posted 02-15-99 06:47 PM ET        

1. Another color for The Hive, I don't play them right now cause the blue is hurting my eyes after a while, especially in a continent full of cities with backdrop of fungus. Maybe an option to pick your own color from an available palette? (randomize computer AIs color too)

2. Have a new report page similar to the one in Civilization II's F11 key (not sure bout the key), where it shows the whole data of your civilization in a page (GDP, Total minerals produced, total population, highest per capita income, etc.) It will be a good page to glance every other turn or so.

3. Currently if I go to the city production report (F4 key) and I have say 20+ cities on the list, it will keep resetting to the first position once I'm done looking at one of the newer cities down the list so I have to rescroll back down. Is there any way Firaxis can make it so the report page stays where it is if I'm checking the newer cities down the list?

4. Same window as #3, but please add another column showing how many minerals a city is producing in addition to the "turns to complete" column (ala Civ 2 city report)

4. These last two I can do myself but just want to bring them to your attention. In the 1024 x 768 mode, you won't be able to tell if your Network Node is linked or not because it's too long. I renamed mine to "NetNode" and it showed correctly (in 800 x 600 network node is just fine).

5. Why can't probe teams by default have cloaking device as an ability? I would imagine that the first application of a cloaking device will be for espionage. Besides, fixing a group of spies with cloakers should be cheaper than outfitting an infantry unit. (I already changed mine in alpha.txt)

What do the other players think? Also please put down your own suggestions so we can all have a better experience with the game.

posted 02-15-99 07:48 PM ET            

==

IIRC, the Firaxis folk said that they tried it, but allowing cloaked probe teams was too unbalancing. I guess probes just do too much damage when they get through-- you can't allow players to waltz their cloaked probes all the way through an empire to the capital city.

If you need a "realistic" reason for this restriction, how 'bout this: Probes, in this game, are essentially super-hackers. They probably carry a lot of super-sophisticated electronic equipment-- stuff that would get fried if it were packed with a cloaking device.

posted 02-17-99 08:55 AM ET            

2. Rather than adding more terraform options, how about allowing the player to customize options. For example, if I like the "condenser, 2 farms, and a mag pulse tube" option, then I can set up a shortcut key to build that.

3. Agree that the current production and queue should be available on one screen; too much clicking!

4. Speaking of the production screen, I'm not sure I like the layout, but I'm not sure what would be better. Maybe a list instead of the grid of boxes?

posted 02-17-99 09:12 AM ET            

Sound skipping!!! Argh! I've read a lot of posts on this prob and I can empathize! What is the issue here Firaxis!?!

posted 02-17-99 09:32 AM ET         

Sounds like all the Civ2 player miss the city listing that shows Nutrients/Minerals/Energy for each city. The "trade" screen that showed Econ/Labs for each city was useful as well. I'll add another second to the motion to bring something like that back.

posted 02-17-99 09:51 AM ET            

1) Improved AI on the formers, or the ability to queue commands to your formers. (far better)

2) Better queue system for production. Splitting the Current and Queued production is just plain silly. Current should be the top item on the list. (Extra clicks are a pain in the ***)

3) Along the same lines, the ability to input different build order lists and then select one to use, rather than inputting the list each time I build a new city.

4) Add auto-investigate supply pods to the auto-explore routine. I never use it because the AI doesn't key in on 'em like I would.

That's it for now. =)

posted 02-17-99 10:09 AM ET            

jkm

posted 02-17-99 11:02 AM ET            

1) Do not recommend any new designs. I.E. allow me to be the only one to create designs. This will eliminate the 80% of the created units that I simply do not use and alot of the annoyance of the item selection screen.

posted 02-17-99 01:25 PM ET            

There is a preference to turn off automatic unit design. It is the second one in the preferences menu, "DESIGN UNITS AUTOMATICALLY."

posted 02-17-99 01:28 PM ET            

1) Make the mindworms the caviar rotating graphics again, not the cheapo sprites. Same for the artifacts.

posted 02-17-99 01:47 PM ET            

I LOVE this game -- the whole idea for CIV/MOO games is wonderful! I got the game at the beginning of the week and just finished up my first game -- succesfully, I might add. I'm working with the patch at 1024x768 (Zokhorov-Talent-98%-Transcend, if you need to know). Anyway, the things I noticecd that were annoying were...

