Is it just me, or did Crusades seriously make the game less fun to play? Its all about micromanaging now. You never have enough administrators, running out of food because they killed the farms, I just realized I have to train legions to invade other planets.... meanwhile on the beginner difficulty my nearest other civ is taking over planets left and right, advancing their research out their ass.What used to be fun elements of the game have been replaced with micromanagement. And the fact that there aren't any more forever-length planet projects (research project, etc), makes it even worse, because now every so often you'll get told a planet is idling when there's nothing you can do but chain another 20 "aid research" things ...(Yes, this post is a ranty complaint, let the hate flow through you, yadda yadda ....)
This seems more theory rant than actual.
20 chained aid researches would represent 250 or so turns of the planet being busy.
you have infinite administrators. Every 10 turns you get a new citizen. Make it an admistrstor. After 100 turns you'd have 50 + 4 original + 20 or so from techs. Are you suggesting you have more than 70 planets and starbses after 100 turns?
You don't have to train legions. You can choose a general which will give you 5. I think invasion tech gives you 10.
Not that Brad needs anyone else to defend the game--because I think the game does an excellent job defending itself--but I disagree with the points you make. No hate, no angst. But I do disagree.
While I agree that administrators are more limited, this limitation requires you to make careful strategic decisions about what you want most. When I have to choose a citizen, do I choose an Administrator for more planets/starbases, or do I choose a Scientist to place on my research world?
If the AI are taking out my farms, that represents a lack of defense, and so I need to bolster my defenses--or my diplomacy. Maybe instead of an Administrator (which will simply result in me stretching myself thinner), I should get a Diplomat... or a Commander to help me create a bigger fleet with which to defend myself... or a General so I can station legions to protect my planets.
That isn't micro, it's strategy.
And if I want to invade somebody, why shouldn't I have to do something (like train legions) to prepare for it? Especially if I have a planet on which I keep selecting "Aid Research." Seems like a moot point.
And if, on beginner difficulty, the AI is doing well... well, I see that as a testament to the strong AI writing. I like to be challenged. I was playing on Gifted pre-Crusade and am now playing on Normal. That doesn't bother me. I'm now getting to the point where I'm doing well against Normal and hope to move back up to Gifted--but I have a feeling I'm going to get trounced a few times in the process.
As for infinite planet projects, I can understand the desire to have an option, much like in the shipyard, to continue a particular project indefinitely... but it doesn't bother me that this isn't an option. The planet projects do take a while, and so even with 30 planets, I only am having to manage one or two per turn once they're all built out.
In any case, I can understand why you might be frustrated with the changes--there are a lot of them in Crusade and it takes a bit of getting used to with a fairly steep learning curve in some areas. But overall, I think the dynamics don't actually create more micromanagement, just more strategic decision making--which, in my opinion, is the entire point of a strategy game.
I would respectively disagree. Less micro in most areas more in some but overall a reduction. It is a completely different game (need work but 3 updates in ~ a week). I had (still have) a hard time breaking my old GalCiv play style and after 6 or 7 crusade games i am still learning how to play and develop new strategies.
Er... how are you behind the AI on beginner? I know there's some serious cheating going on right now(supposed to be accidental, but hey, it's still there) but in no way is beginner challenging with the present state of the AI compared to previous iterations. I'm pretty bad at this game, so I thought I'd have to tone it down from Gifted after seeing how less exploitable the infrastructure design was, but I probably will need to bump it up another notch instead because the AI royally sucks at using what is there.
I'm in complete agreement on the projects though. Brad, 20 projects is 20 turns on a production focused world, not 250. As those are the worlds that end up doing all the project building since they have all the spare time between upgrade cycles, there's really not much likelihood of the current implementation not being a royal pain in the ass to click in.
We need autobuild for the Aid Research, etc.
Autobuild for planetary projects would be great.
I get what you mean, I think, but in the end I believe you are wrong. The game is more difficult now but that is not necessarily bad. I could play the previous game without ever thinking very much. Now I have to agonize on every turn things like whether I want to colonize that PQ 9 instead of the PQ 13 because the PQ 9 has Elerium and Precursor Nanites, and I need both of those things bad. Every turn is important, whereas previously this was not true.
