colonize all planets now (including those ubiquitous dead worlds from previous installments).

I wasn't a fan of asteroid mining in GC3. Same with constantly upgrading factories/research labs on planets and starbase modules. Its ok for a few planets, but going through a list of 50 or so gets rather tedious (esp. when all I want to do is force end turn). I'm curious to see how GC4 handles it. I do like the changes I've seen so far to the planet map, so I'm optimistic here.

I think it would be cool if you could "settle" a moon, asteroid belt, or other space objects with a constructor and build an outpost/starbase there so it will function like a resource-generating planet.

About dead worlds, we could have the option to colonize them through dome (or subterranean) colonies; those colonies would have only 1-2 tiles and produce only credits (think of them as small commercial outposts), then we can unlock terraforming technologies to make the planet more abitable, unlocking more tiles and differentiating the type of produced resources (eventually arriving to make the planet fully abitable).

 

Of course, Syntetic Civilizations should be able to normally colonize dead worlds (they don't need food or air, so they have no problems).

 

About the ship designer (decorative side), they could add more crystal-like parts (these would give new flavours to Mining Starbases and other decorations, especially for the Onyx civilization - if they'll return).

 

Would be neat if we had the option between establishing a dome or subterranean colony on each world, with a series of different bonuses and penalties for each. Maybe higher defense for a subterranean world, for example, but at the cost of morale (no one likes being under ground all the time).

My wish list: 1- Get a video to play when I am done builtding a galatic wonder, and make them more interesting to built if possible (multi-stage, built in space, over multiple star systems....). And as alpha centoris game, use these videos to fleshout some leaders (20 years later I still recall these blues eyes of this brain in the jar, and asking my-self aren't the eyes of this over regilious leader that was speaking no-stop of the holyness of the whole human body..). An interesting place to look for wonder maybe in tropico 6 idea where you commande to get a wonder and during the process to get it, some special event have to be resolved (like gansters asking for X number of fish to let you process). If you put wonder in the game, it better to make them special and memorable. 2- Better quality assurance for the translating of the game. Make sur that you don't employ a translator that use mostly google's translate for doing the job done. Some of my friends don't speak english so having the other language version is a must have for them to play it. And yes some of them make fun that one must click on the near button to close a window (it is realy an aliens that have chosen this word?). 3- While the galatic's coucil vote on something, I will love to be able to influance the vote result by talking to another faction and negocing their vote with them. Also maybe getting message saying that if I vote for this in that way I will get that from another leader. And if the result of the vote was realy important for the other civ and the leader realy didn't love me, maybe taking the bride then vote again it then sending a message: 'it a war time, and thank to you money I am able to begin the war earlier. Now can you also die as rigth now?'. Make the concil more involving. 4- The possibility of to built special wonders that need a few civs to be built as a way to show our eternal alliance. 5- If they are to be traitors and rebels in my civ, just to make sure that they have better reason that the game have rolled 42 on the table of civ's sized random events. Have a nice day!

I love almost everything about GalCiv games, but with the defining feature that keeps me coming back being the ship designer, that has to be revamped for 2021. I always hated having to stretch parts to fit my designs and watch the windows or textures stretch, making them look bad. Can we add windows/miscellaneous features after and make them scalable if I want my ship to look big?

 

Also, if I'm spending several hours making my ships look awesome, is there any way to include them in cutscenes, story snapshots or other things? Watching them in the battle cams was fine but perhaps there's a way to make these more cinematic too?

 

I look forward to seeing this game progress and am so glad you're continuing the series!

 

Well, for that they need to switch from pre-rendered cutscenes to scenes created on the fly with the game engine and I don't know how this could impact the game's development.

1. Firing arcs
   I would like it if it could be made possible to have firing arcs for weapons in the game. It would change combat dynamics a bit, as the fact that every ship doesn't automatically have maximum damage potential by just being in range with every weapon.
   It would make the different ship sizes (More on that later) more distinct from each other. In GalCiv3 I tend to end up not using the smaller ship types as I progress through the tech-tree. But with firing arcs and other adjustments smaller ships can remain relevant far longer.
2. No ship size categories
   Instead I would like to see all the cosmetic modules that can be used in the ship designer to add mass capacity (Points to add functional components) to the design as they are added, but at the same time it also adds weight to design, thus making it slower and less maneuverable.
   Technically this would allow a player to design the equivalent of a huge ship in turn 1, but said player probably doesn't have powerful enough engines to actually allow it to actually be useful.
   The point is that cost of the ship and it's maneuverability/speed is linked directly to it's ability to load equipment.
3. Multi-function starbases
   Instead of doing like in GalCiv2 and 3 with starbases, where starbases are specialized, I would rather see starbases that you can choose to specialize in one thing, or you can continue adding specializations to them but it doubles the cost of all modules for each specialization added (So 2 specializations = x2 cost, 3 = x4, etc.)
4. No tech-trade offs
   Instead of having tech-nodes where you have to choose a tech specialization, you can get more of the specializations. But it'll slow the rate of technology gain down for the player, as the specializations should be rather expensive and the cost should go up if you select multiple of them. Also researching multiple specializations from the same branch node should put a science tax percentage on the player (Affecting all research) based on the number of branches the player has started researching.
5. Tech specialization can't be traded
   Since tech branches aren't mutually exclusive like in GalCiv3, specialization technologies can't be traded or captured. (You have to develop culture - It can't be bought).

you mean the alpha

you mean July 2023