I've been watching and waiting and I've finally started playing the game now. So, I guess you might consider these my first impressions.I love the graphics of the first colonization of a planet; but it saddens me that what I see isn't actually what happens. In the vid the modules eject from the ship and make their way to the surface of the planet. That would imply to me that the core of the ship remains; but that's not the case. Is it?
In addition, in the animation, there are numerous pods sent down; and the ship design does reflect more than one. However, as it stands now, one pod is all it takes to load up half the population of my starting planet. That seems a bit much to me.Personally, I'd like to see the planet colonization take on a little more of the look and feel of a game I used (to be able) to play; called Outpost. But that's, no doubt, asking too much. Then again, is it? There's been a lot of "specialization" added to the game. it seems to me that it'd be only natural for that to be incorporated into the purpose of each planet: after all, what is it those factories are producing?Perhaps that's simply way too much micro-management; but I grew up playing with Lego Blocks; and putting model cars, boats and planes together from kits. To me, the fun of the game is in building my Galactic Civilization. The joy is in fitting the pieces together.Anyway, I think the modules should be just that: modules. The core of the constructor or colony ship should remain intact and return to be refitted with new modules; and yes they have to return! The ability to upgrade ships that are not inside a facility designed to do such remains something of a cheat.
I think the idea of making several different types of modules that could be built into a colony ship sounds very interesting. At a minimum one would be a base camp. Further, being able to send the colony ship back for a another trip (without any modules of course) would make sense. The whole thing would depend on the greater part of the building expense being the modules as a whole rather than the ship.
Yes, it adds micro, but a potentially very interesting micro. And perhaps not much more than at present if the module load outs are stored in the ship designer. Hmm, then extreme worlds would require a special module appropriate to that planet that would take extra space, reducing space for other stuff so that the new colony struggles more.
Interesting idea. Whether practical or not, that is another question.
Personally I think the life support, sensor and colony modules are all too big and provide too much. I'd rather have the ability to put, say, five colony pods on a ship and haul 100,000 people per pod.
I know it is canon in the game but... we can't build a city on the ground to hold, feed and tend to a billion people. Lifting multiple billions of people into an orbit and keeping alive and happy for an interstellar voyage, only to destroy the resources of the carrying city-ship at the end of the flight, well - that's ridiculous, really. Fun game, but still ridiculous.
Anyway, I'd like to see the life support, sensor and colony module mass requirements and benefits sharply reduced to allow players to better custom-tailor their designs.
While I'd love this as a player, there are some definite game balance concerns at being able to colonize with tiny ships immediately at a fraction of the cost of both population and time to make. It could make the colony rush even more... intense than it already can be at times.
As for the colonization and invasion numbers, they are ridiculous. You can explain anything with science fiction, but it is hard for me to envision any technology that would permit these numbers by 2400 AD. At the very least it should be tied to some super-tech to allow moving that many people.
I seem to remember in some game and I thought it was GCI that the first X number of turns were more than 1 week. They started at X years per turn and decreased to months or weeks by end game. This would allow colonizing a more reasonable number and increasing the growth rate per turn in the early game. To take it one step further, it would be neat for the number of tiles to be tied to population as well as PQ.
In the end I think that the devs are more interested in creating a fun and playable game than satisfying my OCDC personality, so I doubt we will see much change in this area.
Oh yeah, in regard to the special event scenes like 1st colony, etc. I can deal with multiple pods etc., but for immersion, I recall how impressive the voice overs in SMAC were. It would be great to have voice overs in GCIII but I guess they are too expensive. I assume they had to hire 5-6 voice actors to do the numerous SMAC voice overs and that would have to cost a ton.
Similar to Civ games, when you see a ship on the screen it is not litterally one ship but an entire fleet of that ship. Kind of like how having one axeman wandering around in civ representss an entire division of axeman. So you have a whole fleet of colony ships transporting half the planet population.
Also, the colony ship dissapears because transporting millions and billions doesn't leave much room for extra fuel and supplies so the entire ship has to be dismantled in the process. After all, why try to build a fusion reactor on a new colony over at least tens of years when landing on an empty planet, when you simply use the colony ship's fusion reactor as the fusion reactor for the new colony. You have to remember, its hard to produce tech from an empty planet, so the only tech you initially have is what comes from the ship.
