first impression

from Stardock Forums
Hi there,
yesterday I tried out the game, and I must say, I´m more than impressed. :SURPRISED:
A little constructive feedback for anybody who´d like to read through... (hope you´ll see it that way). I´ve been designing a role play game for about 5 years, and it´s nice to see some of the ideas actually playable in a game.
Who knows Civilization3 or MoO3 knows what a lack of devs fixing bugs can mean, you guys are coughing up those patches like, um, I have no comparison, think of something positive please. ;)
First things first, I haven´t seen all of the game yet, so I apologize if I critizise stuff that´s actually in it or has been demanded by hords of hard to satisfy customers in another thread below.

It´s a pity that ships can´t be individually created, but I´m not missing it badly personally, it just makes ship fights more predictable, which decreases game fun or suspense a little.
Also, It would be handy if I could see what kind of treaties and contracts I have with other civilizations going on. Let´s say I extorted the Drenin for 50bc a month for over two years, I might not remember this a year later when my treasure chest becomes stone-empty again. So, it would be nice to see who I´m already squeezing out like a juicy lemon and who´s next. ;)
Autodispatch of ships is a nice idea, how about setting destination or forwarding points? A huge galaxy is o.k., but not big enough for a game that I want to occupy me for a year or so, ...makeitbiggerplease? ;)
Trading with other Civs is a little bit too easy, I juust have to turn the slider until I exactly know how much they´re going to play. If my advisor - I presume that´s what´s being represented by the green or yellow color - can tell me exactly when the Civ will agree, what´s the fun, a little less predictability would be better imho, add a X+1% uncertainity to the acceptance of an offer, improving after diplomacy tech and stuff like telepathy (I´ve seen thought police in the tech tree, not sure about this one). After all, you don´t get predictions when distorting money, so why can you look into their heads when trading?
BTW, the city overview of Civilization is more practicable than the planets line up in the right window. I found it a little bit difficult to decide where to build a galactic wonder, which city might be better suited, showing me a chart with the manufacturing power and the improving trait compared to all other planets. That would easy decision-making when the issue of the political or economic capital is on the table.
With a hex editor, you can cause havoc, was that intended?
Something else... it would be nice if I could change the vistory conditions later in the game. Not adding new ones as it pleases me, but removing existing ones. The reason why is that I have a great game going on but my cultural influence seems to be too bug - but it´s fun to play, even a natural PQ26-planet (muahahaha) and a totally interesting treaty and trade net with other Civs. Turning off a victory condition wouldn´t be a disadvantage for a Civ, or would it? Just curious.
Is there a graphical "planet view" hidden somewhere? You have those little 3D social structures, but how great would that be to be able to watch your planet grow as in Civ3? (yeah, the best ideas are stolen, what a bad world we live in...)
The tech tree is missing btw. In game, I have *no* idea what is leading where, again, take a look at Civ3 please. ;)
It is also strange that I can change production or research progress from one project to another without loosing at least a part of that progess. What does defensive theory have to do with diplomacy, a concstructor with a battleship or a news network with a fusion plant?
Speaking of social projects, a pop up in the governor screen showing what project is giving what kind of benefit to a planet would be handy - but perhaps it´s just me, I have to flip between the production screen and the governor screen to decide what to put next on the queue.
Is research and economy only possible to improve by social projects? How about invests in "infrastructure", improving the general condition on planets by government spending i.e. (let´s say, more schools, better transportation, etc. all included into that one term)? That might help improve conditions a little when a planet is too small and takes forever to build even a small social project.
Congrats for the AI, a Civ set as "fool" is indeed a fool ;)
Something else that I wonder about: I have tried to play as the good guys, clicking almost 70% "good" for events, but the news robot and the UI is still the same, but on the other hand it changes rather quickly when playing as evil.
One downside I noticed at the fool level ;) was that the winning strategy is simple: Colonize like crazy. This may be realistic, but perhaps a stronger morale handicap for distant colonies might help - or playing with a higher AI level. ;)
Loosing in the senate doesn´t really hurt, does it? Any party has it´s advantages, so what gives ;) but how about an additional penatly when you´re not chairman or president or whatever? Like more frequent voting even on smaller matters than war?
I know the background story, but how about a little bit more diversity with alien major Civs? 6 of them even in a huge galaxy is sometimes not enough, and playing always as human is the same issue. Just a thought.
Is there a good place where I can read about the GIA and what exactly happens? Assasinate enemy leaders, sending out agents to steal tech, sabotage ships, destroy projects etc. would be great - as well as a galactical DOD ;)
On some planets, there are indiginous populations which suddenly don´t seem to matter anymore when the planet is culturally bombarded or there´s unrest or an invasion, one screen when colonizing is nice, having prolonged interaction rules. :D
Having just three trade routes is a problem of game balance - but there are usually six major powers, perhaps decreasing the power of trading routes and increasing the number of trade routes would help in terms of galactical understanding and stragetical planning ;)
I´ve seen a program somewhere to create events and ships etc. - can this also be used to change the game rules?
O.k., I have just mentioned half of the stuff, but I guess nobody is reading down all the way so I just stop rambling.
best regards,

