GalacticNoob

Join Date 02/2006

Issues and Suggestions

From an admitted noob :)

Well, now that I've played several games as differerent races and using different strategies, I've got some things to say. So in no particular order, here we go ...

1) In the Dread Lords campaign, I'll get panicky pleas for help from the other races like "The ward agains the Dread Lords is going badly, is there anything you can do?". Problem is, I know that they haven't been touched at all by the Dread Lords because my territory is between the DL and the race that's complaining that they're losing.

2) During the DL campaign, the other races just sit there unless they've been directly attacked by the DL. So here I am, their "ally", getting pounded and they do nothing to help out. They build up some forces and sit inside their borders, letting me do all the work.

3) Ok, so if I'm meant to be the ones to take on the DL, I need some way of telling my "allies" to go and deal with the Drengin or the Yor and keep them off my back. The "Attack..." option in the diplomacy screen doesn't do anything in the DL campaign, so I have no way of telling the Arceans to go smack around the Drengin if they're not gonna help me with the DL

I mean heck, if I can avoid a two or even three front war by having my "allies" deal with the smaller problems, isn't that the point of having allies?

4) Custom ship designs are great but there needs to be a better way of managing custom designs. When I get to a point in a game where I need a custom ship, I create one. I can't see the ones I've created before if I haven't reached the same tech level. If I created a ship as a different race, I can't see those either. I end up reusing ship names and overwriting my old designs simply because I'm lazy at naming ships.

5) I find I dislike, and end up not using, the macro-economic sliders. The tax rate one is easy enough to deal with but the Military/Social/Research slider idea needs a re-think. Its too easy to work against yourself by perhaps setting the macro-sliders to emphasize one thing and then on a planetary basis change the "focus" to something opposite. Seems to me the best way would just be to have the planetary settings be the controlling mechanism. I'll even go one step further and say that the macro-econ sliders should go away entirely and do it on a planetary basis. I mean, why shouldn't I be able to do taxation on planetary basis as a way of managing morale on that planet? By that same token, the production focus on any given planet should control the allocation of resources entirely. I would say that in place of the single-click focus there should be a slider that defaults to 50%. That way, I can change the planetary production focus as I see fit. Changing the sliders should automatically change the expenditures accordingly, so you can see how it affects your planetary "budget". Negative numbers are allowed, since the bills are paid out of the racial bank account

6) Morale should be shown on a planetary basis with some sort of up/down/neutral trend indicator, so I can see how my decisions are affecting the planetary morale. This way, I can see if I change the tax rate on that planet how it affects my morale trends.

7) Position of items should have an effect on what you can trade it for in the diplomacy screen. For example, the Altarians put an Military starbase in an area that I end up controlling. In fact, after a bit the military starbase is entirely ecompassed in my territory. I try to trade for that starbase andthe Altarians won't do it. My only option is to go to war and destroy it and ruin my diplomatic status with the Altarians at the same time. Had the AI been more reasonable and realized that the starbase is in jeopardy by being in my territory, they should be more accomodating about releasing it.

8) The Research slider should not be tied to the Military or Social production sliders. Its merely a question of whether I fully fund my research facilities or not, which should have no impact on miliary or social. Funding N research centers at Y percent of their capacity costs X billion credits from my bank account. Same with military or social - level of production of that resource costs a certain amount of money.

9) What happened to the United Federation during the Dread Lords campaign? Why can't we use the UFP during it? I mean, it would be awfully nice to have some of the resolutions like arming transports or sharing of starbase bonuses

10) A new set of Governors that can display all available ships. If they are in orbit around a planet, there would be a "select all of ship type X" and then an option to to launch those ships. You could then select select a group of ships by type and give them a destination - not a rally point, just a common destination for those selected ships. This would really help with Constructors. Rally points aren't ideal because those are set on a planetary basis, meaning no matter what ship type is produced it goes to the same location. So if you make a quick Star Fury in the middle of a run of Constructors, the Star Fury will end up on top of the Starbase you were constructing

Well, that's my list for now

So far I'm having a good time with the game, so keep it going Stardock!

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oh, add #10 to that list ....

10) Why isn't the UFP active during the Dread Lords campaign? I mean, some of the resolutions involved would be handy to talk about while you're in that ware ... like arming transports or sharing starbase bonuses between allies.

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5) I find I dislike, and end up not using, the macro-economic sliders. The tax rate one is easy enough to deal with but the Military/Social/Research slider idea needs a re-think. Its too easy to work against yourself by perhaps setting the macro-sliders to emphasize one thing and then on a planetary basis change the "focus" to something opposite.

First off, I am not saying you are wrong. I'm just offering an opinion of my own. I've been playing for only a short time myself, but the most powerful stratagy so far has been economic (as it usually is in stratagy games). I finally read the manual when I realized this game acually needs a manual.

That led to me acutally understanding the economic system in GalCivII. I find it to be one of the more innovative that I have seen.

Long story short, I usually build an entertainment building on each planet and, right from the start, set my tax to 69% and the production to 100%. To get it all built, I have to put all my production into social work, via the sliders. After the colony rush is over, I have a negative bank account for a few weeks and then it jumps up like crazy until I am the most economic, industrial, and reasearching of all the races. If I didn't have those 3 bars, I'd never be able to balance it out and keep my funds going and people happy.

