I agree Stats are always more important than art in any game. To me Art is just fluff but I do like fluff so art should still be customizable but the stats should rank higher.

Please I hope this gets read.

I have been playing games for some time and while I know everyone has an opinion, I am hoping mine will have merit enough to be considered. That said, let me give a few suggestions and my reasons.

1. Lore as presented through gameplay is important.

Here's why; it's one thing to have a world that anyone can mold and make, however the appeal and depth of story telling, no matter how much you wish otherwise, will always have the power to take people to places far away. Sounds cheesy right? Well no, take for example Lord of the Rings. There have been so many successful titles(probably too many) that have spawned since the movies. Why is this? I find that, while some people are creative enough to make rich, flushed out, working, living worlds, most people lack either the creativity or inspiration. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means that some people would rather read a good book than try to write one.

The second reason, if there needs to be one, is immersion. Here I think the best example is the Warcraft series of games. Love it or hate it, World of Warcraft has a great deal of depth to it's lore. This adds a tremendous amount of entertainment to the gameplay because, while anyone can go out and kill a skeleton for some reason or another, it has more significance if you know that skeleton has been spawned from from crazy undead-lich-prince-guy that you know the awesome backstory behind. I will contest that feeling like your actions are significant and take part in shaping a world is vastly more enjoyable than just flying through similar 4x gameplay.

Thirdly, I think that making a game that takes place in a world that is both randomly generated AND has features that are unique to the lore does a great deal to make a player feel like, while their experience might be totally different, they are still taking part in a world that has meaning. The best example for this is Fall from Heaven.

2. Alignment should not be chosen, but rather earned.

I too can remember a time not long ago where before the start of every game one had to select if they wanted to fight for good or evil. A silly notion. As games have evolved today you are seeing more and more genres merging with elements of RPGs. Namely, actions that shape alignment. So instead of simply selecting if you would like to be Kingdom or Empire perhaps it would be more enjoyable to have an alignment gauge that is changed by your decisions during quest and diplomacy. I personally thought GalCiv2 had the alignment thing down functionally, I still think it needed more depth. However the random events you had to make decisions on were an awesome way to shape alignment.

I am not, however, say you should do away with Kingdom and Empire factions! Keep them, but only as the selectable, premade factions that are derived directly out of the lore. Custom Sovereigns should start with a clean slate, or perhaps have alignment changeable during creation via points. I think this should also apply to any races, crazy though it may be, I would like to play a game of monstrous troll-people that are devoted to peace and democracy, or a game where the divine angle-people summon demons and hold regular sacrifices. Though I think this should be moderated to a degree, for example certain characteristics of races starting off with slightly changed alignments. Like taking the death magic book think makes you slightly more evil, while the heroic trait might make you slightly more "good."

This may seem to conflict somewhat with the importance of lore, and I agree. There is a difficult line to waltz here and it hasn't been done very well in the past with 4x games. It usually comes to a point where you end up picking your alignment during the game based on decisions, Fall from Heaven and GalCiv2 work in this way. I have played as good Yor, and evil Altarians so the lore does indeed end up conflicting with the player determining his alignment. However if you think about what Elemental has you doing(creating a brand new empire) that empire could have completely differing ideals than the parent empire it is based on. Example: The democratic United States splitting from a monarchistic Britain.

3. Races need to have meaningful impact on gameplay.

I can not stress this one enough. The biggest disappointment I had with GalCiv2 is that the different races were not meaningfully different enough as to feel like another race. Twilight of the Arnor helps this somewhat, splitting the tech trees was very ambitious and I loved it. Big points. However, I hate to seem like I'm bashing a game I love, but this is hopefully constructive. Playing as robotic people, should feel and look like robots. Playing as Draconian should look and feel like you are playing as awesome dragon people.

This will no doubt be the hardest thing to get right. It's very tricky to say the least but allow me a suggestion; much like how your sovereign can only select one profession, for races there should be a list of characteristics that are separate and exclusive allowing you to only pick one. This would be like a major racial archetype. I think there is some awesome possibility here when talking about races more so than sovereigns. I think I should give some examples of what this might include. It could range from a physical race archetype like wings, giant/halfling, or undead. To something like a social archetype of how your empire is organized like underground fortress cities, religious theocratic crusaders, tree hugging hippy naturalist, or something like evil fire and brimstone demon worshiping cities built over lava pits. You get the idea. 

I really really hope to see some changes made to the race creation process. I feel like above everything else on the table race uniqueness and difference is paramount. Which is why, if in the process of development, you have to pick because of time between making races as customizable as possible or as unique as possible I would have to go with unique. It's one thing to have ten different races all with the same buildings and same looking troops that all fight in about the same way but have vastly different minor racial things like "females can be in your military" or " all your troops get +2 hitpoints" or "you can build one building others can't" "you can make one sword others can't". And quite another to have ten races, all with different looking buildings, all with different looking people (and I mean more than just white humans and blue humans, think trolls vs dragon people) and just a few major differences. It is really really clear which is more work, which is why I am sure this isn't really a long debate with most other game developers.

But then, wouldn't that be why Stardock isn't most other game developers?

That ended up being quite a bit more lengthy than I thought it would be. Anyways, PLEASE CRITICIZE MY POST. Seriously, people shouldn't shy away from criticism, even the insulting kind can make you catch something you missed. If the goal is to come to the best decision then the only option is critically examine every suggestion and judge it based upon the merit of it's position.

-Adante-

One of life's general rules is 'actions speak louder than words'. There have been RPGs where one can choose to be 'good' but then go around and kill wantonly, loot innocent peasants' houses, etc. yet remain 'good'.  The idea of consequences/accountability is important.  It's one the the reasons Garriott's Ultima series was so groundbreaking.

I would be very surprised if this is not the actual mantra Frogboy has made apparent to the rest of the team who are responsible for the Modding build. (providing that almost all his time, currently, is consumed on writing the AI)