Oh, other event option - invading force like the Mongol Invasions you got in Medieval Total War. Vast marauding army sweeps in from a map edge laying waste to all in its path. If this isn't the Dread Lords it could be some new group with moderarely good tech but many fleets.

I don't see any reason why there couldn't be several variations on the theme with the new force using low-tech, moderate tech and Dread Lord tech levels with numbers to balance the threat level. Vast swarms of weak ships or a relative handful of awesome Dread Lords.

Hey this is Fun!

Here are some more ideas

1) A super computer virus runs through the galaxy and wrecks economic and happiness destruction that is proportional to every civilization's power and economy.

2) The Chess Game - Two super beings, one good the other evil take control of two weaker civilizations (one good the other evil). Those civs are given a truck load of tech and money and declare war on each other. Relations of those races to others are STRONGLY dictated by alignment.

3) A new tech that makes defending planets quite easy is discovered (The sci-fi equivalent of the machine gun in WW1). Defense to planetary invasions is increased by 4X

4) A random race tries to better itself through Nano-technology. They gain some bonuses but become carriers of a nano-plague that does not adversely affect them. Anyone trading with them or invading their planets has a chance of contracting the plague which may or may not have a cure. Once contracted the plague kills until it burns itself out.

5) Telepath War - Psionics appear in all races. A massive civil war in each race occurs as the Telepaths struggle for survival. Each race can either support the majority or the telepaths. If they support the majority the civil war is fairly short lived. If they support the telepaths the war is very long. During the war there are penalties to happiness, production, economy and research, and populations plummet. If the telepaths win, although the populations are reduced to a very small level the race gains some very nice bonuses.

6) One race (most likely a weaker one) becomes president of the council and they are the only one that can vote on issues

7) Kleptocracy - Voting is possible in council issues, but money must be spent in order to use votes

8) The dark night - Some sci fi event happens that permanently reduces all scanner ranges to minimum, and lowers logistics. Diplomatic communication may simply be unavailable for long stretches of time.

9) Storm of Hate - a demonic being appears and works his influence. All Alliances and trade routes are cancelled and all races feel hatred towards each other for ten turns. After this relations can evolve as normal.

10) Giant Monsters - need I say more?

11) Giant Monsters - where there is a chance of it befriending one race and going to stomp on that race's enemies

12) Teleportation - All ship speeds have a minimum speed of 100

13) Why SETI has Failed - An easily concealed, impossibly easy to build super weapon is discovered and the knowledge spreads across the galaxy. The only government possible is now the Imperium and there are massive penalties to happiness and research that are permanently applied. One bonus though is on planetary invasions a new tactic emerges that costs next to nothing and increases the attack of attacking forces by 10X.

Oh ... one more

The weakest race finds some source of fabulous wealth. They get a big boost to their money, their economy, AND a portion of all races warships mutiny and join that empire.

Sounds interesting. One or two ideas:

Galactic Collapse - starting with the outer sectors, the universe begins contracting in on itself. The game becomes a massive rush to occupy the central sectors and fulfil a goal before the universe completely collapses.

Supernova! - A star in a sector goes Nova, annihilating everything in that sector and making it impassable for the rest of the game.

Alternate timeline - After an accident in the dimensional research labs, the player is thrust down a different trouser of time. An AI and the player swap empires. Would be incredibly fun if you suddenly find yourself in charge of the empire you've been beating on for the whole game...

Mighty Meek - The independents ally together and decide to topple all the major empires.

Minor Alexander - A Minor race gets a brilliant leader. After a boost of tech and cash they start expanding like a major race

Good ideas, Dano13 and Archonsod!

Such events could really give a lot of spice to GalCiv.
It should be possible to deactivate them and to say "at least one must happen".

With regards to mega events: I say good idea.

But with regards to events in general:

I'd like to see events of all kinds, more incorporated into the game mechanics. For example, periods of economic growth/recession are not random. They could still be events, but they should be influenced by the actions of players and the ai. People shouldn't just randomly discover some miracle technology, this should be part of the technology tree and research game mechanic. To me, many events, and especially the good/evil decisions, feel completely artificial and tacked on.

For the example of the plague: Instead of having some screen pop up, and then each planet suffering some sort of penalty, it could be done far better as a game mechanic as in Rome: Total War, where you get an icon next to the planet which is infected. If the desease is properly contained and trade routes to/from it are shut down, the plague may eventually die down. The cure shouldn't just be a technology that saves everyone in the galaxy. It could be, for example, a trade good that you either build or by from others. etc.

In fact, I'd like to see things like the game's actual campaign encorporated into normal sandbox games. I never played the Dread Lords campaign cause I didn't like the idea of having to play as the humans, or having "scenarios." It would have been great if there had simply been an option in normal games to simply enable ean event for the coming of the dread lords.

Definitly, YES. And a lot of great suggestions here.
I totally agree that these mega-events should be optional.
I'd like to go one step further: Instead an on/off-checkbox, give us some more options, like we have the galaxy setup:
MEGA-EVENT PROBABILITY:
- a slider on how often mega events happen. Never, extremly seldom, about once per game, several times per game...
MEGA-EVENT IMPACT:
- how severe the consequences are. Light (small invasion fleets turn up, little stuff explodes), medium (invasion fleets equal in strength to the players power show up, single systems explode), heavy (invasion fleets are more powerful than all existing civs together, whole sectors blow up etc)

Shouldn't be to hard to implement and would be a great way to give everybody the gaming experience he likes.

More features is always good, so I'm all for it.

Couple of really interesting ideas here - particularly imaginative is the one where you end up as someone else. In general, as long as the AI will respond appropriately to the event (colored by their alignment, of course) it could add a lot of fun.

Of course, if it REALLY messes up something you were trying to do you can always save it and reload a savegame - then go back and play out the alternative ending.

If there is an option to turn it off, then definately yes!

How about an hegemonizing swarm of self-replicating robots/beings that will turn the galaxy into grey goo if not defeated?

How about a super powerful invasion fleet of either good or evil beings. They have only a certain number of uber ships ... BUT ... the least powerful good or evil race ally with them, riding on their coat tails to achieve galactic power once again.

Babylon 5?

Seriously though, that would be quite cool. Some poor, put-upon race suddenly finds itself approached by an immensely powerful, mysterious outsider race offering to lay the smack down on targets of their choice.

Suddenly the 98 lb weakling is seeking revenge on those that bullied it, and riding the wave of destruction to galactic dominance... (but at what cost? )


-Cauldyth

I would enjoy these a lot. Maybe not all the time, but now and then they would be great fun.

How about this one:

Hyperspace Rift - The fabric of the universe is torn apart. Ships, starbases, resources and entire solar systems are moved randomly from one part of the map to the other, leaving empires scattered and mixed up, and ships far from home.

I will first apologise because I haven't read any previous post but here are my opinions. I think Mega events are a great idea! I personally believe that balancing is overrated - as in life, there are a lot of random possibilities and events. Something that's going well, might suddenly go wrong and vice versa. Not everything should go according to plan. Nevertheless, I do understand where some people would want a more controlled game.

I think it's already been mentioned but turning a minor race into a major race would be great. Usually this would upset the number of players you specifically specified but as a mega event it seems appropriate.

Maybe the Luck attribute can factor into this too.

I'm also in favor of mega events. Again as most everybody has said, I think that there their should either be a checkbox or a slider to control the frequency of these mega events. I don't care if mega events create unbalance, as long as they are fun. My suggestion would also be for a massive Dread Lord invasion in the sandbox game. I also like the minor race Alexander idea, though non of them have sounded too bad.