Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I'm going to evaluate every race's commander ships and offer some suggestions on how to make them a bit more unique/asymmetrical, so that each of the races has unique ships like that of the Humans or Baratak Grove.
Let's start with the Humans:
While the Victory is a bit boring, it does scale a decent missile attack per level. It feels like a good entry-level commander ship, so hiring a cheap leader to get in this one is usually best.
The extra research granted by the Curiosity is great. It's a great way to boost a bit of research. Perhaps it could scale with the leader's intelligence?
The Perseverance giving an approval bonus is unique. I think it should go a step further and provide a bonus to planets in a radius.
The Gaze is unique in giving a bonus to shields and beam attack. This ship is great.
The radius bonus from Hivebase One is more in line with what I'd like to see with the approval bonus above. This is a great ship and feels powerful enough to chase down the Ministry of Defense tech.
As a flagship, the Apex feels a bit weak. The -2 moves ability is weak. I'd love to see it affect other fleets' shields or something more significant and detrimental than the moving range for other ships.
I haven't yet seen how powerful the antimatter bomb is, but the radius feels a bit small to me. I'll have to get to it and see how effective this ship is.
Overall, the Humans have a decent commander ship set. The approval bonus is too little, IMHO, and the Apex is underpowered for the "Flagship", but the ships are better than some other races' ships. They also feel thematically in tune with who the Humans are. With some small tweaks, this lineup would be really great.
SIDE NOTE: As I'm writing these evaluations, I'm going to be playing as much as I can to actually TRY each of these ships out. I'd encourage other players who are interested in helping GalCiv 4 reach its true potential to leave their notes below. My goal is to make the commander ships interesting and unique to each race, offering more asymmetry for fewer manhour requirements.
These evaluations are subject to change as I start this testing process.
Up next...the Festron:
Another decent base-level ship and I appreciate the lack of logistics needs. It's nothing special, but it's a good entry-level commander ship.
The +100 credits per battle don't really feel thematic with the Festron. I think a bonus to food, which would insinuate that the occupants are harvesting the losers of the battle, would fit better.
From what Old Spider is saying, the capture ships aspect of this ship DOES NOT WORK. See below.
Again, the +1 Research aspect of this ship isn't *really* thematic, but if it's because the Festron are mutilating bodies or whatever to produce it, then I'm okay with it.
Its special isn't unique, but I don't mind some of the "ship powers" overlapping. This is a decent ship.
AGAIN, the CAPTURE SHIPS ability DOES NOT WORK. See below.
As the "ultimate ship" for the Festron, I'd like to see more here. Perhaps a special that adds a chance to adding a Festron citizen at the nearest colony? Something that feels more thematic with the whole "The Festron put eggs in aliens" theme.
The Festron don't feel thematic enough as it stands. Sure, the flavor text sounds a bit thematic, but the actual abilities of their ships either don't work (see Old Spider's post below), or they don't feel like ships operated by the space horrors that they're clearly intended to be.
Reserved for more ship feedback 2/5
Reserved for more ship feedback 3/5
Reserved for more ship feedback 4/5
Reserved for more ship feedback 5/5
This is a fantastic way of sharing design and balance feedback, and I encourage other community members to also participate and openly discuss their thoughts on the ships. I'll be periodically checking back in on this thread!
I think what you are doing is a good idea.
You, along with everyone else, need to be aware that some of the commander ships don't work right. I have found and reported one in the past, and I think others have also reported some that don't work. As far as I can tell, none was ever fixed.
With GalCiv4 Next being worked on, I decided to check several ships I thought had problems to see if they really did and if I could find the cause or causes of the problems. I would then try to fix them before reporting all the information so they can be officially fixed before the release of Next.
It is not obvious where I reported what I found, but they are in this post as replies #1 and #3. Some of the ships you have commented on are in my post as being broken or possibly broken.
I hope you and many others will try out as many commander ships as possible to find out if they really do what they are supposed to do. I plan to do more checking to see what works and doesn't work. I also encourage all to report what does work so that no one will have to wonder if that ship should be checked.
Does anyone even use commander ships? I just don't even use them.
Absolutely! "The Lash" heals completely after every successful battle. That is very useful for things like cleaning-out Ship Graveyards.
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