I prefer a slightly more hands off exploration mechanic than is often used. I don't want to spend part of every turn scrolling around the map looking for the different units of my scout fleet, or forget to move something for a turn.

I want big marker icons "Current missions: X% complete". I want to pick the region that I'm interested in learning more about, and decide how important it is, which in turn decides how many resources can be devoted to completing the project, which then affect how many turns it takes before I get my next bit of detailed info on it.

For a strategy game like this I would rather have a good idea of the layout and some probabilities of what a star system has from the get go. (Just seems odd that I don't even know about a star a few lightyears away, let alone not having a clue if it has any kind of planets or anything.)

I say keep exploration, but keep it to budgets, targets, and technology decisions. If I'm the emperor then it really isn't my job to say if S-108 'Victoria' is sent on the mission, or if S-109 'Intrepid' goes. A ship, a few ships, or a lot of ships is what I want to choose, and I don't care where they come from, but I would assume my admirals would pick the most logical ships to allocate to the project.

What I'd say is that, not knowing what your opponent is up to is a risk you can't take: he might be doing exactly that which defeats your own strategy.

Removing eXploration from a 4X is essentially turning the game into a 'watch and adapt' type of game as opposed to actual strategy.

I say keep exploration, but keep it to budgets, targets, and technology decisions. If I'm the emperor then it really isn't my job to say if S-108 'Victoria' is sent on the mission, or if S-109 'Intrepid' goes.

What worries me are military fleets. If they can explore the player will obviously send them to exploration (which means a lot of stupid micromanagement).

So... how about disallowing non exploration units to enter unexplored systems? Like an error when you try to move fleets there "survey the star lane for safe warp passage first" or "your supersticious space sailors think there is a space monster that will eat the ship, send scout ship to prove they are wrong".

Another thing, if it is budget/research thing, how the player can affect it? I mean the player needs to have a saying which part of the galaxy to explore next, right?

(there were some ideas for this in the topic already)

To pull another mechanic out of Europe Univeralis IV in that at the start you can't explore or colonize empty provinces. In order to explore you first need to unlock the second idea in the exploration idea group. This idea lets you hire explorers to command your fleets or armies. Only forces led by an explorer can travel into uncharted territory. It doesn't matter if you have a thriving province adjacent to an uncharted province you can't go there or speak to the country that owns it until its been explored. Over time areas explored by other nations will be revealed to you but it a slow process.

Colonization on the other hand requires colonists which are a special resource? Depending on the ideas you've unlocked and the country you are playing you can have at most 4 colonists. Colonists are sent to empty provinces and setup a colony which slowly attracts settlers and over the course of a few years builds it up a city. Provided it doesn't get destroyed by natives or other players.

You could have something similar maybe instead of colonists its survey teams or science vessels. You need them to get colonies started or make a region safe for your ships to travel. It all depends on how you want to go with your game. Europe Univerallis IV is all about limiting what the player can do any one time, MOO was all about getting the player to expand as fast as possible.

Probably I will use something like this:

You see all systems in the galaxy from the start but know nothing about them and don't know the star lanes (paths between systems).

Scouting:

- a fleet can not travel to the system/planet that was not scouted (the space lane was not explored so they can't synchronize their warp engines), so you can't use military units for exploration

- you can send scouts to a system (must be neighbour to the system you already scouted), you do so by clicking a button "send scout" on the unexplored system, next turn that system is scouted [this involves some cost, not sure what/how]

- if you create a colony it automaticly and for free scouts all neighbour systems the next turn after creation

- ocassionally you get an event "adventurer scouted a new system" and you get free scout on some random system (but not too far from your scouted ones)

Once scouted you get access to the star lane (path), know basic info about the planet, and always know about enemy fleets there.

Surveying:

- once planet was scouted you can survey it (to examine if there are ruins, relics, artifacts, technology, rare resources, etc), you do so by sending there imperial archeologists team (button on the planet) [this involves some cost, not sure what/how]

Once surveyed a planet can be colonized and have access to rare resource/ancient structures.

It's common premise in SF to have extragalactic "leveler" baddies be cyclical: humans discover that the reason alien civilizations haven't already taken over the galaxy is because civilizations are periodically wiped out by a mysterious threat... that will soon return DAH DAH DUMMMMM.

The "clues" part seems nice as well...

Anyway, what you think overall of the splitting exploration to scouting and surveying?