I was thinking about what makes sci fi movies great and how that might be applied to improve GC III.
Mega Events
--some times an invader just shows up. It's random for us but its planned by the invader, think War of the Worlds, Battle LA, Independence Day. Now this was already implemented to a degree with the Mega Events DLC. I would like to see this expanded on. These mega events require alliances to stop. Total war games did this in the M2TW game with the Far Eastern Empire invasions. So for the game a new faction shows up with fleets of warships and transports. I would like to even allow this to be editable where in we could create custom factions and select an option to make them an "invader race". I would love to have the Sith "return" in GC III but that is me.
Luck
--Call it god, call it the force, but Luke made one hell of a shot. Kirk was lucky to see Khan in the Nebula, or that they had that gas detection equipment on board. In great scifi there is a moment in which a tiny ship or an lesser tech ship takes down a much more advanced one because it just happens to exploit a design flaw. Now this should not happen all the time. But imagine that in each battle a random chance can occur that your underdog fleet can win. say 1:1000 chance. One could even allow additional tech development lines to slightly increase the luck factor.
Consequences
--Shouldn't have never played god, shouldn't have dough so deep, now look at us? The game has a cool feature. Moral choices that have penalties and bonuses. But there just for planet production and your moral alignment. But you spit on the graves of the natives to gain a tech edge and maybe they rise up, or maybe an ancient mega robot awakens to strike fear into your Empire? It might also disgust your generals who see themselves as warrior not murders and thieves. This might lead to a civil war? The opposite can be true as well. Do the right thing and protect the natives or show consideration for others and in a dark time suddenly people work very hard for you, creating game changer techs to save the republic. There is even a Patriotic event. Actual events like this saved France during the revolution. These events are set in motion depending on what your choices have been made, a remember when you did this? I would make sure there are a bunch of different ones so its not so predictable or redundant but this could create a sense of consequence to your action. Right now you can jump back and forth from moral stance to moral stance Depending on what you want to do. As a good guy I love the enlightenment path, but other than that I go merchant and negotiation paths, but that's pragmatic so I alternate responses to event to get both, without any of my people accusing me of flip flopping or betraying the morals of the republic? IE no consequences to my actions.
Heroes
--All seemed loss but then a hero arrived and the people rose. I have mentioned parts of this in other forms. I am a big fan of ships retreating, but not because I would love to chase ships all day or micro manage fleets. But because I want them to sometimes survive. Think about it, if we apply GCIII game rules to scifi, Luke, Han, and Leia all die on Hoth??? Khan destroys Kirk in the first engagement in TWOK. The survivor ability is tided to luck. The Enterprise is just lucky at times, hits that destroy even her sister ships just don't have the same effect. She lives to fight another day. Its just a little faster, a little stronger. It is a source of pride that improves moral where ever it goes. Kirk and Luke are heroes. Heroes can change the course of a war, adding in something that even the emperor didn't see coming. Now to add them in practically can be done in a few ways. One is a normal ship of yours that manages to gain the hero ability by luck as this could be a randomly selected event. In addition one could design a hero ship. I know what your thinking...Huh? Well in many stories we have a prototype super ship or vehicle. If you haven't already seen the 1979 classic Mobile Suit Gundam, watch it and you will see what I mean. It's a story surrounding a really powerful prototype mech suit. Nice part of this is that prototype ships are already in the game. I normally don't use them as there so few in production, using rare elements and all, but if they could be real game changers??? Hero units, in addition to their own high stats, elevated luck stat, would also have effects on ships around them a "moral bonus" like fleet bonuses granted by the add on modules like recharters and whatnot. For example, Luke would add a increased targeting and range to all the ships in Red Squadron, because he is a "dead eye" hero.