Review-in-Progress (Open Thread)

[Sirian]

Originally posted by Barbazoul
1. Sirian, i tried to register at the Realms Beyond site but never got an email allowing me to validate my registration. Is it normal?

2. Will you organize events around galciv 2 (like the adventures for CIV) ? I think it could really allow fun games, with those well known Realms Beyond special rules...

1. No, that's not normal. I don't handle any of the forum administration, though, so I don't know all the specific problems and remedies. Griselda is the one to seek out for assistance. You should be able to email her from a link at RB. If you have further problems, you can email me.

2. Not likely. GalCiv1 didn't lend well to a tournament environment. I made that judgement early on and some at RB disagreed, but as they got more exposed to the game, they came to the same conclusion. GalCiv2 has fixed some of the issues from GC1 but my judgement at the moment is that it still doesn't lend well to that type of competition. I might re-evaluate in a couple of months if patching seems to address most of these concerns.


- Sirian

[Barbazoul]

By the way guys, could you also post your interesting remarks and bug reports at the official forums?
It will surely help Brad to improve the game, cause im sure he reads the official forums every day, but not sure about the apolyton forums...

Just copy/paste the posts you find interesting, it will be helpful for the Stardock developers to have all remarks condensed in the same forum.


edit : thanks for the answer, Sirian !

[bonscott]

Don't worry, I'm active on the GalCiv forums. Too bad the forums there suck but that's another story.

As for taking out transports. That's a great idea, until they come in with 3 escorts in a fleet. At least what I've seen on Challenging and above the AI *most* of the time will fleet up it's transports with fighters or a capital ship so while you can still take them out with your own fleets, it's not a gimmie. Only time I notice transports with no escorts are if the AI is low on ships due to me taking them out or if I have border worlds undefended they try to sneak one through. It actually worked once as I wasn't paying attention and all of a sudden there was a transport parked outside a border colony and I didn't have a fast enough ship to take it out. Bye, bye colony. That sucked but I learned something: Either don't leave border worlds undefended or have some fast fighter ships roaming around your borders to take care of just this situation.

[Sirian]

The official forums hate my browser (Opera) and are too clunky for my taste. I tried the official forums. Really I did! I have to use IE to use them at all, and even then they have eaten two of my posts. That's it. That's all you get from me. I'm staying here (and at RB), where the forums are easier to handle.


I'm not sure how long of a run I will have with GC2. There aren't enough gradations in the higher difficulty levels. There's Even Steven, AIs at 125%, and AIs at 200%. If Brad plugs enough leaks to render the 200% AIs too much of a challenge for me, there won't be any settings left for me to play. 125% won't really cut it. I'd need a setting at 150%, give or take 10%, and it isn't there.

Worse, I don't find the Roach Race compelling in GC1. The only game that ever made it compelling was MOO1, where the AIs would disrespect your flag and come charging in to take over your colony worlds. You had to DEFEND your claims, early and often, and this was doable in a system that favors the defender. GalCiv is all offense all the time. The core game balance simply doesn't lend to early combat. (It was possible in GC1, but if it happened, it simply meant "game over" for the player on high difficulty -- "snuffed in the cradle".)

It would be more fun if there were some brush wars over border colonies -- including between AIs. Instead we have the goody-two-shoes approach of planted flags meaning uncontestable claims. Having to spend HUGE amounts on transport ships is a problem, as are the long travel times. MOO1 would just let you send colonists/troops at no charge, in whatever amount you wanted: you could send in just a few, and you could easily transfer population from crowded worlds to new worlds. That had its own down sides in terms of micromanagement, but at least it enabled QUICK and EASY gameplay on the invasion front. Those transports got faster through the game, scaling up as the distances you needed to travel also scaled up. You didn't have to build all these transports and babysit them all over the map. It was simpler, and thus also easier for the AI to manage, in addition to being less tedious for players.


- Sirian

[yin26]

I added a link back to here on the official forums: http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=162&AID=105969

EDIT 2: Nevermind the edit below. The post showed up...just delayed.

EDIT: By the way, were is that post on the forums over there now? Are the official forums fully moderated? Anyway, although I copied the link, I can't find the post on their forums...?