Grendel
539 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Loosing in the senate doesn´t really hurt, does it? Any party has it´s advantages, so what gives but how about an additional penatly when you´re not chairman or president or whatever? Like more frequent voting even on smaller matters than war?
End of quote


It does in fact hurt. If you lose control of the senate, not only do you lose your advantage, but you also get a penalty, like reduced social and military production and your morale tends to drop through the floor also.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Alright, overlooked that one - or it didn´t hurt me in a noticable way in my second game :)
I found a feature request thread, I guess I´ll work through that first (thought about using bugzilla for bugs and feature requests? helps keeping an overview).
regards,

Grendel
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Which game are you working on!

I MUST KNOW! !

So far as making maps bigger- if they got any bigger your hard drive would explode. Either that or the game would take a year, alright- a year PER TURN.

The damn game would turn into moo3, a macromangement nightmare with too many details and not enough skill involved to make it worthwhile.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi,
my hard drive is just fine. I don´t have a top notch computer but it´s doing alright with huge galaxies. Playing 14 hours on a game is too short for some players. You know, bigger, faster, better ;)
As for the micromanagement, that´s what governors are for, just use them :)
I wonder whether Stardock has a huuuuge list of all feature requests listed&ordered into categories. I guess they do, after all they´re incorporating suggestions into the patches/expansion&bonus pack, but it would be interesting to have access to it. :)
regards,

Grendel
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
*Cracks knuckles.* You really should have played the game more before making this post; more than half this stuff is either in the game already or to be added in the expansion.

It´s a pity that ships can´t be individually created, but I´m not missing it badly personally, it just makes ship fights more predictable, which decreases game fun or suspense a little.
End of quote


Matter of opinion. I like it because it makes the game more strategic, and helps the Ai play better.

Also, It would be handy if I could see what kind of treaties and contracts I have with other civilizations going on. Let´s say I extorted the Drenin for 50bc a month for over two years, I might not remember this a year later when my treasure chest becomes stone-empty again. So, it would be nice to see who I´m already squeezing out like a juicy lemon and who´s next.
End of quote


Not a bad idea, although you can at least monitor your overall lease income from the Economics screen already. It's the "tribute" part of income.

Autodispatch of ships is a nice idea, how about setting destination or forwarding points? A huge galaxy is o.k., but not big enough for a game that I want to occupy me for a year or so, ...makeitbiggerplease?
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Rally points are to be added in the expansion.

Trading with other Civs is a little bit too easy, I juust have to turn the slider until I exactly know how much they´re going to play. If my advisor - I presume that´s what´s being represented by the green or yellow color - can tell me exactly when the Civ will agree, what´s the fun, a little less predictability would be better imho, add a X+1% uncertainity to the acceptance of an offer, improving after diplomacy tech and stuff like telepathy (I´ve seen thought police in the tech tree, not sure about this one). After all, you don´t get predictions when distorting money, so why can you look into their heads when trading?
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"Distorting" money? I assume you mean "extorting."

I love the acceptability signalling. It streamlines the process and results in less wasted time adjusting the amount of money you want by two or three credits. Making it uncertain would only be aggravating.