I'll admit, it can be frustrating, but I believe it is a way better game now and it will be even better when they get all the kinks out
GAL CIV 3 CRUSADE PUTTING AN EXTRA 4X IN YOUR 4X WITH 4X THE FACTORY TYPES EARLY ON.
Honestly what you've wrote has actually valid criticisms of the game.
There is more micromanagement now early across the board. No aspects are more streamed lined at all.
If I'm wrong then planting your factories and planet management is real tedious at the start.
Look at the setting up your production in general.
Base game:
The most common thing is like queue up three factories. Place them on the bonus tiles.
In Crusade:
Find your space elevator place, deep core mining and then your factories.
Work out extra adj bonuses and match it up which most of the time you can't really use the bonuses for production very well now.
Tech and Production:
Always making a ton of stuff I don't want early on and destroying later.
First citizen:
Admin or worker followed by admins. Why are you making click more for a choice I dont have?
First techs:
You going to have to head to xeno labs. The tech path are much clearer now, but shitty factories added?
First Ideology:
You having to pragmatic for the constructors for a shipyard. Why was the starting shipyard removed?
Why does having an opinion, expressing the fact that something is clearly boring make you "that guy".
Just because fanboy circle jerk all day saying everything is great, perfect even.
A mixed game review for crusade at 68% and 75% mostly positive for the base game. Clearly shows room for improvement.
Give me back my shipyard, get rid of the redundant production type and make the citizens MORE interesting you nerds.
I liked not having to choose a trait for a tech tree, the variety was just fun to have.
I'll wait for the you need to try new strats guy, no I'm not playing like a idiot for the sake of forcibly making pointless decisions.
Or a similar stupid remark about how I need to get good from someone that hasn't even beat Civ 5 deity or endless legend on endless.
At least try something like go get a life.
Actually, just the opposite for moi. Being a decade long player of GC II and about 460 hours on GCIII, the Crusade Expansion really put the game in the strategy stratosphere. No more spamming and spawning - everything done requires some serious strategic thought.
Crusade is improving on a great gaming experience
None of these are 'have tos'- there are alternatives - especially since they're fixing the lost Admin point bug in 2.14. Try going 90% scientist early on.
We have this. It's the governor.
Re First Citizens, techs, etc. Those choices do not resemble the ones I make.
I disagree, actually it makes the game a lot more fun to play. I think what you need to do is play the game more until you understand/learn what needs to be done to advance ahead of other civs.
I'll give you a logical train of thought.
Alternative (achieving basically the same outcome via a different method).
The only alternative to getting admin points is through tech to support your expanding.
This will lead to your colonies ending up even more factories. (No other buildings to construct).
It'll also will slow your expansion as an opportunity cost. As admin points are mostly likely will be your cap on expansion.
Taking the constructors in the best option unless you take constructors first and turn them into colony ships and then repeat again.
Which is supposedly an exploit and something that is not intended to be a option.
The alternative is to build your own again which just slows you down.
The what the AI will lead in the most compared to you is tech. So labs first, the alternative is basically building a bunch more factories and getting a tech boost later.
Population and max population is the most important thing for science now even more so early on.
Here is another train of thought.
You and I play the game differently. My goal is to win the game if I can and have fun along the way. If I learn to accomplish that by abandoning a full on colony rush like I used to do, then I have found an alternative way to play. From the content of this and other conversations, I do not conclude there is only one optimal starting sequence or sequences as you imply.
I get around 50 colonies on the wide open maps I play. That is where I feel that pushing for more admins will indeed limit my other options for citizens. I also grab a lot of relics and resources. If 50 colonies are not enough for you, go take some from the AI, or learn some other neat trick and come tell us about an alternative you found yourself. The game is much too young for anyone to realistically claim a one and only way about things, or even the most optimal. At worst, I train citizens on late game high production planets. That's desperate for administrators!! But it's an alternative.