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Barbazoul
By the way guys, could you also post your interesting remarks and bug reports at the official forums?
It will surely help Brad to improve the game, cause im sure he reads the official forums every day, but not sure about the apolyton forums...

Just copy/paste the posts you find interesting, it will be helpful for the Stardock developers to have all remarks condensed in the same forum.

edit : thanks for the answer, Sirian !

Brad visits this forum as well from time to time. See the user profile for Draginol. So the comments are not going unnoticed.

In fact, I feel like stuff might get noticed better here... a lot seems to get lost in the official forum due to the sheer volume of posts.

[Sirian]

Here is my current game on Suicidal:



You're looking west to east from a rotated camera view.

The white circle represents my civ's core. Those are the worlds I could reach first because they are closer to me than to anybody else.

Pink Circle was the Thalan Empire's space.
Green Circle was the Torian Confederation.

Orange arrows on the map point to worlds I poached from neighbors. I got two that should have been Torian worlds. I got three that should have been Thalan worlds. I was in a squeezed location but not as badly squeezed as either the Thalans or the Torians or Korx. The Arceans and Iconians (yellow and gray) in the east had lots of open space and extra worlds, and of course are now the two biggest and most powerful civs.

The Orange Circle is a group of five worlds that were situated in dead space between the Drath (orange), Altarians (Blue) and me. I got three of them, Altaria got two.

The three Orange Arrows on the minimap point to LONNNNG Distance colonies I grabbed by sending long range high speed colony ships out in the fog, blindly, after they failed to make more local grabs because the local systems were all claimed. I got one down on the outer edge of Yor space (purple) and two on the outer edge of Iconian space (gray) in the east.

I got all of those Orange worlds without scouting, by sending my high speed long range colony ships out in to the fog blindly, and executed the Roach Race well. However, this is before Brad juiced up the AIs to prioritize speed on their colony ships. I won't get ANY of those worlds on the new patch. That's ELEVEN worlds I grabbed by reaching out, and I won't get a single one of them if the AI has faster colony ships. Not one.

That's a problem. I was using faster ships to compensate for the AI cheat of knowing where the habitable planets are (and its HUGE economic advantages). I did use scouting locally, but all those long distance grabs are "shot in the dark". I may have to use my racial picks on Speed boosts like I did in GC1 to regain the speed advantage that is necessary to compete in the Roach Race on gigantic maps. Or I can settle for only grabbing the worlds in the white circle, but then it simply means gearing up for war faster. (I could have a lot of warships instead of those extra eleven colony ships).

I took seven of nine planets from the Torians before they surrendered the last two to the Arceans. Torians had the worst start position and were my racial enemy, so they made the logical first target. I lost two ships taking them out (destroyed several dozen).

Thalans had ten planets, lost one to Korx. It was the threat of more worlds going to Korx (a friendly civ to me) that spurred me to hit the Thalans (also a friendly civ). I took only four of their remaining nine planets. I wanted to take the remaining five on the same turn, to avoid having them surrender some to another AI, but Brad's "known human tactics" list may have been able to detect that. Anyway, despite still having dozens of major ships left, the Thalans surrendered most of their civ to the Drath on the turn before I would have wiped them out. Well, that only dooms the Drath next. I attacked anyway, and though the Drath have higher soldiering, they also had two weapons techs I hadn't bothered to trade for yet and I got those for free. Took all five planets.

I killed two thirds of the Thalan fleet without losing a single ship.

So there I am on max difficulty. I've wiped out two civs and lost two ships. Both of those were in the very early fighting with the Torians, before my ships gained much experience. I've got some very high level fleets now, along with missile tech, point defense and armor that nobody else has. My fleets are literally unstoppable now. This game is over. The rest from here on out is just mopping up (and ye gods is there a crapload of THAT to have to do to get credit for a Conquest victory).

I only managed to reach two of the Minors, though. Here I am taking out one of them.



1bil troops to more than 20bil? No sweat. The planet is overpulated and has low morale, so I buy traitors to fight for me. Went in with 1bil, end up 4.5bil at the end.



