Suggestion that you may find interesting...

[Skywalker101]

This is a long post so please bare with me

I don't know about the rest of you but there seems to be more that can be done with the space stage. Where as a lot of you have gone for the whole 'let us invade planets etc' I was thinking of a different idea.

The first I was thinking of was the implementation of Governors. Once your empire has reached a certain size, maybe about 20 or so systems, you could appoint a Governor to a system. Their pupose would be to deal with pirate attacks, terraform their planet to a reasonable standard, rebuild and destroyed buildings/turrets and pass on spice production directly to the main coffers.They would have some arbitrary options like 'Allowed to reconstruct. Allowed to terraform.' for example.

They would have an initial cost to place but would reduce a lot of the messin about involved with going back and forth doing the menial tasks of the space stage. To make them more balanced they could also take a percentage of the spice produced per shipment. For example, if the planet can only produce '5' the Governor would wait until it is reached capacity and then send '4' to the homeworld and the cycle restarts. When the planets can sustain more spice the percentage would obviously get bigger (if it makes 10, only 8 would be sent on etc). Other upgrades could come from this as well like having 'Jump Gates' or something similar to decrease the time it takes for spice production between systems and the homeworld.

Also, whenever they are attacked and things are destroyed, reconstruction costs would come directly out of the main funds at 10 minute intevals so you know when to expect an expenditure to occur, rather than have to go back and do it yourself all the time.

Once your empire gets to a size of say 50 or maybe a higher number of systems, the System Governors would no longer be required and instead have Regional Governors that control say 5 or 10 systems each, and have the same sort of thigns happen before. It would just make things easier for the player.

As they are a purchasable thing, it would give the player the option to micromanage if they want or if they want to get down to experimenting, fighting wars and making alliance/doing mission etc, they can do without having to put up with housekeeping. Also, them being an unlockable after a certain size of empire, means the player has to do all the arbitrary things at first and the Governors are a reward for doing that.

They could even have names as Spore already comes with a random name generator for system names, it could just apply it to these.

It could also stem other missions for the player as they may have to deal with rebellious Governors so they can go and quash an uprising/separatist system or have to deal with Governors who want bigger percentages and the player has to decide what happens. The Governors could also steal extra spice and the player has to work out if they are and that gives them an incentive to check their homeworld more often, then decide what to do with the Governor.


My next idea stems from the idea of Governors directly sending spice to the homeworld. Having a stock market screen. We already know that spore can and does vary the BUY/SELL prices of the different colours of spice so this would be just a simpler method of putting all this information in once place for the player to decide where to sell their produced spice. You would still have to take that spice to the world you want to sell it at though.

To balance this, it would only show you the rates for your own systems so their may be better deals with your allies and/or other species. So it means it gives you the option of making an informed decision of where to go but if you want to rake in the really big bucks you will have to go directly to other empires. To balance this further, this could be a purchasable placement/upgrade for your homeworld like the spice storage or satelliete turret, that is unlockable after reaching a certain badge level of the trader badge or similar. This would force the player to play the game a fair bit first.


The last idea I have is that of a random news generator, which stems from the Governor idea. It would just be a screen available from the homeworld system where you can look at things that have been happening in your empire such as pirate attacks, ecological disasters, new systems, how wars are going etc. This could also be a good way of judging how your Governors are doing for example, if an ecological disaster has occured and it wasn't resolved and keeps happening, it might be a sign to either replace the Governor, or give him a bigger percentage of the spice etc. To balance this, it could also be a purchasble upgrade called the Interstellar News Service or something similar.


All of these ideas in my opinion would just provide the player with greater choice, increased information that is more efficiently presented, greater immersion and atmosphere and lets the player get on with doing some of the more fun aspects of Spore like experimenting, exploring and warring etc rather than all their time being taken up with chores. However, at the same time, they are rewards for playing the game how Maxis released it orginally. To add finally, I dont think they would be massively difficult to implement as a lot of it is just random generators with a few control lalalalala and/or merging data that is currently being produced by Spore into a more accessible format, but still gives the option of having to look after everything yourself if you wanted.

