Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

[bonscott]

Originally posted by Solver
With the combat system, though... I think I get it. For example, you have beams, which the AI counters with shields. That's fine. But what if I have a tech lead and my beams are a couple of levels above the AI's armor. Does that mean I'm going to run him over?

Perhaps, but what if at the same time the AI weapons is very high in missles to which you have no or little defense? Now the AI can cut through your ships. Who can do the most damage first then is what it would come down to.

So far in my games on Tough+ the AI seems to do very well in countering my weapons/defense combo. In my current game I was going up the mass drivers tree. During my first war I was doing well and then the AI started adding in Armor defense (which negates Mass Drivers). I notice the AI's at my border start to do the same. Now my ships are still winning but at great losses.
I declare peace.
I beeline up the beam weapon tree up to Plasmas. Now in my followup war I cut through the AI like butter.
Next on my list are the Drath and my beams cut through him too BUT he is also high in beam weapons so I take losses as I develop some shields.
Once I get some of those I do much better. I wipe out much of his fleets.
Then what do I see come out of his home systems?
18 *missle* attack, 12 beam defense ships, all in fleets.
Holy cr@p! Sure I have 16 beam attack but I can't counter that. He rips me a new one with the missles.
So I need to beeline up the missle defense tree to try to counter. I also work up the missle tree to get harpoons but will continue up the beam tree as well? Why? I find that combined arms works very well. So if I can get a mix of ships, some beam specialists and some missle specialists and perhaps a nearly pure defender then that's a fleet that can do some all around damage.

I haven't gotten high enough in the weapon tree to see if it's best to keep going up one tree to the end. Probably. But it's a strat I haven't needed to try yet.

[bonscott]

Originally posted by Solver

So I assume the Good vs. Evil thing in GalCiv2 can work sort of like religious blocs in Civ4?

Yes, it does for the most part. Leaning good or evil does have other issues tied to it other then getting cool techs. In general you'll have worse relations with the opposite civs. One thing you might find is if you are Evil that the Altarans or Torians might just declare war on you to "cleanse" the galaxy of your evil and for not other reason. If you are good the Drengin or Yor will constantly pick on you in the same way.

So yes, civ relations have a lot to do with your alignment. So for example if I have a lot of good civs around me then it makes me think twice about taking the evil choice with random events, assuming I don't want to war with them early on.

[yin26]

Indeed. The religion comparison is apt. As for a Civ game...

"Sire, Solver sent up compliments!"

"He did? I smell a trap."

"But he has always been so honest and steady."

"Have you forgotten it's because of him I ate a game box?"

"You're right! So what should we say?"

"Contact Sirian and tell him he will be "Yin" for a few hours against Solver."

"Dastardly!"

"Then send him a copy of GalCiv2 to ease his pain."

"And then have Sirian beat him again in an MP game of GalCiv2? Brilliant!"

"No, no MP in GalCiv2...but Sirian's 'Yin Metaverse' account is already warming up."

"That's why you're the boss!"

[Solver]

You know, having Sirian, you and me in a MP game probably would be quite a show. The three of us are SP gamers, both you and I have even said some things about MP at one point or another... and Sirian plays at a pace that is called the "Sirian speed". Would be good fun .

[yin26]

Well, I'd be honored to play you guys. I'd want to brush up on my Civ4 skills, though, as I haven't loaded a game in about a month.

[Solver]

I've always said that MP isn't about winning but about having fun - and I've said that even in games that are (IMO) more competitive by nature than Civ4. Like AoE2. Yes, I'm a veteran of it.

I don't play Civ4 MP vs. random people in the lobby. For me, playing MP is partially a social occasion - I play people I know, like others from the Civ4 test crew or forumers. So I'd also be honored to play you, just to enjoy a fun game for a couple of hours, no matter who wins.

If we also get Sirian in, we could have one long chat while he moves his Workers .

[Sirian]

Actually I was the first TBS game ladder champion on the web, racking up 51-0 before my first loss. The game was Deadlock, fall 1996, during my first "Descent burnout" phase. MOO2 came out for Christmas and all of us on Kali who were Deadlock players had HIGH hopes for it. The entire ladder elite quit Deadlock en masse and moved to MOO2, which was a PITA to get working and had really awful netcode, plus the whole nightmare of unbalanced races and racial picks.