Here's my new Ship of the Line:



Note defenses of all three types. AIs have NO COUNTER for that at the moment. They just sit and stare at their doom. Meanwhile my Evil specialty weapon, which I beelined for, is packing 6 points of missile damage per rack, and I put three racks on there. ... Remember that Star Trek episode with the mirror universe, and those pain-inflicting devices? Agonizers. Delivers of suffering.

The AIs can't put enough ECMs on their ships to stop those, and if they try they won't have any room left for weapons that can penetrate my universal defenses. This is literally checkmate for the AI. They'd have to get out in front of me on tech to resolve this dilemma and it is already too late for that. Besides, only a Good Civ who researches the Good-Only super defense techs could stop me now, and yet none of the AIs have bothered to research Xeno Ethics. (They never do. It's a GAPING hole in the AI that they all chase the same few tech branches, and though it sounds like Brad is working on that, count me skeptical as to the outcome.) The AIs all just sit there chasing weapons techs, just like they did in GC1. Player has carte blanche on half the tech tree!

Meanwhile, every battle my fleets win is pumping up their experience levels and adding to their already strong hit points.



Thalan Fleet, NO DAMAGE. My fleet, killed half their ships on the first round before they even got to fire. I have only ONE of my elite Agonizers in that fleet, too. (A whole fleet of them is even nastier.) I came out with twenty more hit points than I went in with.

I took one Military Resource from the Torians, now a second from the Thalans, and I poached a third after the Terrans inexplicably GAVE IT TO A MINOR who then died to the Yor anyway, leaving the resource uncovered.

I have reached first place in Military, in Territory (Influence), and I have been first in Population and Tech all game long.



The Humans still have two more Military resources so their military is still rated highly, but it's a bunch of crap defenders and frigates, really. They don't have any killer designs. They don't have Large ships yet, don't have significant missile defenses, and in any case they can't become Good (they're leaning Neutral) and will never obtain super strong ship defenses.

The idea that ship designs have to keep adapting gives way to the Everything ship design I now have going. I've swallowed the two weakest AIs and about to hit the third. If you get out in front on tech, you can field ships that are nigh invulnerable, and they only get stronger and stronger as you rack up more experience for them.



The fact that the Attacker's ships ALL get to fire first and do damage before the defender gets to shoot at all is beyond devastating. For an Evil civ who researches uber weapons, it gets even worse.

Yet a Good Civ has it even better than that. They can research uber defenses. Put uber defenses on all of your ships and you can't be damaged AT ALL, except by an Evil Civ using uber weaponry.

The Neutral Civs are supposed to get some of both attack and defense, but of course nobody research Xeno Ethics ever. ... What is Brad doing in his own tests? TRADING IT TO THEM? I can't think of any other explanation for how the game has come this far without the AIs showing any interest in Good and Evil.


Whatever techs the AIs do trade, they will all end up in the proverbial "pack" in those areas. Limiting trading of "certain" techs is the wrong road to take.

Tech trading as a concept is so bad for gameplay that if one AI went up each of the game's branches and they all traded the techs around, the entire galaxy could reach the end of the tech tree way faster. As it is, the AIs concentrate on narrow parts of the tree, duplicating one another's efforts. That's the only thing propping up the existing system and rendering it playable.

The techs are all made of the same stuff. Trading away economic or research techs is no different than trading weapon techs. Tech is tech. Halting trade along some branches but not others is a great way to make things worse.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
I really agree with most of what Sirian has to say, but I have to disagree pretty strongly that the tech trading in GC2 can't be fixed. If I had to pick one single change from Civ3 to Civ4 that is the most important and successful, it's that they did a much better job in Civ4 of getting tech trading "right".

My Apolyton bio may say Map Designer, but that was the least of my duties in working on Civ4. The credits say, "Gameplay and AI Consultant". You can do the math from there.

Believe me when I say that there are fewer ways to improve on the GalCiv2 tech trading than there are to screw it up and break the game. As problematic as it is now, being wide open, it can get worse. Much worse. I hope that doesn't happen.


