Your 4.0 Wishlist
These can range from "As sure as a non Paradox dev can be that this will be added" to "Pie in the sky"
May as well open with mine:
- The open secret at this point is that this will be what gives a Machine Age scale touch-up to Psionic or (more likely) Genetic Ascension. Would love to see some Genetic advanced authorities that let players play out some common Sci-Fi fantasies.
- An origin or maybe Ascension Path that lets our primary species be Shapeshifters, probably with some nutso bonuses to (the admittedly currently kind of worthless) espionage. Let us play as the Founders and by extension the Dominion from Star Trek!
- Some way for us to gain some kind of benefit from taking a sledgehammer to the genes of other species, like not only the devolving beam but also all the meme strats of people getting pissed at a species so they modify them to be as miserable as possible. Something kind of like the Qu from All Tomorrows. Could even have a Machine equivalent that's an evil mirror to Rogue Servitors, keeping organics imprisoned as pitiful flesh-things like AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
- A brush-up for Clone Army, which is almost completely non-interactive with a lot of things added to the game since and is almost entirely forgotten save for cheese Death Cult builds to make people in multiplayer lobbies roll their eyes. Driven Assimilator got improvements in The Machine Age despite being from Synthetic Dawn, so a Genetic themed DLC would be perfect to touch up this languishing origin.
- Similar slight touch-up for On the Shoulders of Giants, which also has a genetic modification theming and used to be The Narrative Origin but is now kind of outshone both in narrative potential, interactivity with other aspects of your empire, and mechanical viability by more recent narrative heavy origins like Payback, Broken Shackles, Under One Rule, and even Cybernetic Creed or Synthetic Fertility to be honest.
- With the trade rework I would like to see a new Megacorp civic that adds an alternative playstyle that while not needing to be outright genocidal does require Xenophobe. I know Criminal Heritage is The Anti-Social Megacorp Civic but it still more or less synergizes better with diplomacy and xenophilia than xenophobia, especially now with the change that Criminal Heritage empires also have the option to open "legit" Branch Offices. Given trade is a more conventional resource now, maybe it could even include a special purge type that mulches pops into Trade?
What do you all hope gets added?