As for population, I used to consider that prime for all things in GalCiv. With the new square root return on population and production, I am actually finding Asteroid mines to be more consistent a source of all things economical. This is a full turnabout for me. I am learning more and more alternatives.
And I still haven't tried out playing with various wacky things to do with settings. There are tons of alternatives, no matter which dictionary you use for the word.
The problem arise with very large maps. It's just impossible to build that many fleets, enough to prevent an invasion of your food planets.
Unless your constantly rebalance your Empire and change planet production from industry to food way behind the front, then from food to industry. But the way the game is structured, it's a time consuming process, you have limited starbases due to the need of an administrator per starbase so your weak fleets are totally exposed, and you likely can't generate sufficient cash to build as many fleets as you will need as your empire grows, and even if you could muster 1000 fleets to protect your ludicrous map, it is very tedious to manage such a large fleet.
See, if you put it on "guard", your fleet will awaken every time a ship comes by. A friendly ship, an allied ship, a neutral ship will awaken your fleets. You will have to manually re-assing them to guard duty for a couple of turns until the AI moves away. Unless the AI has changed this behavior, it sucks at fleet management and spams hundreds of ships instead of grouping them into fleets. They often build ships without drives, meaning they move 4 hex at a time. It takes a while to clear your fleet's los, so the ship never resumes standby.Then an ennemy fleet arrives. If by chance they used drives in their design, you'll never see them coming because they come from further away than your los, unless you have some kind of sensor boat close by. But then you have the same problem as before that it is woken up by every single ship passing by. If I put a nuclear submarine off the coast of North Korea, it won't react to Australian and Canadian destroyers crusing above, it will stay silent, it will stay deep. if they detect an NK or even Chinese anti-submarine warfare ship, they will take some action though. Logically, Galciv's guard duty should be similar, it would make the micro-management less tedious: wake up only on ennemy&neutral ships. Do not wake up for unarmed ships except transports, do not wake up for survey & scouts.
Also, there are a lot of changes in Crusades, a lot of bugged tooltips, and zero instructions on what is changed. And still too many bugs. I know they'll be fixed, eventually, for most of them, but for people who want to play now, it is very frustrating, and I understand the OP.
Yes eXpanding in a 4X game is a colony rush love the terminology of bullshit, yet all the major AI in gifted and above will be the ones that have eXpanded.
I think people forget its a 4X you know eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. The first age is called the age of expansion.
You've brought up recruiting when i was talking about the early game not AGE OF WAR YOU HAVE AT THE START 2 CHOICES FOR ADMIN POINTS. It is not an alternative at the start of the game not matter if you don't know what alternative means in this context which context as usual is improtant. Changes the meaning of sentences and words.
So why not lets say start us with more points so we are not just clicking admin to just continue eXpanding and set up starbases.
Teching through translator to diplo and choosing admins citizen. I listed first , he stated early on both of us are talking about the start of game you don't do a lot of expanding at age of war the AI would of finished what was left of the planets off if play on lets say gifted plus.
Percentage boost dont mean anything when then are give a percent boost on nothing. You can replace worker with scientist but I would say industry is more important and scales better than research does in general for a long time.
Science wins games more than people think it does. You might not win a science victory, but science is the means to an end in every win condition.
I related population to science and max population to be very important as it give the your raw sciences
So your raw science is mostly on a timer in the form of panets which are the engine that drives your civ.
The top researchers in the games i've played are the one with the highest population also are producing the most research.
That is literally a postive correlation between the them.
Tech power is not how much you are researching per turn. Its how many techs you have or the value of your total research.
What is with the mines being brought up here yes they are +1 production for 100 credits and a few turns.
If you have them in your area of influence, right which means you have to eXpand near them. Using admin points to do so.
I'll give you a logical train of thought. Alternative (achieving basically the same outcome via a different method). The only alternative to getting admin points is through tech to support your expanding. This will lead to your colonies ending up even more factories. (No other buildings to construct).It'll also will slow your expansion as an opportunity cost. As admin points are mostly likely will be your cap on expansion. Taking the constructors in the best option unless you take constructors first and turn them into colony ships and then repeat again.Which is supposedly an exploit and something that is not intended to be a option.The alternative is to build your own again which just slows you down. The what the AI will lead in the most compared to you is tech. So labs first, the alternative is basically building a bunch more factories and getting a tech boost later. Population and max population is the most important thing for science now even more so early on.