Also, the movie you see is but one small step in the colonizing process, since I dont think you want to watch a realistic colonization video taking several hours at least to get the millions and billions down to the planet surface. Just imagine getting all the kids to settle down and form up in an orderly fashion to the pods / transporters. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
As for the science and physics involved in producing a colony fleet for billions in a few months... Well if a civ has FTL technoogy, then just imagine advanced replicators and transporters set to maximum setting.
Remember kids, and this is most important.
Its just a game.
Glad to see so many responses so soon and most of them favorable; except (of course) for the "it's just a game"er.
On the one hand I'm told that it represents a "Fleet" of ships; I guess that's kind of like Battle Star Galactica. Hmmm. But on the other hand I'm told that "Fleet" doesn't have the means to support itself without scrapping ALL the ships. They must've been built by politicians; after all their jobs are "just a game" too. But I won't delve into that any further.
As I started to say; must of the responses were rather positive (and more or less in agreement). I made the mistake of reading that last one before writing this and have lost part of my train of thought. However, I seem to recall it was in response to the ability to use a tiny (or small) ship to colonize a planet. I would think, though, that you do need more than the module designed to carry people. A tiny or small ship simply doesn't have the hull integrity to support such stuff.
In "Outpost" you had decisions to make as to what supplies you were going to take. I don't remember all of them, but there was the number of people, oxygen for those people, the reactor (you didn't use the ships; it just remained in space), a facility for producing oxygen, a facility for producing food, a command center, etc.
But, I'm not saying I want this game to be exactly like that; especially since these planets are already hospitable and a lot of the stuff isn't needed. The thing is though, it was one ship: not a fleet. If, however, politicians are running the show and say it has to be an entire fleet and half the planets population should board... Well, who am I to say different?
I did lose my train of thought and I am curious now: how many ships are in this fleet?
Then again I'm almost sixty; so I guess it's time I stop playing "kids" games... ...thought this was way beyond a "kids" game; but I see I was wrong.
Yeah the week long turns have always been a bit of an immersion killer for me. If you think about humanity growing from 1 planet and 8 billion people up to 30-40 planets and 500 billion people in a span of 3-5 years it's kind of ridiculous. I hope we will have the ability to toggle between turn number and game year, or that the ability can be easily modded in to the game.
So you are just another of the youngsters on this forum (compared to me I mean). Oh well. Sometime I hope to meet someone my own age.
Seriously, giving ideas and making suggestions is just about exactly what this forum is about. Fire away. I may not agree, it may not be practical, it may not appeal to much of anyone, so what. It may just trigger a notion in a developer (they do read the forums!) that leads to something good, or even special. Ideas in a forum whether early access or not should be encouraged. No, that's not it. Encouraged a LOT.
So thanks for your ideas. They gave me something to think about.
Remember kids, and this is most important. Its just a game.
The rest of this post gives some interesting ideas about abstraction, good enough. But I have to sharply disagree with these statements. We aren't kids (dang I wish I was again, I can still remember --- back in the fifties), and we jolly well know it's a game. Discouraging people from posting --- which is what these comments tend to --- is, well, badly done. My opinion as always; but respect for people despite the fact that we take exception to their ideas has actually been quite common in these forums; I have been a recipient myself, and am grateful to others for their patience and their good manners.
Course on consideration it I may have gravely mistaken your intent/tone. If so, my apologies.
LOL, Bamdorf, I am 75. Bet I have you by a few years.
I don't necessarily agree it is a fleet. I have never heard a dev say that. I could explain the single colony ship (not the first colony video clip).
The colony ship does not carry the 2.5 billion people. It carries a sizable crew and a wormhole device (We know from the lore that worm hole tech has been used by the older races for centuries) when the worm hole is established the population is transported instantly in containers with 1 mil population per container. This would take a few months to complete, so we will have to give them a little suspension of disbelief as long as turns are said to be a week.
Personally I pay no attention to the claim that the turns are a week. In my mind as I play, they are at least a year. There are no events in the game that I can think of that require that the turn be thought of as a week.
Oh, and don't be offended by Stanley's post, I have read a lot of his posts and he is a good guy. If you have been involved with this forum and other forums you must know you have to have a thick skin. The internet is a great medium for communication but it does not give you the tone of voice of voice com or the body language of face to face. I try not to offend anyone and I try not to be offended by anyone's opinion. It is a game but it is not a child's game. My grandsons kid me for playing turn based games and I kid them for not being smart enough to play.
