Screenshots - my current game situation

[mindlar]

Garrisons are done at the star system level rather than the individual planet level.

[PriestOfDiscord]

I've been following the beta forums for Galciv for a while now, and this is really looking to be an impressive strategy game to come out of seemingly nowhere. The fact the development has been so open and quick to take feedback is an even bigger plus. I just have a quick question, does the Independent League of Non-Aligned Worlds pop up from an event? They aren't one of the 6 major powers, from what I recall. What kind of attributes do they have, and what do they ususally form from?

[Tytan]

They seem to come from an event, because they definitely aren't there at the beginning of the game. Judging from the number of games I have played, they are a common occurence, happening at least every game or most games anyway.

They seem to pop up in the area between several civs and will take planets from several worlds including your own if you don't keep your morale up. They tend to come mid-game and will eventually die towards the endgame unless someone helps them(usually the player).

Their actual attributes vary from game to game, but they tend to stay neutral. More like worlds that see independence as preferable to one empire or another. The I-League seems to have enough influence that they are able to grab worlds from many civs and are not stuck in one sector like most minor races. That in and of itself can make them a major player even if they are a minor race....

What makes this game so powerful is that I can win one of several ways. But what is even more powerful is that the player can combine two or three of the ways and create deeper strategies. I often begin with a diplomatic strategy, exploit the different major and minor races to put myself in the financial and technological position I need for my midgame 'culture rush'.

If you hit a civ fast enough and all at once with culture focused starbases(placed strategically in their territory), you can collapse them from the inside out within 30 turns or less.

The mid/endgame strategy is to boost the economy and use the money to destabilize the strongest civs at the same time your building your starbases so that their ability to launch a counterattack is drastically weakened.

This has the moo1/civ1 'edge'. It has flaws and needs more tweaking and some depth. But these guys have committed to a year of upgrading after the game comes out. Basically what we've been doing will keep on happening for another year after Mar 25.

[Usually Insane]

tytan: how exactly does starbases work? can you build or repair anything with them or do they only apply bonuses for surrounding starsystems? do they affect a whole sector or do they have influence areas (like the surrounding eight tiles or somesuch)

[ottok]

war is bad event!

[mindlar]

Starbases affect a single sector with a few exceptions. Constructors are sent to a site to start a starbase or upgrade an existing starbase.

Modules that improve production, provide military bonuses, or improve trade affect only colonies, ships, and freighters in the sector with the starbase. Modules that improve defense only affect the starbase that built the module.

Cultural improvements I haven't quite determined how they work. They definately improve the cultural influence in the sector with the starbase, but there is some amount of cultural influence into other sectors.

Mining improvements affect your entire civilization depending. Mining improvements can only be built upon a special resource. The five special resources improve military abilities, morale, influence, economy, and technology.

The league of independent worlds, like tytan said, comes from an event. Unlike all the other minor civs, the independent league cannot be permanently destroyed. After removing their last planet, other planets can still join up with the league.

[PriestOfDiscord]

Very, very cool. I like how letting morale drop is more devestating than just losing productivity, etc. A seprate faction for the disallusioned is a really neat idea for a space strategy game.

What other factions can pop up from events like that?

[Tytan]

The direct bonuses, to ships, to production, to trade are in-sector. But inderect bonuses like culture upgrades affect the current sector and the adjacent sectors. Mining resources(like a culture resource-not the upgrade, thats a different thing) affect the whole empire....they add +10% to +20% to your bottom line. and two or three can give you an overwhelming advantage. You have to be willing to protect them though, because if you lose them your civ could very well fall to pieces.

Types of resources:Red Cone-Weapons, Blue square-culture, yellow cylinder-morale, green sphere-economy, purple pyramid-tech

Blue comes first in importance followed by yellow then green. Red and purple are a toss up for resources

I believe you can repair with a starbase, you can upgrade its defenses, and you can build things to aid the ships in that sector and improve their ability to fight in that sector. You can improve trade tremendously as well. The more you research, the more upgrades you get, as well as mining upgrades for the resources.

If I were to say there was one single thing that set this game apart from the rest and will single it out as 'unique' in its own right, it is starbases as they are used here. Its basically a vehicle to apply bonuses on a sector by sector basis for the most part, but adds bonuses to the whole empire in some cases too.

Also, they have a cumulative effect, that deteriorates like a logarithmic curve. Building more will give you some advantage but not much more.

In the days to come I expect the people at stardock to really begin to code the AI's to be more aggressive against the starbases and resources. They really are the key to the whole game.....

[bigfree1]

Originally posted by Tytan
In the days to come I expect the people at stardock to really begin to code the AI's to be more aggressive against the starbases and resources. They really are the key to the whole game.....

As of right now, what are the priorities (in terms of aggressiveness) of the AI?

What do they attack first?

What often provokes an attack? Has this changed over time with new updates?

Are most testers making this observation and thus making a reccomendation that they change the AI's strategy?

Thanks.

[Tytan]

They were really aggressive at first and I lost all of the time.....but the AI's have been toned down alot so as not to frustrate the player. The enemy does have terriffic warfare strategy because he has more time to think, and they can beat you strategically at least half the time......I mean they can outthink you, not just out-produce.....

Oftentimes if a civ thinks you're weaker than them and they are neutral to you they will start making demands and such, especially on the higher levels. The thing with me that provokes it is unguarded worlds or the fact that they are out of money. When your rating with that civ starts going south, you can do several things: beef up military, give gifts, destablize, pay off another civ to attack them, espionage helps....

