Edit 12/21/14
Since this thread has gotten more attention than I expected and has been revived several times I thought I should update with my thoughts on how the game has progressed.
When I preordered this game I was hoping for improvements to the gameplay of GalCiv2 not just GalCiv2 with larger maps which is what it seems to be at this point but I did pay to get into the beta and give feedback so here goes. Edit: When I say this I'm not saying there aren't any improvements to 3 over 2 just that it plays very similarly and has the same feel. This can be seen as good and bad, my issue is that while there are a lot of improvements the problems as I see them are still intact.
General game play issues:
Colony management, while I like the bonus tile/adjacency system in theory it doesn't really work well in practice. I tend to build the same things on every planet and most of the specialty buildings fall by the wayside with few exceptions that I build on large worlds. Why even bother with colony management beyond using the production wheel for optimization. The placement of tiles on most worlds aren't very good for optimization anyway so in practice it just doesn't work well and doesn't end up giving the player a meaningful choice. Edit: This has improved since I first posted, diminishing returns on population contribution to production means building farms is an actual choice now and brings the adjacency system into clearer focus. Regarding unique improvements, I'm not sure if I missed the global bonuses from things like the Galactic Showcase and Entertainment Capital but I think all unique builds should act like that. I know the Hyperion Shrinker's tool tip says that you have more space on ships built from that planet. This makes no sense as you can't really use that. The Hyperion Logistics building while useful can cause problems when merging fleets with ships that are build on other planets. Personally I prefer my fleets to be fairly uniform so I know what they can take on.
I've participated in a few discussions about aspects of this and most players in the beta like the system but it completely breaks my enjoyment of the game for me that I can't build all of my toys on all of my worlds and that huge populations are required. One of those discussions I mentioned earlier was about building farms not being fun, I say this because its a false choice, because you have to have that huge population to be productive. Edit: Addressed.
Combat: I know combat isn't in the game yet but that I can't control my ships in combat will always bother me. That combat is effectively rock, paper, scissors further bothers me. At least give me something that gives me a tactical choice in the resolution of combat. Like shields and armor are effective against all weapon types but with point defense tech I can just my guns and lasers against missiles too but missiles fire from further out and guns are laid out in devastating broadsides and lasers are more effective point defense weapons. Something more than, my opponent is using missile/PD ships so I'll build laser/PD ships. This is another game breaker for me. Edit: This seems to have been addressed but I haven't really tried it out much as my attempts to play the Yor didn't work out well and my games playing the Iridium since Beta 2 have been pretty peaceful. I tend to play live and let live but once someone declares war on my I destroy them as I tend to enjoy the building aspect of the game and everyone is too nice while diplomacy is being tested. Not a complaint, observation on part of the testing process.
Research: While I appreciate a large tech tree the way it is implemented at this stage is just boring. If I could queue up research jumping from tree to tree it would be tolerable but most things are just an incremental bonuses and I never get excited about getting a new tech. There are a few things that completely kill it for me, that I have to research each and every treaty when I researched a universal translator after I encountered other races drives me nuts. All of the races in GalCiv have a very similar view of the universe this just makes no sense. I could see it if different races implemented treaties differently but its all the same. Edit: This is much the same, I appreciate that each race has some special stuff and there are some things moved around it play much the same and I'd like a bit more creativity if possible.
Terraforming: That planets are improved for life one tile at a time makes no sense and just bugs the crap out of me. Just put terraforming as a single tech that allows you to build a building that slowly improves the planet to be earthlike and adds usable terrain in increments. Or just scrap the whole tile system and allow terraformers to make the planet more habitable allowing higher populations. Edit: Still the same but can be modded later.
Multiplayer:
There are 2 issues I see for multiplayer, the first is asynchronous turns. That player 1 has to finish his turn before player 2 can go just makes the game take that much longer to play and most people won't sit staring intently at the screen for their turn to start will just make it worse. Edit: I haven't had a chance to play multiplayer yet but I can accept simultaneous planning and sequential execution.
Second is micromanagement. That periodically throughout the game you will unlock new tiles and buildings that you will have to go to every planet to build then when it finishes build what you want there will further slow down the game. If Stardock creates truly outstanding governors that won't be much of an issue but I have yet to see an AI I trust to build the colony I want built. Edit: Pretty much the same, worse with the Yor.