I do wonder as well though, why can you not have 100% production in each of the 3 fields as once. I really like the economic system, and I would like to understand it much, much better before I suggested I could improve it

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4) Custom ship designs are great but there needs to be a better way of managing custom designs. When I get to a point in a game where I need a custom ship, I create one. I can't see the ones I've created before if I haven't reached the same tech level. If I created a ship as a different race, I can't see those either. I end up reusing ship names and overwriting my old designs simply because I'm lazy at naming ships.

Yeah, It would be nice if you could just look at empty versions of all your old designs, rather than having to research the tech that was on it just to re-use the hull. I'm thinking of getting around that by saving "empty" versions of my best-looking hulls at the end of this campaign, but some sort of ship manager would be nice. It would also be nice to be able to edit ships , sans useful components, outside of the game.

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#1 doesnt mean anything. Those ships can go straight through your area of sight in one turn, they're extremely fast. They probably are getting smashed without you realising. Plus, they could have tried an assault and lost

#2 Turn up the difficulty so the AI works.

#3 Again, they're at war with them already, and don't do anything if the AI is too low, they aren't smart enough.

#4 The custom ship design works because you need all the techs. What's wrong with it? it's fair and it works.

#5 Sorry, no. Need the sliders very badly. Once you get used to them, they're easy to manage. If you want them all the same, just set them to 33% each.

#6 You can. Approval is morale. You can see it from the moment you change tax

#7 That was an extremely good placing for them. If they declared war on you, they would have a brilliant place to attack you, boost their range, and up their ships. I LOVE starbases inside my enemy territory

#8 No it isn't. It's a question of where your money goes. That's all.

#9 Erm, no. You're a bit busy with a few other things to bother with beurocracy.

10# There is a ship list on the interface that shows all planets and ships, and their locations.

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I am with Galactinoob.

JohnBigBootay,
President and Founder of the Galactic Newb Alliance
We love the game, but are retarded, and under the Americans With Disabilities Act, we should be afforded some kind of protection. There was not a "No Newb" or "No Retarded Kids Purchase" on my box or my download.

Later,
JBB
GNA President

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He does mention the inability to deliberately share starbase bonuses between allies however - that's a silly omission. He also complains about arming transports... when HE DESIGNS THE TRANSPORTS. I wonder how you arm them?

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You can share stabase bonuses between allies. It's a UP resolution, and quite good, those crappy ally ships I have to put up with get souped up a bit. Same as arming transports, they get auto armed. Designing them gives them attacks. However, his point was why these don't appear in the campaign. As I said, If the root of all evil appeared on Earth, would we sit around with beurocracy, debating over strategies, or do something?
Wait, I'm in England. Beurocracy (and the horrible death it will entail) all the way then

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Hears a #11: military strength should play a much smaller part in diplomacy. Here is an example, I have all ten of my trade ruts going to the Yor and yet because I have almost no military they declare war on me, trashing both our economies.

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Actually, if they were fighting, you'd see it during the AI's "turn" because the screen would show you the battle.

#2 Turn up the difficulty so the AI works.

#3 Again, they're at war with them already, and don't do anything if the AI is too low, they aren't smart enough.

I used the AI default setting for the campaign, which is "normal". Sorry but I didn't think to change the AI level for the campaign, figured it was set where it needed to be

#4 The custom ship design works because you need all the techs. What's wrong with it? it's fair and it works.

Nobody said it wasn't "fair". But that doesn't mean I don't want to see the designs anyway. Maybe I would take the design and upgrade/downgrade it to fit my current tech level, but I don't want to re-do all the non-cost customizations.

#5 Sorry, no. Need the sliders very badly. Once you get used to them, they're easy to manage. If you want them all the same, just set them to 33% each.

Sorry, yes. Sliders yes, but on a planetary basis, not the entire friggin galaxy. They start out all set to 33%, meaning that none of your resources will ever produce fully, even when you go with the "this is my econ planet, this is my research planet". To make up for not altering the galati-sliders, you have to dump more factories or more research centers on the planet.

#6 You can. Approval is morale. You can see it from the moment you change tax

You only see the aggregate approval. I'm talking about it on a planetary scale

#7 That was an extremely good placing for them. If they declared war on you, they would have a brilliant place to attack you, boost their range, and up their ships. I LOVE starbases inside my enemy territory

True, but in the DL campaign they're not going to attack me are they? And since we can't share starbase bonuses, those military bases are fairly useless. If they would trade them to me, I could do something with them in my own territory

#8 No it isn't. It's a question of where your money goes. That's all.

*sigh* I want control of it on a planet-by-planet basis and to see the cost of it by type, not some huge slider in the sky that sets it for the whole bloody galaxy

#9 Erm, no. You're a bit busy with a few other things to bother with beurocracy.

Those things I mentioned are exactly the kinds of things allies in war do - share base resources, give arms or escorts to their transport ships, etc. But for the moment, that's not possible in-game without the some of the resolutions of the UFP.

10# There is a ship list on the interface that shows all planets and ships, and their locations.

Which doesn't give you the ability to launch them or set a destination for them. You have to go back to each individual starport for that, which is what I'm suggesting could use a change.

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grrr... double post .. sorry

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