I suspect work on GC4 will begin in the next year if not sooner... I know everyone has their wish list... but I just felt I should list out five broad changes that would make GC4 stand out from GC3 for me.
1) Change how the map functions. Frankly, the ol' completely flat and completely open map has gotten stale and I think it creates some technical issues. I think some very interesting hybrid map styles could be designed.
2) Differentiate between races and their functionality more. Have the abilities for races parsed out better and selectable. Having two ability points and then 50 abilities, many of which are extremely weak and some extremely strong has gotten a bit silly.
3) Diplomacy in most 4Xs is a extremely simple and largely risk-free mini-game. Make diplomacy a higher-stakes activity, with the potential for failure. An example could be... that if I ask for a trade deal and I have pretty outrageous terms, I have a low chance of success and TRYING and FAILING causes a penalty to relations for X turns. Succeeding could also be very lucky, and also come with a relations penalty for X turns because they feel cheated.
4) Combat needs a serious overhaul and serious attention this time.
5) Have mod support through Steam. GC3's modding has been a shadow of what it could have and should have been. I also highly recommend you allow people to import ship designs from GC3 to 4, and allow us to save designs as any hull type freely.
As long as we're wishing -
1. Chance to retreat from space battles I know I can't win.
2. Special troop training needed for extreme-type planetary invasions.
3. Boarding actions to capture starbases/ships/shipyards. We could use stellar marines for this.
4. Autopilot cancels on detection of enemy ship, allowing orders to be changed.
5. Ability to set up espionage bases on dead worlds and/or espionage starbases hidden in gas clouds or nebulae. They would function like the WW2 coastwatchers in the Pacific and have the ability to conduct sabotage missions in a certain radius.
6. Passive border defenses, like minefields or something and active defenses like missile-armed satellites that will ignore friendlies and target enemies automatically.
7. Ability to demand tribute from individual planets within our influence - say 1.5 times our current tax rate.
8. Clues that lead step by step to a well-hidden portal that lets us actually find the Precursors.
Its not shameful to steal ideas from other games.
I actually think it is, but not for exactly the reason you may think. Be a leader, not a follower. You don't want to be the game that steals the ideas from everybody else--you want to be the game that everybody else steals your ideas from. Think different.
Eh. There's a creative element in taking a myriad of ideas from others and combining and executing at a h higher level.
Something to be said for execution is all.
I might be alone here, but I think many of the features added in GalCiv 3 should be dropped when making GalCiv 4. I don't like planetary adjacency bonuses. I don't like resources. I don't like forming a monarchy government only to drop it for something else in 26 turns. I don't like how mass building warships become the dominant strategy. I build a starport and other stuff on every planet, so I get a lot ship production and warships. I often play civs that don't get much alternatives. I don't like that its difficult to win an influence victory. You probably have to take a few planets forcefully to get the influence you need.I didn't like GalCiv 3 as much as I thought I would. I would like Stardock start over instead of building on GalCiv 3.
You really think Galciv3 comes out ahead on the execution front?
I agree with you however there are ideas from all the games which would be nice to incorporate into a new incarnation of Galactic Civilizations.
The long interconnected story arc quests in Stellaris along with the excavations which send your survey ship to parts unknown. That is pure gold.
Gal Civ is my gold standard for Space games. I really like Stellaris, I love Distant Worlds, but fall back on Gal Civ.
When you get down to it, few ideas are truly original. It is how the ideas come together and are executed that matters, as has been said.
As far as I know, drawing upon ideas from other games is, essentially, what has been happening from the beginning. And the games that did something "first" were probably just borrowing the idea from something else (e.g., real life, fiction, a board game, etc.). Even ideas that feel original you can say, "It's kind of like this, and kind of like that, with a little of this mixed in." In other words, its taking various ideas and putting them together for something "different" or "new"--at least relative to the most recent generation or two of games.
That said, I agree with both sentiments on this--being the game that others want to emulate is better than being highly derivative, but coming up with new ideas just to be "groundbreaking" can be disastrous.
I hope the development team for GCIV takes what works and gives these elements a fresh look--maybe even changing them substantially if a great idea presents itself and fits well with other mechanics of the game. But I hope the team does not scrap tried and true mechanics simply for the sake of making the game a new experience.
As in life, there's a balance to be had. Here, that balance is between making GCIV different enough from GCIII to be something more than an expansion, but similar enough to fit within the franchise. Having played GCII and GCIII for thousands of hours--and seeing the development process for GCIII (both good and bad), I do trust Stardock to deliver a good game when that time comes.