I've just kind of been there and done that with TBS MP play. (Civ3 MP players who have 1000+ logged games boggle my mind.) Also, Deadlock was a simpler game, chesslike in its strategy and precision. I really liked its rhythms and the fact that there was so little to have to micromanage. You didn't have to formulize your play to get through a game.

I'm only a journeyman RTS player because I dislike repetition and canned gameplay. You have to can your gameplay to make good decisions one after the next in rapid fashion for an hour on end, with no pausing.


The real reason why I'm slow at Civ is that my training is now to pay attention to all the details instead of glossing over them. I find I can't just turn that off like a switch. I'm more interested at this point in being an efficient game designer than in being an efficient game player. So I spend a lot of energy smelling all the flowers and cataloguing various elements in my mind.


As for GalCiv good and evil, the Good is stronger than yin is crediting. In fact, in GalCiv1, the smartest way to play on high difficulty was to identify the biggest immediate military threat and suck up to them forthwith by leaning your alignment to match theirs. Then you'd survive to the middle game and probably win.

In GC1, there were two clear factions. Always the Torians and Altarians were buddy-buddy and would form a tight alliance. You could join them, or not. The Drengin and Yor would be more opportunistic. Even if you were Evil they would prey on you if you were weak, and so the "advantages" of getting planetary and event bonuses were negated by the less-cohesive nature of the Evil Bloc. There were also the Arceans, neutral, who would end up leaning one way or the other in the end, and so offered a wildcard. If they leaned the same way as the Human, it would be four on two and USUALLY that was pretty easy. Occasionally it was not. If they leaned the other way, it would be three on three and on high difficulty, Human was handicapped so his triumvirate would always be the weaker one and it was GAME ON.

By far the biggest thing lost in GalCiv2 is diplomatic cohesiveness. The AIs now cut you more slack on starting wars (they are not as hardcoded to hate you). This is good in reducing the "only right choice" of HAVING to suck up, to buy good relations at whatever the price because you HAD TO survive that early vulnerable phase to compete in the game. You pretty much had to avoid war with your closest neighbor at all costs, any costs, or you lost. Period. BUT once past that phase, there were two strong (and strongly motivated) blocs and the situations were dynamic, simple and clear, and often compelling. That was GC1. In GC2, the wars between good and evil are now between one pair of civs, or two pairs of civs, or two vs two, with the majority of the neutral civs sitting back doing nothing.

Adding more civs has only dilluted what was the finest military bloc system ever provided in the genre. Gone is the compelling politics of HAVING to choose your bloc wisely. Gone is the tension of having to try to reverse course if your bloc gets its butt kicked. Gone is having to fight a REAL war vs a (usually) distant rival power, with your allies giving you ships to help you fight. Now it is much more like Civ3, with almost no diplomatic cohesion to speak of. Good civs will still align with you if you are Good, but there are only two of them. (That's still half the galaxy if you play with only the original six GC1 races, but it's less than a third of the galaxy with the full compliment of GC2 races.)

The diplomatics in GC2 have left something important behind: real blocs. Most of the AIs now are independent agents. Nobody, and I mean NO BODY, came to any of my targets' aid in my max difficulty game of GC2. I simply picked them off one at a time in isolation. It was like Civ3 on its worst day. Brad really needs to do SOMEthing to bring back ethical and diplomatic tensions and cohesion. It is the clear lack of meaningful alliances among the AIs and between player and AIs that is most hurting the end game. Divided they fall.


- Sirian

[Solver]

I was half-joking about your slowness . BTW, Yin, yeah, don't forget that Sirian is one hardcore man, he's also a record-holder in those coin game automats... and a definite gaming professional. Oh, and a Half-Life ass-kicker.

If GC2 doesn't have blocs, though, it's a shame. Trading/diplomatic blocs is one of the most important achievements of Civ4, of that I'm convinced.

[Sirian]

There is one other thing that GC1 has lost.

There was an "only right choice" for the order in which to build the planetary improvements. Bad, right? No, not in this case. You could pull up a canned list of items, a governor list that you could tailor, so that planets always built this then that. The marginal stuff you could leave under manual control.

It was Fire and Forget! I'd apply the List to all my planets and then never touch them again. This left zero of my attention on micromanaging the planets. I actually used to play with Autoturn on, moving from one turn to the next in rapid fire fashion. I'd play whole games in a day or so, in many cases.

