In my view GC2 went a bit over the top with their importance and it also added lots of unfun micromanagement.I like to see them still in the game but not so vital to every mechanic.
Only the mining starbases were must haves, in my opinion. All the others provided nice bonuses, but were hardly mandatory. In fact, I won most of my games without ever building any of them.
Agreed. Starbases in GalCiv2 are interesting as a concept, and I certainly don't hate them, but I admittedly wasn't wild about the way they were implemented.
A single constructor should be needed to startup the starbase. Once it's been initiated, we should simply have it build by planetary production, with a penalty linked to the distance between planet and starbase.
I personally would prefer they get rid of mining starbases and make ordinary SB's more powerful/useful. Having strategic resourses pop up in the middle of empty space didn't really make much sense and the AI was generally rubbish at defending and weaponising them anyway which tended to swing things firmly in the players' favour. Also, building loads of contructors became tiresome. Starbases definately need changing somehow.
I'v got to agree with Cikomyr "A single constructor should be needed to startup the starbase. Once it's been initiated, we should simply have it build by planetary production, with a penalty linked to the distance between planet and starbase."
Granted in my Modded game starbases were actually extremely useful...but the default game not so much... And the managing of constructor fleets were annoying... It'd make more sense for stuff like that to be automated...Kind of like I'd rather space miners be automated (default).
Only way they need changing is more modules
I actually liked, and still like, the excitement in sending constructors vulnerable to attack out, and the fact that multiple planets can share the work on the Space Stations/Death Stars this way. Micro is OK when it adds to gameplay, but of course I guess there is other ways too do it too that can acchieve the same gameplay feel/consequence, or even improve on it.
Anyways I want to underline this: The best strategy games have interesting micro. The worst and most soulless ones are streamlined to death.
If they change the upgrade-mechanic, and remove the module-limit of the AI, then I agree to more modules. Otherwise, this will only lead to more micro, and makes it even harder for the AI to upgrade it's starbases.
Also, those modules need to be useful and fun to use (provide some sort of challenge or trade-off). A couple hundred modules with +1 modifiers isn't something I would call fun to use, even though they might be useful.
The keyword is "interesting". Micro for micro's sake isn't interesting, only tedious.
Indeed yes. An example of tedious micro is for me checking possibilities of tech trade with every nation every turn.
Star bases were a pain in the ass to construct and upgrade because it took so much time and resources for them to have any worthy abilities. By mid game they blow up and you have to do the whole process all over again only to discover that no matter how hard you try, that star bases is shit compared to fleets of customizable ships. It was so degrading to put so much effort in getting the modules in the star bases and see them pop like balloons because you couldn't get the tech to keep up with ship R&D.
The research required to keep the stations defense high enough to even defend itself would cost hundreds of tech points that could of been better spent on epic spaceship components, the cost is similar to having a black hole gun in the mass driver field.
Yeah, the endless micro'ing to build a ring of starbases around the quadrant with the three or four industry planets was excruciating. But necessary to get out some of the big ships for a sizeable fleet. I'd prefer if GC3 would skip that bit of tediosity.
The only thing about starbases I didn't like in GC2 was how expensive they suddenly became in GC2. When people kept asking for them during the GC1 test cycle, I didn't want them at all. Now I think they became a great well done feature.
You may find yourself in the minority if you put "interesting" and "constructor spam" into the same sentence.
The GC2 system worked well enough:
- It needed a build-queue, just like a planet. So you could just point your constructors at it as a "rally point" and have it work automatically until you finished out the build-queue.
- Starbase tech didn't keep up with ship advances. A starbase (in my mind) should be competitive with even the largest ship hulls if you invest the constructors into upgrading it. In my mind, a military starbase should be able to fend off multiple of the largest ships.
- Maybe we need multiple sizes of starbases that have to be researched. So that late-game starbases match up with the late-game ship sizes.
- Constructors being vulnerable to attack during movement to the starbase was a good feature.
- Starbases need a better UI where you can decommission unwanted elements in order to make room for new elements. (I view starbases as being "mini" planets with special buildings.)