I'm pretty much done already, the game frustrates me more than I enjoy it and it seems most players in the beta like the game as it is or prefer the direction its heading. I don't expect this rant to change much if anything in the game design as most players seem to like where the game is going but at this point I may just wait for Stardock to reboot the franchise before buying another GalCiv game. Edit: The ability to mod just about anything, that things are still being implemented and feedback does seem to be listened to have kept me paying attention.
Agreed! The more players, the worse it gets. Then, you don't get much of a notification if you aren't the first player. There are times when I start getting aggravated with a friend because they are micro-managing or designing a ship and I am stuck looking at the screen wondering when the hell my turn will be. At least I could design a ship too! When it is my turn, I feel bad doing the same thing.
I tried CIV MP this weekend for the first time, it went pretty smoothly with both of us adjusting production and moving units at the same time. The exception was when there was a war, but that is understandable.
I feel right now the game has too much of everything (except shipparts and planet tiles ) just played a game as chairman of the UP and had a endless list of resolutions to choose from but most felt unispired an boring. The same goes for the techs.
Never before in a 4x game has choosing a new tech annoyed me that much. All the intresting techs are locked behind walls of incremental boosts for your varies resources. In the end I did not care what I was researching, because of the sheer number of available techs and the bland percentage basaed bonuses they offered.
I still believe that the tech trees need to be revisited and more intresting and exotic techs need to be added as well as reducing the number of techs, that increase research, production etc. or condense them in more meaningfull ones, that feel like you achieved a scientific breakthrough and not just a new number on your Excel sheet.
I still like the overall concept of the game but it lacks in terms of focus and diversity (at least for me). I hope theese shortcomings can be improved as the game nears completion.
Your feelings mirror my own in a lot of ways Caton. The game suffers from a disease I call Bonus-itis.
Every race ability, colony improvement, star ship upgrade, and research technology boil down to a statistical bonus. That is not strategy. The game lacks unique abilities, units, buildings or weapons that are race or strategy dependent and offer unique content. Races should have special units that others cannot build, star ship weapons should offer special abilities in terms of combat, not just more damage (of type a,b,c). Research technologies should make-or-break your strategy. They need to branch out and offer different techniques for core-strategies, instead of only offering a straight path through each (conquest, research, influence) and offer different unique abilities and assets as a result. The way the game is set up, all races and strategies play almost exactly the same. They pretty much research the same technologies, build the same units, and use the same tactics, they just research more or less of [this] and build more or less of [that].
Note: by abilities, I'm not talking about statistical bonuses. I'm talking about a single race with a unique agent that can infiltrate star ships and allow you see through the ships sensors or sneak aboard enemy star bases and disable laser shielding. They could infiltrate the enemy home world and relay their ship movements back to you as an advanced technology. Other races might be able to research encryption that makes this much more difficult. (example)
Regarding colony management, I believe it is just too minimal to be meaningful. It feels very limited, both in terms of content and strategy. Not due to a lack of buildings or art assets, but because entire planets support less infrastructure than a small town. I would like to be able to build up a planet so that it really feels invaluable. This would be a result of time and strategy, not just because it was my starting planet, or it happened to have a great research bonus. The loss of such a planet would be devastating both morally and economically. There is also very little space available, but lots of planets. This makes it feel more like a chore than anything else.
One element that I really like is the ability to research planetary defense technologies and improvements. I consider these to be a great addition to the game and offer a unique strategy. Sadly, there is no place to put any of the improvements.
There isn't enough space to build the planet you want. It's like being an artist and being given a thousand blank canvases with which to paint, but they are all between 3"x 3" with a few larger pieces of 10" x 10". You can get a rough idea of what the perfect painting would look like, but you can never expand upon your idea. You are never allowed to create your masterpiece. Instead you have toil away painting countless little pictures (all simultaneously, and all... identical).
I call this "The dream of a Chinese factory painter."
Yes, above 2 posts highlight my feelings - as explained previously in this thread. Some may go on to point out "this is GalCiv". But does it have to be?? A new game and all!!! Hopefully Dev's will read this thread. The same common gameplay issues keep emerging.