In GC2, now the planets have different paths, opening up more gameplay but also requiring players to manage the planets more. Strangely, I'm finding that to be a pain, most especially with wasted overflows.


The lesson here is that even fun stuff needs a glossy slick interface and help with automation tools. Stuff that has literally only one right answer can be intelligently automated, if the player is allowed to set the order of operations.

Anyway, GC2 has lost some of the simplicity that held GC1 together. With this glue gone, something else has to rise to take its place.


- Sirian

[Gufnork]

In my opinion GC2 does have blocs, quite defined such at that. Maybe it's the way I play, but in every single game these two blocs have formed:

Dratha
Altarians
Torians
Terrans
Thalans

Drengin
Yor
Arceans
Korx
Iconians

Every game. They're not all at war with each other at once, but every time I play good I'm just waiting for Drengin or Yor to declare on me (usually both at the same time. A few turns after the opportunistic Korx declare. Arceans and Iconians vary when they declare, but I know they will. I've never seen Arceans or Iconians go good and never seen Terrans or Thalans go bad.

[Solver]

Judging by the above post, my first impression of GalCiv2: why can't they call the civs something I can remember?

[yin26]

Game update:

One measure I have for a game is how well I get punished for cocky play. I was happy, when not paying attention to diplomacy and careful planning of attacks, that I got triple teamed. This had me *really* on the ropes. I was a bit disappointed, though, that each civ seemed to count only its own situation relative to me instead of me relative to all comers. That is, the AIs should see all 3 civs attacking me as helping each others cause (a feeding frenzy), but because I was ahead of one civ in tech, etc., I bought peace. The Yor then quit the war, I guess because they were in trouble back home (fair enough), and the Drengin were bought off with some tech.

Of course, I am crippled. I lost 4 planets (more cities than I think I've lost in Civ once I got good at playing it, though I'm not very good at GalCiv yet, so keep that in mind). I'm curious to see if I can gather myself and take those planets back. Nevertheless, it's great that the AI even got me this bad.

[yin26]

Originally posted by Sirian
You could pull up a canned list of items, a governor list that you could tailor, so that planets always built this then that. The marginal stuff you could leave under manual control.

I had forgotten the feature. Bring it back!

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26

I had forgotten the feature. Bring it back!

Of course you know that isn't possible in the new environment, because build choices need to account for planet size, planet specials, and the current state/trend of your spending vs economy, plus your need for more startship building worlds, or research centers, or even a place to go for a few wonders.




- Sirian

[yin26]

It would be harder, for sure, but let's think about it:

build choices need to account for planet size

That's just another way of saying "number of workable tiles." That still wouldn't change the fact that I might *always* want my first builds to be labs, for example. Even if we didn't get fancy about it ("Use first 30% of available tiles for labs, etc."), I'd still be happy with a "dumb" template that would fit for most of my planets, at least for many turns to come, after which time I'd micro.

planet specials

"When possible, place build on appropriate special bonus tile first."

and the current state/trend of your spending vs economy

That's always a concern best left to micro anyway. A template just serves its rudimentary purpose (well, actually)

plus your need for more startship building worlds, or research centers, or even a place to go for a few wonders.

Again, the micromanagers should still fare better than blind adherents to templates, but I'd be willing to be less optimal in my games if I lost some micro baggage (micro I could always devle back in to as needed).

Now, is this the biggest fish for Brad to fry? No. He has a host of other AI and UI issues that are more important. But I think this template idea could still work well and would make many people pretty happy.

[Sirian]

OK, so you're actually not kidding. Heh.

In GC2, I visually bunch like items when possible. This makes it easier to "read" the planet at a glance. Also, the critical part of managing planets is knowing when to do something special with them, such as leaving open slots for wonders and trade goods, or when NOT to use a planet special, as well as when to bend a whole planet around its special. If you are taking evil planet bonuses, you may also be swayed by the need to take advantage of them, putting more factories on worlds with starship production bonus, more labs on worlds with research bonus, etc.

Templates are not a good idea when that many variables are in play. For proof, just look at the AI planets. Somebody advised new players to look at what the AI does, but I would advise new players to look at what the AI does as a general example of what NOT to do! (I certainly do not build Orbital Fleet Managers on more than a handful of worlds under special circumstances, and I never build ground troop defense boosts. If you can't win in space, you've got the wrong game plan operating!)


