When I read GalCiv thinking of what is 4X strategy game in this article, I understood why GalCiv, although being a great game, still falls behind Sid Meier's Civilization. It is because they do not understand the greatest advantage that Civ has compared to GalCiv - as it is written by Draginol in his article "what is a 4x strategy game" - they think that eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate phases follow each other consequently - when one phase ends, the next begins.
This thinking is completely wrong and Sid Meiers Civilization proves that! The secret advantage that Civ has is that they make those 4X work simultaneously!
As I have already commented in this article, " It is the mix of those 4 EXes that compliment each other and that makes the game exciting, when those 4 work SIMULTANEOUSLY. This is why [early game is so interesting - because all 4eXes at the beginning are there and have not ended yet and] late game currently becomes far less interesting - because there is only 1 (!!!) EX left and that is EXtermination. But imagine if my proposal was there - if even in late stages there still was EXploration and EXpansion possible (and thus EXploitation, logically). It could be entirely different experience than that of now existing when all that is left in late stages is to manage monster fleets in monster maps.
Here is how those 4X work simultaneously for Sid Meier's Civ, throughout the whole game session:
eXploration: revealing map is only the initial phase of eXploration and even this first step is not without its challenges as barbarians always pose danger to scouts. But as time goes on, there are new and new things to explore - the strategic resources being the most obvious. Those reveal with time and effort and have huge impact in the game. It can be said, that the exploration of strategic resources is a way to continue eXploration phase throughout the whole game, because strategic meaning of the map changes. Not completely but in a balanced way, notably. The same applies to archeological ruins and, to some extent, the Compass technology, when players are able to travel ocean tiles. Since unability to travel the ocean in initial phase postpone the eXploration, there are multiple levels of eXploration that makes it a race to compete in and that have duration longer than just initial phase - eXploration takes place in multiple levels throughout the whole game. The child in us wants to explore with wonder, be amazed with new possibilities the toys/game map has, time and time again. And Civ gives us that the best way they can come up. But GalCiv... Heh... Exploration ends as soon as 1st ship travels through fog of war...
eXpansion: again, claiming territory is not a phase that starts at one point and ends in another, just to let the next phase begin. The cities grow the whole time, throughout the game in Sid Meiers Civilization, making eXpansion a phase that work simultaneously with other three X phases, throughout the whole game. Obviously, growing a city is completely different from growing/building a planet in GalCiv where a planet consists of flat, buildable tiles. Yes, there is a growing/eXpansion aspect and tile bonuses add a little spice, but it falls far behind from that Civ has, where you have multiple, MULTIPLE factors that take part into city development. In Civ, a city truly eXpands. For GalCivs planet it is less so, because number of tiles is predefined, the tiles are even in nature, understandably(?) you do not have to compete for planet tiles with neighbour civilizations and fewer factors take part in development in general.
eXploitation: obviously, eXploitation is a progressive phase in Civ when you can improve the improvements throughout the whole game, no matter if they are city districts or casual tile improvements. The same can be said for GalCiv's starbases. But, obviously and unfortunately Sid Meiers Civ is far better in its variety. In Civ you can "eXploit" [improve] just about anything, while in GalCiv you improve starbases that eXploit only strategic resources (durantium, thulium, antimatter, prometheon or etherium). Planetary resources has recently being added with Crusade, but even those cannot challenge the variety that can be improved in Civ. Yes, you can build different kind of starbases that give you bonuses, but I do not consider that eXploitation the same way a tile is eXploited/improved in Civ.
eXterminate: well, yes, that can progessively go on the whole time for sure, in all games, no matter be it Civ, GalCiv or else. And players abuse this option to full extent not necessarily because they prefer it, but also because it is the only option left in the late stages. Unfortunately.
I think I have made my main point why Civ is a game so good others can only aspire to - it is because in Civ all those 4 eXes work SIMULTANEOUSLY, an advantage that no other game has perfected so well than Civ.
Why this post is in the "Future ideas"? Because there is a space to improve GalCiv, no matter how good we value it already. And, perhaps, there is a thing or 2 that GalCiv devs could learn from the best 4X strategy game there is - Sid Meiers Civ.
Planet (including dead) eXploration? Nebulae eXploration? There are plenty of room to invent not-so-hard-to-do features, that would change now existing 4X order to simultaneous 4X. It takes some effort, but it is possible for GalCiv to SURPASS the all time leader, the Civ, both in sales and fanbase.
