We aren't ready to announce anything specifically yet but I wanted to give you a sneak preview of some of the things we have going on around here.
First, there probably won't be a lot more journal entries for GalCiv III. There will be more updates to GalCiv III but they will fall under bug fixing only. The team has been staffed up (and we're hiring more) to focus on "GalCiv Next".
So what are some of the broad strokes? In no particular order these are the things that have been on our mind:
How to have big maps and play tall. You're going to hear this concept a lot: A map of maps.
More player actions. We really liked the artifacts as a concept because they let the player actively do things in the world. We are looking at expanding on that.
Crazy big tech tree without it being a mess to manage. Like every GalCiv game we've ever done, we are going to be trying a lot of different new ways of managing techs. What I can say is that we would really like to have a much, much larger tech tree in the future.
Invasions. We don't like the invasions in GalCiv III. It's...fine. But I feel like I'm popping balloons rather than engaging in some titanic battle for control of an entire planet.
Combat. We would like to see combat move away from being an all or nothing thing in a single turn.
Citizens++. Citizens were introduced in Crusade. But we would really like the entire game revolve around citizens to the point where population = citizens and it is all about what you do with them.
Much, much, much bigger empires. In 4X games, including GalCiv, I think we've been approaching colonies backwards. We always default to forcing players to micromanage their cities, planets, whatever and then add some sort of AI manager system to try to automate planets. As a result, the game designs always try to discourage/punish players for having too many colonies which I find off-putting.
Instead, why not encourage players to have as many colonies as they want but by default, they are just simple resource generators? That is, they provide money, resources, research to their sponsor world. Then, when you find a particularly interesting world, you flip the concept of a "governor" on its head and assign a citizen to govern the planet which means THEN you manage the planet. And in doing so, we make sure that consuming a citizen to become a governor is a pretty big deal since that citizen could be doing something else important. So imagine a game where you have 400 colonies of which say you directly manage your best few yourself?
Because in GalCiv III, we basically made class 1 through 10 planets rare because who wants to manage these worlds? This was a missed opportunity. Now we can have lots of meh planets that simply act as the raw resource providers to their sponsor world which in turn you are managing to do super awesome stuff (think of the min-maxing going on there!).
Vastly bigger map differentiation. The smallest maps in the future will probably feel roughly the same as they currently do. But the largest sized maps will make the maps in GalCiv III look piddly with a lot more strategic depth to it as well.
We want multiplayer to be viable. Putting aside that most people don't play 4X games multiplayer, we would like there to be gameplay modes that you could play with a total stranger in less than an hour if you'd like. These special modes would be available for single player too.
NO CAMPAIGNS. All the story and special scripting would instead be integrated into the game as events and such to help make the sandbox game more interesting.
So that's just some thoughts. We'll be talking more about it in the future.
I like the concept of starbases defending very nearby planets. Working a bit like ships do in preventing an attack, but happens for all planets under x tiles away. tieing it to a module or an optional toggle (even better is usually both) is good. should be easy enough to implement check if has nearby starbase = true. can be invaded = false. this already works very well with with ships
related to modules, can we please be able to delete stuff on a starbase up to and including the ring level? related to delete, could you stick with unless it gives a one time perk or creates a situation that makes no sense we can delete it and move it? i am thinking i can't delete a city full of people. but an empty one is easy.
if there is any type of similar building mechanic involving colony capitals can we please get the option to pick where it goes, or migrate the building over so many turns. a just deal with it approach is no longer good enough for this kind of game. if not, maybe always at least pick a place with the most potential land around it, because why would you make life harder for yourself and not settle there?
Or just be able to build Dyson spheres/swarms or Matrioshka brains..
Megastructures would be pretty awesome, but possibly beyond the timeframe in which the game takes place. I think the closest we'll have to megastructures will be those Precursor worlds. Although GalCiv 4 could possibly introduce megastructure type stuff left behind by Precursors.
Yes I also enjoy the possibly rather obsessive business of optimising planets and would certainly second this (though I don't want my games to go on for months and normally abort with a tech victory fairly soon).
The reason that the late game in the current iteration of galciv3 can become tedious is partly or mainly because we don't have a mechanism for ignoring planets for long. Adding a five or ten turn economic button would surely not have been that hard (ie repeat economic project 5 times or 10x) or you could simply have a button store production each turn until told otherwise. That after all is what the AI essentially does when it runs out of improvements.
So I dislike the idea of not being able to micromanage small planets when I want to though I'd like a good mechanism for ignoring them when I do want to.
I see that planets of size >=10 would perhaps pass within human control. Have people considered the effect of the AI governor choosing to undertake terraforming which increases the planet's size.?
Personally I don't care about combat at all - or planetary invasions - as long as they are consistent and sensible though of course many other people do and they should certainly be catered for (the fortified phalanx in fort on mountain causes battleship bombarding it to explode in civ2 I found v annoying).