- Sirian

[yin26]

Well, I doubt we'll see the idea implemented anyway. I just think it was a great feature, and if lazy gamers like me who generally are allergic to mirco management want to have less optimized but faster games, so be it! At least the buildings and tiles auto upgrade. Mad props to Brad for that one!

[bonscott]

v 1.1 update development plans have been posted (it's right on the home page). A couple things that have been mentioned in this thread that are included:

The ability to set a given planet as a technology, research, ship building or balanced planet, . NOT like the overall focus. It would literally add a 9% boost to a given type (or 3%, 3%, 3%).

Fleet Manager screen.

MAJORLY updated AI (not to make it tougher, to make it smarter at higher levels and dumber -- i.e. poor strategies -- at lower levels)

Unused Social Spending routed to military spending (or back to treasury if nothing is being used)

No Tech Trading option

[yin26]

EDIT: Ah, I see. These are the plans for release at the end of the month. Gives me time to finish a few more games. Can't wait!

Well, I plan to run home, use my unique serial number for the new content (you know, the system that means there is no copy protection but thieves don't get the updates), and play these awesome updates!

Very impressive. I think "No tech trading" alone will radically change the play. Can't wait!

[Solver]

If I read it correctly that's just a planned update under development currently.

I think, though, that if Brad is reading this thread, he can get quite a few good suggestions for improvement .

EDIT: I really appreciate the policy of Stardock regarding updates, though. It always feels very nice to play a game for which you know that updates are going to be released.

I also really like Brad's stand on the CD protection issue. I have done enough research in the area and am sort of involved, and I agree with Brad completely .

[Sirian]

Originally posted by bonscott
1. The ability to set a given planet as a technology, research, ship building or balanced planet, . NOT like the overall focus. It would literally add a 9% boost to a given type (or 3%, 3%, 3%).

2. Unused Social Spending routed to military spending (or back to treasury if nothing is being used)

Why jump through hoops? These complicate matters, where simplification is warranted. Why not eliminate waste from overflows? That's the problem.

Always target the root cause.


If this is the direction, I may not update (or play any more in the near future). The LAST thing I want is for roadblocks to be thrown in my way, making the gameplay more tedious instead of less. I literally lean from one 100% spending spree to the next, yet all of Brad's changes imply that he expects players to play like the AI, always with some spending in each category. That is NOT an efficient way to play.

The only reason 100% spending leans are not the norm in Civ is that Civ forces a divide on you, shields vs commerce. Civ forces balance on you. GalCiv deliberately ignores balance in favor of empowering the player to choose. GalCiv gives you one currency and lets you choose when to put it to shields and when to put it to beakers or cash. If Civ let you do that... Well, never mind. It should be obvious enough, anyway.

I'll wait until Brad sorts it out, and simply accept whatever happens. I wish him well. I'm sure he's under a lot of pressure now, and I KNOW how stressful it is to deal with people out in the open. He's got far more stamina than I do in that regard.


- Sirian

[Stuie]

Doesn't Sirian live in a cabin (wired for **** obviously) in the-middle-of-nowhere western PA?

= too much free time.

[yin26]

Sirian:

Is your point that the game is too easy to exploit?

[Sirian]

Yin: No. The point is that the game has too many interface problems already and these two changes will add two more, without fixing anything.

- Sirian

[yin26]

I must be missing something (keep in mind I'm a lazy gamer!):

1. The ability to set a given planet as a technology, research, ship building or balanced planet, . NOT like the overall focus. It would literally add a 9% boost to a given type (or 3%, 3%, 3%).

I agree I don't understand this one. If it's not like overall focus, what is it? Is this an added bonus or another way of distributing what's already there? I think Sirian might win this one...

2. Unused Social Spending routed to military spending (or back to treasury if nothing is being used)

I don't see how this is bad other than "not fixing waste" to begin with. While I obviously agree with just getting rid of waste (as Civ 4 has done, if I understand that change), but for the moment at least, is this not better than simply losing spending? And there is no planyer input required, so for me that's a plus...

[yin26]

Originally posted by Stuie
Doesn't Sirian live in a cabin (wired for **** obviously) in the-middle-of-nowhere western PA?