As far as AI goes, it is really aggressive on the higher levels, going after nearby starbases but especially focusing on grabbin any weakly guarded systems....which is their main focus.

But the key as I am seeing it is the strategy for the resources(being a cultural conqueror). I figure within the next 6 months there will be a fair amount of time spend creating an in-depth strategy for the AI's around the resources and starbases. The AI's warfare strategy is terriffic, but the resource strategy area will be beefed up even more than it is now because its the critical area and everyone who plays will lean on it heavily in their strategies.

Most would agree that the AI is the best anyone has ever seen, and everyone who plays it would be more than happy with the strategy of the AI the way it is. You would have no complaints if there was not going to be any more development after it was released, but there will be a full year of development and I'm willing to bet that the two things that will be deepened will be the starbase/resource strategy of the AI and Diplomacy of the AI. Its already up there with the best, but why settle for just the best when we could really scare the hell out of you?

As far as the AI goes it has the 'edge' you are looking for. If you have played good space strategy games you know what I mean. It just the small tweaks at this point that a lot of us are noticing, nothing really drastic. You know, those little areas of adjustment and focus that really sets an AI apart from the rest......this game has the potential and makeup to be the best AI any strategy game has ever had, not just a runner up, but something that really promotes the secondary belief that you are playing a real player.

I'm currently playing with all of the AI's on intelligent in my current game(2nd to the highest) and in my last game it was 2 intelligent and 4 bright(3rd to the highest).

[Tytan]

BTW, if any of you are worried it will be too hard there is a good balance between the AI levels......easy is easy and hard is hard............You will enjoy the game and not just get beat within an inch of your life.

[bigfree1]

Originally posted by Tytan
I'm currently playing with all of the AI's on intelligent in my current game(2nd to the highest) and in my last game it was 2 intelligent and 4 bright(3rd to the highest).

Thanks for answering my questions.

But, what exactly is the difficulty settings about? Can you set the difficulty level for each seperate alien race? What are 'all' the settings?

Thanks again.

[Tytan]

First there are the settings for you. There is your political settings of which there are 6. I usually pick technological which give me a +20% boost to tech and a +1 to my sensor range. There are:Federalists, Populist, War Party, Mercantile, Technologist, Pacifist.

The second set of settings for yourself are your bonuses your civ. In which you have 10 points and can boost several areas: Weapons, defense, speed, population growth, research, influence, trade, diplomacy, sensors, espionage. When the points are applied they can give you 5% to 20% bonus initially in any of these areas depending on how many points you spend in each area.

There are the settings for the map which are two: The settings for the size of the universe and the settings for the amount of habitable planets. Sizes range from tiny to gigantic, habitable planets can range from rare to abundant. Small games have a completely different strategy than large ones....I mainly play on gigantic....

At the next screen you can choose your opponents and their difficulty settings. Their are 5 races and they each have both an alignment setting and a difficulty setting. The alignments are the classic pure evil, chaotic evil, neutral, chaotic good, pure good settings. Those that have an alignment opposite you will tend not to like you will naturally tend to have bad relations with you, make demands, go to war, etc.....
Here's a pic:

http://www.galciv.com/images/screenshots/828200250610PM.jpg

The settings for skill: fool, beginner, sub-normal, normal, bright, intelligent, genius. Genius is the only AI that is given more starting resources than you. About 2000 credits instead of 1000. All of these settings can be randomized so you don't know what they are. There is a box in the lower right hand corner of the screen that indicates difficulty.

In the beginning, because it is so different, it will be hard to play until you get the hang of starbases, resources, what wonders/achievements/social programs to go for as well as techs....there are too many to research them all. But it gets easier as you go....

After playing for 3 months you could say I'm intermediate to advanced. Right now Intelligent is plenty good enough for me, somewhere between King and Emperor setting on the Civ games.

When you submit a game to the Metaverse, the people at stardock every so often will take the best strategies from the best players and incorporate their strategies into the AI's overall strategy....In other words every so often a patch to the AI will be on the site with an AI that will be wise to your strategies......that means its a new game all over again....way cool......

I think there are more screens on the main site

http://www.galciv.com/screenshots.asp

[Draginol]

In the final version of the game, the AI is penalized for resources on all the difficulty levels below "Intelligent".

And on top of that, a lot of the algorithms are set to not go very often to check on things because we found it made things too hard for players.

For instance, the AI can see if you are trying to do a cultural conquest. But based on its intelligence setting it will determine whether it is going to do anything about it.

For those who don't have it, don't take what I"m saying wrong, it's just a matter of trying to make the game HUMAN like. Most human players are not going to be able to look at a huge map and put together a pattern that an opponent is going for a cultural conquest victory right away.

Now, on intelligent and higher, you build that star base with a cultural domination set of modules installed and IF it has the military power to do something about it it will come up and say "Hey, we know what you're doing, hand over that star base or we'll squash you."

There are lots of things like this in the game that we've had to really play test because you don't want it to be too smart about that. The object of the AI isn't to be tough to beat (I've never beaten it at above intelligent before though) but for it to play like a real person.

We want GalCiv to feel like a multiplayer game without the pains that come with a real multiplayer game.

[bigfree1]

Sounds really promising. I'm sold on it; though I hate pre-ordering things. I will get it on the day it comes out though.