There is much that is not in the game yet, including racial special abilities and customization.
That is true, the game is not finished yet and there is still a lot of content missing. This does however not change the problems that I currently see with Gal Civ and there are others that feel the same.
I am not voicing my concerns to condemn the game and its flaws, I point out what I feel stands in the way of a richer and more satisfying experience in the hope that the developers will improve on the current version and rethink some of their decisions.
that said, the problems I currently have with laking diversity in techs will not be changed by racial super abilities and customization.
Most of the problems voiced here seem to be problems that people have with the GalCiv series as a whole. And those things won't change (thank god).
I think Derracs said it best. Its the same thing civ:BE suffers from : too many choices, each with no real impact.
Infinite number of choice combinations, but they all result in approximately the same thing.
I don't think I understand this complaint, especially when it comes to colony management. Part of the strategy and fun of GC3 is figuring out how to use a planet best, based on tile bonuses, planet-wide bonuses and tile layout. So if you discover a planet with a +3 tile bonus, a manufacturing planet bonus, on a tile with a couple of adjacent tiles touching it, that would make a great manufacturing center. So there aren't infinite choices with all the same effect, there's several choices of which one is best. Figuring that out is part of the fun.
The research tree is really terrible, not because of the choices or the techs so far, but the way the tree is presented to you, for me it looks like a mess, the description is not clear sometimes, and the UI is too messy. My humble opinion is that they should redo the way tech tree is presented to the player.
That's the issue most of us are talking about, GC2 was good for its time despite its issues. Leaving those issues in game for GC3 with multiplayer and much larger maps compounds those issues and makes them more prominent and the game less fun. We want GC3 to be fun so we are bringing these issues up in hopes that those issues will be addressed.
Charon2112, is it possible that if the issues we have with the game could be addressed in a way that you would like too? Do you think that the current systems for research, combat and colony management are the best possible implementation? Do you feel that unlocking more tiles late game adds more to the game than it detracts? You and I play the game much differently but I still think its possible to change the game so that both of us will enjoy it more than in its current direction.
I agree completely about too many choices that have little impact on game play. That's one of the things that bothers me when I watch the dev stream, Paul talks not having the game take actions for the player but half of what he says that about aren't meaningful choices and I for one would rather have at least the option of having the game do it for me. It also irks me that combat is resolved by the game without my input beyond actively seeking or avoiding combat but I have to build a single use ship to set up a trade route. Choosing my tactics in combat is choice I want to make but I would much rather have a check box for trade routes that just sets up a trade route with a suitable planet or planet I choose. Trade is clunky and takes a long time to set up so most of the time I find it more annoying to trade than I think is worth it, its a chore not fun.
My wish with the research tree is that you could zoom out to see more on screen, like in GC2.
Well for one this game is not finished, however this is a detail oriented game. Personally I enjoy it a bit too much. It is more of everything that GC II was. HUGE maps are a hoot as will be the far larger maps. All of these features have been asked for, for (years) on the GC II forums. Better AI, LARGER maps, more more more..
Its good to have different opinions about what you like or dislike. I can respect that. If you do not like the game now, you definitely would not have enjoyed Alpha (lol).
The soul of the game (in my humble opinion) is its Snarky AI and the comments you get off and on during play. I have faith that Brad and Co will still put that same 'soul' back into the game upon Gold release. Even then if not we will have several expansions which we as forum members and players can put our (two cents) in and ask for what we feel would be 'fun'.
"Part of the strategy and fun of GC3 is figuring out how to use a planet best, based on tile bonuses, planet-wide bonuses and tile layout. So if you discover a planet with a +3 tile bonus, a manufacturing planet bonus, on a tile with a couple of adjacent tiles touching it, that would make a great manufacturing center. So there aren't infinite choices with all the same effect, there's several choices of which one is best. Figuring that out is part of the fun." -charon2112
Research and production are equally important to every player and therefore represent little strategy. I don't need every planet to have meaningful choices in regards to tile placement in an attempt to maximize statistical bonuses. Any combination that is beneficial to you is most likely optimal for the next player as well. This becomes repetitive quickly and has little effect on how you play overall.