- Sirian

[yin26]

Thanks for that post, Sirian. Like I say, the gaming world needs guys like you, and I think actually "seeing" your game in action packs a punch.

[Gufnork]

I know a way to get a challenge. Play tiny map and an evil civilization. They will soon gang up on you to take you out. Turns out I couldn't handle eight civs going after me at once. I'm a bit disappointed. I really loved taking out the tech leaders, Yor, who had a military that was invincible to me. I flew around his fleets to his relatively unprotected planets, took them and no more Yor.

The AI in this game feels like my little toys. It requires 200% economy bonus and eight of them working together to take me out. Even then my bugs (all engines +1 gun) and back door invasions almost won me the game. And no, they rarely protect their transports. When they do, ignore them. They never send enough troops to take out your planets anyway.

Tech trading is also a huge issue as Sirian says. Especially when combined with minor races, they provide me with enough tech and credits to keep up in any game. Since they all ignore the same techs you can just research one of those then trade it away to 15-20 races for tons of tech and cash.

This game has lost my interest. I play games to win, it's in my bones. Gimping myself to get a challenge in this game is too much work. I'll see if the updates can add some interest to it.

[yin26]

Is there no option to stop tech trades? Perhaps I'll select that for my next game, if so.

[Fosse]

Sirian, are you sure that the AI "cheats" to see inhabitable worlds? It has been stated, over and over again, by the designers and all levels of beta testers and gamers that this is not the case.

There is no reason to believe, short of a statement from Brad or clear gameplay proof, that Stellar Cartography does anything more for the AIs than it does for the humans.

I'm not trying to badmouth you, but I am curious about what can back up your claim in this area because it has been categorically refuted from the very beginning. We've been told over and over: no cheating.

I see no reason to believe that when I've seen AI constructors and colony ships heading in a straight line for something good that they had not already seen what's there by way of a scout. That includes a minor that was inside of my visibility from turn 1, when the Paulos started a few tiles from Sol. I saw a wave of scouts, and later saw a constructor pop out and head straight to a little patch of fog that I hadn't explored to plop down a resource base. I had no doubt that they'd already seen what was there.

Plus, about 1 in 3 of my colony ships at the game's start will look like I "knew" where the good planets were, because I send them straight toward stars -- which we can all see all the time -- on the minimap. Once they get close enough to push back a star's fog of war I send them to the best planet in sight if there is one. It's not cheating, it's just hoping and getting lucky.

[Gufnork]

It doesn't know where the good planets are, I can guarantee that. Even if they've scouted the area. Some people claim that they know where the habitable planets are (big difference) and says they've tested it by monitoring a planet to see which AIs should know about it. I'm inclined to believe them. But the AI doesn't seem to differentiate a good planet from a bad one, though. They always go for the closest, regardless of it's quality, which is really bad play. I always go for the furthest, highest quality planets. If the AI gets a few of the planets inside my territory they're likely to be influenced over to my side.

[Sirian]

Originally posted by Fosse
Sirian, are you sure that the AI "cheats" to see inhabitable worlds? It has been stated, over and over again, by the designers and all levels of beta testers and gamers that this is not the case.

There is no reason to believe, short of a statement from Brad or clear gameplay proof, that Stellar Cartography does anything more for the AIs than it does for the humans.

Stellar Cartography may not do more for the AIs. They may simply take this shortcut in all cases.

* Colony ships definitely ARE sent out blindly. There's no other way for them to reach as many worlds as they do as fast as they do.
* Blind colony ships never show up at systems where you've already grabbed all the habitable worlds. Yet they will come if you leave a planet open, and they will come blindly and on a beeline.
* I've literally seen AI colony ships lose the race to one planet and change course on a dime, beelining for another.
* I've not yet seen a colony ship "circle" a star system checking each planet in turn.
* When there are no more habitable worlds in range, the colony ships park in orbit of some planet rather than continuing to scout around, even if their scouts have not yet visited those systems to see if any habitable worlds were overlooked by a human player, but if you do in fact overlook one, the AI will show up eventually.

If new evidence is provided, my view may shift, but I have to judge on the evidence I have on hand.


