I've played the beta for a few hours, took a lot of screenshots and made a large number of mental notes that I would like to share. Most of them are UI-related, because I'm not sure there's a lot I can give constructive feedback about system-wise at this stage of development.
Let's start:
Lots of cool bonuses, but the "+1/+2" aren't very clear. I am assuming these are customization prices? In any case, the +25% bonus in the tooltip is what's really interesting, maybe it should be what's displayed so I can pick my faction at first glance instead of fishing for hidden information?
There's no feedback on what's happening with the quick build interface. If you click on "build", nothing tells you that the items has actually been added to the queue. Also, "cancel" is not an intuitive way to leave this menu - it feels like we're canceling the last build order.
I have quite a few problems with this whole thing. There should be a way to cancel something in the manufacturing queue that doesn't require using one of the 3 buttons of "available projects". It's not that it takes a lot of work, it's just nearby, it's just not intuitive, because "manufacturing queue" and "available projects" are 2 different captions. How about a "cancel" cross on each item of the manufacturing queue? There's plenty of space for that.
Then: improvements. What they do is really confusing. It's completely opaque. It took me quite a lot of guesswork to understand what the deal with "levels" was (the system is interesting, actually). One of the problems is the name: levels often indicate progression in games, like in GalCiv2 with ship experience. A term more closely related to "synergy" or "efficiency" would be better. Also: listing the level in the construction or tech unlock tooltip (just underneath the name) isn't very relevant since it's going to be zero anyway. It makes it a bit confusing.
What levels actually do for each item should be on the tooltip. Sometimes it's the same as the base building bonus (that's the case for factories), but sometimes the base improvement bonus and its leveled bonus are two different things, like starports. Adding a line saying "+10% manufacturing per level" would be awesome.
Also, don't list the manufacturing costs with the bonuses and maintenance, it's really confusing. In fact, ideally, maintenance, cost, and provided bonus should be listed separately.
Planetary statistics could do with tooltips explaining very roughly how some of these numbers are obtained.
Maybe it's just me, but the ships still look a bit "lego". Maybe it's the cockpit...
So, I'm fine with the policies being on the Good/Evil axis because it's all funny tongue-in-cheek, not meant to be taken seriously. However, while I understand that this is a placeholder (only one event), please balance good and evil mechanically. This isn't a roleplaying game or real life where "doing good" is its own reward. They're labels with some fluff attached to it, really. The problem is that here the bonuses are strictly better the more evil you are (BTW, it still says merciless while the tree says malevolent). This would actually be fine if the benevolent tech tree was clearly better. That would actually be a great way to differentiate playstyles: benevolent benefits in the long term, malevolent reaps more immediate and local rewards.
Concercing the trees themselves:
What are those "plus" signs between levels? I'm not sure what function they serve. Am I supposed to be able to take policies from all trees, and have a finger in each pie? So, I can be both good and evil? Also, it seems like the choices at each tier aren't exclusive.
By the way, do Outreach Group improvements give a penalty to research? That's not what the description says - I shouldn't be less good at research because others are copy-pasting my results. It's especially weird because the static bonus for this ideology unlock... is a research bonus.
Nebulae are great. They look a bit awkward from afar because of the hex tiling, but that's probably unavoidable and at least it's very clear. From close-up, they're really gorgeous. Varrying the colours a tiny bit would be great. I'm an amateur astronomer, and deep space objects have some colors you might want to try .
Mechanically, I find their bonus interesting but they could be more awesome. This sensor-blocking effect could also work for ships outside of the nebulae trying to see what's inside or on the other side of it, basically a sort of line-of-sight dampener. This could make for really cool ambushes.
Finally, I think some survey goodies are a bit on the strong side. +2 moves for the whole fleet is a tiny bit strong early game, and finding a ship with 8 attack and 6 defense twice in 5 minutes could be a game breaker. That said, the anomalies themselves are quite good looking .
So, this is supposed to be Mackinac Island-like? (Class 8 = northern Michigan according to the founder's vault PDF)
That's a bit harsh! The thing looks like a nightmare to live on.
These planet global bonuses are not really easily available. Only way I know is to hover with the mouse to get a tooltip, and there's no clear indication that there's a bonus in the first place.
There's a small enemy starship under the green "+". I was actually wondering where the heck it was when I zoomed in from the global strategic view. I think those ships should always be more visible in this sort of case.
Planetary statistics do not update right away when I start building "economic stimulus" (or other such bonus-producing projects), or when I change the planetary governor settings. It's a bit wonky, in fact. I'm not sure what makes it update the numbers, I'll investigate it further.
Big edit:
Something that really needs fixed: borders that touch the edge of the maps are visible even when I haven't explored that place yet. There's some red Drengin border on the lower edge of the map. It's very nice of you to tell me where they are right away, but I think it's not a planned feature.