Well, at least you could search for resources on all these dead planets wasting your RAM. Why not make some kind of prospector probe that lands on dead planet and tells if there's resource based on RNG system, if not, on to the next planet.
Yeah i can see stars both on minimap, and on the big screen. I would like to see the class zero words become extreme instead of beine useless to.
just to throw back to a question that was asked, ideology is modifiable, check out GRM ideology on nexus for an example.
getting back towards the op, endless space (and presumable the sequel) managed to keep eXplore as part of the focus a bit longer thru techs being required to traverse outside your home system/ region. sins of a solar empire also did well in keeping exploring an active part if they were in another sector, or to navigate the wormholes. kind of difficult to implement that in gc3 tho, but on some of the bigger map sizes exploration theoretically goes on longer and requires ship range tech.
some of what you mentioned in civ also depends on the map, anything either great plans style, or like the inland great lakes exploration could kinda end quickly except for revealing resources. endless legend has a similar mechanic where new resources are discovered as you move thru the ages. imho that really isn't exploring, the ruins (civ and endless legend) are pretty similar to anomalies in gc and at least in crusade those respawn a bit so there is always something to find, plus galactic events that can refill the universe with them as well.
I liked Civ 2 the best. And I like GalCiv more. I'm just old fashioned.
actually, my favorite of all the Civ games (AI notwithstanding, but for style and innovation) was SMAC
Please no phase lanes! I can never finish exploring on a ludicrous map. How do you do it I would like to know. I'm trying to do it with the super, prospector, and two other mercenaries.
Build cargo-sized ships with just engines, life support and sensors. Also, auto-explore is terrible. One might think that the programmers who made it would have the ships reveal the galaxy paintbrush-style, dithering with paralel lines, but nope. It just goes at random and is terribly inefficient, not to mention nonsensical. So manage each of these eploration ships individually, send it in a straight line, then adjust course when it gets there, then let it run for some turns until it reaches the end of its range, and repeat. Also, trading exploration treaties helps a lot.
But yeah I like playing ludicrous sized maps with few colonizable planets AND few civs... Gives the galaxy a sense of vastness... I find it ludicrous that you would meet 10 alien races within a few months of developing FTL.
I find it ludicrous that the universe, or even the galaxy is as small as ludicrous.
I think of it this way:
- There are WAY more dead planets out there than are on the Galciv map. Your Galciv map just included the "interesting" dead planets, whatever that means.
- Habitable planets are exceedingly rare. Okay, maybe there are trillions, quadrillions of planets. But only 85 are habitable. I'm good with that. To this day, we only know of one Earth.
I think of it this way: - There are WAY more dead planets out there than are on the Galciv map. Your Galciv map just included the "interesting" dead planets, whatever that means.- Habitable planets are exceedingly rare. Okay, maybe there are trillions, quadrillions of planets. But only 85 are habitable. I'm good with that. To this day, we only know of one Earth.
Another way to go is that while there are no "phase lanes", there are certain regions of space that are hyperspace tranversible, but the vast majority of the galaxy is not. So that's why you can't go out an access the 99.999% of the rest of the galaxy and those billions of stars.
I'm fairly new to this game -- but why does everyone keep going on about how amazing the AI is?
From what I can see, they are pretty crappy at the only pieces that matter competitively - designing efficient planet layouts, building strong fleets, and using those fleets.
First, the AI never seems to build any engine upgrades. All their ships have 2 move. This makes outplaying them ridiculously easy. I'm flying around with 10+ move even in the early era, there's no way they can possibly threaten me, as I can avoid any ships I don't want to fight, and reinforce faster.
Secondly, they don't build particularly strong ships, and don't combine them into fleets, even when tech and logistics allow.
Honestly the Civ AI seems way better, more interesting and challenging. They actually go for specific win conditions, and can fight decently if they have a tech advantage.
What am I missing that has everyone gushing about GalCiv AI?
Here is what I think is a fair assessment of the AI:
- AI is really hard to do.
- If a Space 4X game did phase lanes, it would be a lot easier to code an AI, but thank goodness Galciv did not do that.
- the AI is still not very good
AI is backwards compared with graphics. It saddens me that AI has taken a back seat to flashy lights. AI is pretty much still in the 80-90's.
otoh, Brad has done some great work improving the AI in this game so far, and there is more to be done. I agree re: fleets, planet allocation, etc. I still very much enjoy this game.
AI complexity is directly related to the complexity of a game's mechanics, and I for one do not envy the job of building a "competent" AI for any 4x game.
