How about adding hot-seat multiplayer? Can´t be *too* difficult, as the "structures" are still build into the engine and you kinda, sorta can cheat yourself a hot-seat match anyway. ^^

No, really. I imagine the whole network stuff for *real* multiplayer would be tons of work, but hot-seat basically is "add another player and let them play turn after turn".

I miss my MOO2 hot-seat afternoons with my friends.

I really hope the off-type defense bug is fixed in the beta's. I've given up on playing until this is fixed. Even my last medium galaxy game was killed by it.

I'm looking forward to increased performance on low end hardware as I really haven't been able to play since upgrading to dark avatar.

For me it doesn't take that many ships on screen to really slow things down. Can you maybe give us some more graphics options to control performance? I suspect that low performance on my machine might have to do with how the ships are being lit and shaded, and I'd like to turn number of lights, and any shader stuff you might be doing down or off.

Adding more options to turn down rendering detail helps a lot in terms of making the same game run on a lot of different hardware. Also maybe some level of detail variation with distance from the ships? Considering that most of the time the ships are only a n inch across on the screen, I don't need a ton of polygons and high resolution textures.

Absolutely. Yes. More maps and scenario please. I'll play being playing GC2 for at least another year.

Btw are you planning a second expansion before a GC3 ?

Maybe you could give players the option to used a web based display like the database uses, with little pictures of the tutorials. Also the tutorial on rally points could be improved by showing a better example, like nameing one after the star system its in, and I would like to see a tutorial on the civ manager as well. The game is fantastic, don't missunderstand me; I used to just play Rebellion because GalCiv1 wasn't quit as good. Now I just play GalCiv2. I think the game needs a few improvements to cut down on excessive/redundant forum traffic - like adding a star base management screen similar to the civ manager(it could even be a submenu). The rally point system also seems to be a little buggy - whenever I use it to change rally points it always selects every ship instead of the ones specifically designated as using the specific rally point. Maybe this a bug and not an improvement??? If I have fleets standing guard they all go to the new rally point even though I never assigned them a rally point to begin with. I would like to be able to see what ships are assigned which rally points and their destination times on a screen similar to the civ manager; It could even be included in my starbase management suggestion. I think the game also needs to handle colony rally points for constructors seperately from regular fleet rally points - so I can control my SB upgrades more effectively. When I play a SB influence game on a gigantic map the details really grind - it can take me 30 minutes to figure everything out each move and literally hundreds of moves. Of course there should be a tutorial with the new features (released together hopefully). And then the game really needs some learning senarios referenced in the tutorials, that allow the player to apply the techniques covered in the tutorials. That way the player can learn how to apply the specific tutorial lessons with out having to deal with the AI (i.e. special victory conditions without an AI where the players learns how to run his economy, manage a military, manage moral, use rally points, and engage in fleet combats with a enemy ships only [no AI worlds that overwhelm the newbies with tons of ships]), etc. Also a better fleet combat simulator would be awesome (its one of the features in Rebellion I think still rocks, even though I can't design ships like in GalCiv2)! Finally, after much thought I think it would be appropriate for players to be able to design SB modules themselves! Just as ships were canned in GalCiv1 and are now designable in GalCiv2. I think GalCiv3 should allow players to design SB modules themselves with the shipyard or have the option to use the canned modules like we can currently with ships. It would allow players/AI with the appropriate techs to make more survivable modules and SBs in the end game. And how about an optional AI learning mode which could be enabled or disabled by the player that collects basic information on specific player tactics for the AI to use in tough or higher modes?

Just a correction: I think the game needs a few improvements to cut down on excessive/redundant forum traffic - like adding a star base management screen similar to the civ manager(it could even be a submenu).

should have followed: When I play a SB influence game on a gigantic map the details really grind - it can take me 30 minutes to figure everything out each move and literally hundreds of moves. Of course there should be a tutorial with the new features (released together hopefully).

Also the AI learning mode should be a custom senario on a small map where the AI weighted heuristic tables for specific attributes could be graphically interfaced (GUI) with game components (planets, ships, etc.) for easy updating/modding/tweaking for those who want more challenge. And NEVER EVER EVER consider multiplayer for GALCIV because that will kill the AI and its really the main attraction for this game. Lets face it, multiplayer will doom GalCiv to the same fate as Legions of Iron (which was a pretty good game but had scripted AI ...

I'm downloading the newest builds now (250mb heightmaps lol) but I'm somewhat disappointed to see that custom maps still don't have thumbnails. Looking for 'that one with the spirals' is impossible. I'm not asking for dynamic thumbnails that change as you alter map settings (which would be neat), just a single thumbnail per custom map to show you what it is. No start positions, no big hints, just something identifiable. I was surprised when there were no such thumbnails (forcing everyone to play each map just to find out if they wanted to play it) when it's pretty standard in any game with selectable maps.

In any case, it's fantastic that the game is still supported, and the AI plays a *far* better game than it did at launch. I'm not a big fan of tying the storyline (which I have zero interest in) to sandbox race stats, however. Aside from the UI clumsiness and excessive clicking, it's a fantastic game.