Completely understand the idea of going further with Terraforming , maybe punctual random events/disasters could be considered. Looking at the Civilization 6 gathering storm expansion which introduces floods, volcanic eruptions, blizzards, sand storms, hurricanes... Those are random events providing benefits (soil quality increase) and catastrophies (buildings closed during the event and requiring higher than usual maintenance after) on a localized part of the map and you've been warned in advance, you settled knowing the risks so applied here you would be like: "Hey there's a double vista here that's great but there's a volcano in range..."
This model/idea going to Surviving Mars would be great and make Terraforming an even more organic thing. Your idea about rivers is great, we can create lakes so why not connecting them to create a river and consider a dam for electricity production then?
Then for Culture/Goverment I would really like to have that to provide more depth to certain mechanics in the game, you chose your government and adapt their corresponding policies depending on your colony situation. For example there's always a situation around population growth during a game, at the beginning you could have a policy to encourage babies because you provide a maternity leave for mothers who will not work for a couple of sols after having a baby. Later on you could have a one child policy for when there's too many people, it would imply a moral penalty on colonists but provide a slight higher chance of having a rare trait for children at school because they are better taken care of.
I really hope that a DLC around a Government idea is considered, it would give room to provide more depth to several mechanics in the game, maybe some moral choices and to the relationships with other colonies, Earth or even other colonized parts of the Solar system (thinking about the Beyond Earth mystery for example). Love the idea of getting independence, definitely something to do here !
Definitely agree with what was said above with Culture, this would be a mean to have a feeling of adapting to a Martian lifestyle. Having a mechanic similar to science, with points to be generated to unlock new buildings, events or create artists (workshops for example?). Let's imagine also an Artist trait just like the Genius/Celebrity/Saint/Empath for example, you could send him as a tourist to a rival colony or on Earth for a Concert or Art Exhibition and get funding or culture points... Unlocking a museum building as well would be great, you would display artefacts found earlier in your game like the Curiosity rover or Tesla car for example to get a bonus like a moral boost to those in the same dome or visiting the building but it would need people to work in it to preserve these. A security station would also be considered to prevent risks of these artifacts being stolen for example. Expeditions would be unlock on the planet to find artefacts, Indiana Jones on Mars
Well those are the first ideas that came to mind and would get me really exited! What are your thoughts?
.png){kind=avatar}
