1) I think the cities should have a population in them i stead of those heads. It would start at 10,000, the next turn it could grow to 12,000 etc.

2) I say: Trash the grid system! Therefor, the city radius would be in a circle around the city. The computer would calculate how much land you have of each terrain type. The city radius should be decided by the size of the city. A size 10,000 city could have a radius with an area of, say, 2500 square kilometres. 1000 inhapitants could work on e.g. 50 sq. kms. A 10,000 city could then work on 1 5th of its radius. A city with 1,000,000 would have an area of 10,000 sq. kms, and a 10,000,000 city would have an area of 50,000 sq. kms. If a land area is irrigated, mined etc. it would need more people working in it, so 50 irrigated sq. kms would need 2000 people or something. In the large cities, only a small part of the pop would be working outside the city. Then what would the rest of then do? The answer needs a little explanation: i think it is a mistake, that production in civ games has always been produced outside the cities. That isn't so in real life. Therefor, i think an area worked outside the city would make no or little production. It would make food and/or raw materials (both vital ones like iron, coal and oil, and goods like cotton and wine wich could generate money if sent to your cities). I think production should be made by workers inside the city. They would produce a certain amount, say 1 prod per 1000 people. This could be raised by building improvements, so a factory would raise it from 1 to 2. However, for the factory to do this, it would require one unit of coal - or it wouldn't give any bonus. Likewise would nuklear plants need uranium etc. This would make coal very important in the imdustrial age, which would make worthwile. It could also give countries actual reasons to go to war. This, i think, would be a great addition to the gameplay.

Like a WALKING CITY a _nomad tribe_ unit gathers food&shield&trade from the tile it is currently on (occasionally preventing a local city to use this tile). It must move every turn or will get _no_ resources (e.g. fortified in emergency). The first/only population point of the _nomad tribe_ unit reaps _all_ food&shields&trade points from the occupied tile according to the current government type -- Nothing is subtracted as maintenance for the unit itself! Further pop. points reap additionally (shields+1 & trade+1) per pop. point, but _no_ food from the occupied tile. Thereafter this tile is exhausted for "pop. points"-number of turns (yield=0), symbolized by a pollution-like icon. So the multiple _nomad tribe_ units leave temporary traces behind them, happy hunting -- this also prevents them from occupying the same (special resource or self-improved) tiles "too soon" again (for example on automated patrol routes).
Every _nomad tribe_ unit has a name (reference for the supported units), a short list of TRIBE IMPROVEMENTS and a food & production box, which are displayed, when it becomes the active unit. _nomad tribe_ units can't improve terrain with roads, irrigation, mines etc. and cannot produce wonders; they can produce units and some mobile(!) equivalents to city improvements:
Chieftain's Hut - requires warrior code, equiv. to Palace
Sacred Grove - requires ceremonial burial, equiv. to Temple
Shaman's Hut - requires map making, equiv. to Library
Bazaar - requires currency, equiv. to Market Place
Wagon Burgh - requires wheel, equiv. to City Walls, but not as strong.
When a _nomad tribe_ unit founds a city, the tribe improvements are changed into their city equivalents(??).

_nomad tribe_ units may gain advances through the collection of TRADE POINTS, just like regular cities. Every civ gets 1 tradepoint per turn for free (to lessen the advantage for starting with the _nomad tribe_ unit near river tiles). Once the "settling" advance is acquired, they may found cities.

With the appropriate civilization advance a _nomad tribe_ unit can build the tribe improvements mentioned above and units (warriors, horsemen, settlers, diplomats etc.) by emptying a full PRODUCTION BOX. 1 military unit per population point of the _nomad tribe_ unit is free of support in despotism (&monarchy?). Further units are supported from the _nomad tribe_ unit's production box with 1 shield per turn (or 1 food, if the prod. box is empty (and disbanded, if the food box is empty too)). Settlers need 1 shield & 1 food support.
The MILITARY UNITS produced by a _nomad tribe_ unit are some of the regular types, except higher Morale/Experience than ordinary units and mounted types have slightly better mobility. The units it can produce should be limited to infantry and mounted, so no vehicles. Maybe they could not build units requiring beyond a certain Production cost, which would be a quick way to prohibit them from building things they never built, like Musketeers, Catapults, Cannon, etc?

