Just remember that there was a topic about DLC and possibly new / improved space combat that will come with it. Is this still on and what is the possible release. Or is this something that is planned further in the future or not at all. Thanks for any info.
I and a couple other players discussed that as a possibility. Stardock hasn't given any official news about future DLC.
In my opinion, an improved combat system would benefit Gal Civ IV the most.
The other aspects of the 4x genre, exploration, expansion, and exploitation are very well fleshed out. The ship designer is incredible, and there is a lot of variety in ship modules.
The way they combat system is built doesn't make use of all of that variety though. It actually encourages the player to build homogeneous fleets with maybe one or two supporting ships. This is because ship speed is one of the most important stats in the battle. Faster (smaller) ships often get into combat and destroyed before large ships reach the fight. This splits your damage and defenses leading to a much worse outcome in the battle.
I can't speak to future content (though a look through our previous approaches to games might provide some context clues ), but I'll say that I agree with you about combat needing a bit more attention. As I mentioned elsewhere, we are looking at your feedback daily.
Thanks for replying. I hope my posts on the subject of improving combat haven't been irksome.
I gravitate towards Gal Civ over any other space related strategy game because of the ship designer. I have hundreds of designs in GC3 and GC4. Some of them taken from other fictional universes and others of my own creation. Designing a ship and a fleet are what I invest my time into when playing. It would be nice to see more variety in fleet design.
The biggest issues I see are how ship roles, and ship speed works.
If fleet design and ship combat can be made more engaging it would greatly improve my experience with the game, but I can't speak for others.
Frankly I liked the GC3 tradeoffs for weapon types. Longer range missles, less accurate mass drivers etc. I thought that was pretty neat, would like to see it come back.
Not at all! Please, keep it coming. This is valuable feedback that we can use. Thanks!
And I'm with you...the ship designer is a huge rabbit hole I happily jump into.
Out of curiosity, what do you do at Stardock?
I'm the Director of Live Services. I'm responsible for...well, multiplayer, among other things.
It feels like combat is just an afterthought sometimes. Just like "Meh, we know you guys need to do something with those ships". Both space combat and planetary combat need A LOT of love. Even if more advanced combat were DLC, I'd be ok with paying for it.
I've posted ideas going back to Gal Civ 2, and the only responses I have ever gotten have been from other players who have liked my ideas for turn-based planetary combat. Really feels like those ideas are dismissed outright when, IMHO, existing game mechanics could be adapted.
Just imagine how MUCH better this game could be if we had some nicely made combat system. Space and ground.
To me, this would be the best 4X Space Strategy game ever. All the hours spend on designing your ship can be seen in all the glory exchanging blows with enemy fleet.
Imagine also having tech trees for ground forces (Infantry, Armor, Power Armor, Artillery). Specializing units for bonuses (or penalties) in certain planet types (Troops trained on Desert worlds get a bonus to those worlds, but a penalty Frozen worlds).
Actually assigning units to defend worlds by transporting them. A planetary improvement that creates a queue for them (like the shipyard does).
i would love to see a combat upgrade i have actually stopped playing due to 2 main reasons...1. The Combat. i threw out a lot of ideas back in beta for improving it, and i really think it still needs a revamp. it really seems like it was ignored by the devs for the most part, and really needs to be revisited. they even barely changed anything after I collected a bunch of feedback from lots of beta testers that pointed out that no one was using beams because of the huge imbalance that the devs couldnt see because they were choosing not to focus on it. there's lots of good ideas and ways to improve combat that people have come up with. i wrote out several long ideas myself that i dont think exist anymore after the beta review area was purged though, but there's def plenty of ideas out there from the gamers of ways to improve combat. i think a good idea would be to open a new section of the forums and discord to specifically be for ideas from gamers on how to improve the combat system.2. System Requirements. the game says 8g memory, but that doesnt actually work well. once you start getting a couple dozen turns into the game (even smaller maps) the in-game lag starts becoming really bad, and ends up being so bad after a few dozen turns that there is over a sec delay between EVERY action you take with your mouse. it becomes so laggy very quickly that it becomes unplayable. this has been reported since beta. all the online games i play have less lag that this game when i'm playing it offline. that is a big problem considering not everyone has an expensive gaming computer. i havent actually checked in a bit but i'm guessing the problem is still there, and it's preventing tons of ppl from enjoying this game who want to. any new DLC (or before if possible) should really include a fix for this massive lag problem.
