0.81 a few random comments » Forum Post by tid242

MindlessMe

Join Date 12/2011

+36

Interesting feedback. Thank you for sharing!

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Totally agree with point #4. I really dislike RNG cards as well. Your idea of applying a bonus seems like a good compromise: use an incitative (bonus) instead of a constraint (negative).

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3. The game is already heavily reliant on the RNG of which leaders are available. You need your smart/social leaders for core worlds and diligent/resolute leaders for command ships. You need your one-dimensional leaders as ministers. Now you're saying that my ministers can't have dump stats? What are the odds of that? At least with factions you have somewhere to dump leaders who have been recruited over. I like that mechanic.

4. I find the whole research tree mechanic completely played out. It is basically unchanged since Civ I. My proposal is radical but much simpler. You pick one tech to focus on. One, anywhere in the tech tree. Every turn the game rolls based on the available choices, with those on the path to what you're rushing getting a boost (5X seems about right). If you have enough science to get the tech you rolled, you get it, otherwise it rolls over to next turn. It would be fine for the game to tell you what tech it rolled because if you like what it rolled, that could be a good time to use the rush scientists executive action (which is otherwise pretty pointless other than to give you a one-time non-specific bump).

Here's what I like: no stupid micromanagement every few turns of which of five irrelevant techs to go for. We all know I want medium hulls or the defense minister. Stop wasting my time with this other stuff. However, just being able to rush the critical techs while absolutely ignoring everything else makes a mockery of the game, especially when there are so few viable paths to victory. This game is centered around unexpected choices and my proposed mechanic aligns well to that. Huh, I randomly learned how to settle extreme worlds. Should I lean into that or ignore it?

5. Yes star colors are good, but the game should let the player know what the mechanic is. Mystery mechanics are bad.

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DerekPaxton

Join Date 03/2003

+309

Quoting ,

quoting post

for the record, I still hate the UI overlays. They're too big and cover too much up. They need to be able to be toggled off (or better yet a UI setting to display GC3-like planets instead)

I will take a look at a game option for this. Maybe some hotkey to toggle them on and off.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I really like the "First Anomaly" video. The camera snap-refocus gives it a nice touch.

Thanks, the cinematic team is amazingly talented, including those producing the sfx and music for those scenes.

Quoting ,

quoting post

Leader stats. They should all matter. For the minister positions they should all do something, rather than have one matter and the other three as purely throw-aways. Same with Ship Commanders - intelligence could add fleet evasion or vision or whatever, the green stat could be fleet regen, etc. There's no reason to have throw-away stats.

This was the way I originally designed it, but it didn't feel right. The reason is I want leaders to be better and worse at different roles. I want you, when playing the Drengin, to go to your recruiter list and see a ton of great commanders, and when you are playing the torians to go there and see that none of these guys will make a great commander.

When every stat mattered I would look at all of me leaders for a commander and I felt like it didn't really matter. I had good leaders (with overall high stats) and bad leaders (with overall low stats) but it didn't really matter what they went to. Now when I evaluate I know that guy will be a great commander, even though I was actually looking for a governor, which tempts me off my strategy, which is the point of making decisions interesting.

It also keeps the stats from being overwhelming. Instead of 4 medium bonuses from stats I could go with 2 stronger bonuses. Less to read and learn, more impact.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I still would prefer a tech tree vs the RNG cards. Of note, we now have a tree in the "tech explorer" and it doesn't seem too big to navigate or whatever. I realize the justification for using the cards, but I would rather have a system that displays the cards as recommendations and cost 20% less or something as "our researchers are really inspired and motivated to work on these projects" but otherwise you can just pick something off the tree and pay full price.

That's kinda what rerolling does. If you direct research you will get it in the area you want, but it will cost 20% more to research.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I like the resource type being tied to star color. It makes finding resources early game A LOT easier for humans such as myself..

edit: oh! I love the way the battleviewer was integrated into the game. I love how non-intrusive it is!!

I think star color was Brad's idea. It's one of those things that once you play a game with it, you can never go back.

In Beta 3 the planets you cant colonize yet because you don't have the appropriate tech (extreme worlds, etc) are tinted red. It's another small change that once you play with it you never want to go back. No more remembering or mousing over a planet to see if you can colonize it (or forgetting and not figuring it out until your colony ship gets there).

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Quoting DerekPaxton,

reply 4

Quoting ,

quoting post

for the record, I still hate the UI overlays. They're too big and cover too much up. They need to be able to be toggled off (or better yet a UI setting to display GC3-like planets instead)

I will take a look at a game option for this. Maybe some hotkey to toggle them on and off.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I really like the "First Anomaly" video. The camera snap-refocus gives it a nice touch.

Thanks, the cinematic team is amazingly talented, including those producing the sfx and music for those scenes.