When its FOOD BOX becomes full, 1 _nomad tribe_ unit _may_ split in 2 new, independend _nomad tribe_ units with their own, empty (and scaled up) food boxes, dividing the content of the old unit's production box into their own, independend production boxes as well as dividing supported units of the old unit between the 2 new units; tribe improvements remain together at 1 (the bigger) new unit.
Alternatively to the split the _nomad tribe_ unit _may_ accumulate, ie. clear & scale up its full food box and increase the pop. points by one.
To provide one mechanism towards building cities (and to escape the general "exponential growth" problem!), the food box is enlarged on every split or accumulation (e.g. 10, 10, 20, 30, 50 etc. food). This numbers should play-balance a variety of starting strategies between the following extremes:
(mongolian) EXPANSIONIST, explore continent for goodie huts & weak civs, develop asap horseback riding, wheel etc., conquer cities and/or plunder their irrigated & mined tiles with swarms of simple _nomad tribe_ units. [Overrun your inert enemies behind their fences while your own population base is highly flexible: suitable distributed moving targets between nowhere and everywhere. Hurry up, your advantage is diminishing, conquer enough cities with your superior (in terms of mobility & morale/experience) horseXXXX units before your wild & free life is finally doomed by the advance of gunpowder...]
(chinese) PERFECTIONIST, explore neighbourhood for a good city location, develop asap the advance "settling", build city, irrigation, granary, phalanx etc. [Improve your cities & agriculture, dig in and build up city walls, defend tenacious every of your precious improvements. Grow fast, grow faster than you loose power to your nasty enemies in the dark ages. And hold on tight, your time will come, to throw them back and finally destroy them and prosper peacefully...]
As long as _nomad tribe_ units want to grow, they would avoid desert, glacier & mountain (0 food) and prefer grassland, special resources & irrigated tiles (2+ food), mainly mixed with forest & plains (1 food), and so gaining approx. 1.5 food per turn (net).
[With the FOODBOX-SIZES 10, 10, 20, 30, 50, 80, 130.. & approx. 1.5 food per turn gathered by a _nomad tribe_ unit, it would need 7, 7, 13, 20, 33, 53, 87.. turns to fill them. I.e. during the first 7, 13, 27, 47, 80, 133, 220.. turns there would be max. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64.. _nomad tribe_ units (of course if not accumulated or killed or used for cities).]

Another mechanism towards building cities and balance between the splitting or accumulating of _nomad tribe_ units is provided by UNHAPPINESS (riot factor): Unhappiness/Inefficiency from distance translates into rebellion after a time unless serious steps are taken to avoid it. Own rioting (redhead) _nomad tribe_ units on the circumference of the empire turn into barbarian (redflag) _nomad tribe_ units after a couple of turns (10?) and split off from the starting civ.
[Early-game BARBARIANS should have more options than just attack anything that moves: provide trading partners, info about other civs they contact, middle-men for tech transfers. Variety in Barbarians comes both from giving them a range of attitudes and mentioned interactions, but also some diplomatic exchange as well: You can buy off barbarians into not attacking you, joining you, attacking someone else, etc. Trading a lot with them would make them like you more (or, occasionally, lust after what you've got and raid you if you don't keep some military force around. And they should rely a lot on the way nomadic civs worked, by raids or hiring themselves out as mercenaries or try to join your empire but settling in the borders... There should be many barbarian tribes, but barbarians of the same tribe should land near each other. If barbarians stay too long without being attacked, then they should found thier own cities and become a small city-state. Finally the threat to civs also change over time and/or technology: barbarians to peasant rebellions to religious fanatics and terrorists.]

Goodie huts can result in a _nomad tribe_ unit.

Questions:
_nomad tribe_ units are really weak and probably can't survive a heavy battle (they can fortify, but that would prevent them from gathering food). Should ZONES OF CONTROL apply to them?

I think cities should be able to produce _nomad tribe_ units (kind of supply crawlers). When such a unit is created in a city, the number of citizens is reduced by 1. Number of shields required to produce a _nomad tribe_ unit?20? How about the initial foodbox-size of the _nomad tribe_ unit?80?

WINNING the GAME of CIV III

CIV, CTP and SMAC are all won either by conquering the entire planet (or thereabouts) or by building some massive special project (Spaceship, trancendance etc, Alien life) project. Perhaps CIV III needs a differnent ending?

