When looking at the buildings list on the colony screen, I would prefer all the common buildings (banks, farms, stadia, factories, labs, embassies) be right at the top of the list with no scrolling. Bonus points if each type is in exactly the same place as you get better grades of building. (For example the factory is aways first, the lab second, etc.)

It would be nice if on the page that shows what all of your colonies are up to if it also noted what (if any) emphasis the colony has. Like with an exclamation point next to the production in that catagory or something

The one thing I could use is a text note box. When viewing my production screen I try to remember "what did I want to produce here next? why did I want to do that? This would make it a lot easier for me to remember things like "I sent a fleet to distroy that mining base & this location is ideal for making ONE constructor to grab it before I try to end this war in 5 turns.

Can we have the game files moved from "my documents" please? I chose an install directory different to the default for a reason, please use it for these files also. Or if someone can tell me how to modify this myself that would be great. Too many games now store data in "my documents" but dont mention anything about in the install options.

I second that!
Its starting to become more of a plague than an annoyance .



Rygel XVI - Dominar to over 600 billion (more or less) loyal subjects.

Just a slight interface tweak:

In the domestic policy window, spending distribution box, the locks next to the sliders will simply lock the sliders dead. I think that it should only lock the locked slider from automatically changing the value in response to changes in other sliders. There's no good reason one shouldn't be able to manually change the locked sliders without having to unlock it.

@ gmjapan: thanks for the tip. My AI might be bright, I'm still a n00b...

Btw Stardock: I also second the idea that one should be able select the the location for the game data. The is more game data now in my document than there are actual documents...


Another thing I would like to see changed are the way of trading "trade goods". Now you can sell them only once to another race,a nd they'll have enough for the rest of their life. (I suspect them from pirating my goods!)
So actually it's more about the bonus they provide then the trade. Kind of silly, they are TRADE goods after all. So I think you should be able to trade them, all the time.

The way to do this would be if trade them with another race you don't get like e.g. 2000 bc in your hand, but you'll get 20 bc per month. The monthlyamount you negotiate also consider the trade you've laready with this race, so if you already trade a lot it will be more, if you have no trade relation at all it's less. It would also get make the trade embargo more powerfull, as the race won't only loose income, but also the advantages of the trade goods they buy from you.

- When i place a rally point over an already existing construction and planet the rally point should take automatically the name of that planet or construction instead of "Rally point 59" it shoudl read like "Sol Manufacturing Base"

- You should be allowed to change ship's names and starbases rather than typing a new one by yourself

- You should feed the ship's names from an external file rather than have "Avenger 2445". this way you could supply cool ship names like "Lexington, Enterprise, Winchester, Paris, Leviathan" etc, etc.....
If you're worried that there wont be anough ship names just browse trough wikipedia. There is a page that lists virtually hundreds of names there !

- When upgrading a ship it should receive an automatic new name rather than keeping the old one. This is unless you manually modified that's ship's standard name into something else.

This is a big request, not easy to do, but it will add a lot of immersion to the game. I'll add it here anyway:
- Nebulas of different type (sensor obscuring, hull eating, good for economic starbases, good for tourism (influence)...... Slow moving nebulas
- You should be able to construct starbases in nebulas
- Pulsar stars - dont get your unshielded ships too close to them (damage)
- Asteroids - dont enter an asteroid field without armor on your ships
- Black holes. They draw ships in by a couple of moves per turn. Ships without engines should be dead here.

I would also like to see a tool tip popup that lets you know how many weeks left you have on your leases. So in the Domestic screen, when you mouse over the Lease line it will open a window that lists the leases you have and number of weeks until paid off.

Very helpful would be a "Wonder Screen" (to use a CivIII terminus) on which we can see what Achievements and Trade Goods we have already built, and also which ones other civilizations have already built. (It is VERY hard to remember who already built what with those tiny messages that pop up.) I find it hard to keep track of what Galactic Achievement is where and doing what.
Thank you!

I would like to suggest some interface improvements. I'm sure that some or all of this is duplicate, but there's no way I can read all of the posts before posting, sorry.

SHIP OPTIONS
- I would like to be able to upgrade a ship in a fleet, or in orbit.
- I would like to be able to see how far a ship can reach before I start moving.
- I would like to be able to create a fleet in orbit and launch the whole fleet. Launch All has been suggested previously and would also be helpful, but I would prefer more of a shift-click and then Launch option.
-When I launch a transport using the blue square that pops up. I would like to have the option to select how many people get on it. I realize that those "buttons" are there for fast access. Maybe we could Ctrl right click on it or something. Currently, I have to find the planet with the ship and manualy launch it if I don't want a full solider compliment.