#1 and #3, yes.
#4, yes--and lots more automation options for ships. I can't remember what RPG it was (I believe it was something from the Dragon Age franchise), but the game gave you lots of flexibility for giving your NPC allies commands, including less than/equal to/greater than conditions on various stats, choices between what actions to take under what conditions, etc. It would be nice to have something like that applied to ship movement.
I don't think adding an array of options would be too hard--and I think this would improve the AI, too, by giving them more insightful choices regarding ship movements.
#5 and #6 are great ideas.
There are things about GCIII that I had higher hopes for, as well. That said, I'm sure everyone has a different list of dislikes.
I generally like the idea of adjacency bonuses, but I feel they were underdeveloped. I would have loved to see some factions with low standard bonuses but high adjacency bonuses or specialized adjacency hubs, while others would have really strong standard improvements with minimal adjacency effects. This is an area I think GCIV could make more interesting and expand a bit rather than completely do away with. And maybe expand is the wrong word--I would be fine if "adjacency" wasn't the focus but if there was some form of synergy within the planetary improvement mechanic.
I do and don't like resources. I don't like how drastically the game shifted in needing resources for ship components and planetary improvements, often in a seemingly arbitrary and poorly balanced way. I wouldn't mind them so much if all resources were 1) guaranteed to exist in every galaxy and 2) were more sensibly balanced in terms of how they are utilized. I think this is another area where some fresh consideration could yield great results for GCIV.
I don't like how governments are implemented. But I like the idea of governments. Arbitrarily changing governments in half-year periods is silly. If there were consequences of going from a democracy to a monarchy--unless the people were requesting it--then I'd be okay. For example, if you switch to a less free government style, I'd expect revolts, rebellions, and the formation of independent states... Having the choice to change government then would be more interesting because you could try to get the bonuses you need but at a risk. This would take a great deal of nuance for me to appreciate, but I hope some thought goes into the concept of government--because done right, this could be a fantastic mechanic.
I also agree that, in GCIII, it seems like military build up is a must. Otherwise you are seen as ripe for conquest and will get destroyed. I think revamping diplomacy could help this (e.g., having allies that are strong would prevent opposing factions from targeting you). I'd like to see some careful thought put into how victory might be achieved for factions with radically different personalities--like pacifists, trade conglomerates, religious sects, etc. Violence for such factions might be totally abhorrent--and the use of violence itself might be considered "losing" rather than "winning"... influence, research, and diplomacy victories should be attainable (even if with great difficulty) without resorting to military build up.
5) Have mod support through Steam.
Aren't most GalCiv3 mods already exclusively posted to Steam? And didn't Stardock choose to prevent third-party downloads from the Steam Workshop for GalCiv3, locking out those who don't use Steam?
What more do you want? How much more "support" for Steam until those of us who use GOG and the Nexus won't be able to mod at all?
Forgive me if that comes across aggressively, but I'm firmly against any move to marry modding to Steam. I've been modding various games for years, and vibrant modding communities have existed without Steam for all that time.
There are exactly 0 mods on steam. What you get on steam are Shipsets, Civilizations and Factions that have to be made via the ingame editor. Once you mod 1 single xml file you can no longer use the workshop for publication and have to find a 3rd party to publish your mod for people to download like, Nexus or these forums.
I think military build up is a necessity, most financially strong but weak empires have been invaded and destroyed it is how it works on the ground and how it would work in space. There are ways to win without firing a shot. I like the game that three has become it is radically different than when it started. Yes there are some things that need to fleshed out and adjusted and a level of polish that really needs to be applied ( LOOKING AT YOUR PROTOTYPE RAILGUN that makes no damn sense and has been in the game for like 2 years ) but I am truly excited for GC4.
The ideas of Kenbredding 1 to 6 are fantastic and I’ve seen a few of them echoed before. These would be amazing changes.
Scriveneroflight’s expansion to number 4 would be grand I micro my survey ship which I hate when I have 350 ships because of the lack of these features. Adding this would be a massive quality of life boon.
yah it isn’t exciting or flashy and probably not gonna draw in new players. But it is a level of polish that says we want people to enjoy this game not grow frustrated at turn 375 because of the micro nightmare.
Again no real computer knowledge so I don’t know how hard this would be to code. But this change is worth looking into imo.
Well, color me surprised - that seems quite bizarre. What's the rationale for that? And is that why the built-in tools spit out files that can't be opened or altered outside of the game instead of editable XML files?
