Dear devs,
Give yourselves a pat on the back because this last update deserves 5/5 stars! See ==> .
First, I want to point out the things that are really, really good.
1. I love the changes to citizens. Population levels are actually important now. I like that scientists and workers add to base influence, so that your influence is partially linked to your growth. This just makes sense. More citizens = more culture.
2. I love that you guys bundled up starbase modules into a 3-pack. Such a good idea!
3. I love the updates to map generation and the randomness of events. The game feels way more interesting!
4. I love the Luxar! (Haven't played the Phalenoids yet.)
5. I love how much easier it is to design new ships without making them look weird.
6. I love that the game seems to have way fewer bugs than it did a month ago.
There are still some things that need some improvement.
1. The Beacon of Babylon is O.P.A.F. Seriously, wtf.
Let me give some context. I started playing as the Luxar. I got Harmony Crystals on my home planet. I don't know if that always happens for the Luxar, but it happened for me. I also had a few influence-boosting tiles, so I decided to go ahead and build it. (Normally in the past I've avoided it because it boosted research instead of influence for some reason. Good job fixing that, btw.) I built four influence districts and the influence civ improvement (I forget what it's called). That gave me about 500 influence per turn on my home planet. I checked the home worlds of the other civs in my sector, and they were generating under 50 influence per turn. Once I was able to add some tiles to my planet, I built another influence district and the Hall of Unity. I also researched some of the influence boosting techs. That brought my home world influence up to just shy of 1000 per turn. I am still in mid game, but I have already annexed multiple core worlds from the Baratak. This is despite being in a large sector set to distant starting positions. It won't take long before I completely swallow up both the Baratak and the Mimots, the two other races in my sector. (I will post a pic when I do, so plz don't nerf it yet. )
2. The Starport is O.P.A.F. Seriously, wtf.
Okay, this one I actually understand. I like how it increases the pace of the game. It's just way too powerful. Build one next to a Colonial Generator, Supply Depot, and Power Plant, and you've got +65% military production. You can get even more with things like Stellar Forge, Helios Ore Refinery, and Governor's Mansion.
The worst part about it is that when you take over planets from other civs, you can tell the AI doesn't understand how to make the most of Starport, so they only get a 5-25% bonus. That's if they even build it at all.
Just with the +1 moves alone, it would still be essential (at least in the early game), so maybe try giving it a flat +20% to military with an additional 3% per level, or something similar.
3. I would really like some kind of in-game reference guide for all the Galactic Achievements. This way you could know what resources you will need to build them, or if they've already been built. This would also let you know exactly what certain Ideology Points (or whatever we're calling them) offer, so that you can make the right choice. Seriously, who has figured out what the Hyperion Shrinker thingy is actually for? The same goes for the unlockable Prestige improvements.
4. I've noticed sometimes the computer civs will just ignore colonizable planets right next door to them. Sometimes these planets are core-world material.
Very insightful analysis!
I forgot to mention a few things.
1. Most of the crime reduction improvements are useless. I will sometimes build the first one if I don't want to do Security Lights, but once you get a Minister of Justice, the improvements are all practically obsolete. I think it might be a mistake that the Minister of Justice reduces crime on the colonies, because that just wipes out crime completely. If he instead reduced crime on the core worlds, you'd still be left with some crime to deal with.
2. The Shadow Temple improvement is horrible. Why would I pay 1 maintenance to get 1 Diplomatic Capital? It doesn't make sense.
Yea...I've been feeling the same about both the Beacon and the Starport. But mean, I just love them so much and was hoping no one would notice how OP t hey were.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into how we can make those...more balanced.
Thought I'd post an update on BoB (Beacon of Babylon).
I decided to play with zero military aggression just to see what I could accomplish with culture alone. I find this style of play a little boring, so I'm not sure if I will continue this game.
By turn 134, I have completely taken over my sector, which used to include the Baratak and Mimots.
Here is a picture of the final build of my home planet:
As you can see, I am generating a ton of culture. Things didn't really get crazy until I terraformed some extra tiles around BoB to get the level higher.
I'm at level 16!
I also added some cultural starbases and supplemented my Collectivism with a few Egalitarian traits. Here's all the info:
The Egalitarian traits:
A broader view of the explored universe:
If I were to continue, I think I could easily win on culture alone.
So yeah, BoB is OP right now.
Final thought: The game gets a little tedious when you have so many ships and planets to manage later into the game. It might be nice to have the ability to automate certain features.
I don't know what those two starbases giving +343% and +4 raw are but those seem to be a bigger issue than you building a once in the galaxy structure from that picture. Maybe BoB needs to be lower than +80 but those two are doing a lot of heavy lifting here too.
Starbases of the same type stacking is a real problem for the Communications Starbase due to the extremely high payoff per colony per module. The Economic Starbase stacking is not really an issue, as the research and manufacturing payoff are decent for a core world, but don't scale particularly well with extra colonies due to a lack of flat income boost.
Those are cultural starbases that are fully upgraded. They provide a measly 4 to raw influence, whereas my BoB is providing 80. (You probably missed it because for some reason the raw influence from BoB doesn't show up on the tooltip.) 80 raw and 300% boost is a much bigger boost than 4 and 343%. If it weren't for BoB's insane boost to raw influence the cultural starbases wouldn't be an issue. They are balanced by the fact that it is very expensive to level them up this far.
+4 Influence may seem low, but it is +4 per colony, so adds up if you use spores to have a 5-6 planet system. This can be multiplied by using multiple bases. Very expensive, but very worth it - I'm getting somewhere near 7000 from one system. The stacking nature of it is an issue as it is strong enough, with very little the opposition can do to counter it (the planet can be deep in your territory). The AI can't deal with it, but a player could with a strike squad.
Also, it's Durantium and modules it mostly uses, so not niche resources at all.
Perhaps this is something that can be worked on? The AI creating purpose driven strike fleets. That would set GalCiv apart from every other strategy game I have ever played.
Perhaps, but even for a player, succeeding when launching a strike fleet aimed to hit deep inside the enemy's territory is a hard ask, especially when the strike requires you to get there with a fleet able to kill 10-20 starbases (no reason they can't have defense modules).
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