I would just like to have a few planets that I can continue to improve (not just improvement upgrades) throughout the entire game. Lets say 10 planets with unlimited potential, the planets that I have decided to focus my efforts on. These would also offer an incredible loss if they were taken. This could be done in several ways without changing things too much since excellent planets are already pretty rare. Terraforming offers a way to better planets, but it comes late in the game. I want important planets throughout my entire game, not just improving planets towards the end, although I do enjoy this aspect. I would say either 20-25 tiles would be plenty of room. While these planets do exist, I believe every player deserves a couple in even a medium sized galaxy. If not that, then the more common 13-15 tile planets could work if I had the ability to create a few planetary defenses on (otherwise) non usable tiles, and special improvements such as nano machines, eyes of the universe, etc. did not require planet tiles. This could easily amount to an indispensable planet (beginning/middle/end game) without changing how tiles work or increasing the number of green tiles available. That way I can focus on developing a powerful empire with useful planets instead of just a big one.
Most other planets would remain the same in terms of space but offer better defenses. While not every planet needs to represent a meaningful choice, I would like the ability to use colonized planets for something other than production and research. I don't want to spend all my time maximizing the statistical optimization of each planet for increased benefits to global variables. While this is a viable tactic, it should not be the only one available. This is why I like the idea of outpost planets and mining planets. They would probably be used sparingly but offer great benefits in terms of strategy.
While I appreciate your dedication in defending the game, I just want a more enjoyable experience for everyone. I fail to see how unique units for races, increased planet specialization and usefulness, and a research tree that branches out and offers real consequences represents a threat to you. The sheer size and scope of GC3, as kestlstw mentioned, compounds many of the same problems GC2 had. I get that GC2 did things the same way, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon.
Edited: misread your example.
I’ve been reading this thread and debating whether or not to jump in. I loved GC 2. So far, I don’t love GC 3, though it’s similarity to GC 2 means I do have fun playing it, at least for a while. I realize that we’re in Beta and things are not polished and many pieces are missing, so I’ve been giving it the benefit of the doubt. And, I want to encourage the developers to keep pushing because whether the game is evolutionary or revolutionary, I will spend many hours playing the final product.
That said, the game so far is evolutionary more than revolutionary. I can’t blame Stardock for that. I’m reminded of the Civilization series and how Civ 2 Gold Edition was the best version of that game until Civ 5 came along. Civ’s 3 and 4 where just evolutions of the game and didn’t really add much to the basic gameplay. Still, they sold. Civ 5 was revolutionary. The new combat system (ranged units and stack limits) made it a very different and very enjoyable game. The diplomacy system where AI players have long memories was great and actually changed the way I played the game.
What would I love to see in GC 3? How about a whole new way to do colonies. Option 1: let us build cities instead of improvements. Kind of like a mini, basic version of Civ. You start with one city and you can specialize it: Industry (Detroit), Economic (New York), Diplomatic (Washington, D.C.), Cultural (Hollywood), Research (Cambridge), etc. Then, as you meet some criteria (population, for example), you could found another city, and so on. Planet conditions would affect city growth, placement, and type. Cities could suffer from disasters or be bombed from orbit. You could also choose super projects and wonders instead of founding another city (a lasting choice that makes the planet more valuable and effects what that planet can do). Option 2: This has been mentioned in this thread—a lot more tiles so we can truly specialize planets (shrink the tiles on the colony management screen to fit twice the number and lower improvement bonuses to balance the game).
Tech tree: I agree with the comments that tech should have more meaning. The specializations are not bad, but allow players to only select one, not all three. That locks players into a set of choices such that (for example) missiles could be smaller or be less expensive or have longer range but not all three. I also favor the camp that says fewer techs that matter more would be more interesting. The Civ 5 tech tree offers an example, especially the techs that relate to wonders or major military/improvement advances. I haven’t played Beyond Earth yet but that tech tree also looks interesting.
Combat: Okay, this was the major gripe I had with GC 2. Combat was boring. What good is designing our own ships down to the last detail if it means almost nothing in combat. The developers have already said no to tactical combat. Okay, I get it. BUT, combat needs to blow me away for me to love this game. I want to make tactical choices that matter in combat, not just watch pretty graphics of my ships exploding. That’s cool the first few times but over the course of a game, you just fast forward to the results. I do like the idea of commanders who gain experience (good and bad?) and perhaps have traits (like the Total War series). I am eagerly awaiting Beta 3 to see the combat system.
