Supernova game review and comments:

Hi all,

As an old hand Galciv 2 and 3 player, and buyer of the early access GalCiv4 game on Epic and participant in the test phase of the game, I’d like to leave a review and comments after transferring to Steam with the Supernova edition.

First of all, I want to emphasize how much better this game has gotten over time. As my many comments and requests on the game might appear very negative to some, I really insist on mentioning that the game has improved by leaps and bounds. I stopped playing about a year ago after encountering an infinite loop bug in two consecutive games that made very advanced games unplayable. I’m very happy to see that this has NOT happened to me yet 😉

I especially like the improvements on the cultural progression panel, they feel much more rounded out now and better presented. Diplomacy seems clearer than base Galciv4, still not perfect but better. Combat remains complex but well fleshed out. There are things I wonder about, like the different win conditions and how to achieve them, as I won a prestige victory in my sole game, but I feel this is more because I need to play more games than anything.

I will group my comments/gripes by general subject, starting with what appears to me as most important;

Quality Of Life (QOL)/UI improvements sorely needed (imho):

• -        Cultural Progression panel is missing a lot of info/details in the descriptions. As many choices to be made imply getting access to specific named Improvements, Techs and Ships, it’s highly unreasonable to expect the player to know and remember each and every one of them. So: Please add a mouseover link on all of them so that we are adequately informed about our choices instead of taking them blindly
• -        Eject ship on a planet should send the ship(s) down on the map, and NOT up and left where they will be hidden by the planet name. SO annoying. Also, Focus should be placed on those ships after being ejected, instead of staying on the planet
• -        When I’m sent to the planet screen because there are no build orders, I would really appreciate having the interface remind me what the LAST build order was for that planet. With 1-5 planets it’s possible to remember them, at over 30 planets it isn’t. I’d really like to know what I was working on when I last came to that planet
• -        The trade panel is hidden within the Civilization panel. WHY ? It took me forever to even find it, it’s completely unintuitive. These two panels should be separated and accessible from main UI.

Requests:

• -        The right side of the planet panel need some love; First, I would like the buildings grouped by type of improvement and maybe even a specialty button to filter in those we want and out those we don’t ? Secondly, district placement is Unintuitive. I have to remind myself of their existence, that shouldn’t happen. Maybe a portion of this right side of the panel could be dedicated to district icons ? BTW, I love the change in 2.01 when I pick up an improvement the levels are shown in the polygon tiles… great add, very nice touch.
• -        It’s annoying that there’s no way to remind yourself what game setup you used when you started your current game. It would be nice to have a way to see what Galaxy and Game setting you used, the # of opponents chosen etc… because a game can last quite a long time and we forget those things. Suggestion: Have those infos available upon mouseover on save games ?
• -        Seriously, no Hall of Fame ? Please, it’s important to have an history of game played, type of wins, civ used, number of turns etc…
• -        A real fleet management panel would be nice. When you get to 20+ ships in a fleet, the icons become so small and managing your fleet becomes very tedious.

Bugs and weaknesses:

• -        Navigators are unable to make treaties all game long. That is NOT stated in game creation screen and it IS a big deal
• -        Achievement for win as navigator doesn’t work
• -        Search options in Galactapedia and Tech Library are next to useless. You have to specifically enter a subject name or a tech name. If not, nothing. What we need is to be able to search for a specific subject, like LOGISTICS in the tech library, and have the search list all the techs that impact Logistics.

Finally, I think the game is fantastic, I'm convinced that it will evolve into a gem, thanks for all the fun !