Thanks for reading....if you made it this far

All comments are very welcome.

[ValuJet2564]

I like those ideas, but if the governors are able to terraform/expand the empire, I feel it would get out of control

[Skywalker101]

No no, not expand at all. If they were just a System Governor, they get a star to look after. Ie, you place a colony pack on a planet in it, select what buildings you want it to use and then it sets about terraforming it up to say T2 or maybe even T3, in the process they would add more cities to it and add buildings to them autonomously.

They wouldn't be able to add colony packs to other unclaimed systems and I don't think they would expand to other planets in a system...if you wanted multiple planets to be occupied in a system you would have to initially place a colony pack on both planets in a system and then the Governor would take over.

The terraforming automatically would be quite easy to implement I think as it would just be using the same system as the Staff of Light but on a longer timescale, like it might take an hour to get to T3 rather than 10 seconds...

Cheers for the feedback though.

Ive just thought of something else that could be added, which stems from the Regional Governors idea. I dunno about anyone else, but I have a species that has about 200+ systems in various large clumps around the galaxy with the largest being the homeworld cluster. Since the new patch have been implemented, whenever you zoom out, the screen is filled with those damn flag pop ups...that just look messy.

If you have REGIONS of space assigned to a Governor they can do away all those flags when you zoom out to jus one flag per region. All we need to know is roughly where we have stakes in the galaxy and when we zoom in we can see things in more detail anyway. We dont really need it to tell us we have 200 systems when we are that far out...lol

[ValuJet2564]

The flags do look messy, but I feel proud of their extent: It gives you an idea of how large your empire is.
I still think auto-terraforming could get out of control, and render SoL a little useless, unless you have to pay for auto-terraforming.

[Skywalker101]

Yea there would be a budget or something similar for terraforming. Probably a slightly larger premium to do it than doing it yourself. To be honest, the SoL is a little useless anyway without a mod. You get to use it on 42 planets, thats it. In a 200+ SYSTEM empire, 42 planets is a nothing.

Could you please clarify what you mean by 'out of control'? The terraforming would perhaps only work up to say T2 to balance it out further.

[ValuJet2564]

I just feel if governors are a one-off payment, soon enough every planet will be T3, which would be a little pointless really.
Maybe if you had to continually pay in to a governor scheme?

[Skywalker101]

Well I did say in my original post that they would take a constant fee as well by keeping 20% of the produced spice from a system. Ie if it produced 10, you would only receive 8. I also said that perhaps they could cap the autonamous terraforming up to T2. So basically the most spice you could potentiallly get from a system, which you only placed 1 colony pack in and then left it for a Governor to use, would be 8 units of spice.

If you wanted to get more than that, you would have to place a spice storage and then personally terraform to T3 and add another colony pack yourself. So in total this way you would produce a maximum of 24 units of spice autonamously, once you return control to a Governor.

Now you could increase this further if you:
a) decide to place a colony pack on multiple planets in a system. ( so maximums would be mutliples of 8, if you dont get involved after initial colony placements)
b) own a rival homeworld planet with a spice storage would be 72 or 80 units ([45 x 2] - 20% = 72)

Basically, the idea is that you do get spice automatically sent to one central location and so stops you messing about going from planet to planet picking up spice, but at a cost of an inital Governor and 20% of everything produced.

I think that is fairly well balanced as you still get a fair amout of spice out of it but not the most productive amount.

[ValuJet2564]

The problem with auto-spice profit is after a while in the game, you would pretty much make millions of sbucks instantly. It would be good at the start of the game, and would mean you dont have to visit all planets all the time.
I do like the idea of a centralized pick-up point, but would that have to be terraformed/protected from pirates?

