ToS Iceman:Thanks. I was aiming for the trend of discussion here to focus on things people would find more interesting rather than on the specific lineages of specific posters, you and I included. Makes for more interesting reading and a more populated boards.
Re: Starbases
I may be mistaken about several of the DS spacestations, but the Traveller's space station and its mate, the space station of the Traveller's lifetime partner, are definitely deep space stations. This is also true for several of the installations of the Kazon, and at least one economic center for the Ferengi.
Indubitably, space stations are not limited to orbital locations, and I don't hear the DS stations being referred to as "Starbases" particularly.
Somehow I find these statements clashing with the rest of your post.
I will sometimes make opinion-based statements that have to deal only with my particular sensibilities. The statements from this line of discussion are an example. I hope that I make it clear enough which ones are taste-based and which one are not.
Point was, the game is not really *concerned* with starships, it's not the main focus, as in other galactic games of the sci-fi genre. Fantastic and fictional? Sure, but there's fictional and there's "dumb". And GC doesn't even try to be believeable, or makes some feeble attempts. I'm not the only one feeling this way, so there are other sensibilities out there that are not satisfied too.
Of course, there is a lack of realism in non-sci-fi stuff all over the game, not fictional stuff, so the objectivity argument is not really the best. But yes, I know, there's always the other argument, it's a game.
Focus is a relative thing. Certainly, the game is no less focused on starships as, say, Master of Orion. Starships are your units in this game. ALL your units are starships, from trade, to colony, to war. By the same measure, we might say that Civ isn't "focused enough" on ground units.
It may or may not be at that, but this is exactly the level of "focusing" that the game strives for and its main fan base prefers. I know I prefer no further focus. I don't, for instance, especially want to pilot a Starfighter in Tie-Fighter fashion. That would make the game tedious.
"Dumb" is also relative. Was it better to have population units in the billiions that you can instantly reassign to farming or research or industry? What of an economic management scheme wherein you can instantly reassign between research, federal income, and (of all things) luxuries? And THEN you have separate "luxury" resources on top of that? Is that more "realistic?" Of course not. There is not a single 4x game you can name wherein the economic model approaches the complexity of even a Late Medieval Italian kingdom, and frankly, that's exactly how it should be.
It I wanted to count beans, I'd balance my taxes.
GalCiv2's model is
different, but not any the less "realisitic" or "dumb" for all that.
As above, it's mainly "unrealistic" vs dumb. SW's latest episodes are crap, I tend to forget they're SW at all.
And yet they're arguably more "realistic" than the original episodes were. At the very least, they provided lots more detail on the underpinnings of the Star Wars world.
If you'll review the original episodes (and everyone would be well advised to - they're that good), you'll notice that they dwell less on detail and "realism" and more on melodrama, action, and adventure. In fact, you could set Episode IV in feudal Japan and it would lose none of its impact.
Labelling GalCiv2 as "dumb," I think, simply means that there's a lot less focus on the things that some gamers find important - the details of weaponry, fancy quasi-scientific naming of ship components and all that jazz. The game eschews all that for a more robust strategic experience at its core. All its files are XML after, and you can put whatever name or explanation you want in it.
Yeah, and so it doesn't have to make "sense", and can't be discussed. Alright.
Not exactly. Any discussion of such things have to be at least partly tongue-in-cheek and can't be taken beyond a certain level of seriousness. Arguing for the "realism" of warp drive against the Probability Engine is pointless - they're both equally fantastic.
So where are those asteroids or hostile planets? And the supply bases are what but "colonies"? You *need* planets, and having the SBs in deep space away from said planets creates logistical problems that only add to the difficulty of building, operating and maintaining them. Thought I had already mentioned that. As for artificial gravity, is that a solution in our orbital space station? What about the room people need to maintain sanity? What about the effects of being isolated in deep space?
Star systems are also easily pinpointed in space. SBs in deep space, however, rely on beacons, which can be, accidently or not, disrupted. They also need shields as they have no atmosphere to protect them from cosmic radiation. Corrosion and quakes, that's if you would colonize such planets, but is that what really "happens"?
The problem of "realism" pops up again and again, as in here. Are deep space stations less "realistic" than orbital space stations? Which are more difficult to supply?