Quoting ,

quoting post

Leader stats. They should all matter. For the minister positions they should all do something, rather than have one matter and the other three as purely throw-aways. Same with Ship Commanders - intelligence could add fleet evasion or vision or whatever, the green stat could be fleet regen, etc. There's no reason to have throw-away stats.

This was the way I originally designed it, but it didn't feel right. The reason is I want leaders to be better and worse at different roles. I want you, when playing the Drengin, to go to your recruiter list and see a ton of great commanders, and when you are playing the torians to go there and see that none of these guys will make a great commander.

When every stat mattered I would look at all of me leaders for a commander and I felt like it didn't really matter. I had good leaders (with overall high stats) and bad leaders (with overall low stats) but it didn't really matter what they went to. Now when I evaluate I know that guy will be a great commander, even though I was actually looking for a governor, which tempts me off my strategy, which is the point of making decisions interesting.

It also keeps the stats from being overwhelming. Instead of 4 medium bonuses from stats I could go with 2 stronger bonuses. Less to read and learn, more impact.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I still would prefer a tech tree vs the RNG cards. Of note, we now have a tree in the "tech explorer" and it doesn't seem too big to navigate or whatever. I realize the justification for using the cards, but I would rather have a system that displays the cards as recommendations and cost 20% less or something as "our researchers are really inspired and motivated to work on these projects" but otherwise you can just pick something off the tree and pay full price.

That's kinda what rerolling does. If you direct research you will get it in the area you want, but it will cost 20% more to research.

Quoting ,

quoting post

I like the resource type being tied to star color. It makes finding resources early game A LOT easier for humans such as myself..

edit: oh! I love the way the battleviewer was integrated into the game. I love how non-intrusive it is!!

I think star color was Brad's idea. It's one of those things that once you play a game with it, you can never go back.

In Beta 3 the planets you cant colonize yet because you don't have the appropriate tech (extreme worlds, etc) are tinted red. It's another small change that once you play with it you never want to go back. No more remembering or mousing over a planet to see if you can colonize it (or forgetting and not figuring it out until your colony ship gets there).

Derek, another option on the Core/Colony names might be to have them pop-up. This way it is not an either or situation.

As for the Tech being random.

To me this is one of the greatest "new ideas" of Gal Civ 4.

It stops people getting in the rut of bee-lining the same techs every game then whining that the game is boring cause it's the same old same old every game.

If anything the penalty for changing should be doubled to make it even more expensive to bee-line.

Just like the starting worlds change features each game.

The Civilization Capital should be place able though as some times it can be placed with as few as three hexes adjacent too it, or five of the six needing to be terraformed to get the Capital bonuses.

Very frustrating to have a setup that has great "Bonuses" just to have the Capital be useless and have to re-roll.

+3

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+63

Quoting DerekPaxton,

reply 4

Quoting ,

quoting post

for the record, I still hate the UI overlays. They're too big and cover too much up. They need to be able to be toggled off (or better yet a UI setting to display GC3-like planets instead)

I will take a look at a game option for this. Maybe some hotkey to toggle them on and off.

That's great. To be clear, I'm only talking about the above-planet floaties (I guess I wasn't super clear on that). All of the other UI stuff seems good to me, but the big planet tags feel in-the-way to me, most of the time.

An on/off toggle would be AMAZING.

Quoting DerekPaxton,

reply 4

Quoting ,

quoting post

Leader stats. They should all matter. For the minister positions they should all do something, rather than have one matter and the other three as purely throw-aways. Same with Ship Commanders - intelligence could add fleet evasion or vision or whatever, the green stat could be fleet regen, etc. There's no reason to have throw-away stats.

This was the way I originally designed it, but it didn't feel right. The reason is I want leaders to be better and worse at different roles. I want you, when playing the Drengin, to go to your recruiter list and see a ton of great commanders, and when you are playing the torians to go there and see that none of these guys will make a great commander.

When every stat mattered I would look at all of me leaders for a commander and I felt like it didn't really matter. I had good leaders (with overall high stats) and bad leaders (with overall low stats) but it didn't really matter what they went to. Now when I evaluate I know that guy will be a great commander, even though I was actually looking for a governor, which tempts me off my strategy, which is the point of making decisions interesting.

It also keeps the stats from being overwhelming. Instead of 4 medium bonuses from stats I could go with 2 stronger bonuses. Less to read and learn, more impact.

That's an interesting response, and judging by this and Slarjy's comment above I can definitely see the problem with having every stat matter leading to less fun because it makes leaders unspecialized, and recruiting them less interesting.

So, on second thought I think I stand corrected on this..

Quoting DerekPaxton,

reply 4

Quoting ,

quoting post

I like the resource type being tied to star color. It makes finding resources early game A LOT easier for humans such as myself..

edit: oh! I love the way the battleviewer was integrated into the game. I love how non-intrusive it is!!

I think star color was Brad's idea. It's one of those things that once you play a game with it, you can never go back.