[Leafsnail]

Exactly, that's why governers would be expensive, and need budgets for terraforming and building.

[ValuJet2564]

Its a good idea, but I dont think it would be that easy to implement really, and possibly quite complicated to use.

[Diasflac]

Interesting... Or bored :P? I like it btw.

[Stevcool5]

I like it, but you are trying to stop peeps having to do house chores, but the way you make it out, you would then have to keep an eye on the governers, sort them out when they aren't doing their job etc. which means that you would still have petty little house chores to do. its a great idea mate, but some of the ideas you have counter the idea of a stress-free warring/diplomacy/exploration which was you original idea.

i hope that makes sense

[Skywalker101]

I see what you mean by the Governors can become more of a micromanagement, but the point of some of the ideas ive suggested, is that they are just increased choice and options.

Yes the Governors would have a fairly substantial inital cost, a sizeable running cost and a budget for what they are allowed to do.

The budget could be as simple as Small - Medium - Large. Which would just mean it would take a lot longer for things to get done on a smaller budget is all, which you would just set at the inital installation of a Governor. If you wanted to change it when you want to spend more money on expensive upgrades you would have that option.

To your point about having lots of little things to look after with the Governors, those are niggly things I haven't worked out yet. But after a bit of thought I realised that all the things I mentioned, such as 'Governors taking extra spice', 'Governors not performing properly' and 'Separatist Governors' are things that you can chose to ignore if you so wish. If this sort of thing was relayed to you at a News Screen for example, you dont have to check it, but its there if you want an extra layer of depth. Each system will still function to a reasonable degree if governors arent performing properly and you will still receive spice even if a Governor is taking some extra.

Basically, by the time Governors are available to you, you will be able to chose to ignore things that are happening with them if you want. Governor problems that I've mentioned above would be random occurances that happen at far larger intevals than the current pirate/attack intevals. IE they wouldnt happen very often at all so it is just something extra for you to do if u want, but it wont drastically affect your gameplay if you dont chose to do it.

If that makes sense...

[Skywalker101]

Originally Posted by ValuJet2564

The problem with auto-spice profit is after a while in the game, you would pretty much make millions of sbucks instantly. It would be good at the start of the game, and would mean you dont have to visit all planets all the time.
I do like the idea of a centralized pick-up point, but would that have to be terraformed/protected from pirates?

To this point, it wouldnt be auto-spice profit.

Firstly, all a Governor would do, as i mentioned originally, is transport 80% of his systmes produced spice to a central location that all other Governors also transport to. They would NOT sell the spice themselves. You would have to use the 'Stock Market' screen if they implemented it, to actually shop around for the best deals for your spice (again only your owned systems would be represented at this screen, you could make more money from other empires).

Basically, you still have to work to get your money, you just have a bit less work and hassle to do it. IE not going to every single planet and then checking every single planet for the best deal.

Secondly, Governors wouldnt be available at the start of the Space Stage. You would have to terraform yourself, harvest spice yourself, sell it yourself, protect systems yourself and rebuild yourself. UNTIL you reach a certain size and the Governors are a reward for doing all those arbitrary things for about 2 hours....

Also when you said you would be making millions, to be honest, the early Space Stage upgrades and terraforming tools are relatively cheap, when you reach the higher tier upgrades etc they do cost millions to buy.

If you think of a small town council spends millions a year on things (equivalent of a small empire in Spore), then look at a country. They spend billions or even TRILLIONS a year on things (equivalent of a large empire in Spore). The bigger things get, the bigger income and expenditure get. You wouldnt expect a country to run if its income was £100,000 a year and its expenditure was £5,000,000 now would you?

Take the UK as an example...would you expect Gordon Brown to go to every city and town in the UK to personally collect Tax from them? No, because it would take him forever and wouldnt actually have time to do what he should be doing...running the UK. We are like leaders of our empire, we should be making the important decisions and doing the important things, not messing around with spice all day long...