So, try this for size. Your task is to unite the world to face the Alien Invasion! Diplomatically, militarily or by means of pecial projects you bring the planet under your control. At some point, perhaps semi random based on progress in the game the aliens invade. If your not in charge of the all the world, some of the civs will ally with you, some will ally with them. If you are the stongest, perhaps you get the weakest etc.

Anyway, the Aliens invade, you don't know where, or in what strength. They might come with primarily naval, air, ampibious or ground troops, or they could be balanced. But they will be tough. They will have super units. And they will be aggressive. Defeat them you win, or face extinction.

This has sort of been done before, in Colonization, with the War of Independence. But you would be forced to keep them in the back of your mind, and be forced to maintain a balanced defence against the possibility during the late game. Because you won't know where and when (well vaugely) there gonna come.

SETTLERS, PUBLIC WORKS and ENGINEERS

While I don't want to enter the Public Works/Terraformer/Settlers debate I would like to say that all three have their attractions, and certain individuals style and likes/dislikes influence their opinions of each method. So, why not allow all three methods to be available? The Civ settler/engineer is a really useful unit in the early game, your city will produce one, it will irrigate/mine one or two squares and then build a road off to where it finally decides to build the next city, possibly exploring on the way. This formula is then repeated as required. SMAC's implementaton of the former/colony pod forces the strategic decision of founding a new base or improving existing ones, the support costs acting as a natural break on the quantity of formers that could be produced. Formers also have the advantage of being emergency defenders/perimeter defences too. The public works concept with pure settlers has the advantage of being an excellent model of the civilization working together, wealth produced at the core of the empire can be used to improve the periphery quickly and efficiently. It also can significant speed up gameplay by reducing micromanagement in the later stages of the game.

However, each of these methods have their drawbacks. In all cases, the settler function seems to become redundant about half way through the game. By this stage, the space near you is pretty much taken by your own and opposing cities, if you want more lebensraum you go capture it. And in any case the time it takes to build a city up to any reasonable production level means there is little benefit in founding new cities int the 'new worlds' past a certain point. Only if settler units can be used to shift population from one city to another do they have any use. In Civ (and SMAC?) this can only be done to bring a city to a certain size, in CTP I've yet to work out how this can be done. And the build cost is fairly high for simple population transfer. The terraformer facility suffers in the end from there generally being far to many of them to manage without wasting a lot of time each go, so for me at least by the time the end game comes round and I'm in planet conquer mode I just don't bother. Public works allow the tactic of massive improvements to a city in one hit, suddenly everywhere is mines, farms etc. Also, in order to avoid resource wasteage in the early game (there is precious little to go round, why waste any), you should be altering the PW percentage every turn, rush buying when the job is almost complete and maxing public works for one turn.

In effect, terraformers give the player a challenge to resolve during the early game but too much micro-management towards the end, public works are sort of the opposite.

So, why can't all of these types co-exist within the game, as time progresses. Initially, the settler/engineer does the work, these early descisons of what to improve and where to build are absolutely crucial to sucess or failure. But these boys can only develop to a fairly primitive level, public works expenditure is needed to improve these squares further. Now the ability to fund public works only comes with the governments above despotism where presumably your civilization has developed from local tribes to a city state conglomerate. There is probably a case for limiting the total percentage a given government can assign to public works as well. However, if public works are applied to an unimproved square, they are significantly more expensive. This simulates the experts laying the groundwork, public works being considered gradual maintenance and improvement over time. It also will have the effect of limiting just how much improvement can be done to a single city at one time, but it may be that absolute limits may also need to be applied (i.e. only 3 squares in any city radius can be improved at any time, upgrading a square losses ALL resource from that square etc.). Public works improvements also take time as would settler improvments. But, settlers and public works can be combined together to produce improvements in a more cost effective manner.

Utimately perhaps, the longer you apply your settler/public works bugdet the more productive the square becomes. For example, say that 'farming' a square takes 5 turns, costs 50 and improves production by 10. So each turn production is increased by two and the PW budget is decreased by 10. So partial/interrupted improvments become allowed.

