Greetings Stardock,
Will there be a development road outlined for 2020?
I am ready to invest in Stardock stock! Lets hear whats on tap!
Beer and Water.
Both are good. I tend to only drink water now after all these years of no alcohol. I am a picky 'water drinker'.
So Gal Civ IV. Horemvore, what are we going to build it with? Hexes, squares or dodecahedrons?
I want another 4x game like Fallen Enchantress but no memory wall, FE is a great game btw.
To Starlane or no?
I remember the ai was going to be 'data driven' but forget how Paul had described how it was supposed to work.
GC series for me, is all about the tiled map tbh, goes away from that then so will I, sad but true. So I am hoping no starlanes, although that is the current route they are talking about according to Brad. Hexs trump squares, so squares are out
I am also hoping they move away from tiled planets and go more Civ6 style but with system planets rather than districts. Decent terraforming of planets (not tiles) ala Stellaris. Outpost (Mining, research etc) for planets that can not be terraformed, for what ever reasons
No official announcements to make at this time but we have a mix of big and small projects.
One thing they mentioned which would send me packing is that planets won't be self managed. I also don't like the idea of star lanes, but only half as much as not having manual planet building.
Making galciv 3 better, and coming out with galciv 4 is what they are looking at. Adaptive AI is what they are looking at. They haven't talked about data driven since 2016.
The state of art AI learning is impressive, and having some ML routines built in to GC4 would make a lot of sense for some gaming conditions. Stardock could do training runs on uploaded games and send up updated AI intelligence's. Possible do that for some custom civs as DLC.
I've got a couple of spare cores to do inference look ups during my games...
So if they really wanted to do it, Stardock could take this game where no man, woman, child, or Snathi has gone before in a GalCiv game.
The Z-Axis. We're in space, but up until now, there has been no up/down. This is a huge immersion gap, if you ask me.
Of course, this could be done in any number of ways.
I suggest making 3D a user-selectable option at universe-creation time (Z-Axis=Y or N).
There is no doubt that playing a 3D map on Humongous would bring a lot of computers to their knees, and might even require a lot more memory and CPU capability than many people have. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't push the envelope. And hence my idea of making it user-selectable.
Spock: "He's intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates 2-dimensional thinking."
Kirk: "Full stop."
Sulu: "Full stop, sir."
Kirk: "Z minus 10,000 meters. Stand by photon torpedoes."
Real strategy includes the cardinal directions of "up" and "down".
Let's do it. We can even call it GalCiv 4D, because we're already using the 4th dimension (time). Now we just add the 3rd dimension and blow everybody's minds!
And if you don't like that idea, well maybe we can talk about making the celestial objects at least rotate on an axis and follow actual orbits through space and time. But then, some orbits will make use of the Z-Axis anyhow, so maybe we just need to do both things after all!
Yeah. Nah.
Get rid of the Ship Designer/3D Maps/Battle Viewer/Anything that lends itself to War (Xterminate) and really focus on improving the Xploit aspect of 4X.
I jest, in part, because obviously most GalCiv Fans lurve the Xterminate aspect of 4X and Stardock would lose ther jerbs if they did all of that first sentence. But they still could make more of AI cunning and deviousness and make a game that used more Machiavellian psychology. I may be part of a minority that would enjoy that kind of gameplay - think less wars that you need to design and make ships for (but you can still sell them!), more money, more resources, more races bashing heck out of each other as you watch from the sidelines and cackle evilly because you set them up, getting an Influence Victory be being A Big Bully With A Big Stick - but it's a minority I'm happy to be part of.
To this end, how about having an option at Startup - Distance Between of Habitable Planets. I know you can pick how Common Habitable Planets are now, but adding Distance choice takes that up a notch. Let's face it, one of the things that makes Tall Empires so difficult is you can't be sure how close your planets are going to be to each other. They're easier to flip if you've only got 1 planet in a 2-3 system radius - you might not find a decent Planet 2 to colonise within 3 Systems of your Home System, for example. If you could "cluster" Habitable planets, you can build your empire faster and have better influence etc. This makes the Xplore and Xpand Phases faster - AI/Human players and you will, rightly, take what's closest, therefore leaving less for others to take. This allows everyone to move onto Xploiting and Xterminating. Xpansion is upwards as you've got more scope to build up your 4-5 Better Planets that are close to each other over not really being able to do much with 10-12 Average Planets spread over a larger area.
To this end, how about having an option at Startup - Distance Between of Habitable Planets. I know you can pick how Common Habitable Planets are now, but adding Distance choice takes that up a notch. Let's face it, one of the things that makes Tall Empires so difficult is you can't be sure how close your planets are going to be to each other. They're easier to flip if you've only got 1 planet in a 2-3 system radius - you might not find a decent Planet 2 to colonise within 3 Systems of your Home System, for example. If you could "cluster" Habitable planets, you can build your empire faster and have better influence etc. This makes the Xplore and Xpand Phases faster - AI/Human players and you will, rightly, take what's closest, therefore leaving less for others to take. This allows everyone to move onto Xploiting and Xterminating. Xpansion is upwards as you've got more scope to build up your 4-5 Better Planets that are close to each other over not really being able to do much with 10-12 Average Planets spread over a larger area.I suppose I don't get you here either. When you choose the frequency of stars, planets, habitable, extreme, etc...you in fact ARE setting a distance, given the galaxy size you've chosen. What do you want...miles or parsecs too? I think you're asking for something that we already have.
MoO3 already did the z-axis thing and it wasn't fun.
