I just got the Early Access and played two quick games. Some general impressions and suggestions.
1) It's too late to affect the basic game design. I just want to say I have never liked the idea of games with "tramlines" or lanes for FTL travel. They usually just make a frustrating bottleneck during gameplay. Waiting to see how GC4 turns out if I can get a longer game going.
2) I went through two whole sectors without finding any Elerium. Please make this resource a little more abundant.
3) On Spheres of Influence. The empire near me just ignored any and all spheres of influence and rolled over me making more and more colonies. This was the Yor. Looked like their homeworld was Giant. Like, Size 77 Giant. I don't remember if you could do that in GC1&2. You could in 3, but your colony was likely to flip really fast. Not so here. It shouldn't be so easy to just set up colonies in another empires sphere of influence.
4) Deals proposed by and acceptable to the Yor were ridiculously one-sided in their favor. Even when they liked me. Sometimes I couldn't even just get a simple Open Borders agreement. Generally they wanted to give one minor tech for 2 or three (sometimes more) of mine, plus resources plus $1000. I actually took 2 deals because they were so much stronger and more advanced than me, so this would convince them not to attack. Get them to take more reasonable deals.
5) Let the minor races expand a little bit. If only 2 or 3 solar systems, or 2 Core Worlds. Just something other than cannon fodder. I didn't get a chance to try to trade with them so I can't comment on that. I do hope that you CAN trade with them. Maybe that could have helped my technology deficit.
6) Not being able to see the tech tree or direct tech development is really frustrating. This is especially true about key techs, like Universal Translator or Armor or Trade. UT is supposed to be a common tech, but it took me forever to get the option to research it.
7) When you find a goodie in an anomaly and need to decide if you want to use it or not, or maybe whether to tune it to beams/missiles/kineitic, give us a little picture of the ship or let us check the ship to see if we all ready have it on board.
8) Finally, that Prestige Victory is kind of broken. I was just getting my game really going, hadn't even met a second player. Just explored the second sector (not even placed a colony in it yet) and BAMM! game over man. The cut scene didn't even say who won. Maybe you can have slightly different cut scenes for the different empires. And make it a little harder to get. Both my games ended in prestige wins.
Can't remember anything else right now. I'll try another game soon. Didn't run into anything that looked like a bug so far.
Concerning resources, pirates, minor races, etc. There should be more of them, especially if the game has them set on "abundant". I have pirates set on abundant, but when I needed to kill some, I could only find 2 enclaves in my Large sector with only about 3 ships each. Same with minor races. Set at abundant, but only had one in my sector. In another game I had one in my sector, but none in the next 2 sectors that I explored.
Same with resources. But worse on resources, you find them on low-class planets and the only way to access them is to convert the planet to a core world. We should be able to access the resource just as a colony. After all, that is a major reason for establishing a colony--to exploit the resource.
On Upgrading Your Gov't. I'd like a choice of what government I upgraded my initial Gov't to. And what type of gov't do I even have initially? Despotism? Hmmm. That was on thing GC3 had right. You had to qualify for the Gov't type, and you chose which one you wanted based on it's pros/cons and your race & playstyle.
Also, it takes 100 turns between gov't elections. This should be shorter I have yet to get beyond imperial because "Prestige Victoy/Loss" or I got steamrolled on a colony spam by the AI.
My major issue with all the GalCiv games is the lack of tactical decisions during combat. I hate the way all the ships just line up and duke it out. Why can't we have some tactical decisions during combat....such as closing with certain types of ships or launching waves of fighter attacks before closing to slugging range. Really takes away from space combat. If you have ever read the Jay Allan Space operas dealing with space combat you will understand.
1. The most frequent complaints about the previous games was that people were getting lost in vast empty space. The current system was a response to that because human brains can quantify sectors a little easier. It does create bottle necks, but once you get use to it there are many defensive advantages to this system. It you need access to far away things just try building one starbase in far off sectors to increase your range.