Settlers however carry a relativly high resource drain on the city/civ that supports them, and contain a population point. Their prime function really is to found new cities, the terraform ability is there to allow a civilization/city to kickstart. As the civilization progresses, a new unit becomes available, say with the advance of engineering. These are civil engineers(!), and are to all purposes the SMAC terraformers. These are cheaper and cost less to support than settlers, but cannot found cities. They can however construct certain terrain improvements that are not available through public work, I'm thinking here of maybe fortifications, bridges, tunnels, airfields etc. etc. When these improvements first become available civil enginers must build them, with probably some public work investment too, but after some time or another advance, they can be built by public works alone. There might even be some form of evolution with these engineers as well, you need a different type of engineer to build forts from airfields. I always used to love my 'combat engineers' in civ II, the guys who went in and built the road/railroad/fortess combiniation that let me get next to a city without the risk of one hit destroying me. Not possible in CTP, not required in SMAC.

Around about this time also, a 'migrant' unit could be produced. This simply allows a population point to be moved from one city to another, but does not have the capacity to form a new city. However, this would not be without disadvantage to both the producing and recieving city. In addition to the resource cost to build (which need not be that high), there is also a support cost that is much higher in terms of food especially, than that of a population point in a city. The purpose of this is primarily to discourage players from stockpiling migrants to overcome say happiness or resource shortfalls. To the recieving city, perhaps a happiness hit (immigration invariably causes discontent, on both sides) for a time and possibly a resource hit as well to simulate the additional infrastructure needed. This will discourage the player from dumping 20 migrants into a new city all in one hit.

This migrant unit would allow rapid growth and development of new or conquered areas at some cost to the established center, therby allowing colonization in the later game. After all, founding a new city after 1800 in pointless in CIV and CTP, but look at all the great cities of the USA, and how big were they in civ terms in 1800?

As the game progresses further and spreads into the colonization of undersea, space or, who knows, Alpha Centauri, the settler/engineer makes a re-appearance. Radically more expensive, and only able to work in its designated realm these bring us back to the management technique of the first few turns. But then, when you first expand to the sea bed, or space, or AC then you want to micromanage these ventures, but the main civ should be fairly autopilot, i.e. public works. These units should found new cities at sizes greater than 1, probably 3 so that again they can be kick started. They perhaps also come with a package of improvements ready built. There could also be the option of a 'super settler' for land use, allowing effective very late game colonization to the last bits of the world.

~SETTLERS, PUBLIC WORKS and ENGINEERS
~The Civ settler/engineer is a really useful unit [...] it will irrigate/mine one or two squares and then build a road off to where it finally decides to build the next city, possibly exploring on the way.
Yes, this is _fun_! And I think it's important, that the settler unit is vulnerable for attack.
~The public works concept [...] can significant speed up gameplay by reducing micromanagement in the later stages of the game.
Yes, this is _fun_ again! Maybe the public works concept should be implemented on a regions level for best results?

~So, why can't [...] these types co-exist within the game, as time progresses.
I consent 100% with this & the following 2 paragraphs about 'absolutely crucial settlers/engineers', 'limits for public works' and 'civil & combat engineers'.

~...in any case the time it takes to build a city up to any reasonable production level means there is little benefit in founding new cities in the 'new worlds' past a certain point.
NO! (or is your certain point just before the start of your spaceship)
~founding a new city after 1800 is pointless in CIV and CTP, but look at all the great cities of the USA, and how big were they in civ terms in 1800?
Hey, this great cities prospered under republic/democracy. Try "this cool concept from history" in a civ game! It works: Let a couple of settlers/engineers double-irrigate some grassland to farmland & build/buy a supermarket/temple&co, then raise the luxuries for presidents day. Here you have some really "rapid growth turns" for your young cities.
On the other hand, if the US had been under despotism/communism..., would there be 'all the great cities'?

But besides, how about my _nomad tribe_ unit as migrant unit. I think it would work.
What do you (and all others) think of the whole concept of nomadic civilizations, just 4 msgs above:
*Proposal: Add to the game Nomadic Civilizations on a Mobile Population Base
*Purpose: A larger spectrum of strategies to start a game with and more flexible paths to victory

Logistics - War Cost
Add a logistics to unit cost. Say for ever tile that a military unit is out of it's home nation's borders, it's maintenance cost increases by 10%, so at 10 tiles distance, it's double the costs. At 20 tiles distance, it's triple the costs.

You could even have this 100% distance change with the scale of the game map. Advances could give breaks, or extend the range (say after refridgeration, base goes to 5%, making it double cost at 20 tiles).