My favorite Civ is 4, but only because of the Fall from Heaven (I and II) mod. I would have loved to see a translation of that mod to Civ6. I liked Civ6's take on some ideas, especially civics, but the tech tree was a bit overly simplified.
What I really want (in general) is a modding GUI instead of having to mod the XML files directly (it helps reduce common formatting bugs). The devs should already have such tools to more efficiently manage the game data, and refining it for public use shouldn't be excessively difficult for any game designed with public modding as a feature. So far, it is a rarity to see more than "here are the files, mod away; documentation and tools to come in the future...in an alternate universe near you."
Completely agree.
The tech tree in Civ IS oversimplified.
The AI in Civ IS too dumb to enjoy the game's potential.
It sure takes helluwa job to improve AI to enjoyable levels and in this aspect GalCiv grows far better. But you have to give Civ devs credit - its not like they are lazy, the Civ is more complex game to develop AI than GalCiv.
I don't know why. Perhaps good marketing and long tradition. But I think the civ games are a bad joke. Very easy and not a little complex and ever the same. Perhaps the not existing complexity and difficulty is the reason?!
The main difference between Civ and GC is simply that Civ is a professional, high quality product produced by a professional company. Bugs are ironed out very quickly after release. Game balance is debatable but, with Civ4 and Civ5 the balance wasn't horrible at release and improved a lot with expansions. The games were built very well and all it took was a tiny bit of modding by the community to turn them into legendary masterpieces.
With GC3, on the other hand, I did buy it at release but didn't play it until Crusade came out, so I can't speak to the gaming experience pre-Crusade. After Crusade, however, the game has been an unprofessional joke. While the ideas of the Crusade expansion are good ones, they were implemented very poorly. The balance with population is way off, the AI can't understand how to grow its population anyway (except for the Yor), the expansion phase isn't balanced, either, as there are no "barbarians" and pirates are non-existent for most civs in most games.
It's a total mess.
This.
CivIV was great for its time, and I especially liked the colonization game.
But it used square tiles. When the world went to hexes, there was no going back. It was like turning a bicycle into an airplane. A bicycle will never really change, but now that we've flown, neither will a bicycle ever be the same again, and will never be quite as good as it was in it's heyday.
I never even THINK of playing a square tile game again. Not even a little bit!
I have an idea for GC III Version 4. Let's make the galaxy move. Orbiting planets. Slight movement of star systems over time, depending on the shape of the galaxy, its age, and whether it is expanding or contracting. The way I approach Felonius II in 6 months will be much different than if I go to it today, so I might need to bear this in mind if its surrounded by asteroids and I'm hoping to get my troop transports planetside! And I'd better get my population off of Sodom and have them carry as much Thulium as they can fit in their transports because here comes Gomorra, about to crash into it!
Hexes moot. Lets see dummying down civics with ideologies. Getting rid of citizens. Getting rid of religions. Getting rid of spending allocation. Getting rid of what was probably the best ai. All you got is hexes. What is the big deal moot.
Okay, not sure what you're saying. I find it just as challenging. Civ V, VI, and GalCiv II/III. To me, it's not "only" hexes, but that's a major component.
Civ 2 took the last game and maxed EVVVERYTHING and was a multimedia phenomenon. There will not be another like it, and you can take that to the bank. You asked what made that series best Triple_Crown, well 1 word: civilopedia. Think about it, if knowledge is power, what better way to put the power at a player's fingertips! I think they veered off quite a bit beginning with civ 3, by making everything just a tiny bit more complex. IIRC the challenge level of Civ 2 was adequate, but the game felt epic even if your opponents were not viciously cunning. Since that time I lost all hope of challenging the AI in an entertaining manner, because I'd think either it's too optimized with always choosing the best formula, or it's too stupid - waaaay too stupid - and just acts like a stereotypical brute villain, as in, only dangerous if approached completely recklessly. It is a problem of course, and I hoped pc game craft was at a historically high level at this point and everything would just come together with GC3 - or the latest Orion.
That said I get caught up ranting on flaws and letdowns, and thus don't talk enough about what GC3 does right. I feel that they took the right amounts of eye candy and slickness, and went all out to make space empire building a worthwhile pastime. What fascinated me was getting to try out EVERY tech and race special combination. And they one-upped latter civ games with ideology picks (vs culture picks). Behind the customizability curtain it almost feels like they've kept it too simple, perhaps. At least I can say that I expected a broader game - but as I've said the entertainment value wasn't defeated by that. We will just have to hold out longer I guess, for further innovations. At least this series seems to be progressing faster than MOO.
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