I don't know how everyone else is doing, but I'm having a really hard time managing colonies and ship building. We really need to have some sort of notification as to when a ship is completed or when a planet has completed everything in it's queue, even if the planet is doing an economic, growth, or whatever boost.
The thing I hate the most is that I never know when my ships are completed. I have to check all my planets (which gets old when you have even 15) to see if any more ships were built, and then mouse over all the little icons to tell which are the ones I need to 'EJECT'. I really hate that word by the way. It just doesn't fit here.
The other problem is when you 'EJECT' (still hate it) several ships from orbit, they automatically create a fleet. I really don't like this, but I love the visual fleet movement, it is very, very polished and fluid (wait, this is an alpha?). An even bigger problem is when I 'EJECT' (hate) 3 ships from a planet, two form a fleet and the other just says "screw you guys" and doesn't join that fleet. The auto fleet forming script needs to make up it's mind.
The planetary structures need to auto upgrade themselves. I have to go through each planet and upgrade them manually. This is one of the few things that we need a governor for. Speaking of which...
We need planetary governors back. And smart ones too. Those adjacency bonuses make me think three times before placing structures (this is good, but takes a lot of time if you have many planets).
Previous generation structures need to be hide-able. I'm only 100 turns in and this is getting ridiculous. I have a hard time (especially as I don't know the look of all the structures and their bonuses) distinguishing the new structures from the old. There are also too many pictures/structures on the right of the screen. This is another reason ship production needs to be moved else ware.
Precursor/planetary tile bonuses are very confusing. I like that certain tiles give multiple bonuses (depending on what you construct there), but I wish that their picture coincided with the bonuses they confer. A picture that before gave morale bonuses (in GalCiv2) now gives tourism and industry boosts? I can understand from the description of the tile, but I have to mouse over each one and weigh my choices. Either these pictures need to only cover one bonus (have multiple pictures per tile) or the same picture needs to be divided up to show a tourism/industry bonus (a light green palm tree and an orange gear, respectively). Banking could be a yellow coin, culture the same light blue... thing, farming the same dark green wheat grass, and research the same purple triangle (all +1). You could then have different pictures for the +2 and +3 bonuses, but pictures that are relatively the same.
Keep up the good work Stardock! This alpha is one heck of an alpha!
I agree across all points, but I find it likely that these were all planned for a future build.
I thought as much, especially as most were in effect in GalCiv2, but I wanted to voice them. Don't want anyone forgetting them!
You're right.
Imagine an immense galaxy with no governors, notifications or rally points *Shivers*
Those are obviously something that will be implemented in the future. In the meantime solutions are either build things one at a time as in dont queue stuff or check the planet list on the right every turn. It is still rather manageable since maps are small.
agreed... great idea...
Agreed, I made the point about improvement/ship completion notifications in another post before I saw this one.
I agree that notifications are missed, however, I find it much cleaner to use the turn button for these. I like how the turn button changes to idle ship or idle planet. If new ships were flagged as idle the first turn after they were built that would work. Then you could select "defend colony" or something to keep it from popping up idle again.
I also agree that "eject" is a poor choice of word. Simply using "launch" would suffice and sound better.
The turn button changing is good. Its a lot like what Civ 5 does. And YES. Launch is the perfect word. I wonder why they chose 'eject'?
Especially if they're going to have 100+ civs in a single galaxy.... It's literally life sized.
The problem with using the turn button is that it takes you to an idle planet without telling what that planet just built. The most serious problem with this is that the ships in orbit are not currently shown on the planet management screen, so you can't see that this planet just built a ship that should be launched. A more minor problem is that you might have a specific set of improvements you want for this planet and it would help to know which one you just finished. In a tiny or small galaxy this is not a big problem, but in a huge galaxy you might have to be managing hundreds of planets.
If the planet screen were changed to display what the planet just completed, and you could launch ships (or easily get to someplace you could launch ships), then I'd be a lot happier using the turn button.