1 - The text shifts in the new technology screens... when I scrolled up or down, the text moved around instead of just moving vertically. This one is certainly the more difficult of the two items to implement.

2 - At the end of the game, I had the normal choice to quit or continue. Immediately after quiting, I thought to save it so that I'd have documentation of doing so well, but I couldn't -- and the program didn't. Perhaps just to call the save function to give the choice?

posted 02-17-99 11:52 PM ET         

1. Hovertanks are generally useless for me. I never get them until well after I have choppers, and their speed of 3 isn't really worth a new design. I just move in Speeders when I actually need to capture the city that my Choppers have cleared out for me. Either give them to the player earlier, increase their speed to 4, or come up with some other compensation for getting them so late.

2. For being much farther along than choppers, grav vehicles still can only attack once/turn, rather than repeatedly (like choppers). I'd like to see this changed, as well.

3. More diplomatic options. Examples include passing trade bans (Sanctions) against a particular faction (shades of real life!), environmental initiatives (global changes to green rating, with a negative impact on industry), and Initiate Cold War (automatic trade ban on anyone attacking another faction, but Probe Teams get a bonus). In other words, I want to see the diplomatic players have the opportunity to be ruthless (if they can get enough votes on their side).

4. Despite the advanced technology, there is only one 'major-destruction' weapon (Planet Busters). What about orbital lasers? 'Natural' attacks (influencing Planet to wreak ecological disasters on an opponent)? Suicide squads (basically like missles, but they're disguised as a military unit, and die automatically after attacking)?

5. Make it possible to blame another faction for attacks, with appropriate tech (disguise one faction's unit as another faction).

posted 02-18-99 02:58 AM ET            

If you right click on an empty square, the terraform menu should come up. You can say what command(s) you would like to do to the square, and the nearest terraformer would come over and do it at the first oppurtunity. I have often forgotton what I wanted my formers to go do from turn to turn later on in the game.

This isn't quite so easily fixed, but it is a more major issue. I would really like to see better AI. The AI is already light-years beyond what I see in most games, and it makes all the difference. But none the less, a little tweaking would be nice. The biggest issue is the degree to which factions stick to their Explore-Discover-Conquer-Build options. I have seen Santiago go virtually forever without researcing Centauri Ecology, hobbling Sparta significanlty inless she can trade for it. Also, I have seen factions decline to build probe teams, when I am playing Zakharov, at war with them, have easily acessable bases and lots of juicy tech for them to steal. In my mind, the Explore-Discover etc. thing has hurt the AI a fair bit. Of course, I don't know what problems it has solved.

Also:

The Production Que is counterintuitive and annoying the way it is now.

The "Custom Nation" button should allow you to actually customize a faction, not just what it does now. Hacking the .txt files is a hell of a pain.

Mindworms sent at you by Planet should not give energy credits, just as they can't be tamed. The point is to penalize you, not give you another profit oppurtunity.

Kestrel's point about economic sanctions is vaild. I would like to be able to use the council as the political football all such international organizatoins end up being used as.

BTW Firaxis, you deserve an award for your support. No other company gives such good response to player comments- the game hadn't been out for more than a day or two before the patch came out.

posted 02-18-99 03:52 PM ET         

Kraut

posted 02-18-99 04:12 PM ET            

More diplomacy!!! I'll pay Firaxis, 2000 energy credits (non-refundable on Earth, sorry) to add more diplomacy.

Trade sanctions in particular would be a wonderful addition. This could be a devasting weapon against poor Morgan (what am I doing???).

CEO Bernard

posted 02-18-99 05:03 PM ET            

While 90% of the game is well drawn, most of the right-click menus are pretty tacky. How about the same text font (made smaller) that the rest of the game uses.

Also, a number of menus should require only a single click to operate, but instead force you to choose an option and then 'Ok' it. A small complaint, but it does get a bit irritating after the hundredth time.