FOCUS IMPROVEMENTS
When you finish moving a ship, the game automatically focuses on the next ship and selects it. At times this can be very helpful. At other times it is extremely frustrating, and it can feel like I'm fighting the game for control of my computer screen, particularly at close zoom. If I'm managing an area of the map at close zoom, I will typically manage everything in a specific area at one time and then move to other parts of my empire. The auto-select & focus makes this a struggle.

-Provide a manual "select next ship" option.
-Provide a "skip this ship" option, that will make the game stop going back to it. This should not kill the ships movement points, and it should be possible to later figure out which ships of your still have movement, even if you've skipped them.
-Provide the ability to turn off the automatic selection of the next ship.
-Provide the ability to quickly (3rd mouse button?) "select last focus" so that you can get back to the place you were at.

TACTICAL ZOOM
At tactical level zoom, it can be difficult to see which ship/fleet is selected or to find a specific planet. Perhaps an option to make things clearer at this zoom level.

-You could hold down Alt for example, and a green arow would point at your selection, Star System name tool tips would show up, whatever. I just need help getting my bearings when zoomed out.


You guys are doing a great job, thanks.

Two things:

1. Fleets with only one ship left should be automatically disbanded. It seems to do that sometimes but not aways.

2. When zoomed out, the icon for the big freighters (the ones built from starports) and the small freighters (the ones that travel automatically on traderoutes) are too similar. IMO the small freighter icons can be much smaller, or even to have a different form.

Better grouping of building structures on the planet menu: At least tabs to separate general building, Achievements, and goods. Or go further and have a manufacturing, farming, social, etc tab, everything separated to make it easier to find items.

On the colony listing screen, a way to change, buy, or abandon building projects like one can do for ship building.

Weapons sorting.
Way to sort ship components by weight, space, and function (Damage, Life Support, Defense, etc)

-Hexenhammer

OK the things i would really like to have implemented, i haven't read the whole thread but i guess these are common issues in a great game.

Its mainly ships/fleet interface related, the game tends to lose its initial appeal when end game is near, and your 20 planets empire build ship after ship ... So I would like to see :

- An automatic rally point for planets. If ship is built on planet A make it possible to automatically send it to rallypoint B without having to go through the whole mouse clicking process of having her leave orbit first and then send her on her way.

- The possibility to create fleets in orbit, without having to make the ships you want in the fleet leave orbit. Thats pretty straighforward. Implies the possibility of selecting several ships in orbit, and the possibility of making them leave orbit together.

- The possibility to spend ALL your money in military, social and scientific, without having to save a part of it. If other less advanced games can do it, why not galactic civilization ? It would be especially usefull when going for a ressearch or influence victory. Especially ressearch since you cant crash-buy it. What good is it to sit on 50k pile of gold if you dont need it ?

For example four interrelated sliders would be a great improvement, (instead of one + three all independant) : SAVINGS, TECH, MILITARY, SOCIAL ... When you max one, all the others go to nil, when you nil one, the surplus goes to all the other sliders evenly. Spaceward Ho anyone ?

- Make the camera movable with the keyboard, for example arrows ...

- Solve the bugs in the upgrading interface. I curently have a 1/2 chance of deleting my ship design instead of upgrading it ... Sometimes it works, sometimes not, its rather annoying.

- When a ship is selected make it glow or blink or anything to make it stand out on the screen and on the minimap. And for good measure highlight her course trhough the galaxy ... AND male it possible to visually see the distance she can go in one turn ... i shouldnt have to do the maths knowing her speed and the 15 tiles per parsec thing.


Edit : and yes the starbase radius prior to building would be awesome. As would all the starbase related improvements described in an above post.

Some other random thoughts to improve the gameplay :

- Give us the possibility to select all ships of a given class (for example trhough the ships/planets list) and give them a rally point. They would of course leave orbit automatically and go to this rally point (could be a simple right click on the map)

- Give us the possibility to select several planets trhough the planet list, and give them the same rally point. This would save a lot of hassle. All ships built on these planets would of course go automatically go to the rally point (leaving orbit and all).

- give us a case to check so that all the things being built on a planet are bought instantly. I mean, not everything instantly, the limit of one building per turn still applies, but with the little case checked, every turn, the next thing on the production queue is bought. This would be usefull and really simple to implement.

- and GIVE US WAYPOINTS !


Thank you for this great game.