Please . . . no more happy posts.

[PapaMonkey]

And their honesty. The developers are trying to LOWER expectations?!? Have you ever heard of that before?

[Lemmy]

Nah, it's all reverse psychology...i bet Brad is actually a marketing mastermind trying to sell us a simple chess game with a spacey interface.

[Chronus]

The developers are trying to LOWER expectations?!? Have you ever heard of that before?

No, I haven't but I wished it was practiced more often. Give us the bad news right away so that everyone (developers, as well as players) can get past it and go on their merry way. Giving us the reasons for the calls also helps. We may not like it, but the forwardness somehow makes it much better to take IMOHO.

[gwillybj]

Draginol wrote...
Let me take this moment to...

...prove to gwillybj that he will love this game, specifically for the reasons others might not.
Now, as to whether it will be The Best Game Ever And It Will Never Be Bested: I won't say until I've played it, but I will be weighing it very seriously with SMAC, which I play solo-only by choice and about which my wife accuses me of becoming obsessive.
I suspect I will enjoy it not necessarily more, but surely equally as well because it is different enough to provide a pleasurable alternative.

[WarpStorm]

I think that GalCiv's AI is much better than SMAC's. When I think about it, that was the one thing I'd change on SMAC if it were up to me. The AI was fairly weak.

[Jamski]

What do you not like about GalCiv, Warpstorm? You've played it, haven't you? I want to get my expectataions as low as possible, then when I play it, I'll be so surprised how good it is

-Jam

[WarpStorm]

Well, I'd like for there to be more major races (at once). There are only 5 major AI races in the game no matter how big the galaxy. (Yes, I know that races can split and there are the minor leaguers).

Another thing I'd like to see is more variety on planets. Unless I'm missing something they are only distinguished by a planetary quality number.

The graphics are nothing special.

Are your expectations sufficiently lowered?

I'm looking forward to the release version, because it's just plain fun.

[Jamski]

Hmm, only 5 big guys, plus the human, plus the minor guys. I'm thinking SMAC, somehow. Only 7 factions, but what a game. My expectations are now so low that my mouth is watering. I must point out that my favorite game (and still most played) is Civ 1.

And these are you only "quibbles" with the design. I'm not surpised Brad is proud of his baby.

-Jam

[The Templar]

Like someone said above, too may features kill a game! Civ3 is so damn good because there are so few features. Why? AI is simple and cannot handle loads of features. Civ3 probably has a better AI than SMAC because SMAC had too much crap going on (same with CTP2).

One planetary quality number? Good. Look at SE4. 3 distinct resources (minerals, organics, radioactives) as opposed to 1 "resources' in SE3. The AI in SE4 could not manage 3 types of resources, but SE3 could handle 1 resource. One planetary quality number sounds good.

[PriestOfDiscord]

Originally posted by The Templar
Like someone said above, too may features kill a game!....

I can't say I agree with that. So just because most people can't write good AI to save their lives we should never expect that to change? Even a game like Ascendancy, which might have had the worst AI ever written in a strategy game, was still fun just because of all the original ideas it had. I hate cookie-cutter games that don't change the status quo at all.

Besides, the AI seems pretty competent in this game from everything I've seen.

[Jamski]

Originally posted by PriestOfDiscord
Besides, the AI seems pretty competent in this game from everything I've seen.

Please tell me you're not referring to Acendancy.

-Jam

[PriestOfDiscord]

Originally posted by War of Art
Please tell me you're not referring to Acendancy.

-Jam

Not quite, that was more directed towards GalCiv. It looks to have some promise in deciding what to do.
Meanwhile, the bottom of the barrel doesn't go any lower than Ascendancy when it comes to AI.

[Jamski]

Thank god. I was having doubts about the sanity of anyone calling the Acendancy AI competent.

If the AI in this game is good enough that it keeps beating Brad, without cheats, then its good enough for me. I hope.

-Jam

[Boris Godunov]

*Sigh* what I wouldn't have given to have Ascendancy with a competent AI. It was such a beautiful game...

[billybaruch1]

Civ3 is so damn good because there are so few features.

Did you like Civ3 from the beginning or just after it's been patched? I got it and took it back because I read that the Air Defense interceptor feature didn't work. Is Civ3 a good game now that's it's been patched?

How about GalCiv's Metaverse? This sounds pretty good to me.

Q: Can you explain the Metaverse in more detail?

A: Sure. Essentially when you play GalCiv, your game is recorded and can optionally be submitted to the metaverse when the game is done. This has two particular advantages: 1) It lets you compete indirectly with other players in the GalCiv universe. And 2) We can update the AI based on the top players. So as time goes on, when you play a computer player you’ll be really playing against the strategies employed by the top players.

You can read the whole interview here:

http://www.galciv.com/encyclopedia.asp?action=showpage&page=http://www.galciv.com/docs/qa.html

I was so let down by moo3, I'm resolved to wait and read fan reactions and maybe play the demo first. But I think this really could be a game to rival Alpha Centauri.