I also miss the civopedia style of presentation for the unit/tech information. IMO, the datalinks are inferior - fewer pictures, a cramped, small reference screen, ugly colors, and the entire thing boxed in by the (usually) unnecessary cross-referencing materials. Which take up half the screen. It's functional, but... well, it don't look great. So far this has been the only real disappointment of the game for me.

The S.P movies are good, but could be better presented, i.e CivII style, with a fade out of the background rather than a cut to black. Currently they're a bit Tomb Raiderish - they feel disconnected and not really all that closely related to the game. They also seem to take a long time to load (??).

The opening animation (podfall) is just tacky. Fun, but tacky.

Suggestion:

posted 02-18-99 05:30 PM ET            

What with the isometric perspective, the 3-D terrain, and the fact that big cities edge onto their surrounding squares, I often have trouble "drop"ping troops onto the square I want-- I'm often off by one. Similar problem bombarding the right square with my artillery.

It'd be nice to have a "highlight" option with the drop & bombard cursors-- the square that's currently under the cursor should be bordered in red, or something like that. That shouldn't be very hard, should it?

Yes, I know I should just flatten terrain, but I forget...

posted 02-18-99 06:53 PM ET         

You know? I think there are a lot of interesting ideas here, but for the most part, I don't think they would really make the game better or worse, just different. Some people want more depth, some want less... By all means good ideas the lot of you, but I don't really need any of that changed.

I just want two things;

Fix the terraformers (even ctrl+shft+a has probs)

(f4) needs to show each city's current resources/nutrients like the oft-referred to city advisor screen from Civ II (hehe.. Brian, you know the one!)

Other than that, this is a riviting discussion, but keep your hands of my SMAC! I like it just fine

you know? I really like these smilies, too.
So colourful!

posted 02-19-99 02:49 AM ET            

1. I WANT TO SEE THE SPECIAL PROJECT MOVIES AGAIN AFTER I BUILD THEM. Especially the Nano-Factory and Self-Aware Colony.

2. Improve AI for the formers. I had some sea formers trying to get into inland lakes... so they just sat there on the coast like if they waited they might get mystically transported over so they could begin work.

3. If you don't improve AI for the formers, absolutely positively make it possible for former templates. Are formers annoying? (Swearing here) yes.

4. Definitely somehow improve airdrop and artillery icons. I hate dropping in on what I think is a magtube only to end up in the undeveloped forest next door. (Doesn't matter, of course, I still kick their arses... I just need an extra turn to do it)

5. Finally, fix the unit workshop. Even making it so that I could hit a number key and get that design (like if recon speeder was #7 and I hit the 7-key and it loaded that design) would be better than the current system of Death-Clicking. My left mouse button is dying quickly.

Other than that, nothing. And even that stuff doesn't slow me down...

And two things that are DRASTICALLY improved from Civ II...
1) Diplomacy. Hot damn, it's nice to tell someone to call off a vendetta on your pact brother instead of having to devote a crapload of resources to kicking their puny and insignifacant arses.

posted 02-19-99 04:30 AM ET            

My Wish List:

1. Bitmapped Units for Customisation.

posted 02-19-99 10:12 AM ET            

B)Barrage fire option.Once 2 or + artileery units are in the same,why they shouldn't be able to concentrate their firepower? (Obviuosly,under the control of a C3 unit.).
By the way, bombing for crippling the communication line of the enemy is one of the
main tactic of war. Destroy road with long range fire,or maglev, or with aerial incursion.....

C)I want more diplomatical functions.If I'm playing Lal, I would like to stop war!! But that is just an example!More diplomaticy,more fun; It should exist that common board, neh?
Get it alive.Consider multiplaying! "I'll remove Spartan people from the ball!""NO! If you do it, I warn you'll be banned"
and so on!
Please, staff of Fireaxis, consider this option!Even because if two contenders are on the other side of a HUGE planet, with 30% of land! Diplomacy should rule!!!! :-) :-):-)

posted 02-19-99 12:36 PM ET            

My biggest complaints are these (and they've been mentioned):

1) Please fix the terraformers. -- I really hate micromanaging;