Try this experiment:

Leave your homeworld's second planet unsettled. Play as Terrans and leave Mars open, or play as Drengin and leave Kona open. You'll KNOW whether the AI scouts the planet because you'll have line of sight the whole time. Build some scouts and park them on guard duty just to be sure. A lone AI colony ship will come limping along to grab it, without a scout first scouting the area. Restart from the beginning and settle that world instead, and see if the same colony ship comes poking around.

The only times I've seen an AI colony ship visit my home system is when I've left that planet open. If they'll do it without first scouting, but never do that if you settle, what is your alternative explanation for this result?


- Sirian

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26
Is there no option to stop tech trades?

There is no off switch for tech trading between AIs. Sorry.

(You can flick your personal "off switch" by declining to trade, but that will only put YOU out of the loop. The AIs will continue to trade regularly.)


Brad has stated that he enjoys playing the broker, the diplomat, to make all kinds of deals amongst the factions. He has explained why you can trade for literally everything in the game. It all has a price: techs, ships, starbases, worlds.

In fact, in my Suicidal game detailed a couple of posts back, I have not yet built a single transport! I traded some techs to the Yor and the Korx, who were trailing early in tech, for three and two transports, respectively. Those are STILL my only five trading routes, while I have the tech to support ten. I should have traded for more or build some Freighters of my own but I still haven't. ... The AIs have sent so many trade routes to me that my need for routes of my own was never as urgent as other things. ... Probably a minor mistake, but I've reached a winning position anyway.

And yes, you get the ships where they stand, so the ones I bought were in rival space already. One was at the Yor homeworld, even. The odd thing is that all five routes connected to the same planet, my largest planet. If I were to lose that planet, I'd lose all the routes. That may be reason enough to build more of my own.


- Sirian

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Sirian
* Colony ships definitely ARE sent out blindly. There's no other way for them to reach as many worlds as they do as fast as they do.

Just to be clear, this isn't something you consider a problem, right? Assuming that there is/was no cheating, sending colonizers out blindly is not a terrible gamble.

* Blind colony ships never show up at systems where you've already grabbed all the habitable worlds. Yet they will come if you leave a planet open, and they will come blindly and on a beeline.

I have seen colony ships from enemies appear next to systems that are completely colonized and then leave on a beeline to a different star.

By "enemies" do you mean other AIs' worlds, as I think you do? Otherwise this contradicts the previous point. Regarding the behavior, if I send a colony ship to a star and, whoops, it's already claimed, then I will also send it immediatly towards the next star... blindly and on a beeline.

* I've literally seen AI colony ships lose the race to one planet and change course on a dime, beelining for another.

I do that too. No point in sending the colony ship to the planet you lost the race to, or in just letting it idle in space.

* I've not yet seen a colony ship "circle" a star system checking each planet in turn.

I have seen Ai colony ships near a star system and then leave it again. I assumed that they were checking the planets for good ones.

* When there are no more habitable worlds in range, the colony ships park in orbit of some planet rather than continuing to scout around, even if their scouts have not yet visited those systems to see if any habitable worlds were overlooked by a human player, but if you do in fact overlook one, the AI will show up eventually.

I actually do this too, not even bothering to send colonizers out to distant stars on the assumption that it's useless. But the AI should not give up like that.

If new evidence is provided, my view may shift, but I have to judge on the evidence I have on hand.

Except for the experiment you offer the evidence all seems a little circumstantial when viewed in the face of developer claims. Also, I have seen several cases of the behavior you have not, so it fails to convince me on those grounds alone.

But, the experiment you offer IS fairly telling. I have not run it (if I do I'll show up here to talk about it). I have indeed had the AI colonize Mars out from under me if I was too eager to send ships to more distant places, but I wasn't watching the behavior closely enough in those instances (or in the others) to comment here.

The experiment you offer is worth many times the list of behaviors you've put up, and if enough trials of it are run to show some truth behind the idea that the AI does indeed know where specific habitable planets are unfairly I'll be pretty disappointed.

Thanks for the reply to my question... I get tired of people complaining about this or that bug/cheat with nothing to back up those complaints. Thanks for adding some evidence to the accusation.