Anyway, this is a ,lovely franchise and I look forward to Galciv4.
Cheers,
Jon
i want combat to be minimally time consuming, and work well. be clearly explained and consistent. watching pretty battles and building cool ships optional. combat is not my meat or potatoes here. it is the condiments or bacon bits.
not related but you can toggle repeat project on aid economy and ignore that planet for the rest of the game quite easily.
Many thanks Charch,
I simply hadn't noticed when they added that button. It'll save me hours of mild irritation.
I am really glad they made it so planets don’t auto upgrade by default and that you have to toggle it on always screwed me with synthetics. I just avoided the advanced manufacturing technologies. So I wouldn’t run out of damn durantium.
even worse can be life support tech since then every single auto ship will take that resource. i never take that tech because of it, and you don't need that (really any) support anyways late game, unless your playing sparse and don't want to include starbases to extend range.
unless it is early game and i am exploring sensors and engines are lot more useful than range. a few transport designs, and their escort ships sure.
Yes I also enjoy the possibly rather obsessive business of optimising planets and would certainly second this (though I don't want my games to go on for months and normally abort with a tech victory fairly soon). The reason that the late game in the current iteration of galciv3 can become tedious is partly or mainly because we don't have a mechanism for ignoring planets for long. Adding a five or ten turn economic button would surely not have been that hard (ie repeat economic project 5 times or 10x) or you could simply have a button store production each turn until told otherwise. That after all is what the AI essentially does when it runs out of improvements.So I dislike the idea of not being able to micromanage small planets when I want to though I'd like a good mechanism for ignoring them when I do want to. I see that planets of size >=10 would perhaps pass within human control. Have people considered the effect of the AI governor choosing to undertake terraforming which increases the planet's size.? Personally I don't care about combat at all - or planetary invasions - as long as they are consistent and sensible though of course many other people do and they should certainly be catered for (the fortified phalanx in fort on mountain causes battleship bombarding it to explode in civ2 I found v annoying). Anyway, this is a ,lovely franchise and I look forward to Galciv4. Cheers,Jon
Will GC4 have a similarly detailed ship building editor to what we have in GC3?
If so, then I’d love to see more reason to spend a lot of time creating ships from a tactical viewpoint rather than from an art point of view.
I feel the current situation offers creative people a superb editor to make awesome ship creations, but there is a disconnect between the actual combat gameplay and the custom ships.
Please see the Galactic Civilizations IV Page galciv4.com
Why not have different tech trees for each race, and after you have researched all yours or research on the trees of other races as you acquire techs from other races and the tech trees of other races you Concore added as you progress through the game. easy to use tools to create mods. More ways to cheat na, not that ha, Ha.
I love the idea of minor colonies feeding resources to major colonies. That way we just manage the labor colonies, and the minor ones are more like the asteroid mining bases, helpful, but easily destroyed and easily rebuilt. Maybe the major worlds can benefit in population growth and citizen generation from its numerous colonies, with benefits reducing the further the colony is from the major colony.
so we can set up colonies on Mercury to mine out the mineral rich world and send the resources to earth to boost the production there. Citizen generation linked to population makes sense, maybe they can be locally produced, like each citizen hails from a specific major colony.
invasions could also benefit from the colony rework, the minor worlds are undefended by and large because trying to do so is just not feasible. But every major world should have a legion or more defending it. Ok that note I would suggest military bases making a separate production queue for legions, maybe different kinds of regiments like tank divisions or infantry regiments that have their own uses and purposes. Like infantry take over cities better, tanks mow down infantry outside cities, and artillery devastate tanks and infantry, but only at range so they have to be supported. Also makes invasion spots more important. I would like to see invasions be more meaningful by I think that would require either much much cheaper legions, so they can be in the normal production queue, or a separate queue created by military bases so they can train *while* the world is developed. on that note maybe more terraforming available, like maybe technologies to allow a given tier of terraforming to be used a second time to open up more land, making major worlds more worth invading.
a map of maps is an interesting idea, could be that a single cluster has a dozen or so systems linked to other clusters at various points, that would make useful choke points that are easier to defend than having a fleet at every world guarding everywhere. There would be one or two systems in range if the choke point, and hyper-gates if carried over can still be useful in connecting some major worlds so you wouldn’t have to travel across several clusters if a massive invasion shows up unexpectedly.
Personal wish list idea, make carrier able to pick which fighter it launches. I would like to design my own starfighter than I can then load into my carriers. To assist maybe have shipyards specialize to produce a specific size of ship, giving a bonus, at the cost of a maintenance fee, and they can retool to a different specialization given time. So like my Fighter Factory over Centauri II can produce fighters that I load into the Battlestars being produced over Centauri IV, both have less production than one shipyard would, but both have bonuses that make them overall more productive in their specialization. Downside is neither makes anything else very well and they cost more to upkeep so if they’re idle they’re not really helping.
well that ran longer than I expected and I know this is a bit of necro by those are my thoughts.
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