BTW, the city overview of Civilization is more practicable than the planets line up in the right window. I found it a little bit difficult to decide where to build a galactic wonder, which city might be better suited, showing me a chart with the manufacturing power and the improving trait compared to all other planets. That would easy decision-making when the issue of the political or economic capital is on the table.
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Have you not noticed that you can list the planets by almost any attribute you care to name? You can list them by production, research, PQ, tax income, influence, etc. Almost anything. It's that box at the top of the sidebar.

(Note also that you ca do something similar with the list of available techs, although that one's somewhat more obvious.

With a hex editor, you can cause havoc, was that intended?
End of quote


Don't know what you're talking about.

Something else... it would be nice if I could change the vistory conditions later in the game. Not adding new ones as it pleases me, but removing existing ones. The reason why is that I have a great game going on but my cultural influence seems to be too bug - but it´s fun to play, even a natural PQ26-planet (muahahaha) and a totally interesting treaty and trade net with other Civs. Turning off a victory condition wouldn´t be a disadvantage for a Civ, or would it? Just curious.
End of quote


You can already turn off victory conditions when you start a game. At least once you have the bonus pack you can.

Is there a graphical "planet view" hidden somewhere? You have those little 3D social structures, but how great would that be to be able to watch your planet grow as in Civ3? (yeah, the best ideas are stolen, what a bad world we live in...)
End of quote


Not a terrible idea, but not really necessary.


The tech tree is missing btw. In game, I have *no* idea what is leading where, again, take a look at Civ3 please.
End of quote


Will be added in the expansion. Also, there's no shortage of tech trees for download on fansites.

It is also strange that I can change production or research progress from one project to another without loosing at least a part of that progess. What does defensive theory have to do with diplomacy, a concstructor with a battleship or a news network with a fusion plant?
End of quote


I prefer it this way. Increases flexibility and speeds up the game. You find it strange because most other strategy games don't do it.

Speaking of social projects, a pop up in the governor screen showing what project is giving what kind of benefit to a planet would be handy - but perhaps it´s just me, I have to flip between the production screen and the governor screen to decide what to put next on the queue.
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You're not being very clear here, so it's hard to figure out what you mean. But if you mean what I think you mean then it's nothing to worry about, inside of a half-dozen games you'll know by heart what most improvements do anyway.

Is research and economy only possible to improve by social projects? How about invests in "infrastructure", improving the general condition on planets by government spending i.e. (let´s say, more schools, better transportation, etc. all included into that one term)? That might help improve conditions a little when a planet is too small and takes forever to build even a small social project.
End of quote


Investing in propaganda (on a planet's "Details" screen) boosts morale and therefore population growth, but that's as close as you get, which seems fine.

Something else that I wonder about: I have tried to play as the good guys, clicking almost 70% "good" for events, but the news robot and the UI is still the same, but on the other hand it changes rather quickly when playing as evil.
End of quote


Some evil events will drop your morality extremely quickly, while you have to be quite good to get up to Saintly. I believe it's intended this way, as good brings in pretty useful long term benefits.

One downside I noticed at the fool level was that the winning strategy is simple: Colonize like crazy. This may be realistic, but perhaps a stronger morale handicap for distant colonies might help - or playing with a higher AI level.
End of quote


Try that second one, although "colonize like crazy" is the obvious strategy at every difficulty level and map size. It's certainly what all the AIs try to do. :D

Loosing in the senate doesn´t really hurt, does it? Any party has it´s advantages, so what gives but how about an additional penatly when you´re not chairman or president or whatever? Like more frequent voting even on smaller matters than war?
End of quote


As pointed out, you can take pretty substantial hits to some areas if you lose an election, depending on your party. I'm guessing the reason it didn't effect you in your game was that you were playing Fool AIs and already walking all over them.

I know the background story, but how about a little bit more diversity with alien major Civs? 6 of them even in a huge galaxy is sometimes not enough, and playing always as human is the same issue. Just a thought.
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Does player color and one word matter that much to you? You can rename your civilization and leader whatever you want, and the range of possible bonuses is huge.