2. that definitely should be fixed. Its usually not that bad. But I think right now the programmers have made it 100% random. They should implement a randomizer with a secondary algorithm that checks for excess scarcity.
3. Culture wars are a big part of the 4th game. If you position a few cultural starbases in the right spot you will eventually start thinking of their invading colony ships as your colony ships.
4. Sadly all the civs ask for absurd deals some times. If you shoot those down, reasonable ones often come later. Some leaders have a trait that increases the favorability to trade deals with other civs. Check your leader traits and assign the right diplomats. Also I think increasing your civs overall diplomatic rating increases favorability (maybe a dev can fact check that).
5. that's a good idea. Each minor civ has a quest that offers the most valuable resource in the game: Culture Points. Complete those quests and some of them actually offer a few tech points per turn as well.
6. it can be frustrating. Hover over the leads to and you can hover over leads to again to check way down the tech tree. Universal translator will come in the government techs section. Check there first and if it is not available selecting cheap tech techs in that section to get them out of the way will increase the likelihood of the tech you want getting a slot. this list also refreshes with different options if you click a different one and click back but it will lock the option if you do that too many times.
7. I want that too
8. That is why I disable the prestige victory option.
I support you opinion on minor race, resource and pirate abundance.
The 4 types of government available basically just contain more perks no matter what type of empire you are building.
You might get some value out of my intermediate tutorials playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ8Q47fNmJQzHqLdfM8HzbOtbkuirt91k
Talluhajeff, I generally agree with wanting tactical combat. But a problem with TC in GalCiv is the pure size and scope of the game. The game can take so long I shudder to think how long it would take to play with controlled tactical combat.
My 2 favorite systems (but I haven't played all the games, naturally) are Master of Orion 1&2 and the one in Birth of the Federation. MOO because with all the variety of weapons, you could actually use and see the effect of the different types of weapons when you used them. And choosing too board the ships? Cool!
In BOTF you had basic weapon load outs. But you could use your combat tactics based on the type of ship and the tactic used by the AI (or live opponent if you went through the trouble to set up a game against someone.) If the opponent chooses "Assault" you choose "Circle" or "Flyby" I think. I still play this 20-yr old game because it is a fairly simple and small/quick game and the tactical combat is cool and immersive. Of course, you have to option to skip tactical combat and let the game automatically resolve the combat to save time. Warning: It does make a difference. I have restored a saved game and won a battle using tactical that I lost via autoplay.
@Streetfighter:
1) I can see that. I recall leaving an advanced game for a week due to RL, and when I came back i couldn't figure out what my old strategy was. Had to just delete the game and start over.
3) Well, maybe I'll try making cultural starbases if I find the resources. I used that to some effect in previous GC games.
4) HaHa! Leaders is a whole different issue. Trying to find one who likes you, has high social and has a special trait to improve negotiations might be....trying. I haven't noticed a trait providing better negotiations. I'll look more closely for it. But yeah, finding a good leader for different specific issues should be a way to help things. I think there is even an ideology choice to help improve leader quality. Oh, and I had a decent diplomatic rating. I think. This game I don't have the Diplomacy tech yet. I'm thinking of making a bad deal just to get it, hoping it will help my trades.
I'll check out your tutorial playlist. I did watch a tutorial on the first 30 turns or something. Don't know if it was yours. Thanks for the tips.
Some additional impressions from gameplay.
1) Possible bug: When I switched to Republic Gov't a tip onscreen stated I would have 2 additional policy choice but it appears I got only one.
2) I'm getting an awful lot of statues built in my honor from Governors that like me. Yes I like the 10 control points, but this is going to blow up as I get more governors that like me. Maybe a little less frequency on this. Same with the festival but to a lesser extent.
3) Another bug: On the leader screen, when you drag a leader to a planet card, it sometimes rejects them and you have to leave the screen, go to the galaxy screen to find the planet, and assign the governor there. But worse, on that leader screen it sometimes not only rejects assigning the governor to the planet you pick, but instead assigns them to another planet!