In Beta 3 the planets you cant colonize yet because you don't have the appropriate tech (extreme worlds, etc) are tinted red. It's another small change that once you play with it you never want to go back. No more remembering or mousing over a planet to see if you can colonize it (or forgetting and not figuring it out until your colony ship gets there).

Yea, these are both amazing QOL adjustments. Probably like you, I have no idea why it never occurred to me that the uncolonizable extreme planets could be colored for distinction..

Tech cards, yea, I know that this is a controversial issue, and has been since day one. My hat isn't firmly in the tech-tree camp and I was a lot more willing to give the cards a try than it seemed like many others were. I'm still OK with the cards and perhaps as the RNG weighting for them gets tweaked as the game is developed I'll want the tree less. But there still seem to be situations where I really strategically need some random tech and never seem to get it. Several (MP) games ago I really wanted "ministry of defense" because I needed the 2nd tier commander ships to kickstart defense of an invasion that I'd stupidly put off, and I wasn't able to research it until it didn't matter anymore.

I mean, it's kind of a lame problem to have, but GC had a great tech tree in past iterations, and I just really liked them, personally..

Thanks for the reply Derek,

-tid242

+1

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Quoting DerekPaxton,

reply 4

That's kinda what rerolling does. If you direct research you will get it in the area you want, but it will cost 20% more to research.

The more I play with this, the less I like it. IMHO, you took a bad mechanic and made it worse. If the tech we're looking for isn't available, we pretty much don't care. Players are single-minded and you're just making it harder to do what we want to do without making the gameplay any more interesting. Worst of both worlds.

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Quoting gypsy2299,

reply 5

As for the Tech being random.

To me this is one of the greatest "new ideas" of Gal Civ 4.

It stops people getting in the rut of bee-lining the same techs every game then whining that the game is boring cause it's the same old same old every game.

If anything the penalty for changing should be doubled to make it even more expensive to bee-line.

I fully agree. I can see why people like the old tech tree better, but I really like the fact you can't bee-line so easily anymore. Also makes me trade with the AI more. And re-rolling works really well too. If I really want a tech I usually get it on the first or second re-roll.

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on #4...

i can really see both sides of this. dont want the same old thing, want to switch it up every game, but at the same time sometimes you really need to research a specific tech or techs because your survival in the game basically depends on it. i know derek said that's kinda what rerolling does, but there's still a chance that rerolling several times wont help and you'll just end up dying of dysentery, so to speak. you could keep the card system, keep the reroll system, but also have it so that you can pick any "available tech" and just pick it. and yeah, i think +20% is a good choice for that, it's like 2 rerolls, but u get to just pick it when u need it. it would also allow players more good research choices, like do i want to go strait for the tech i want for the +20% increase, gamble and try to get it with a +10% reroll, or just use one of the ones listed here because it's the best deal.

this would be a minor change that would give players lots of good new choices, solve a lot of the problems players are currently having with getting too much bad luck, and still give people a very good reason to switch up what techs they use every game.

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^maybe have the increase upped to +25% for picking uncommon techs and +30% for picking rare techs

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I like the randomness of the tech choices. In real life, you don't have the advantage of knowing what future techs will work (cold fusion, alchemy) and won't work (relativity, paired particles - they will never work).

To really mess things up and keep the spirit of this type of tech tree, don't tell us the names of the techs or what they do - just the color and what they might do and have techs that wind up doing nothing.

But please, make me want to place shields and other defenses on my ships.

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tid242

Join Date 04/2008

+63

Quoting Orange46,

reply 11

To really mess things up and keep the spirit of this type of tech tree, don't tell us the names of the techs or what they do - just the color and what they might do and have techs that wind up doing nothing.

This actually reminds me of something I proposed early on when everyone was shooting darts at the wall of ideas, seeing if any of them stuck.

I had proposed that each galaxy at game start would also have a hidden range of techs that were possible, with the others being impossible. (I didn't know that there would be 'sectors' - this could equally apply to sectors). You wouldn't know which were possible vs impossible unless you attempted to research the tech.

The idea was that most techs would always be possible and researchable. But some potentially awesome techs only might be possible. This would create a high-risk/high-reward choice for research. The more awesome/esoteric the tech might be, the lower % chance that it actually exists; but... if it does exist - wouldn't it be nice to have?? Do you, the player, want to take the gamble of spending 20 turns researching something that you think only has a 15% chance of being possible, but if it is possible would give you an overwelming advantage in the game?

Especially paired with another old want-list thing I've mumbled about in the past: "Technology Licensing" - whereby you can license tech to AI's via diplomacy, but if they declare war on you then then they lose the license - Awesome/esoteric techs would be a very cool mechanic if there was also a system whereby said techs could only be successfully researched once (ie the discovering race has a monopoly on the technology).

...

I have a friend who has a loose theory that there can only ever be one time traveler. Because if you invented that technology, you'd use it to make sure that no one else ever invented it either. That sort of thing.

Interesting stuff to think about..

-tid242

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