Tweet
There are a few related strategic/game balance issues I've found in a recent game of GalCiv I'm finishing now. Since GalCiv's developers actually pay attention to end user comments, I figured I'd add my two pesos, and hopefully something can be done with this to improve the game even more. 
There's a long explanation of the strategic situation, so if you want, skip to the bottom.
Game background:
Version 1.03.054, intel and ethics random. Huge galaxy with tight clusters, and the center has just crap planets.
I own the lower left quadrant, Torians are stuck in a small corner in the lower right, Drengin and Arceans start in the right/upper right, Yor are so far in the upper right boonies they don't affect the game. None of those four can expand too far since they run into each other or the dead center.
The Altarians are in a dominant position, with a huge fertile region from the upper left corner across the top and into the top center. They have better planets, far more of them, minor races to conquer (done), and a population of around 250 billion to my 120 billion. They have more than double the economy, better morale, huge military, they're ahead in tech by a wide margin, and they're larger than the rest of the races and me combined. So I should get splattered, right?
Instead, I'm crushing them, and the collapse is progressing fairly fast. This game, and to a great extent, the entire game, hinges on control of galactic resources. My early tech path was to get extra speed, for my survey ship and lots of scouts. I identified resources and got constructors out to them fairly fast, and got two military plus one of everything else. Some of these were very far away from my planets, so it took a lot of time to get to them at first.
My economic resource was six sectors away from my nearest planet, and right at the fringe of Arcean space, sharing a system with an Arcean planet. That led to a brief loss of the resource, until I took it back from the Drengin who had a constructor on the way, and took the planet from the Arceans. I've been in continuous war with the Drengin and Arceans, but focused in that one area, and my two military resources and techs make my ships much stronger than theirs, despite the Arceans having more hitpoints and speed due to building wonders.
The entire focus of the game is against the Altarians, who have, er, had, two highly developed resources in the mids of their main planets - one economic and one morale. These resources were in the midst of their "territory" and hugely far from mine. To even reach them, I had to conquer a Drengin planet to extend my warships' range.
These two resources are nine and ten sectors from my main planets, but only one or two from the Altarian's main planets. I put together two task groups, each consisting of 16 Constructors, 1 Anti-matter Missile, 5 Dreadnoughts and 3 Battle Hammers.
I have three lucrative trade routes with the Altarians, who I have neutral relations with, due to giving them a couple of gifts on my own, despite refusing extortionate tribute. As a result, they don't bother my ships, even when I move these massive forces right into the heart of their empire????
Bing goes the Drengin planet to extend my range, then 9 more turns to move all that stuff into place, right past the Altarian's noses.
Bong goes two starbases, both crippled by the Anti-matter Missles, then finished off by Dreadnoughts with one loss. My constructors insta-build two new starbases for me, then pile in additions one after the other, turning them into productive paradises armed to the teeth - defenses, interdictors, blah blah. Then I kill the trade routes, and replace them with three other ones with a nearby minor race.
The effects are instant - the Altarians go into an instant economic and morale crisis, losing the trade routes, and 50-60% econ and morale bonuses, while I instantly gain similar bonuses. I'm able to crank up my production rate to from 65% to near 100%, while they have to crank theirs ever further down, going into debt. Due to morale losses and higher taxes, their population declines, and with the huge number of highly developed planets they have, they are virtually paralyzed in production and research, just to support what they have. I have enough military power at my two new starbases to defend them while I build additional forces, shove my culture down their throats, blah blah blah.
The game isn't finished, technically, but the Altarian decline and my increasing cultural reach is visible every turn, and accelerating.
*************
Problems and ideas for solutions
1) Too much dependency on galactic resources:
These things are great, but there's too much "instant gratification"
A few ideas:
Have little ships carry the materials back to your systems, like the ones for trade routes. These ships could be killed unless defended, and they take time, so there's a gradual increase in benefit up to the max level, assuming the ships aren't killed.
Or, this could be abstracted, and you have loss factors due to distance that represent piracy and smuggling in peacetime, and inderdiction during war if the route passes through enemy controlled areas. These factors could be cured, or at least helped, by building starbases in each sector between the resource starbase and your own system.
These changes would put a premium on being able to secure your resources, and make the results of sudden changes of ownership less unbalancing.
Another idea is for the base to add a missile battery, and introduce a cheaper, less effective missile than the Anti-Matter missile, so starbases could be given a real defense capability other than simply taking punches.
2) No meaningful sense of "territory" by AI.
Nobody, except an extremely and foolishly trusted ally, should be allowed to move into your space the size and punch of forces I used, without being challenged or attacked. I went from peace to war in one turn, dropped two resources that were the key to the entire Altarian race, and installed my own benefits in place, all in the same turn. The "war" took one turn to do crippling damage, but took a little over four dozen turns to produce, assemble and move those forces. The Altarians should have realized something was up.
A few ideas:
Have a diplomatic option to demand withdrawal of forces, with possible war for refusal to do so.
Have the AI develop a sense of "territory" so that it challenges intrusion of non-allied military forces into sectors it considers territory.
3) Instant gratification effect for starbases.
It's grossly unrealistic to have a base created, then built out to it maximum abilities, in a turn or even two or three.