4) Colonies and asteroids by default are assigned to the nearest core world ( or maybe colony). I'd like to be able to change what core world colony or asteroid cluster supports. Similar to GC3.
5) Extreme planets are so small. None of them are Medium, Large or Giant. So you have these small extreme planets that are not of much use but you may need to change them to a Core World to get the resource on it. Giving you a size 5 extreme planet that you 1) had to wait to get technology to colonize it, 2) Turn it into a puny core world to get the resource. Make some of these planets larger, say size 13-16.
6) More variety in the sizes of Giant planets. Other than my Terran Homeworld, which starts as size 24 (large) which I boost ASAP to 26 (Giant) I've only found size 77s. Let's see some in between. Size 28, 33, 40 etc. Better yet, make it size 35 and you need extreme colonization to colonize it. In fact, make some really juicy planets that are hard to get to, but if you do it's a big boost. Size 40, with a couple of much needed resources or artifacts, but Extreme and is surrounded by space monsters. Including one which sits in orbit of the planet and won't let you colonize it. I think Master of Orion pulled that trick. I remember in GC1 where if you found a purple star, it was guarenteed to have large planet. Seems the AI knew it too, and there would be a race to colonize the planet. Bring that back.
7) We need a screen showing all empires discovered and their relative strengths compared to you and to each other, as in previous versions of GC. Including there trade relationships and diplomatic status with each race.
8) Previously, the most common resources (Durantium, Thulium and Eridium and Antimatter) were mined in various places. You could get a lot of them but they were used extensively and you could still have a resource shortage. Easily. Nearly every system in every ship you built had specific needs. This was a good game mechanic, but this no longer seems to be the case. And now you can mine these resources but have no need to. I am so far barely using any of the big 4 resources. And building certain starbase modules is now dependent on Techapod Hive?, a really rare resource. It was better the other way. Specific types of weapons used specific resources. Same with engines, armor etc. GC3 had something else good (mostly I was unimpressed with GC3) in that you could have lesser versions of a weapon which didn't need the resource. So you got to say Lvl 3 Missiles, and you got 2 versions, one needing antimatter and a less powerful one (or it took up more space on your ship) that didn't use the resource. Maybe this could be implemented here.
9) I've only gotten to Small Hulls so far. But are there techs that allow miniaturization so that I can get more equipment into the same size hull? I really hope so.
Well, that's all for now,. I've cut off Prestige Victory on this game, so I'm getting farther and can make more suggestions.
@Coggy @SSStreetFighter Re: The 4th Game (influence)My favorite strategy has been exactly this. GC3 was overpowered in this. And it has not yet been implemented to its full potential in GC4. I want tourism back. I want a financial gain from spreading my glorific and mind-shattering new social stratus upon all species.
Not that I'm complaining. I do like trading too.
More Impressions From My Playthrough:
1) I have a size 77 planet, with 3 developed economic starbases and fusion power plant encircled by mfg zones, but I still only have 6 mfg output. Don't know how it happened, but I don't think it should EVER happen.
2) I have stopped earning culture points! We should earn these throughout the entire game. In fact, they don't come frequently enough, but I stopped getting them entirely.
3) I can no longer recruit leaders. Once I filled up my Minister slots, I could no longer access the Recruiting screen. So I can't raise any more planets to Core World Status since I can't recruit leaders. I do have 3 previously recruited but they aren't suitable.
4) A few ministeries get researched but no minister slot for a leader corresponding to it. I assume they will be added as this is just an Alpha release. Hope so.
5) Advisors keep telling me to send a colony ship to planets I can't colonize because of the tech needed. Extreme tech needed.
6) Can you add a "Guard" command so ship can be told to just sit there and wait until told to move. Don't matter if they see an alien ship. Also would like a "Rally Point" command to start a fleet to form.
7) Snipers, monsters and space junk/capsules need to respawn periodically so you don't just ignore surveying a sector. And the AI doesn't eat up all the goodies.
8) Snipers and other space hazards need to get stronger over time. At least a little bit.
9) Seems that if a Core World defects to/from you, the associated shipyard should go with it.
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