This would reflect the real world problem that it takes more to supply a far flung unit then one close to your home supply network. And it would mean that you have to have a strong infrastructure in place to afford long range warfare for an extended matter of time.

You could get a 50% break for being on ALLIED/PACTED grounds.

And to get around the problem of someone just building a city on the beach-head when they are doing an large normandy type invasion, the higher difficulty levels would include upping costs for using cities/bases not connected to your home supply network. This means that units on a small continent would cost a little extra to maintain due to having to ship/fly all their supplies into a port city and then moved to them. Units outside your territory bounds on that island would cost more then if it was positioned at the same distance outside you homeland, but still on the same continent.

And yes, I think it should be possible to establish "water" supply channels that make it near the cost of having to supply over that route as a pure home network. With Superconductors, it might be possible to build sub-marine lev train tubes that would connect outlieing colonies to home and then all are part of the home supply network.

re: Spheres and Terrain Improvements Worked
I'd like a sphere map as well. And if you had the size of surrounding land worked by and improvement go up with advances, then in the beginning (bronze age), it might take 6 farms/villages to work the same effective area as 1 in the industrial age. This would work with mines and other forms of terraforming improvement.

re: Best Idea
The truly most RADICAL idea for Firaxis would be to be willing to take as long as it takes to make sure Civ3 is a product that we will all enjoy playing until Civ4 is released. I know I plan to do exactly that... play Civ3 until Civ4 is made.

-Crusader->----

BTW, I believe that all of this information would work for a non-grid continuous spherical map (which I would love to see!)

Units:
I propose the following system to greatly simplify the units on the map:
Settler units are only used to found cities.
Farms and mines (as well as other city benefiting terrain square improvements) are an automatic development that occurs where there are concentrations of population.
Engineer units are required to build roads, fortifications and later bridges.
Surveyor units are required to build canals, and later railroads and dams.
Explorer units are best at exploring, and always move at a speed equal to the best available technology and see an area of one square around them into unmapped territory. (All other units only see the square they enter and move at half speed into unmapped terrain). Explorers can see in this way while on board ships.
Caravans and diplomats should be automatically modeled, and not physically moved on the map.
Spies should exist, but should not require moving a unit on the map.
Armies (and navies) are a unit that can be supported from one or more cities. At the beginning of the game each city could support one army (either its own, or to assist another city). After creating garrison a city could support a second army which must remain at the city (forces can be transferred between armies at the same location). Additional technologies could support even more armies.
Every army is made up of a specific quantity of forces according to available technology. For example, you may have an army that is made up of 500 militia, 500 phalanx (bronze warriors), 250 chariots, 250 archers and 10 stealth bombers. Armies would be made up of components of a set size based on the technology, which also allows them to be supported in a similar way to a collection of units. Thus militia may act in groups of 500 while stealth bombers are created and act in groups of 10. The effectiveness of the group in combat is proportional to its remaining members (among other things).
There are two main differences with armies from the current system. The first idea is that all units should have a much greater movement capacity, especially in the modern ages. An army should be able to get to anywhere in the known world within a turn by the roman era, provided appropriate roads exist. Also armies would occupy a particular square, but potentially have an area of influence that could get as large as four or five squares in radius. The area of influence would be based on both the technology and size of the army. For example, an army of 30,000 archers would only effect one square. While an army containing 5,000 tanks, 20,000 infantry and 100 helicopters would influence any square within two of the army center. Navies would be handled in a similar fashion. Note that air power in this system is always attached to either an army or a navy, although it could be the only type of unit (an army with 200 jet fighters, 50 air superiority fighters, and 50 strategic bombers).
More about these ideas under "combat" later.

Borders:
Any civilization may lay claim to any square that it can see. Laying claim to a square already claimed by a civ with which there is a truce, alliance or pact is of course potential cause for conflict. Other nations will generally view claims that would make a square available to a city you own for production as justified. Likewise they will be especially critical of claims you make on a square which is near another civ's city and near which you have no cities. Diplomacy can be used to resolve claims in dispute, or to support one side or another during the dispute.
Nations who do not yet have mapmaking may not make claims. Their cities and units will develop as normal, however other nations may freely come in and claim the land as their own (e.g. Native Americans).
You will not necessarily be able to see all the land you have claimed, so it is possible another nation will manage to move in and develop a city in land you have claimed. If this happens it will likely be possible for that nation to then make a claim on that land and be supported by the international community as their citizens do in fact live there…

Cities:
Cities will have a certain population associated with them. At first the city can only take advantage of resources immediately adjacent to its location. As the population of the city, and the technology available, grows the city will be able to use resources two and eventually three squares away.
Farms and mines are automatically produced as the city begins to exploit resources in an area. If an area around a city is forested the first stage will be logging. This provides massive initial resources until completed, at which point the area becomes a farm, or a mine (or no longer worth using).
As areas around a city are developed certain amounts of the population move into these areas. This population becomes semi-independent of the city and will remain in that location thereafter. This means that as borders shift of cities fall, this portion of the population shifts to new control.

