I know we're not there, but now I think would be a good time to start collecting ideas for the kind of Random Events we saw in GC2, because it's likely that some of them might require a non-trivial amount of work to implement. And, of course, this is one of the areas where having a Modding interface would be *really* nice.
I'll start off with two suggestions:
1). Xenomorphs. Or, at least the idea of Xenomorphs. I'd like to see a random event that rapidly kills off population on a planet over several turns, and the only "cure" is to send over a couple of transports of troops to "fight" the monsters. And if you don't, there's a significant possibility that another of your worlds will be infected, with a possibly cascading effect. Start with maybe a 1% death rate the first turn, doubling every turn until everyone's dead (8 turns).
2). Better (and more often) plagues. It would be pretty nice to have these thrown at people on a semi-regular basis, and require people to deal with them. First off, I'd like to see them start out on some world, and spread throughout the galaxy (or not spread) according to a variety of factors:
- Are there any trade routes between that planet and any other
- Planets in the same system are highly likely to be infected
- The ability to quarantine would be there, but it would cut off economics to/from the planet, and have a noticeable impact on your empire
- infect ships nearby when the plague started, and kill them off if a cure isn't found soon, and/or use them as disease vectors
- Cures would be of random difficulty, or, alternately, there could be no cure even, only treatment, which leaves an Empire permanently contaminated, and long-term would require constant outlays of money to keep the disease in check.
OK, I lied. Two more idea:
3). Natural disasters. Things that destroy buildings and such, not just cost population and/or money to fix.
4). Pests. Things that can do a variety of stupidly annoying things: some new species of space locust that eats armor plating on ships, reducing all armor-equipped ship's defenses by 25% until killed off; reduce the food production on planets, requiring you to increase cross-planet food shipments (if we ever get that implemented) or simply take off population to avoid famine; infect trading goods, reducing trade income due to destroying/damaging goods, etc.
Overall, I'd like to see these events be MUCH more common - one every few dozen turns or so. They introduce a real sense of chance into the game which I find a real significant add to the enjoyment.