Is there a good place where I can read about the GIA and what exactly happens? Assasinate enemy leaders, sending out agents to steal tech, sabotage ships, destroy projects etc. would be great - as well as a galactical DOD
End of quote


GIA? DOD? I dunno, I'm glad expionage is relatively scaled back in GalCiv. In many games it's far too powerful.

On some planets, there are indiginous populations which suddenly don´t seem to matter anymore when the planet is culturally bombarded or there´s unrest or an invasion, one screen when colonizing is nice, having prolonged interaction rules.
End of quote


Are you refering to populations of other major civs or certain colonization random events?

Having just three trade routes is a problem of game balance - but there are usually six major powers, perhaps decreasing the power of trading routes and increasing the number of trade routes would help in terms of galactical understanding and stragetical planning
End of quote


Just three trade routes? You obviously haven't gotten very far into the tech tree; it maxes at ten.

(Also, just so you know "galactical" isn't a word. It's just galactic.)

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
When you have no control over your senate you also cannot declare wars...
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
"The tech tree is missing btw. In game, I have *no* idea what is leading where, again, take a look at Civ3 please."

I am of the opposite opinion. The ideal tech tree should always be hazy right ahead and completely unknowable further in the future. This is a significant flaw in Civ3 because it conflicts with the raison d'etre for the game.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi Sindai&Algae,
thx for your answers. I apologize for my bad language skills, sometimes it´s not easy to put thoughts into the right words.

*Cracks knuckles.* You really should have played the game more before making this post; more than half this stuff is either in the game already or to be added in the expansion.

After two games played, the posting was sure premature, haven´t even read through the forum yet. I completed my third game, having a little more insight now.

I love the acceptability signalling. It streamlines the process and results in less wasted time adjusting the amount of money you want by two or three credits.

true, but still, it´s not too realistic, or at least I can´t think of a good reason why you should know the result before making the offer - although diplomacy is a constant changing of offers. what´s problematic, too, is that you can offer the same thing over and over again (if you clicked a yellow offer).
that´s the biggest problem imho, balancing fun with realism.

Have you not noticed that you can list the planets by almost any attribute you care to name?

now I do, works for me :)

With a hex editor, you can cause havoc, was that intended?

---Don't know what you're talking about.

I´m interested in game mechanics, so I sometimes use a hex editor to look into game files. Galciv has a very transparent way of saving data into it´s files - making it easy for cheaters. I wasn´t sure whether uploading a hexeditor-modified game to metaverse could cause problems.

The tech tree is missing btw. In game, I have *no* idea what is leading where, again, take a look at Civ3 please.

---Will be added in the expansion. Also, there's no shortage of tech trees for download on fansites.

I noticed, but it´s not ingame :)
Algae´s post made me think about tech stuff, should it be clear what kind of tech lies ahead or not? it´s an interesting question. How much does a tech cost which you can´t pick but just order to research some kind of direction? Doesn´t Research work like this: You have a problem or an aim and you try to find a way to solve it - so practically, it is similar to what Civ and Galciv do right now. Problematic imo is the identical tech tree in all games. Sometimes an invention is purely a sideproduct of another research aim, this is not considered either. Not being able to about which direction up in the tech tree you want to go is not realistic either. Let´s say you want to have Battelships (which is certainly imaginable even for 21th century humans ;) ), you know where you want to go but not completely what´s the best and quickest road to it. So perhaps a new tech is a discovery practicle for something, but not Battleships but a new survey variant i.e.
I guess I´ll have to sleep about this ;)

It is also strange that I can change production or research progress from one project to another without loosing at least a part of that progess.

---Increases flexibility and speeds up the game. You find it strange because most other strategy games don't do it.

cmiiw, the populad Civilization series does it. I understand the idea behind it, but still, I find it questionable. it was one of the decisions for fun instead of realism I guess..?

Some evil events will drop your morality extremely quickly, while you have to be quite good to get up to Saintly. I believe it's intended this way, as good brings in pretty useful long term benefits.

I tried to find some info about those morality modifiers in the files, but wasn´t successful yet.



I know the background story, but how about a little bit more diversity with alien major Civs?