It seems I am the only one who kind of enjoy the ''Eject'' spaceship
Yeah It sounds more as though you are taking the trash out rather than deploying a spaceship but for some reason I think it fits with the GalCiv weirdly humorous theme.
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly but I get a little shield icon show up on my planets in the planet list on the right once a ship is built, admittedly I have no defensive ships so it makes it easy to scan for (you don't need any defense in this current alpha iteration cos the enemy has the AI of a kumquat ). Just saying.
I think our desktops are a ways away from simulating hundreds of billions of stars and trillions of planets.
Still one can dream.
Admittedly the Kumquat at first made me nervous since its survey ship found a cutter which immediately attacked my own lost precursor cutter, and they also expanded pretty fast. Then I realized they don't move warships, realized that the cutter was probably exploring when I attacked it, and that their rapid expansion is offset by reduced population on their capitol.
Your kumquat must have been riper than mine
15 isn't that much to look at. At least in full screen mode. That menu to the right is quite nice. But I do agree, specially when kicking ships from the planet.
Being able to tell a governor to auto-update them for you is ok. On the other hand, to autoupdate them by default is not so much of my liking. I prefer to chose when, where and what I do upgrade. Personal choice here. Even if in the long run I upgrade everything.
But basically, I do agree with you. Surely that is stuff that will end in the game because of how "basic" it seems.
One the largest map size is released, it needs some serious testing by micromanage lovers and not-so-fond-of-micromanagement players. I like to micromanage my planets one by one but never played bigger than huge galaxy (I think) in GalCivII because I'd go nuts.
Completelly agrred with this:
"The thing I hate the most is that I never know when my ships are completed. I have to check all my planets (which gets old when you have even 15) to see if any more ships were built, and then mouse over all the little icons to tell which are the ones I need to 'EJECT'. I really hate that word by the way. It just doesn't fit here."
It is really annoying! I built a ship, then does not saw it, so it staied on the planet for...I don't know 10-15 Turns. Then I just remembered...oh, I had built one ship. Ok, lets search it.
Eject should goes atomatically (or at least prefered in preferences).
If you're playing correctly and plan ahead, there isn't much micromanagement required on immense maps at all :3
You just need to specialize your manufacturing worlds, que everything en masse and deploy rally points in critical locations. Those three things cut through micro like a knife.
Automatic launching isn't sufficient. Sure, I might want some planets to automatically launch the warships they have just completed, but I don't necessarily want defensive ships launched, nor do I want transports automatically launched (I might want to wait until the planet has sufficient people to load them).
GC2 had a per planet auto-launch setting, which was nice, but notification of ship completion is still necessary.
Seems like only yesterday that I read a developer's journal article stating that planet specialization wasn't necessarily going to be an optimum strategy in GC3.
I don't think you're understanding me, or maybe you never played GC2 on a large or huge map. Imagine that you DO need to have defensive ships, and that the planet list is over a hundred planets long. Do you still want to leave all of your planets defenseless just so that you can tell when you've built a new ship? Even when the AI has advanced from a kumquat to a Frogboy?
Publius of NV I was simply trying to highlight I have an indication when a ship was built in the alpha that was all - I wondered whether it was a glitch for your PC.
Best would be, if we could set this "automatic" build and upgrade on planet, (system), or empire level.
Planetary, if you would like to set for each planet some different governor. Or empire, if you say...ok, now everybody do a research, or upgrade everything...etc.
Agreed, especially the ship building. Even though I read Brad's feedback document I was still wondering where my ships where after I built them...
Yes, I think the word eject is totally wrong here. You eject CDs, DVDs, Cassettes (yes, I'm showing my age and won't dare mention 8 Tracks), and unruly customers/patrons, but ships (space and other types) you ALWAYS launch. Thought it was totally weird when I first saw it and hope that it changes as it doesn't seem humorous in the least to me. Words have meaning that are agreed upon, lets' stick with what we have, shall we? No need to reinvent to stick here.
I never fully took advantage of rally points. I will be sure to do that in this game!
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