I agree wholly with this statement, and I hope that's the direction they ultimately take the ideologies.
Okay here is my feedback adding to this...
1. When entering Earth, I found that my starport was automatically built on a research bonus tile. I have screenshot but it's too distorted right now to post.
2. Moves don't seem to be affected by moving through astroid fields as in Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of Arnor, don't know if this is intentional.
3. Explore option should allow to stay out of enemy space.
4. No auto sort function in research time, again may just not be in yet for Alpha.
5. No edge scrolling, have to click on mouse to move the screen. (maybe just didn't find in settings)
6. Occationally ships jumped to new location with no appearance of movement.
7. Hard to eject ships out of planet, possibility of improvement?
8. Blank planet screen as noted in one of brad's reviews.
Positive/Suggestions...
1. Love that it lets you know to choose new research option when the old research item is completed.
2. Love that it lets you know if you have ships with available moves... However, it forces you to continue to move ships, and not just have them floating in space which is annoying, or switch to pass.
A. Suggestion: 1: Allow you to double click on the turn button/idle ship to continue on. B. Suggestion: 2: Allow you to pass until further notice for selected ship, no need to remind me this every turn.
Any luck finding coffee in those nebulas?
I put my ships on guard. That helped them to pass until further notice
I'd also like to share my feedback. Ok, I'm just going to make this as easy to picture as possible for my ideas for and areas that can be improved. First part that needs adjustments: I think that the boundaries for each planet's area of cultural influence should work exactly like in Civilization V where the culture expands the borders. Star bases should only be allowed to be built in within your borders of that specific planet for that specific planet as well. Second suggestion: I would suggest to create a tile system on the planet that works a lot like Civilization V (once again brilliant design in a brilliant game.) There should be values for gold and production and food in each tile. I would also like to see the asteroids have special precious metals and have different capabilities from having these asteroids. Also Galactic Wonders near by to planets that can add special stats to planets and that would give them tactical advantages for colonizing that planet. Third Suggestion: I would also like to see A Tech Tree for each of the 4 Main Branches of Research. Something that gives you a more tactical view of what you aiming to gain scientifically. Fourth Suggestion: I really like the star dust and nebula effects and how they change the positive and negative effects of being in that area. Would like to see more areas with positive stats like defensive bonuses or stealth or attack bonuses or even movement bonuses. Fifth Suggestion: I would also like to see the special buildings like the Benevolent Specialty Structure should have a lower incremental value for how much benevolence you get from it each turn. +5 is too much per turn. Also there should be a cultural building that increases in level gradually slower and slower as it increases your planet's borders and areas of influence. Would also like to see a just a bit smaller area of initial Planetary borders when you first colonize a planet. Sixth Suggestion: Colony ships should be able to go a lot farther into space and make the research for Logistics/Space Travel Distance A lot more gradual and cost less research points. ( Or in my opinion Seriously Scrap the Limitations to how far a ship can travel because it messes with the Cultural borders of planets.) This game should be a lot more like Civ 5 with land borders vs planet borders. The border system should work the same. It shouldn't have limitations as to how far a space ship can go. It kinda ruins the whole point of The Civ Series. This is just my opinion but in reality, The game play would work a lot like Civ 5 multiplayer gameplay and everyone loves that games for how smooth it plays strategically. It makes the game a lot more easy to play in and a lot less complicated. Other than that, if you really want to keep it in the game then the map sizes will have to correspond to how much logistics changes in each map size and they would have to work differently. As well as Special resources planet side from cultural borders would have to also work in conjunction with those rules. In my honest opinion, this game should have a ton of qualities that The Civ Game Series from Civ 4 and 5. This game would be frigin amazing if it keeps the same game functions from Civilization V. No doubt in my mind would I be satisfied every time I played the game.
I ran across one event wher it was
You find a precursor ship under an ice cap. You can get to it but to extract teh ship you'd have to melt the entire cap raising sea levels.
Good 25% research
Neutral - free precursor ship + some usable land removed
Bad - free precursor ship + lots of land removed
I totally agree with this--within the first 20 or so turns I got three precursor ships, one through survey and two through colonization (ice caps event). As a result, I just killed all of the Drengin ships and then set up a blockade, researched planetary invasion, and the game was over (them with 2 planets and me with all the rest on the map (tiny)).
Yeah, I think "finding ships" should be age-related.
Justification: "You find a precursor ship but you have no clue how to do the first thing with it, and you inadvertently triggered its automated defense systems."
The problem with the ice-cap precursor is that their worth is very much mapsize dependent. Tiny map: win the game. Huge map: almost worthless.
They should also scale with map size, that would ease quite a few problems
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