---Does player color and one word matter that much to you?

Actually, I saw a few feature requests for bigger differences between the Civs (own tech and units), which is about what I meant.

On some planets, there are indiginous populations which suddenly don´t seem to matter anymore when the planet is culturally bombarded or there´s unrest or an invasion, one screen when colonizing is nice, having prolonged interaction rules.

---Are you refering to populations of other major civs or certain colonization random events?

Random events. There are already people on a planet who don´t seem to matter anymore after colonization - as mentioned, there are developements which might affect those minorities as well (not to mention Terraforming).

regards,

Grendel
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
The ideal tech tree should always be hazy right ahead and completely unknowable further in the future. This is a significant flaw in Civ3 because it conflicts with the raison d'etre for the game.
End of quote


A prerequisite for a hazy and completely unknowable technology tree would be to randomize the contents, prerequisites, and exact attributes of such a tree. As much as we'd like it to be, it is extremely difficult to randomize such a tree without causing at least one problem.

An alternative that is slightly more suitable is to reveal technology that is at most three steps away from the current position (i.e. Just research two more techs before it actually becomes available). This will allow a reasonable form of planning without instantly giving away the route to Fianl Frontier.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow, you guys are on the ball. Istarted to talk about these ideas at civfanatics a while back, but I never quite got it all together. Here is an extract that gives the flavour:

"It should not be possible to target Adam Smith or Hoover Dam the moment you sit down to the game."

"Go straight to monarchy and get the Great Library."

"Plan to get Michaelangelo's Chapel at the same time as Democracy."

"How about not knowing if gunpowder will ever be invented? Or if, say, some combination of religious and economic models make it virtually impossible to perform the transition to democracy - but you don't find out until you're well and truly in it? Too radical? Okay but perhaps we could have whole alternate development trees that you cannot readily predict? And a foggy future, so that you know what is possible one or two steps down the line but are fairly clueless about the longer term"

The first problem for Civ is that we know what techs we have now and, even without a detailed study of history, we have some idea how we got here. This is not so true in a science fiction game, although it does rear its ugly head once we have played through the game a few times. I think a little hidden complexity along the lines above do much to deal with this to a practical limit.

Two books I have read put some more context round these notions:
Pavane by Keith Roberts speculates on how the developments of modern technology may have struggled if the Reformation had taken a different path and a more highly controlled and conservative culture had prevailed.

West of Eden by Harry Harrison speculates (much further back in time) an alternative evolution and subsequent development of science with a radically more biological backdrop (much like some of John Wyndham's work, e.g. The Kraken Wakes).

[OT (sorry): While on the subject of books, Philip Jose Farmer wrote Time's Last Gift, a time travel tale set mainly around ten to twelve thousand years ago with considerable detail (presumaby speculative to some extent) on the nature of the nomadic lifestyle of the time.]

The other problem is the degree of control over what is successfully researched. In real life breakthroughs are often unexpected and massive research programs do not always achieve their goal. In fact massive research programs are probably most effective when simply refining the edges (and honing the application) of already developed ideas.

I know some people will not like these kinds of ideas, but for me, knowing all the rules (even if I can't keep them in my head properly) makes it more like playing chess - which I do all the time anyway. So I'm not suggesting that the developers keep it all a trade secret. By all means publish tech trees and other in-game algorithms but don't force them into the limelight so that it is difficult to avoid seeing the future.

I would be quite happy to find some super whizz tech for the first time in my umpteenth game. I would love the challenge of trying to train my expectations somewhat away from the "I know there's a radiated impulse micro-stasis effect in here; now how do I find it?" towards "Okay, what areas look promising right now to improve our food yields on low temperature planets?"

Finally a small apology. I only downloaded the demo this weekend. I don't yet know anything about how GalCiv tackles these problems and I won't be able to buy it for another month or two (my fallback position is Christmas with lots of hints to my family:)). So I might be covering irrelevant ground here. My relevant gaming experience is from the entire Civ (including forays into the ToT SF variant and the delights of not having a clue about what each new technology was for or how it worked) and MoO series plus SMAC(X), Stars! and some less influential (to me) games such as Imperium Galactica.