Nice GC3 is getting better and better.

Thanks. Keep up the good work

Yes, very nice email and nice to know as an Elite that when I get home from work in about 100 minutes these updates have auto installed and I can play.

Extremely disappointing patch Stardock.

Perhaps you need to hold off on DLC until you've addressed the many numerous flaws in the base game that the forum threads and reviews on Steam are littered with.  A few extra buttons on the planet queue, governors that most competent players won't care to use and a destination window that's probably harder to use than clicking on the tactical map in most circumstances is not the progress I was hoping for.

It's been months since the games release I was hoping for vastly more progress than you've made so far.  It would seem you don't have enough developers working on the game to make DLC and address the flaws with micromanagement, AI, Diplomacy, Economy, Starbases etc. in a reasonable time frame based on the first three patches, you've barely made a dent in any of these areas.  The game still feels as if it is a Beta/Alpha even.  Not what I expected for my $45.  I'm sure Paul is working very hard, how about giving him some more help, more staff on his team so people like me aren't complaining about the lack of progress still in a years time. 

Love the game & still having fun but must agree with MacsenLP.  Disappointed that SD does not seem to be focused on bug fixes at all.  Time spent on governors would have been better spent  any place else. It is very painful to watch them build out a planet in what appears to be a brain dean random walk. E.g.  quality 14, bonus manf. and food tiles available,  Gov placed 5 manf. buildings with only 2 being adjacent - none on the bonus tile, a solar plant in an isolated area when a super central location was available, two farms not placed adjacent and not on the bonus tile.

This patch here is an inch of micromanagement progress with a mile to go. I like how "fleet management improvements" means cleaning up the ship list and making a new waypoint window. Eh, I guess it's something. Looks like we need to wait until 1.4 in October to see what they do in place of the planetary wheel, then 1.5 in November to see what the plan is for starbase and constructor management. Another two months of this game sitting in my steam library unplayed.

What is truly revealing in this patch is just how bad the AI is at managing its planets, a core component of a strong economy. When you took over planets you got a glimpse at what the AI was doing with those super important tile and adjacency bonuses...not much. Now that we get to see the AI build improvements turn by turn, I am flabbergasted. It's as if, with 6 open tiles, the AI rolls a six-sided die to decide where the next improvement on its build list is supposed to go. This is alpha-quality fill-in AI at work, and that is why it is trivial to stomp the non-cheating AI. Thankfully, we're only a few months away from this game leaving beta, so maybe by the end of the year the game will be playable for fun.

This!

I read your review on Steam recently Eviator, it was really good thinking of doing one myself.

Any possibility of a return of "additional" terraform buildings?

It's clearly not a criticism of the effort, it is a criticism of the result. Of what you have here, none of us will experience or notice all of it, and many of us won't experience or notice much of it. Yet we all have to deal with the frustration of starbase and constructor management, and somehow it appears to be a pretty low priority given nothing has been done about it yet. How does generating 3D-print designs get done at least 2 patches before starbase micro improvements? Only one of those things has something to do with "is it fun?"

I work half as hard as you guys, and my results are good enough, whereas you guys are held to a standard of near perfection. It sucks, but it's true. Your job is hard, yet I hope you enjoy doing it because we reap the benefits of that joy. Do you have enough developers to meet gameplay requests AND work on DLC? From where I sit, Paul and his team are overloaded and cannot adequately devote time to both.

Quick turn-around for the patch!

I'm used to patches taking forever with most my other games -- great stuff!

With that response the feelings mutual...

There was a significant improvement around Beta 5 and 6 but the Base game 1.0 wasn't great.  Look Gal Civ 3 is an ok game but it could be so much better, it's 5 months since release and the game has micromanagement issues, AI issues, diplomacy issues, Economy problems, constructor spam and more, that the patches released since have barely put a dent in, despite the arguably long patch list.  It's simply not that big an improvement to 1.0. imo.

Your steam user review is 76% is that what Stardock qualifies as good, it's pretty average imo?  I doubt it would be that high if Stardock hadn't encouraged people to write positive reviews, yours is the first game I've ever had try to get me write a review, would you have done that if it was 90%?  Parts of this community have genuine concerns about the games progress or lack of.  Perhaps we are asking too much and should just shut up but I'd rather give you feedback whether than makes your blood boil or not.  1.3 was neither rapid or much of a response to the feedback left on these forums which you've been receiving since alpha not just 1.0. and yes 1.4 and 1.5 supposedly will work a lot on areas that people have complained about but I really feel that you've failed to prioritize fixing the key issues that your game currently has.  $5 DLC seems to be more important.

Speaking of full disclosure how many people are currently working on the game?  How many full time?  Perhaps they are doing a great job but there's not enough of them doing it.  Your efforts on the AI have been noticeable but the game has so many flaws in other areas it's no longer fun to play once you become aware of them.  I've been playing Gal Civ since Gal Civ 1 and bought Gal Civ 1 and 2 both on release they were great games I hope that Gal Civ 3 will be too.

Fair enough and well reasoned. I applaud your efforts to keep improving the game experience in the ways you deem most beneficial to your primary player base. I hope you can understand that at times I do not feel I fall into that category, and I base my reviews and feature requests on my personal gameplay experience, not that of the primary player base.

 FYI the AI section of my review was written back in 1.0, and I have not played he game enough since due to the other issues to post an update on the AI. Trust me, when the game reaches the fun stage for me, I will completely rewrite my review.

Much of the marketing for the game mentioned the fact that you can have immense galaxies with hundreds of planets and over a hundred civilizations.  You shouldn't be surprised if people who bought the game for that reason currently have a problem, Most of the map sizes suffer from significant micromanagement issues.  A certain amount of people might be playing on smaller maps than they otherwise would because of micromanagement issues.  I haven't played a map larger than huge personally.

Would be great if the sorting of ships in the shipyard list had been updated after three patches.  There was mention of 600 ships causing a bug where some are lost/deleted in one of the streams.  Currently sorting through 20 ships is a pain let alone 600.  How many people actually play a campaign?  I doubt talking squirrel campaigns are what most people want, perhaps that got in to keep Paul happy  

Whether or not certain things like DLC/3D printing have small engineering times (can it really be zero?) can you really be surprised that people might take issue with certain things still  not being fixed/improved 5 months after release?  Many of the criticisms you've received effect every player not just a select few who play certain settings or in a certain way.  There's 554 negative reviews on Steam for a reason.

Perhaps you're right to feel harshly judged, but when I compare Stardock's Beta to the Pillars of Eternity Beta and how they responded to feedback or the patches and DLC that Paradox have released for EUIV, for whatever reason they've done a much better job imo.  Perhaps they are unfair comparisons, but many people will hold you to the standards other companies reach with their games, when evaluating your game and making criticisms.