Rethink Wormholes

if truth be told in there current state wormholes are more of a hassle than anything else.

for example when i was playing on a gigantic map my flag ship went into the wormhole and ended up on the other side of the galaxy and it took round 30 turns to get back into range of one of my planets and by that time the computer had already gotten to most of the ananomolies in my system leaving me without alot of bounuses that i would have gotten

now if the wormhole had transportated me within range that would have been great but as of right now the wormholes are next to useless flinging survey ships across the map and they can get u in last place if u arent able to use that ship to get bounuses like the computer player is getting and search out for some good planets
10,807 views 24 replies
Reply #1 Top
I avoid any anomoly that looks like a wormhole. (are the little blue spheres always wormholes?)
Reply #2 Top
That's the risk. You might land somewhere good, you might not. If you aren't comfortable with the chance of a bad endpoint, then don't go into the wormhole!
Reply #3 Top
If, as suggested above, the blue spheres are the wormholes, then you would be able to make that choice. Even then, since I usually move on the "F5" screen, all anomolies look the same (the little "atom" symbol). I think it would be better if wormholes were clearly marked as such, since losing your survey ship for such a long time is a major loss early in the game.
Reply #4 Top
i know there is a risk of entering a wormhole but loosing your survey ship in the beginning of the game for 30 moves is too much of a punish can it at least be limited to 10 moves away from range? that or allow it to pick up a couple bounuses on the way?
Reply #5 Top
Playing on a huge map, I don't explore anomolies until I've found most of the nearby planets, and then I'm perfectly happy to get my survey ship thrown to the other side of the galaxy, as it makes contact with all sorts of interesting civilizations on its way back, allowing me to trade with more AIs giving me an edge in tech trading.
Reply #6 Top
...as it makes contact with all sorts of interesting civilizations on its way back...

While this is true, you are just as likely to end up having your ship thrown into a completely blank section of space. Especially if you play on a rare stars map with rare habitable planets.
Reply #7 Top
You may also get thrown into a tile next to an enemy and get blown to bits on the next turn. But then, the same could happen to an enemy's survey ship.
Reply #8 Top
what about solving this by just having the survey ship being self sufficent (ulimited range)? i mean all it does is explore and collect bonuses it has no military value beyond that of a scout and using it as a scout is just asking for it to be blown up so having the ship being self sufficent would make wormholes have definent value and there would still be the risk of ending up in the middle of an enemies army
Reply #9 Top
I'm going to go ahead and suggest (again) that some of the worm holes be permanent (or semi-permanent). Losing your ship to the other side of the galaxy might be annoying at the beginning, but later on would be a great short cut. Plus you could add a new vote to the council as to whether stable worm holes should be taxed. This would make maps (and custom maps) much more interesting.
Reply #10 Top
What about we don't give it unlimited range but do give it basic firepower. It did have an attack value in Gal Civ 1.
When you get a anomaly bonus for weapons or what not, does diddly squat for your flagship. Hope this gets changed.
Reply #11 Top
It did have an attack value in Gal Civ 1.


Not true. Your survey ship had an attack of 0 until you found space junk that gave it an attack upgrade.
Reply #12 Top
Perm worm holes sounds just a bit like Star Gates. That would be nice. Should have a fee though.
Reply #13 Top
Ok. GC 2 space junk don't work like GC 1 space junk then.
Reply #14 Top
I still say permanent worm holes suck. That's been my opinion prior to GC1, and I haven't read anything here to persuade me they'd add to the fun of GC2.
Reply #15 Top
I still say permanent worm holes suck. That's been my opinion prior to GC1, and I haven't read anything here to persuade me they'd add to the fun of GC2.


Why not have them in the game with the option to be turned off then? One-time ones are neat and all, but generally just send your ship out of range.
Reply #16 Top
I still say permanent worm holes suck. That's been my opinion prior to GC1, and I haven't read anything here to persuade me they'd add to the fun of GC2.


I'm with Star Pilot on this one. I don't want permanent wormholes or stargates. I found them cheesy in games like MOO/MOO2 and I'm hoping that GalCiv2 doesn't have them.
Reply #17 Top
If there is the option to turn them off, that would allow both the pro- and anti- permanent wormhole preferences to be happy. A lot of work on SD, but such is the lot of software developers. I'll think a cheery thought for them this New Years. Such hard working people that give us such an enjoyable game!
Reply #18 Top
There's no permanent wormholes in GC2 and there won't be.
Reply #19 Top
As much as I'm all for options, permanent wormholes in otherwise open space are exactly the kind of things that throw AIs for fits, so adding it as an option would cost the people that don't want wormholes. So, we'd have the devtime for making them work, the dev time for any issues this raise (control over a wormhole, ability to charge, econ bonuses/trade routes through, etc) plus the dev time for making the AI able to cope with them and all the just added issues.

Sorry, the AI is going to need some serious work just due to the different ship designs (not knocking it in its current state, it's better than I expected this early on, but there's so many things its not doing still). So, I'm going to be ruthless in pointing out when things could impact the AI and the amount of development the AI would need. While I'm not opposed to permanent wormholes, I'd prefer a better AI any day of the week, and this will impact the AI. If I could have both, I'd be fine, but if I can't, the choice is obvious.
Reply #20 Top
If there aren't wormholes, then maybe it would make sense to remove wormhole related techs since you can't actually create or use wormholes outside of the random one-time warping ones.

I know I'm not the only one who was seriously let down after researching 4 levels of worm hole techs in Galciv 1 only to find out there were no worm holes. And that planet creation didn't allow me to create planets. Pretty bold names for techs that don't do much.
Reply #21 Top
planetidiot: I dont' think they were ever in GC2. Stardock is trying to minimize the number of pointless techs in the tree. To the best of my knowledge, currently the only ones that are intentionally without any kind of bonus/new improvement/new component/new module are the ones running up to the tech victory.
Reply #22 Top
Ah, well it shows how far I've gotten in my games then
Reply #23 Top
I came very close to a tech victory once in 4A or 4B. Had 1 turn left for the last tech when I got a culture victory, so I've seen most of the tech tree (pre 4C changes). There are some techs that seem to be placeholders, but not many, especially outside the branch that leads to a tech victory. Yes, in GC2, it is theoretically possible to get a tech victory without having researched any military techs
Reply #24 Top
all it does is explore and collect bonuses it has no military value beyond that of a scout


actually, some of the anomalies you explore gives your survey ship weapons and defenses as well as hitpoints. It doesn't seem to be working just yet, so maybe they haven't quite gotten the implementaion complete yet, but some the pop-ups from exploring anomolies do include those upgrades. So your flag ship can, eventually, be used as an attack ship, even a capital war ship.