But you can already do all of that stuff. I challenge you to take any heading that includes "mark something" under the current game mechanics. Can't do it without being able to fly up or down.
While I've got nothing against the Z-axis idea in principle, what would it add to a 4X game where you're not individually controlling every ship?
Starlanes?!?! In a Gal Civ game?!? Say it ain't so! Hate the concept. I'm not opposed to the current concept of "starlanes" in GC3, where they afford significantly faster travel, but leaving that as the only option for travel would be something that would cause me to walk away from the franchise.
I had similar miss givings, however you can make a "link" anywhere, via some mysterious spacetime machine
Interesting Question,
But I would rather ask what will happen with GC3 in near future. Are there any DLC's planned, updates, etc??
We talked about this in alpha and the decision was no z. 3d thought takes more thought then 2d thought. Not everyone can follow it.
Why does everybody seem to think that every requested new feature must be an all-or-nothing deal? That kind of thinking just ends up getting us "no", "no", "not possible", "people can't handle the extra thought", "it would be too confusing"...uggg!
This is such limiting thinking. I think that people playing this GalCiv3 are a cut above. We're certainly capable and deserving of more. This is why people like to play on the largest map sizes, too.
Contrary to what my parents and all my teachers taught me, the only thing holding me back is not only my brain and my own self-doubts. A huge portion of that is the current limits of hardware, but also the underestimating that other people do to me (and to millions of people like me).
Have you ever seen somebody play multiple chess games simultaneously, or a 90 year old lady play 25 Bingo cards all at once? Do you think just because we like golf, that we can't also learn the rules of football (both kinds), tennis, volleyball, basketball, checkers, chess, and Bingo too?
We just may be more capable than the designers think we are. If you're fearful that the added complexity might make it too difficult for folks like me who can barely make full sentences or clothe ourselves, then you can make it a user-selectable option.
I promise I won't be offended!
So then make it an OPTION. Why does everybody seem to think that every requested new feature must be an all-or-nothing deal? That kind of thinking just ends up getting us "no", "no", "not possible", "people can't handle the extra thought", "it would be too confusing"...uggg! This is such limiting thinking. I think that people playing this GalCiv3 are a cut above. We're certainly capable and deserving of more. This is why people like to play on the largest map sizes, too. Contrary to what my parents and all my teachers taught me, the only thing holding me back is not only my brain and my own self-doubts. A huge portion of that is the current limits of hardware, but also the underestimating that other people do to me (and to millions of people like me).Have you ever seen somebody play multiple chess games simultaneously, or a 90 year old lady play 25 Bingo cards all at once? Do you think just because we like golf, that we can't also learn the rules of football (both kinds), tennis, volleyball, basketball, checkers, chess, and Bingo too? We just may be more capable than the designers think we are. If you're fearful that the added complexity might make it too difficult for folks like me who can barely make full sentences or clothe ourselves, then you can make it a user-selectable option. I promise I won't be offended!
So the devs are supposed to drop everything, and give you what you want, instead of making a game that makes sense to most people who might buy it. Brilliant reasoning. You obviously don't understand the square-volume rule.
There are more than 2.....and interestingly the oldest formal 'Rules' for a code of Football was for Aussie Rules football...
So then make it an OPTION.
There comes a point where too many "options" begins to negatively affect a game, mostly by diluting it's identity into nothingness. It also creates a lot more work for the game designers to balance, test, and update.
The Z axis is pretty meaningless outside of any sort of tactical battles... which are not GC's focus anyhow. The best use I've seen of Z axis in a 4X game has been Ascendancy, which also had planetary rotation and the like.
Ultimately, I think Z axis is a must for smaller scale games like Homeworld, but really just window dressing here.
FWIW I'd prefer no full 3d/Z axis myself.
I assume it will add another heap of CPU/GPU load? It won't improve turn times on larger maps, I dare to say...(otoh everything nice and shiny that gets added usually comes with a price at some pt.)
I have no idea what kind of effort it means to make it an option...
Don't think that adding logic and verification to do 3D is anything trivial at all for the developers. For me, just adding a 3rd dimension isn't necessary. Would also worried be worried as Galcivius is about further performance hits due to the extra path-ing and AI considerations.
It's not an easy option to ask for.
As a developer myself, my response to this would be to laugh and say "Nnnnnnope!"
The reason is development time, testing, balance, and subsequent maintenance of the feature. More features means more future regression testing and higher likelihood of unexpected, emergent bugs (features that work fine in isolation but exhibit weird behaviors when both are enabled). I think people who say "just make it an option" have very little grasp of just how much work programming really is (I know my younger self certainly did not).
And I suppose on top of however long working on a new feature takes for you developer-folks in terms of programming, testing, balancing, rechecking etc etc it must really hack you off when you take all that time on a feature you think your game/software's audience will just fall in love with and the general consensus is "Meh! Tried it and hated it!" or "New feature? What new feature?" I mean, as an example in GalCiv3, how many people play multiplayer versus the number Stardock would hope would play multiplayer? Same thing with the big maps and different difficulty levels.
Well I play multiplayer, and like to see some luv there.
I wouldn't mind 3d it would be another way to get around blocked expansion, but the problem is that due to physics if it's not solid it flatens. We only live in a 3d universe on the small scale. If the height of the universe is only 100au that is not very big. The rest is empty space.
My guess is when this concept was figured out no one knew how flat the universe really was. I didn't realise this. Or most game designers aren't hip on physics.
I have to cast a "No" vote on Z-Axis movement as well. It just adds a level of complexity without much benefit (I can argue the game is plenty complex right now and doesn't need more).
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