I like the addition of governments however they feel a bit sparse and switching between them wildly to get the best ships / bonuses for the time needed carries no real penalty they just don’t carry much weight.
For the governments maybe mimic a bit like civ five where the longer you keep a certain type of government the more powerful it becomes. Also to allow a change along the way and new ships have more advanced governments that carry over some of the bonuses of the earlier government if they are of the same vein. A pacifist government that switches to a military focused government because of a desperate need to pump ships loses some of the power it developed and makes the citizens ticked off at a higher rate then if they went to the next Age of Enlightenment where they hug trees or something.
Also I’m not a fan of Civ 6 but the one thing they did do right is adding the feature that certain things progress things faster. Kill a unit with a slingshot unit it reduces tech time for an archery upgrade. Although this might change things in major way and maybe not for the better but it is an interesting concept.
Also please consider an additional way to acquire resources less prone to unlucky variances. Crosses fingers for black market or missions that acquire all resource types.
Rationale? No clue.
Yes, the in game editor bins up all the xml's into compressed faction, shipset files.
EDIT:
I would pay right now for workshop support for GC3 if the only way SD could make that happen was via DLC.
I would also pay extra to make sure GC4 has Workshop support from day one.
Brad did put out a "job opening" to the board, for someone to come up with a GUI-based mod editor. And I think maybe a campaign editor? He said he would pay money for it. I don't know what ever became of that?
I do know that I found the modding in Galciv3 to be obscure and limited. Maybe better than almost any other commercial game out there is doing, but still...I just couldn't wrap my arms around it artistically. I want to do X and Y, and I either couldn't figure out how, or you just simply can't do it in the XML. And even if I did, how can the AI handle it? Others here have slogged it out and modded it, and I say more power to them, but it wasn't for me. And now we're going to build a workshop & stuff around something that is just not all there? Not me. Now, if you give me the ability to MAKE it all there, then we're back in business.
The game is obviously huge, making it hard to get every possible suggestion into a single post. My take on governments is that I enjoy having them in the game but changing governments should be a huge affair not to be taken lightly. Even changes to a government without switching the actual governing type can cause everything from protests up to actual civil war. Going from monarchy or dictatorship to a republic would likely entail a period of anarchy and low productivity and an impact on the economy.
I like the resources in the game but I agree that unavailable resources should have some alternate method of collection. Exploratory mining ships that hunt the asteroid belts, ForgottenSlayer's ideas of black market or shipyard missions, faction negotiations (yes I know it's already there, but flesh it out a bit so it doesn't require giving away three ships, a starbase and some tech research just to get a little durantium), or even an open market available to all factions where resources can be auctioned off would serve the purpose.
I also agree that defeating a ship, fleet or planet of a faction that has higher technologies should provide at minimum a few research points due to reverse engineering of the spoils of war.
Galactic conquest by whatever means is the ultimate aim of the game, but in order to balance the main method of simply building massive fleets, why not allow factions under attack to request a "special session" of the United Planets to request sanctions or intervention, etc.?
No, not really... which is why daring them to "think different" when their execution on tried-and-true ideas has been lacking is probably more likely to end in sub-par results. I believe in the sports world they talk about "fundamentals" in this regard.
Part of it isn't their fault, and part of it is the result of the whole DLC, Micro-Transactions, and SAAS mentality that runs rampant through the industry. Though I suppose supporting GC as a SAAS product might actually solve some of my personal gripes.
Anywho... hopefully they tread some new ground and integrate their various products/features into a more cohesive game a bit better next time.
My thoughts for Galactic Civilizations Going forward...
A hybrid 3d/2d map would add something new to the game, making it a true sequel and not just an expansion with a '4' after it instead of a '3'. Adding depth to the map without making it too complex, that would be the trick. There are several games that have attempted a 3d map design and only a few that have pulled it off. I don't think they have to go full 3d, but a hybrid version would be awesome.
I personally liked the options more in Galactic Civilizations II as I felt spending the race points on different traits gave more of an unique look at the races versus Galactic Civilizations III. There is almost too many different race special traits in III that wash out the race points with abilities. I'd rather see all abilities balanced out and just pick and choose where one could go crazy on a few abilities and really handicap others. Let me have 20% extra on planetary class but that cost all my ability points, ect...