Lag is my biggest complaint with GalCiv4. My system exceeds the game's physical and software requirements and when I game I close all other applications. And still lag develops. It's frustrating.
I always said, once Stardock decided on the Ship Designer (A choice I personally wouldn't have made if I was in Stardock running GalCiv, but anyhoo), it was completely logical and frankly fair to make Combat pretty graphical so those of us who spent hours designing their ships could actually see how their design/defence/offence choices affected the aforementioned combat.
I guess if Stardock is going to allow designs of Transports and maybe even more planning about Invasions, etc, maybe there needs to be work presenting those as well.
Frankly, Combat (ie Xtermination) is the least interesting of the Xs for me. The X I've always liked - and maybe Xpect too much from - is Xploit. I get Xploiting resources, but I've always wanted to do more Xploiting of friends and enemies...
Extermination is my favorite of the X's. Exploit for me is just a means to Extermination of the other races.
Plus I think that Exploit could be improved with combat. More special weapons, or modules that effect how combat works.
As I've mentioned before I think the key is changing ship roles and how ship sizes work, but another interesting option is to add more weapon systems.
One way this could be done and improve the exploitation is by making specific weapons for ship sizes that cost special resources. The only issue with this is get the A.I. to use and understand how to use these modules.
Examples:
Armor Piercing Antimatter Dumb Rocket
Ship: Tiny and/or Small hull
Cost: 3 antimatter and 1 Durantium
Effect: Being a dumb rocket (That much antimatter fries the tracking systems) this weapon has a high miss chance vs tiny and small ships, medium miss chance vs medium ships, and low miss chance vs large and huge ships.
Very short range, but delivers a lot of damage to the target. Ships carrying this weapon preferentially target huge and large ships.
Anti Interceptor Defense System
Ship: Large and/or Huge hulls
Cost: 4 Elysium and 2 Durantium
Effect: This system has an extremely fast fire rate and medium range, but extremely low damage.
If the target is a small or tiny ship, the Defense Syste will do 10x the damage.
The ship carrying this will preferentially target small and tiny ships.
The thing is, at its core GCIV is still an Empire derived game, so combat is always going to be throwing as many ships as possible in a doomstack at other stacks in a war of attrition.
It is kind of a mismatch with the ship editor, but that's just how its designed.
just copy the combat system from star drive 2, it will be a win
Keep it coming folks. I literally read this forum every single day -- I'm making notes.
Personally, I wouldn't want to see any RTS combat elements in GalCiv IV. Turn-based gameplay with its chill pacing and lack of carpal-tunnel-inducing speed-clicking is too precious to throw away. Just to fantasize, I would rather see every battle as a puzzle minigame to be solved in the most optimal way, with preparation (ship design, fleet composition, combat roles) and the actual sequence of attacks/defenses and maneuvers being equally important. In other words, there should be a chance to win with a somewhat weaker fleet and superior tactics, as well as lose with a chunkier fleet, by dropping the ball during the battle itself.
Planet development hex minigame already feels like one such puzzle, and it's entertaining enough, even if the need to super-optimize comes up only on higher difficulty levels (only on Godlike, really).
One example I can immediately think of is Darkest Dungeon. Seems like a long-shot at first glance, but it's a game where turn-based combat doesn't get old and never ceases to present danger. Even some modern simulated trading card games may present some ideas, especially as far as multiplayer goes.
GC4 already has a solid base with many tiers of the three weapon types. Now it's a matter of imbuing every weapon tier with unique mechanics that can be used in making interesting combos in tailored ship and fleet builds and battle tactics, not just the current linear higher-damage/higher-cost. So that depending on your preferred combat practices, weapons and defenses higher up in the tech tree might not necessarily even be what you want. Rock-paper-scissors can stay, it just can't be the most complex aspect of combat.
Visually this could all be played out in the battle viewer, one not unlike what we have right now, with the full set of options to select and control existing both in the "live" 3D movie and through simplified ship icons. I think there's a way to show the ships as if they are constantly moving even though they are actually frozen within their turn, right?