I am 66. Less than a decade younger. Franco, I would never have guessed your age from your posts! Keep on keeping on!
PS have to remember to show respect for my elders!
I love the idea of extra modules on colony ships!!!
How about adding tile improvements as modules?
The basic module is the colony capital as it is right now,
Then you select, modules that represent 1 tile improvement: factory, research lab, etc. limmited to 1 per type.
As you colonize, you enter the planett screen and just deploy you modules where you like and that's it!!
No point in going back and forth with empty colony ships too much micro.
Also after you colonize you should get some manufacturing in the planet buffer for scraping that ship, based on all modules and parts and hull except the colony ones.
I really don't understand why anybody thinks Stanley's post is somehow offensive or negative. Isn't everybody that plays computer games and has discussions about their finer points on some forums on the internet still a kid at heart? And are we not talking about, well, a game...?
Come on folks, lighten up a little. Assume people have the best of intentions, not the worst. Especially on some internet forum, where you really can't tell anything about the persons intentions from visual or audible speech cues.
Have a nice day!
I have no problem at all with a couple of optional colony techs that you can tweak on a colony ship as modules. Maybe one gives you bonus population growth, maybe one gives you some initial industrial output, maybe one gives you a factory from the get go for example.So you get the choice of building lots of ships or slightly slower but more powerful ones.
"Anybody" I think means .... me. Actually I think you said it better than I did. "...you really can't tell anything about the persons intentions from visual or audible speech cues." That's what I was trying to say. So when remarks go from comments on game changes etc. to general statements about people like "come on kids...it's only a game" sort of thing, well, my point of view is that one should probably just avoid it. Make your points explicitly, leave the vague generalities that tend, even if not meant, toward the personal.
I admit in my response I violated my own prescription. My bad, which is why I appended the remark about an apology.
Going a bit further I would say that the most farfetched, crazy, impractical ideas are the easiest to make belittling remarks about. But imo, those kinds of of ideas once in a while are the germs of something special. And if, as most, they turn out to be of no practical use, there is no harm done. In this thread I realized the impracticability of some of the suggestions, but they made me think a bit anyway. Some, I hope, would think that not a bad thing.
Cheers.
Okay. New Idea; or an improvement on the original. So, let's say, we have the hull of the Colonizer left in orbit. I do agree that returning it rather than using it for something else would be a waste of time. Thus, I suggest that we move it to the location of where we wish to place our upcoming ship yard and allow it to serve as the core for that structure.
Returning to the modules: Yes, ones that serve as preliminary (and temporary) factories, research facilities, farms would be great.
I'd also like to see an option (at the start of the game) to set the max capacity of the colonization module (for all factions/civilizations).
For kids and Kids at heart this may be just another game; which is why they aren't founders (in my opinion). For people with IQ's above the double digits it is far more than a game; it's almost a necessity. It is the "play" that our minds need to cope with the idiosyncrasies of the world; and that is why we become a bit Obsessively Compulsive when it comes to our thoughts on what should be. The what shouldn't be isn't so much of a problem; if we have the ability to suppress or eliminate it.
For me this is not another "Civ" game. I do own a few of them and have played them; but they don't provide the "play" my mind craves. The Total War games do; but not like this one does.
Historically though, most of my posts receive negative responses and there is invariably that added "it's just a game". Football, Basketball, and Baseball are just games... But they're for adults not kids! It is sad that video games are considered Kids only and aren't viewed the same as the afore mentioned sports. I have heard that some of them are becoming a sport and that's awesome.
I know exactly how to turn a game such as this one into a real money maker for the players as well as the developers... But the world is obviously not ready for that. So, I'll go back to keeping my thoughts to myself for a while. At least until it ceases to be a kid's game.
I agree with a lot of your points until you get to the whole "kid's game" thing, which comes off as highly condescending. As a lover and keeper of both games and kids, the phrase does not mean to me what it seems to mean to you. My kids played GalCiv when I got the game and thought it was cool. The physical sports are not just for adults! I see kids playing them all the time. I don't know where you get that people say video games are "Kids only". That's not true for anybody I know. Maybe you are listening to all the wrong people or something, maybe even anonymous people on the Internet.
I definitely understand "the play my mind craves". That is well said. GalCiv has hit that sweet spot for me for years now. Which may be why I am one of the ones suspicious of dramatic changes.
As both a very old kid and a kid at heart, I know in that heart this is not just another game. This is GalCiv. On that, we seem to agree.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