Colony Rush: We’re all familiar with the early game colony rush. It was a hallmark of GC 2. GC 3, so far, is no different. Diplomacy and tech trading actually made it worse because the tech ages are too easy to cross, leading to rapid expansion. The game Horizon uses range, supply, maintenance, and terraforming techs as a means to delay expansion so that players are still colonizing well into late middle game. I like that model over the early rush because it makes the early and middle game a lot more interesting (colonizing is fun). Civilization has a similar mechanic without the terraforming.
Late Game (last one, I promise): Adam said it best in one of his recent streams—You realize you’ve won the game 150 turns before it ends; mopping up is not fun. This is the Achilles’ heel of all 4x games. Either through diplomacy (alliances formed to oppose a dominant player), or the unwieldy nature of managing a huge empire (rebellion) or whatever, I should never feel that I’ve won the game until I actually win it (or the game should simply tell me I’ve won, score me for the leaders boards, and give me a choice between continuing—for those few who may like mopping up—or starting a new game).
That’s it. As always, my opinion.
I might as well weigh in here as well. This ahs been one of the bet topics on this forums so far. It's hard to really comment on some things at this point considering we still have a lot of things to be added. However I have to agree with what most people here have said about planet specialization and adjacency bonuses. Right now the only real choice is what type of planet you want it to be, after that you just hop to get lucky enough to have a few tile bonuses to support the overall planet bonus, if there is any. If not your still better off just choosing a specialization that may be supported by a few tile bonuses and then build over the rest with labs or factories or farms. Planets need to have some mechanic that actually forces you to make meaningful choices beyond money/manufacturing/research specialization.
I think the idea of being able to continuously develope so called "prime" worlds throughout the game would be awesome. Let everyones homeworld be a "prime" world and let them be like the current 25 tile worlds we have now. Then have the terraforming techs give multiple tile bonuses on them instead of one on the "lesser" worlds. I dunno if that would really solve the problems, but as some others have mentioned the ability to slowly build up some key worlds into the backbone of your empire would be awesome. SOTS2 had jewel and forge worlds for the very top tier worlds, for example. I really like the idea that you would have some worlds, and not just your homeworld, that later in the game are going to be key to your success or failure as an empire. These are the worlds that you, and the ai, have to fight to the death over. However, to keep them from being to OP, because of the fierce fighting you lose most of the improvements and planet quality when they fall, so that it takes time for an enemy that conquers them to build them up again.
The research trees really do need some fleshing out. The current choices have very little differentiation. Haveing more race specific abilities, not just stat boosts, would help a lot. I hope that whatever abilities are put into the game for each race they are something more than +25% hull points or something. Lets see the yor not need any sort of farms, or life support for that matter. Lets see some altarian "magic". Lets see the drengin send out slave "cannon fodder" and use human (or altarian, or iconian)shields so that invading their worlds can actually drop the moral of your own population.
I would aslo love to see the drengin actually fight dirty and the Yor not even worrying about morals or approval at all. I would love it if each race had it's own combat style and advantages, let the iconians be all about speed, as well as have "blink" ability to doge in combat. Meanwhile, let the drengin be all about about firepower one moment, then suddenly when they have the upper hand, break out a bunch of "less than lethal" abilities to capture their opponents(those slaves arnt going to capture themselves you know). Let the Yor be able to flat out repel a certain amount of firepower. Let the humans be able to have a truce to avoid some battles(being diplomatic and all). These are just examples, but I would like to see things in the game that are more than just stat boosts and combinations of stats(like most of the race specific buildings are).
These are just some of my opinions and ideas. I'm sure the features that have yet to be added will help, but right now this game really is rather boring. I know it's the beta, but if there are not serious changes to things such as colonization and adjacency bonuses, the tech tree and more things to make the races different beyond ship styles, I'm going to have hard time seeing this game being fun long term.