= too much free time.

By the way, I understand the impulse to think Sirian is going overboard, but I "know" him well enough by this point to say he's probably just a few (if not several) steps ahead of us. I, for one, appreciate his input. Of course, he has admitted himself that he's a ruthless critic and some people should ignore him if they want to enjoy the game, but I think he's going to be a great help to Brad, if Brad is reading.

[Solver]

Sirian might be a ruthless critic, but he's a fair and constructive one. And he should be thanked for much of what is done right in the Civ4 SP game .

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26
I must be missing something (keep in mind I'm a lazy gamer!):

I don't see how this is bad other than "not fixing waste" to begin with.

It's bad in a couple of subtle ways:
* It is one more mental twist for player to track. (The player's attention should only be focused on things that really matter.)
* If you are building social projects and not spending anything on military, this will cause some military spending that you can't control. You may get another copy of an old ship design produced. (And while it is true that this is a pitfall that also plagues the "focus" buttons, it only means it is ALSO a problem with the focus buttons, rather than not being a problem).
* It's another option in the category of the focus buttons, which themselves are godawful. They are all the micromanagement but only half the control. That is literally the worst of both worlds!

If Brad doesn't want to give the player micro control, he doesn't have to. But by golly, choose one or the other! These clumsy micro controls that let you solve "part" of a problem leave players frustrated but yet require the full amount of MM work for a partial result. ... Players will do it (I do it) because it lends SOME advantage, but this is the same trap that befell the MOO3 designers, sticking micro in to their game left and right but tying players' hands to prevent them from actually CONTROLLING the micro elements the way they want. ... That is really REALLY not good.

A far stronger approach, in my view, would be to have the game look after all the overflows. If we don't want players to micro, take out the micro! There's no NEED to micro if the overflows carry on to the next project. Or... If we do want them to micro, give them control, too. Let each planet have the option to set an independent spending rate, so my 3-Lab Mars can stay on Research all the time, and I can shut down my Manufacturing Capital completely when I don't want it working on wonders or ships. Don't make players labor with blunt knives and broken screwdrivers. In for a pound or not. Sleek and precise micro controls or no micro at all.


No, the social-to-military fix does not actually make in-game results worse. In the handful of cases where it will get used, it will save none, some or all of the waste, but won't ever add to the waste. However, in the big picture, it's one more game element stuck in limbo. Like the AIs who surrender to drag out the game, but will give you planets after you beat on them for a while, we are looking at systems within the same game that produce opposite results!

Brad has moved his game toward micro. Period. That is what he has done with the Logistics system, with the Ascendancy-style planetary economy, with the shipyard. The shipyard is fun because players can do what they want to do with it. They can make it do specific things that are pleasing.

Let's take a look at the logistics system. Imagine if you could not control your fleet formations. What if you could only press a button that will assemble a fleet for you automatically. If you don't like the fleet you get, you can disassemble it and go back to individual ships, but if you press the fleet button again it assembles the SAME fleet as before! You cannot control what goes in the fleet, but only whether or not the ships fight as a fleet at all. ... That's what the economic system is like at the moment!

Anything that is not part of an effective solution is getting in the way. It becomes part of the problem. The update process is either advancing or decaying, and to me at least, these two items do not appear to be advancing.


- Sirian

[yin26]

You've hinted at how you'd approach the game here and there. Would you mind providing the Sirian Blueprint (tm) so we could get a sense of how you'd see the game playing? Bonus, of course, would be a blueprint that is within the relm of Brad's ability and budget. I, at least, would be interested.

[EternalSpark]

thieves don't get the updates

Actually, thieves can get the updates just fine - they use someone's key to get them. I'm not advocating this, nor am I saying it was me. A friend let it slip that he and a couple others didn't buy the game, they downloaded it and used another guy's key.

These complicate matters, where simplification is warranted.

I dunno, it seems transferring un-used social into Military is a simplification. Instead of complicating things by having to pay a tax on a Developed Planet to build things on New planet, now we can set Social to a certain point and not have to worry about paying badly for it.

Sirian - I'd agree with you, but I think you're forgetting that, unlike Social, Military spending isn't paid for if nothing is building. If I get +6 military points (or whatever) because of Unused social, I don't have to pay for it. If you're not forgetting that, and I'm not understanding, I apologize.