Diplomacy isn't great. One can keep playing with it to work for them, I like the OP's idea. I would also like to see more diplomacy options such as a neutral zone/don't enter my space treaty... Then actually have ships that are guarding, if it's within their sensor range, and it breaks this treaty, they will attack. Make it feasible to trade planets that for instance is in the others space..
I disagree... simple to the point. However, maybe give an option for planetary battles, similar to the total war series, where you can if you want play, if not you don't have to, however, unlike the total war series don't make it a huge advantage to play the battles, make it a true option.
This was promised, however, never delivered. This would be a must. upon release.
Yes, yes, and yes again.
I understand the need for war!! However, yes there should be more focus on winning other ways as well.
Completely agree make it uniform throughout, plus match the color of the icons for adjacency bonus's to the color of the production, say blue for research and research icons... ect...
Sounds interesting about moving your capital to a different tile. Also absolutely correct about the GNN.
Yes, multiple monitor support, 2, 3 or even 4 monitors but 2 for sure. Make it so one can choose what to put on the second monitor as in a window view, have map one place, planets another, ect... completely customizable.
Apart from Galactic Civilizations 4 for PC/MAC... A dumbed down version for Android/IOS. If not Galactic Civilizations 4 maybe a Galactic Civilizations 2 Hybrid. Several PC games have made the conversion over, some good some bad. Rome Total War for instance is okay, but not great, but generates $5-$10 per copy, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 or RCT2, has a great port for Android and very playable. Generates up to $15 with all expansions per copy. Extra revenue is always great... I'd buy it....
Ooo. That's a big topic. Combat could get very complex very quickly - especially from the implementation side. The biggest issue, of course, is "What happens between turns?" Does a side get to move? Run away? Bring up reinforcements? What's a turn - a combat round or another week?
Right now I'd be happy if SD would:
a) FIX THE VIEWER so what happens in the battle is correctly displayed.
Explain in the Designer what combat roles are. Currently there's a choice of role to assign without a clue as to what each one means.
c) Allow individual ships in a fleet to be assigned different roles, overriding the class role choice.
Do that, and float some ideas for design alternatives. There are some game designers in your audience, and many highly experienced players. Use that resource!
BTW, there used to be a note on the Designer design summary block upper right as to what Resources the current class requires. That has gone missing. We have to remember it from the selected components tooltips.
I will say... just to make sure I'm clear... while I want a lot of ship design to have an impact on the battles tactically and the game strategically... I believe you can do that with or without a turnbased (or realtime) mini-game controllable by the player. It can all be auto-resolvable.
While you could do auto-resolve, I find that it gets results that are significantly worse than what you could get if you fought the battle yourself.On a related thought, fighting the battles yourself might not mix well on large maps, especially the insane ones. Bigger maps would mean more fleets, which in turn mean more battles, which then will slow turns down to a crawl. I think it'll make any game a real chore to play, or the game will have do something like limit map sizes to prevent too many battles.
I like that part of the battle as is you can watch them. In the beginning they asked for tactical combat. Two even asked for real time. Hadn't heard that in awhile. Almost every complaint I heard in the last couple of years was bugs.
Turn based would be alright if it had its turns right there. If it is real time combat, please give us a pause button, and not like sins where you can't do a lot of things when you pause.
What I mean is by turns right there. Instead of doing combat rounds each turn. Do all the turns for combat at once.
What would be nice if I can change my ship roles after I make, design the ship. As I research better hulls, and weapons my reasoning for my ships change. The older ships roles need to change. What was one time a capital ship should be an escort now. A lot of time my defenders need to change f I'm assault to escorts, because I don't have enough ships I have to fleet them up
If there is an option to do it yourself or to auto-resolve, I agree--auto-resolve will likely produce sub-par results. To me, I think turn-based or real-time control over individual fleets in battle would fundamentally change the game, but not in a good way. I would like some broad-brush tactical control over fleet battle objectives (e.g., disable and capture rather than destroy, hit and run, etc.), but nothing so focused as individual tactical control.
"I think it'll make any game a real chore to play" - exactly.
"limit map sizes to prevent too many battles" - and risk a riot...
I'm a yes to options and new combat mechanics, but a no to forced fleet micromanagement. And an auto-resolve option is, to me, forced fleet micromanagement.
So we've been thinking a lot about what would be in GalCiv IV -- and what would not be in GalCiv IV.
Here are, in no particular order, some thoughts:
So just a few things off the top of my head.
Oh, I am soo gonna love this. Hell I am twisting a few friends to make sure they buy up and into the next incarnation already! I know its a ways off but when can we get in?
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