Yes eXpanding in a 4X game is a colony rush love the terminology of bullshit, yet all the major AI in gifted and above will be the ones that have eXpanded. Colony rush = focusing on ONLY the eXpanding part. in CGII if you over expanded before researching economy, your economy would crash and burn and you would be done. you could at max get 4 or 5 planets before your economy went full negative. GCIII base had no control mechanizm and at one point in time it was possible to colonize 1 colony per turn with no issue.Crusade does not punish you like CGII did but if you are pushing nothing BUT admin to expand you are missing a lot of other stuff that you could be doing. To say that you HAVE to or you will lose is an incorrect assumption, so again, I'm curious as to the map size, number of planets, number of races, and difficulty you are playing at because you seem to be laser focused on acquiring new planets which makes me curious as to how you KEEP them all once you get into the war phase. I think people forget its a 4X you know eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. The first age is called the age of expansion. Yes, but it does not mean you cannot do other things WITH your expansion.You've brought up recruiting when i was talking about the early game not AGE OF WAR YOU HAVE AT THE START 2 CHOICES FOR ADMIN POINTS. It is not an alternative at the start of the game not matter if you don't know what alternative means in this context which context as usual is improtant. Changes the meaning of sentences and words.So why not lets say start us with more points so we are not just clicking admin to just continue eXpanding and set up starbases.Teching through translator to diplo and choosing admins citizen. I listed first , he stated early on both of us are talking about the start of game you don't do a lot of expanding at age of war the AI would of finished what was left of the planets off if play on lets say gifted plus.Percentage boost dont mean anything when then are give a percent boost on nothing. You can replace worker with scientist but I would say industry is more important and scales better than research does in general for a long time. I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Science wins games more than people think it does. You might not win a science victory, but science is the means to an end in every win condition. TruthI related population to science and max population to be very important as it give the your raw sciences So your raw science is mostly on a timer in the form of panets which are the engine that drives your civ.The top researchers in the games i've played are the one with the highest population also are producing the most research. That is literally a postive correlation between the them. This is true but is missing some of the flare. In the base game you built farms on every world... now you can build one or two farming worlds and then put cities on your other worlds. population as a whole is far less important now than it was previously and having a world with properly focused research with a scientist assigned to the world is going to be way more productive than spreading out your research or focusing simply on maximum population. Generally the races with more population have better industry and Tech.The key here is that you can now have higher population without absolutely needing more worlds.... one city =12+ pop cap improved cities can be 24+ and you build one city rather than a whole crap load of farms to get that population. Tech power is not how much you are researching per turn. Its how many techs you have or the value of your total research. What is with the mines being brought up here yes they are +1 production for 100 credits and a few turns.If you have them in your area of influence, right which means you have to eXpand near them. Using admin points to do so.Or you know you could set the asteroid fields to common and generally have one near most planets anyway.... I think you are being hyper agressive trying to force an opinion that simply does not play out in my experience in the game. one does not NEED to focus only on Admin... and in fact you are probably better off if you don't.
My facts are in PINK.My thoughts in Red
I really do not get the issue with Admins, you get 10 from each admin citizen, you can recylce 2 admins to get an infinite number of Admin points. Scientist, Admin, Scientist, Scientist, Admin, Scientist is my usual start (only cause I have not played much to change it yet) then I start hitting the leaders with the occasional admin/general/commander depending on circumstances.
TBH Admins are the least of your concerns with crusade (Just cause the AI likes to spam them doen't mean you should).
That is not how it works in my game. Are you running a mod for that? I get 5 points and no recycling.
Promote - Minister: +5 Admins, Retires said Administrator. Hire new Admin repeate. That is what I mean by recycle. That gives you 10 per Admin, effectivly giving you 1 admin point per turn. (if you have the required resources ofc)
I experience the same as erischild.
On another note: who shouts loudest is not always right ...
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