The answer is both are equally fantastic in the manner we're discussing, and that supply is purely a matter of interpretation.
Why do we need planets, anyway? Do we live deep underground because we need metal? Of course not. We mine the metal and bring it up where it's easier to live.
Is it logistically easier to research, create, and supply technology that allows us to live in a myriad of incredibly hostile environments? Wouldn't it make much more sense to simply focus on making space itself hospitable? That way we can live anywhere we want and simply mine planets robotically for the resources we need.
If we find a sufficiently Earth-like planet, then that's all well and good, but otherwise, we can just live in whatever orbit provides the best approximation and mine earth and gases and whatever we want from the planets we use.
What about room? Well, what about it? It's a function of adaptation technology. Making a station on the surface of Jupiter or Venus isn't likely to be easier than just making a station in space and it's likely that such stations will be just as small as an orbital or deep space one.
In fact, it'll probably be easier in space.
The effects of being isolated are deleterious no matter where you are - even if you're on Earth.
Are Star Systems more easily pinpointed? By virtue of the Stars? By the same token, you can simply orient your Starbase according to a known star and your location is known. No need for beacons of any sort, and no atmosphere or gravity will interfere with observation, transport and supplies, or transmission of data.
See? For every difficulty you raise, I can raise counterpoints that make deep space colonies more advantageous.
Of course you're talking atmosphere combat vs space combat, but even if that's not the main point, the thing is, this is not a simulation game (and there are games that have a more modern approach to it), it's a strategy game. Your example doesn't remove fighters from the equation, does it? And GC's fighters (yep, the ones with a seemingly unlimited *range*), they're not really fighters are they? As for missile combat, there's PD, which in the game (and this is *not* sci-fi and unrealistic) protects against *any* attack. How much more unrealistic can you get?
Actually, I'm more of talking about modern Carrier strategy, and Fighter tactics. Modern Fighters no longer engage other fighters in the manner Star Wars and Robotech fighters do. They simply engage their missiles and fire.
If we're complaining about "realism" and "dumb" things, then space fighters looking and acting very much like stylized WW2 fighters has got to be up there in terms of "dumbness."
Knowing what we do of space, space fighters would need accelerators at every point and would probably look more like bubbles or submersibles. It's even debatable whether we can make viable space vehicles of such small size for such purposes. It's not impossible, but the likelihood of a space fighter being viable and looking and acting like WW2 fighters is about the same as a deepwater warfare vehicle being the same.
That is - not bloody likely.
Is Point Defense "unrealistic?" Well, it depends. What exactly is "point defense?" What is a beam attack and how does it work? Why would or wouldn't a point defense solution work somewhat against a beam attack?
Even "space cannons" are fundamentally unlike any weapon we have on Earth, despite the superficial similarities to guns. Just think about it. Every time you fired one, your ship would go back the other way. Does it really make sense to have it as a weapon? If it is, it's probably unlike anything we know of as a "gun."
Why would or wouldn't a "point defense" solution work against such a weapon?
The thing is, you have preconceived notions of what constitutes these things and are unwilling to conceive of a reality in which these items do what they say they do.
Under what conditions will PD functions work against a beam attack? HA! It's essentially fantasy. We can make up whatever reasons we want, and science and reality are bizarre enough that anything we make up is perfectly reasonable for a thoroughly unrealistic defense system going against a thoroughly unrealistic weapon system.
I could, for example, say that point defense works against impossibly fast sci-fi missiles (even PHOTON missiles, for crying out loud) by "defracting" them momentarily (essentially pausing them a bit) before shooting them down. The same system that "defracts" energy missiles also works slightly against beam attacks because it corrupts their "frequency cohesion."
Heck, Star Trek Shields work universally against anything and everything, even theoretical time-phased particles! Why shouldn't "point defense?"
What do you mean primitive? You have a light-saber at home?
When both can manipulate objects through the Force, any object will do, since both can deflect such attacks. And then there's the minor issue of "honor" (that's not the word I'm looking for, but it'll have to do), if you will.
Precisely. Why use a cutting weapon at hand to hand range? Jedi and Sith have absolutely no qualms about using blaster weapons if the situation is best for it. Why use hand to hand weaponry at all?