Combat:
When two (at war) armies come within range of each other there is combat. Keep in mind (from the units discussion above) that armies will have *many* movement points. Once for each move each army launches an assault at each other. The effectiveness is based on the distance (if at all) the armies are apart, which dictates which forces are involved. The morale (separate from training) of the armies is damaged along with physical losses. Then the combat is done. If either, or both armies are at 0 morale that army then moves away from the other army one square (unless in a fortification or city in which case it takes additional losses). If either army reaches -100% morale it is immediately and permanently disbanded.

Technology:
I propose two technologies tracks, or rather that there are two separate tracks. One track is science the other is technology.
Science does not allow any specific wonders, units, or facilities to be built. It can create bonuses for further research and commerce. Science is very difficult to steal from other civilizations and is required to create many new technologies. Progress in science is steadier and is difficult to hurry. As nearby civilizations develop new sciences, the knowledge will eventually be sublimated into your civilization and gained.
Examples of science include Astronomy, Geometry, Trigonometry, Physics, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, Psychology, etc.
Technology allows all the good stuff we love to have, wonders, armies, and facilities. Technologies can be stolen from other civilizations and used, even if your culture does not completely understand the underlying science. Technology is much easier to hurry than science, but is slower to be acquired through sublimation.
Technology includes Mapmaking, Gunpowder, Jet Engine, etc.

Think if instead of a city building just one unit, it diverted a percentage of shields into military production. Then when you wanted to build a unit you would use one city to tap into the "Shield budget" to build the unit. In addition my "Hometown unit" idea would fit into this by not aloowing this to happen but to let a single city build the unit the "classic" way.

This was also posted in the "General" forum and the UNITS MK. II thread. I guess this would be a radical idea but since i cant delete my own threads anymore I have to TRIPLE post.

Think if instead of a city building just one unit, it diverted a percentage of shields into military production. Then when you wanted to build a unit you would use one city to tap into the "Shield budget" to build the unit. In addition my "Hometown unit" idea would fit into this by not aloowing this to happen but to let a single city build the unit the "classic" way.

- Make supply chains more explicit. Instead of having units supported from a city just make a shield or food disappear, use some sort of supply units to keep the unit from starving, or force the unit to go get the resources from somewhere. Starving units take damage and eventually die. Perhaps instead of having to manage many supply units, simply require a legal path of movement cost X from the supply point to the unit. Perhaps allow foraging from resource or food-providing squares when appropriate.

- Implement a weather system, and appropriate agriculture (and weatherproofing?) technologies. Prevailing weather can affect combat by effecting penalties or bonuses to units. Some food grows faster in drier conditions, some in wetter, if you have the right food tech or agriculture tech you can get more food out of a square.

- Split resources into categories, so you actually need construction materials to build things, and other materials for other things. Require nuclear material to build nukes, wood to build bows, appropriate metal to make bronze or steel weapons, etc.

- Allow treaties by category, for example I might have an arms treaty with someone but no trade treaty, and I'm wrecking their economy by dumping some product (presumably NOT computer chips until much later). Or I buy food from them for X gold a turn (get them to build transport units with food on them and send them to me for X gold). Or I have a research pact with someone, which I can threaten to terminate if they don't stop dumping on my economy.

- Camouflage units for differnt terrain types, like burrowing in Starcraft or something.

The tree is a 3D rotating series of nodes (each node is a tech). The glyph is shown in the tech tree. When a node is selected, the details of it are displayed on the side. The tree could be explored going up and down and the rotation could be changed in speed and direction.

One possible way might be like Maxis did it in SimAnts. This involved showing the large overview and being able to select which area (of the galaxy) to micro-manage.

Don't know how to do it though... But definately do it!!!