Ideas:
No more than two areas of the base (mining, econ, cultural, defense, etc.) can be built out in the same turn, and the samea are can only be improved every two turns.
***************
Any thoughts or suggestions?
There's a long explanation of the strategic situation, so if you want, skip to the bottom.
Game background:
Version 1.03.054, intel and ethics random. Huge galaxy with tight clusters, and the center has just crap planets.
I own the lower left quadrant, Torians are stuck in a small corner in the lower right, Drengin and Arceans start in the right/upper right, Yor are so far in the upper right boonies they don't affect the game. None of those four can expand too far since they run into each other or the dead center.
The Altarians are in a dominant position, with a huge fertile region from the upper left corner across the top and into the top center. They have better planets, far more of them, minor races to conquer (done), and a population of around 250 billion to my 120 billion. They have more than double the economy, better morale, huge military, they're ahead in tech by a wide margin, and they're larger than the rest of the races and me combined. So I should get splattered, right?
Instead, I'm crushing them, and the collapse is progressing fairly fast. This game, and to a great extent, the entire game, hinges on control of galactic resources. My early tech path was to get extra speed, for my survey ship and lots of scouts. I identified resources and got constructors out to them fairly fast, and got two military plus one of everything else. Some of these were very far away from my planets, so it took a lot of time to get to them at first.
My economic resource was six sectors away from my nearest planet, and right at the fringe of Arcean space, sharing a system with an Arcean planet. That led to a brief loss of the resource, until I took it back from the Drengin who had a constructor on the way, and took the planet from the Arceans. I've been in continuous war with the Drengin and Arceans, but focused in that one area, and my two military resources and techs make my ships much stronger than theirs, despite the Arceans having more hitpoints and speed due to building wonders.
The entire focus of the game is against the Altarians, who have, er, had, two highly developed resources in the mids of their main planets - one economic and one morale. These resources were in the midst of their "territory" and hugely far from mine. To even reach them, I had to conquer a Drengin planet to extend my warships' range.
These two resources are nine and ten sectors from my main planets, but only one or two from the Altarian's main planets. I put together two task groups, each consisting of 16 Constructors, 1 Anti-matter Missile, 5 Dreadnoughts and 3 Battle Hammers.
I have three lucrative trade routes with the Altarians, who I have neutral relations with, due to giving them a couple of gifts on my own, despite refusing extortionate tribute. As a result, they don't bother my ships, even when I move these massive forces right into the heart of their empire????
Bing goes the Drengin planet to extend my range, then 9 more turns to move all that stuff into place, right past the Altarian's noses.
Bong goes two starbases, both crippled by the Anti-matter Missles, then finished off by Dreadnoughts with one loss. My constructors insta-build two new starbases for me, then pile in additions one after the other, turning them into productive paradises armed to the teeth - defenses, interdictors, blah blah. Then I kill the trade routes, and replace them with three other ones with a nearby minor race.
The effects are instant - the Altarians go into an instant economic and morale crisis, losing the trade routes, and 50-60% econ and morale bonuses, while I instantly gain similar bonuses. I'm able to crank up my production rate to from 65% to near 100%, while they have to crank theirs ever further down, going into debt. Due to morale losses and higher taxes, their population declines, and with the huge number of highly developed planets they have, they are virtually paralyzed in production and research, just to support what they have. I have enough military power at my two new starbases to defend them while I build additional forces, shove my culture down their throats, blah blah blah.
The game isn't finished, technically, but the Altarian decline and my increasing cultural reach is visible every turn, and accelerating.
*************
Problems and ideas for solutions
1) Too much dependency on galactic resources:
These things are great, but there's too much "instant gratification"
A few ideas:
Have little ships carry the materials back to your systems, like the ones for trade routes. These ships could be killed unless defended, and they take time, so there's a gradual increase in benefit up to the max level, assuming the ships aren't killed.
Or, this could be abstracted, and you have loss factors due to distance that represent piracy and smuggling in peacetime, and inderdiction during war if the route passes through enemy controlled areas. These factors could be cured, or at least helped, by building starbases in each sector between the resource starbase and your own system.
These changes would put a premium on being able to secure your resources, and make the results of sudden changes of ownership less unbalancing.
Another idea is for the base to add a missile battery, and introduce a cheaper, less effective missile than the Anti-Matter missile, so starbases could be given a real defense capability other than simply taking punches.
2) No meaningful sense of "territory" by AI.
Nobody, except an extremely and foolishly trusted ally, should be allowed to move into your space the size and punch of forces I used, without being challenged or attacked. I went from peace to war in one turn, dropped two resources that were the key to the entire Altarian race, and installed my own benefits in place, all in the same turn. The "war" took one turn to do crippling damage, but took a little over four dozen turns to produce, assemble and move those forces. The Altarians should have realized something was up.
A few ideas:
Have a diplomatic option to demand withdrawal of forces, with possible war for refusal to do so.
Have the AI develop a sense of "territory" so that it challenges intrusion of non-allied military forces into sectors it considers territory.
3) Instant gratification effect for starbases.
It's grossly unrealistic to have a base created, then built out to it maximum abilities, in a turn or even two or three.
Ideas:
No more than two areas of the base (mining, econ, cultural, defense, etc.) can be built out in the same turn, and the samea are can only be improved every two turns.
***************
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Comment