We get all this rigmarole about lightsabers being able to deflect beam attacks (say what?!?!?) and honor and all that crap. Yeah, right. Dumb.
The real reason is because hand to hand fights are cool! Yup, they're cool! And they're especially cool when it involves swords and stuff.
You can come over and look at my lightsaber any time you like.
So you mean GC doesn't have "must have" techs? Hmm. That's odd. Maybe I just misunderstood it.
Absolutely. After a certain point, techs are so cheap that there's no reason not to just purchase and use them for a pittance, but prior to that, there's no great number of "must-have" technology. For example, you don't "have to" upgrade to Interstellar Republic if your plan involves prioritizing other techs first.
Civ3, for instance, puts such a premium on Republic that many players sacrifice great resources just to get it ASAP and even when your plan isn't infrastructure or development-based, it's almost absolutely imperative that you get it anyway.
MOO2's Automated Factories and related industry tech are almost the same. You can't use advanced ships if you can't make them.
Which is itself absurd, because making things like government forms be "researched" in labs like weapons, or concepts like good and evil, is a mechanic imposed by the way the game was implemented. GC's techtree scheme is more of a necessity.
I don't see why it's unusually absurd. All 4x games are the same. You use libraries and universities to research - Hoplites?!?!? Huh? Metallurgy is discovered in foundries and smiths, not libraries, and military discipline is founded in armies and military installations. It's absurd, but it's reasonable, too.
GC's techtree is made of several branches with dead-end sub-branches, and some choices (...). Techs being "independent" just makes it more "unrealistic".
Several is better than just one, and I don't particularly see the interaction between say, Laser Technology and interstellar relations. For that matter, I don't see how all Earth history is divided between Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, or why you must have Monarchy before you can have armored cavalry units. Lots of steppe tribes had armored cavalry units while having no more complicated a political system than the immediate clan.
There's nothing unrealistic (or more unrealistic) about technology the way GalCiv handles it, and if anything, Civ's tech system is provably ridiculous. The Chinese developed moveable type and had cheap printed books 700 years before the Gutenberg Bible. And yet Western Democracy is still as alien and as inapplicable to Chinese society now as it has ever been.
Indeed, most Asian "democracies" are nothing like America's systems and are unlikely to be so for the forseeable future. Why is Civ, then, not "dumb," too? If the best 4x game series in history can be "dumb," then surely it's not such an indictment on other 4x games to be similar?
Oh, that kind of support. Well, I think there is some exageration as to SD being the best in that kind of support. I personally don't see it that way. I mean, them being so much better than everybody else. I prefer not to comment that.
Well, Blizzard is certainly better and Atari not as good. Stardock is by far not the "best" in terms of product support, but they're better than a good block of developers currently out.
Firaxis could be said to be as attentive as they, but some Firaxis patches caused an otherwise fine game to crash repeatedly, and in some cases hopelessly corrupt system data. DA hasn't obligated anyone to reinstall their OS, as far as I can tell.
So, not the best, but better than most.
To be absolutely honest, I didn't understand what you meant with this; how it relates to not having bug reports for a *long* time being an indication of there actually not being any detectable bugs. There are, and I know what they are, but they're really not noticeable. Some unless you have access to the code, some unless you're really looking for them. They're not noticeable during game play, and they don't affect gameplay.
As for DA, is the PQ bug "acceptable"? Not for a few people I hear.
Most of the bug reports I've seen I don't normally encounter in my games. In fact, most bugs are single reports. Blizzard bugs are likewise not very noticeable by the general populace, but are incredibly bad when they occur - the few times they do. I don't know that this counts as being horrible, or "buggy," even.
Civ3 Warlords once had bugs that caused it to go back to Main Menu, and a few bugs that rendered even saved games crashable. There was also an AI "bug" that made the Army mechanic basically unusable except as an effective cheat - that's an entire strategic element basically removed from the game and never at all quite addressed.
Does anyone label Civ3 or Warlords as "buggy?" I don't know of anyone who can fairly say so.
To be quite clear, I think that you have flavor-based issues with lots of DA and it's biasing you against the game, even where there's nothing all that wrong with it. It's a natural tendency, of course. We tend to be more critical of things we already don't like. But I think you're not really noticing it.