As others have, I also am going to vouch for Civ V's way of handling MP turn order...the new hybrid system allows it so that all players at peace have simultaneous turns while all players at war have sequential turns...occasionally a player can get screwed on the turn that war is declared, but compared to other systems I have seen, this is the best way of compromising fair with efficient...
I'm afraid I agree Derracs, Caton, and others, in that I was hoping for much more from GCIII, than just GC2+. Though, I am still holding out hope that one or more of the expansions may add a significant amount of content.
For me the game is just to simple as is. While GC2 was a great game for its time, computer gaming has come a long way in 10 years and I was hoping for GCIII to have a much higher level of immersion, strategy, and additional complexity that was offset by improved AI assistance. I totally understand that many players would not want the game overly complex, but I honestly think it could be so much more than it appears is currently planned. I was kind of hoping that the game would have somewhere close to the complexity of a game like Hearts of Iron 3, but with better AI assistance to help with some of the micromanagement.
Even in GC2, I found myself getting bored around mid game as each additional planet, star base, and ship became more about tedious micromanagement than having a new interesting thing to be concerned with in the game. I usually wound up stopping the game, spending a bunch of time trying to mod something in, to reclaim my interest and then starting a new game, only to go through the same cycle over and over again.
To me the economic, population, and approval models seem far too simplistic to me right now. Maybe they will improve dramatically, but it really does not appear so at this point.
While I would have loved the ability to make tactical decisions during battles, I would be okay without that ability, if there is at least a strong element of tactical reasoning put into fleet and ship design. Maybe instead of hull sizes, there could be hull types, where one type is much more suited for certain types of weapons or defenses, so that every size ship cannot have all types of weapons and defenses with one type just being able to have more of each.
While I could be completely wrong, and hope I am, if the game development goes forward as I expect, and doesn't have a fairly dramatic transformation, I'm afraid I will feel like a significant amount of the $45 I paid was wasted.
Here's hoping the development team proves me and others wrong and creates a truly great game.
Everyone needs to realize that probably 65% of the game isn't even in yet. The release game will be very different than this early beta.
Are you suggesting we hold our comments until the game is out of Beta?
I'm suggesting that people keep their opinions in check and realize that this is a beta designed to test for bugs. A beta that is missing half of the content that will be in the finished game.
I'm also noticing that the complainers in this thread seem to also not like GC2 very much either. And their opinions matter little to me and I hope to SD as well.
I haven't seen any opinions out of check here so far, and I don't think most here disliked GC2 because it was great for its time. Its time however has passed, and many of us are hoping for significantly more from GC3.
Just as you wrote, the game is in Beta, which usually mean the overall design is fairly complete and usually not open for drastic changes, but hopefully that is not the case. Either that, or the planned expansions will add significantly more to the game.
Not sure why you feel your opinion is more important than others, but thankfully it seems that SD is open to listening to many different fan's voices.
"Not sure why you feel your opinion is more important than others"
Didn't say that.
GC2 is still great, and GC3 is already significantly more.
Hi everybody.After reading this thread, I have an idea that might add options to the "colony rush phase" and help with limited planet space.Idea:- Planets below 10 quality cost upkeap. Lower quality = more upkeap..- Planets have lower starting quality in general (average around 6).- Planets can be terraforemd without ANY terraforming tech, from the start of the game.- There is no limit on how much terraforming can be done but the cost rises exponentially introducing a semihard cap.- Terraforming tech lowers the cost allowing quicker terraforming and moving the "reasonable" terrafrom cap up.- Starports can transfer production to a planet in certain range relative to ship range.Expected result:- Grabbing land will be possible but will slow players down (upkeap).- Planets will take more time to mature, this can be accelerated but will take resources from shipmaking/developing homeworld.- Gives the option of settling small amount of quality worlds and investing in them instead of settling whatever is available.- More player placed terraformed tiles means more adjeciency bonuses.- Espinage is more important than ever. Neighbour investing heavilly in his worlds is prime target for invasion since it will take time before his investments bear fruit.- Unfortunately it brings more micromanagment. Further possibilieties:- Race bonuses making it easier/harder to "grab land" (change in upkeap, terraform cost, starport help range).- Race bonuses making it easier/harder to create "mega worlds" (change in terraforming cost cap).What do you think?
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