Agreed that's why i never built anything more than the bare minimum on a Starbase. As mid to late game there would be fleets of ships flying around all over the place with thousands of attack points. Starbase just don't stand any kind of chance against that with their pathetic weapons and defenses.
Starbases have always played an important role in my strategy but I would like them to be more flexible. I recall asking back in the Dark Avatar days why they couldn't be more like ships - upgradeable as you research better miniaturization, weapons and defensive tech. I also believe starbases should be generic - their purpose determined by the modules the player chooses to install. I don't want invulnerable starbases but believe they should automatically be part of any defending fleet, combining their offensive and defensive capability with the fleet for tactical combat. Another option might be starbase clusters where several bases in the same region can combine their strength if attacked. I agree that the proper way to deal with micromanagement is build queues and rally points - these things should be expensive, high value targets and figuring out the best way to deploy and defend them is one of the strategic choices a player needs to make.
You know what, screw GCII star base construction system, why not make them customizable by designing them beforehand, like a blueprint and the constructor will spend weeks on end trying to get a portion of it done. Once the portion is done then you keep adding constructors till it is fully complete. This way you don't have to send a million and one constructors for 7 star bases.
The limits would be the same as any other ship, you can only fit so many parts on the initial construction of the star base.
Concept art:
Here's a vote for the minority. Constructors swarming slowly across immense galaxies. Constructors dying in masses during wars. Starbases taken and rebuilt. Love it all.
I have asked for starbase hull sizes like ships in the ship builder.that and cut down the amount of constructors needed to build a fully upgraded starbase as 50+ constructors at 1500bc each is a load of creds for a immobile large/huge hull.
I'll add a conditional vote for the minority as well. Starbases will be significantly less valuable without the capability of building them quickly, which is what most of the alternative schemes lack. If I blow up a Torian starbase on an economic resource, I want that stack of constructors to build it from nothing to full production immediately, not 20 turns from now. Slow build would suck.
If there's a better way to implement that sort of system, I'll support that. Even a hybrid system where the functional part (mining modules, ship support modules, influence modules, etc.) can be crash built while the weapons and defenses could be slow built from a nearby planet would be acceptable - with of course player control as to the balance between the two. If I only have one constructor nearby, I could start the base and slow build the entire thing, or if I have excess constructors I could crash build the functional bits and as much defenses as I have constructors for.
You were supposed to use ships to protect them. Park a fleet on the same tile in guard mode. Admittedly this would have been better if the starbase could have been part of the fleet and assist in its own defense, but the option wasn't there.
Or you could go the Dread Lord defense route. Build a horde of cheap 1 attack tiny hulls (which are far cheaper than contructors) and park them one at a time in guard mode on the entirely unarmed starbase. Each tiny hull takes a mobility point off the opponent's fleet to kill, and the AI wouldn't be able to burn through to the starbase in any reasonable time, giving you the opportunity to get a real fleet there to destroy the enemy.
If you don't want to wait long, why not reduce the amount of time it takes for it to get to the final stages, or cut out stage 3 entirely according this model.
Well, there is some truth to this, but it takes research to get a good star base, and you fall behind in ship tech especially on small maps, it just more convenient to fuse a star base designer with the GC II system together so that if somebody wants a battle station, they can add weapons and defenses to before they add the module that would be in GC II
Or maybe we should just give this model up and leave the star base system the way it is, I am just hearing what others have to say, really it wouldn't kill you to have like 3 extra constructors up in the 4 weeks given to you to instantly complete it. That is if you want to remove the time parameter... it is just more realistic to include a construction time, if you don't care about realism, then you can suggest to remove the time parameter and just get 4 constructors to instantly pop in a star base.
mind you it would be cake to just to choose the old star base types in the old game. The blueprint could be optional as well.
looks like my method of post broke... oh well...
Why do you say that? GC2's Starbase hulls were much bigger than the largest possible ship hull to begin with. And I have had starbases fend off multiple attacks from very large, very high tech ships. 'Course, those starbases also had the highest offense and defense modules that the tech tree provided.
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