I was going to use the word random instead of planned, but that seems to be the bane of all existence. I enjoy the concept of Galactic War since it reminds me of my days playing Emperor battle for Dune with a little mass effect thrown in with planet exploration. I'd like to expound on some ideas for potential events that could happen that are "planned" for the user, so it isn't about pure tech collection and battles. Currently Galactic Warfare consists of Planet hopping Collecting Tech/Discarding Tech Defeating AI's on certain planets. Defeating Leader AI. It is the Bare bones of what a single player option should offer, and a good start honestly. I want to give my input on a few areas. Dynamic leadership of opposing AI's AI movement in the Galaxy ( attacking, defending, Ambushing) To clarify, In Emperor Battle for Dune it consisted of a three turn round table for territory on Dune, Considering that much of the galaxy is unexplored, I doubt this could happen if we stay down this path. It is possible for AI leaders to move on attacking turns of the player and potentially grab planets from each other or even the player commander. It would make the galaxy seem more alive instead of a street fighter cascade of mildly more difficult opponents that you defeat in linear order. Alliances between AI's as well as back stabbing. This is another perk I saw in Emperor battle for dune that made the game just a bit more exciting, lord Ordos and Atredies working together to crush my mighty empire because it has just gotten to big for its own good. I think it would be great for AI's to even Ally together to stop a player who has expanded to a large number of worlds or even have AI's want to ally with the player to destroy a particularly nasty AI. This element gives the players a little more choice in working together with an AI and a bit of trust to see if the AI secretly wanted to ambush the Player. I think this will help to diversify engagements to be Team based without the need for another human player. Dynamic missions on planets that start with one objective and cascades with the planet actually being hurdled into the sun (for example) and its an escape mission. Currently the name of the game is to beat the AI on the planet with little to no recourse of alternate objectives. I like to pull from Emperor Battle for dune and Mass Effect about having small side missions that occur during the game that reinforce true planetary exploration and looking for technology in this manner. In mass effect, it consisted of driving around in a land tank looking for ancient land marks or even mineral deposits for wealth. Maybe a money system would be to much for PA but technology caches on planets would be a cool find. Maybe good and bad caches and eventual side missions that spawn from finding a cache on one planet to reconnect the dots on another to unlock something greater. For Emperor battle for dune, it involved Small factions of people that live on the planet already and require assistance of some sort to have them join your side. I think this would be great for PA to have potentially a Secondary AI that could be defended to have a new sub commander, Or defeated to steal their technology. Ultimately I think this delivers on more choices for engagement on a planet instead of purely AI destruction. One idea i've thought about for PA is unique objectives per planet. A few threads have tossed around the idea of hurdling a planet into the sun to win the game. I think this would be great for some planets to have pre set planets that need to have pure destruction in order to win. This could actually be used if one needs to destroy a node in a galaxy to prevent future AI attacks. a little more interesting effects a sub commander should be able to do. Now this is up for debate, but I think it would be cool to have sub commanders either go individually or become squads that can actually take over planets for themselves and acquire tech to power themselves up in combat. Eventually these commanders could become so powerful that they can challenge the Player for dominance in his own system if given way to much technology. The player can also have these AI squads purely follow him to help take over other planets. Now it is too early to ask Uber to have all these things in by tomorrow but I would just like the ideas to float around on the forms as added features that might become part of the game.
I agree completely. Galactic War is a fun single player thingy, but with dynamic AI-AI and AI-Player interactions and other such things it would be a thing of beauty.
In order to make it a good single player experience you should be able to have the AI counterattack you on the galactic map as well as in individual battles. This makes the whole "turn" mechanic that takes place on the galactic map worthwhile. Not sure if Uber plans to include this but it seems that it would do wonders in making GW more challenging and maintaining interest for a longer period of time.
Hopefully they have choosen that direction because it would add tremendous fun and more excitement to the galactic war....
Great ideas all around from the OP I was actually coming to suggest something like having a turn based game and have each faction spawn one commander somewhere in the galaxy. Every system that commander moves to gives their faction a certain number of resources (maybe based on the actual resources of the system, so bigger systems with tons of resources are more important to defend and attack for both players and AI). You can use these resources to buy more sub commanders (as opposed to randomly finding them) to then also go around the galaxy and capture more systems for you. So every turn you can move all of your commanders and combine multiple commanders into one system (so having subcommanders with your main commander) and the other ai will take turns moving all of their commanders trying to take more territory from each other. Every commander that dies in combat is also removed from the galactic map, so if your stack of three commanders loses two in combat, when the battle is over you will only have one left in that system and will have to buy two more This would really give a focus to the galactic map (just like in the actual game, you have to try and expand as much as possible to get more units so you can expand more, harass the enemy where they are defenseless to take their resources and beat their units where you have them outnumbered so they can't use those units to attack you or expand themselves) Once a faction loses all of it's commanders it's removed from the map This combined with your ideas of diplomacy and special missions would really flesh out the campaign and tie the galaxy gameplay to the actual in-game gameplay
I am pretty sure it will end up with AI's dynamically taking control of systems and wrestling control from you. It is the next logical step, this was just V1. It could be interesting to have nodes on the actual planet you have to capture to get the tech with a little civi base protecting it as opposed to just finding tech. At the end of the day I can envision seeing many modders making fully fledged campaigns for GW. Complete with missions, videos and everything.
I was thinking the nodes would be great for establishing tech bases and eventually creating defensive settlements and research nodes. I always liked having infrastructure in turn based Bone yard games. Because it can easily become repetitive if the battle always starts off the same.
If we have defensive battles, please don't got the Dawn of War route of having my resource structures from the previous battle there. Yes, it makes sense that they're there, but it also makes the battle a one-sided waste of time and means you pointlessly draw out your attacks to ensure you maximise your resources for defence missions.
It would be a start, if those "faction leader icons", could have 2-3 "faction leutenants". Honestly, the faction leutenant should be 3 enemy commanders and 3 planets like faction leaders are now, and faction leaders need souped up, maybe a "modifier" that makes his commander Ugun stronger and eco generation to start with 3 factories although his mexes and pgens are the same, and all blueprints and such, on a single super-sized world perhaps with a non-spawnable moon.