And yeah, I know, as of right now all this isn't even top priority. At this point it's probably more pressing to make the AI stop the futile single-ship spam and start assembling larger fleets.
Agree!
I also don't think GC should have an RTS system as it really doesn't fit the current system in place, adds far more complexity, and slows downgameplay. It is mush simpler to modify the current system to be more interesting, while trying to add an intuitive nature.
I've stated this is a couple places, but I still think the best way to improve the combat system is by changing the way ship roles and ship sizes work, and maybe improving carriers.
This post I wrote awhile ago is still how I would change the combat system. I admit though this is just a first pass and would require a lot of testing
https://forums.galciv4.com/509104/page/1/#3830841
Complexity and fun aren't always travelling in the same cart, but this, and the post you linked to, are good food for thought.
I think this warrants its own reply, and I'm curious to see others thoughts on it, but I wanted to list what I see as the pros and cons of the current combat system.
Pros:
- Ship designer is absolutely incredible and provides nearly endless variety to battle cinematics. It also allows for custom ship load outs which makes each ship class special.
- The battle viewer allows us to veiw the battles in 3D and generally has pretty good pathing and movement of the ships to make it look good.
- Logistics system prevents the huge doomstacks that are pointless and annoying in other 4x games
- The Rock, Paper, Scissors weapon style works well, is simple and intuitive, and covers all the basics of space combat. GC4 also changed defenses to be more varied in the defense output which I appreciate.
- Battles are auto resolved without player input. I know some people hate this, but I don't want to try and command battles even through starting commands like Attack, Retreat, or Hold Stance. It would take a lot of time to get through the list of battles at the endgame. I want to be able to just move on with my turn. Fleet design and fleet movement is where the majority of the battle is fought. In chess, I don't play a mini game to see if my knight takes the rook.
Cons:
- Fleet design is lacking in variety and doesn't properly complement the ship designer and battle veiwer. The main issue is that an optimal fleet currently doesn't use multiple ship sizes, but work best when they're all the same size. This is in large part caused by ship speed and ship roles. The ship speed often get smaller ships destroyed before the larger ones can reach the combat zone. If we had reasons to build a fleet that used a mix of huge, large, medium, small, and tiny it would make battles look much more interesting. Look at real world naval fleet designs. Ex. Fighters escorting a Battleship, or Bombers protected by two Frigates that can lay down flak to destroy Interceptors.
- Ship roles are currently not well understood. The targeting system and pathing of the ships assigned different roles often leads to the loss of important ships. In one battle I assigned multiple small ships as escorts or guardians and a large ship as a capital ship. The enemy A.I. fleet destroyed the capital ship first which was the glass cannon I was trying to protect. The current system really makes it difficult to understand why a ship was targeted and why a battle progressed the way it did. I often assign each ship with the same role to avoid having them get singled out. The other problem is that it's really easy to separate the fleet into two halves that attack separately which drastically reduces the damage output of that fleet.
- The techs that give more slots to ships are uneven. Small ships receive the same number of new equipment slots as large ships which gives them more slots per logistic point gained from that tech. If the sizes are generally balanced at each tech, this is a small complaint that may not be important.
Thanks for listening to us Ron. Hope to see GC4 have just as long of life as GC3. New ship parts are always a huge plus for me in new DLC.
You're right, complexity does not equal fun. The current ship roles has quite a bit of complexity, but I'm not sure I consider them fun. They might be better if the information about what they do is more accessible and clear in game. I read a wiki post about how they work, but I struggled to make good use of that knowledge.
The goal is actually to make the system as simple as possible, while still complex enough to be entertaining.
The system I posted may be too complex especially if you can't find a way to make sure the the player is informed how they're choices affect the ships.
I just think it'd be a good way to change how fleet compositions work.
If there are people who are against RTS combat style. There is always auto resolve button.... duh. Complainers.
It's not that I don't love RTS style games. The Total War series does an incredible job with that style of gameplay. A 3D RTS would be much more difficult to make.
It's that I don't think the developers have the time to make a great rts space game. The work required to make this would be immense and I don't think it could be done on the budget they would have to work with.
I would rather see them focus on improving the current combat system
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