Playing on very large maps

Xsifilad

Join Date 10/2013

Playing on very large maps

I in advance apologize if any part of my post contains any previously brought up topics. I also apologize for any typos and meaning distorting grammatical mistakes.

So once gc3 came out i decided to start from the deep end and go bulls deep into the game.

Settings

gigantic galaxy
tight clusters
uncommon start
abundant planets
normal difficulty(apparently is WAY WAY easier then i thought)

So far in the game

maybe 25 hours or so
turn 143
48 colonies
500ish B pop
27000ish BC
1500 ish research points
Lots of pimped out production hubs that can crank massive ships out fast(although i have not learned ANY millitary tech at all

Allot of resources(half of which i have no idea what is for)

What kind of gc player i am

I like efficiency
Turtle hard all game, focus on research and money, then come out gunz blazing and show everybody who is the boss up in her'
I want turns to go rather fast even of the bigger maps
not a big fan of ship designer, i just want something to build, fast, and off they go.
GC game is not only a strategy game for me but also a simulator this means the game must create an illusion that i am a head of a galactic civilization

Also take in consideration that i am still pretty new to GC3 and i only started to scrape the surface of all the right and wrong things to do and what is the best way to do this or that. For instance is till have no idea what does +millitary thing does and what it is used for.

everything else that is not mentioned is either standard or irrelevant for the purposes of this post

I very soon(if like 5 to 6 hours is soon) noticed that the game is very ill equipped to support a large scale game.

PROBLEM - First of all i have 1500 research points and i want to research Militarization, it takes 1 turn...... WTF. Its like i am tasking ENTIRE MIT to research a new rake for my mom so she can do her gardening slightly better. I fee like they put one guy on the job and then the rest of the scientist on my 10+ research specialized planets go drink coffee for the rest of the week.

What this does is essentially unnecessarily prolonging the game and distorts the illusion/immersion in the fantasy of me being a leader of an empire.

POINT - I really feel like you should be able to research multiple low techs in one week. Now i do realize that making this possible requires more UI development and more virtual intelligence coding so that computer players can do the same and not lag behind the player. But still i do think it should be implemented.

PROBLEM - Another issue is that when you are in control of countless planets and new ones being colonized on a turn by turn basis they individually become nameless soulless dots that i look at from max zoom distance. For instance i click on idle colony button and it takes me there, i look at it in i go like "wtf is this planet?" where exactly is it situated in my empire? What other planets, borders, resources, shipyards and so on are around it.

All of this is relevant information that determines what i am going to build next on this planet. So in order to find out all of this information i have to exit the planet view screen. BAM and i am back to max zoom view and i have like 10 planets in my view so i have to zoom in, in order for naming to appear and look around for the name of this planet(which i did not bother to remember because first of all i cant remember them, and secondly its going to be irrelevant in the next game).

Slider on the side menu does not help either because scroll speed is glacial and dragging gets my cursor stuck on all manner of pop ups that just pop out of no where with information i don't care about.

POINT - Option that everything that has to do with colonies must snap and zoom on them while opening planetary view. A flip up minimap/or actual map would be nice while on planetary view screen, then you don't have to exit the planetary view screen to look around and then go back in to continue. IN FACT make it a point, if you ever make multiple monitor support for the game, make it so one monitor ALWAYS shows the galaxy and everything else opens in the additional monitor.

PROBLEM - Whenever i finish a research, lets say i can now upgrade all my existing research facilities to the next level i have to go threw ALL the magnitude of the colonies which have those particular buildings, and reset their manufacturing from 100% research to 50/50 or whatever in order for building upgrades to begin, this also plies to economic colonies. This is allot of manual labor which is essentially copy paste

POINT - this should be automated with player made automatic triggers, where you set trigger event and trigger action, and all the copy paste work gets done, and all you get is a pre written self made pop up window which tells you whats going to happen, and you click ok and it gets done. With triggers like this you could technically automate anything. Shut down star port - all the sponsors switch manufacturing focus to whatever you set the trigger to.

POINT - general point - Highlighting Highlighting and Highlighting, from max zoom distance i cant see any path, lines or highlight of anything that i click on, i don't see what colony is selected, what star base mines what, what star port is being sponsored by who, where is this ship going(you can actually see it but its rather bleak)

POINT - general point - I try to build a star base next to every single colony i have so all the colonies are covered with whatever star base fits that particular colonies specialization. Anywhere where a colony is displayed, list, map, even, whatever, there must be a groove, notch, sign, cross, crum trail, whatever, that lets you see that this colony HAS a star base dedicated to it, so you know it does not need one and you don't have to send any constructors this way.

In general half of the management problems that are associated with extremely large maps and huge amount of colonies, could be eliminated with a simple galaxy view overlay(think layers in photoshop) which can be flipped on, and off(if you want to enjoy the view or feel like the map is to clustered). When flipped on player can leave text boxes anywhere on the map(or maybe even attach to things) like yellow posteds you put on the fridge, with notes like >SCI planet, needs star base, research institutes. or >send stuff her in the future, >need to colonize this sector at some point, >mostry economy planets, check back to upgrade buildings.

Tnx for reading if you stuch so far, it might sound likea bunch of whining from incompetent player who does not know how to play, feel free to comment, gimme critique, tip suggestion and all that stuff. Hopefully one day someone will make mods or something coz all the stuff i wish for is colossal work.

Sorry for the long post i dont even have potato for you.

Locked Post +1 Karma

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

NGC7000

Quoting freakyferret,

reply 9

I can confirm what JorgenCAB said. If you go to the Tech Tree, you can select a technology a few steps ahead. All research that turn will get applied to reach that tech, possibly completing research on multiple techs.

that only work if u accept to research always the upper most specialisation (of the three available). If you want for example the second one, that is as far as u can go

Successfully updated karma reason!