GalCiv availability thread - first impressions

[Cookie Monster]

This certainly is great news. Right off the bat people are excited about this game and having fun.

So many that I know including myself were utterly discouraged during those first few hours with Moo3. As time went on that discouragement turned to rage and utimately returned the game. Bravo.....I am glad GalCiv is doing well where Moo3 failed miserably. But then again everything Infogreed touches turns to junk.

Anyway I'll probably pick up GalCiv this weekend.

[FrustratedPoet]

/edit: I asked a dumbass question I've just found the answer for somewhere else.
Sorry to have troubled you.

/edit2:
aaah, my edit cross-posted with RPM's reply.

Thanks bud

[Spaced Cowboy]

FP,

You can pay online and get a download code. Then burn that to CD if you want.

[Urban Ranger]

Ackpttffttt.

The local stores don't have it. Bozos!

[Jamski]

Originally posted by Haupt. Dietrich
Bravo.....I am glad GalCiv is doing well where Moo3 failed miserably. But then again everything Infogreed touches turns to junk.

GalCiv is also published by Infogrammes, BTW. If its going to turn to junk, I won't download it. I have plenty of junk already.

-Jam

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by War of Art


GalCiv is also published by Infogrammes, BTW. If its going to turn to junk, I won't download it. I have plenty of junk already.

-Jam

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by War of Art


GalCiv is also published by Infogrammes, BTW. If its going to turn to junk, I won't download it. I have plenty of junk already.

-Jam

Hate to tell you this, infocrap had nothing to do with this game, Strategy FIrst published it.

[Boris Godunov]

OK, I played for about 4 hours last night. It would have been longer, but I suffered a mindnumbingly bad-timed CTD...

But aside from that, here are my first impressions:

Gameplay: 9.5/10

Wow, this is a fun game. Right away, I became immersed in the game, had plenty to do and was not bored for a second. Fun out of the box. However, I felt the exploration/colonization is a bit too rushed. One of the things I like about some 4x games is the idea that you can get to the late game and still have some systems unexplored/unsettled. I wish they had maybe put a colony limit based on technology levels.

The fog of war doesn't seem to be working all that well. I can clearly see on the map ships across the galaxy in enemy territory where I have no ships or beacons.

Nonetheless, it's fun. I've yet to have any combat, though, which is kinda interesting. Using my standard civ tactics, I'm clearly gravitating to the peaceful science/culture route.

Interface: 8.5/10

The interface is very good, but some things are not intuitive. I will cite the colony ship instance. In my first game, I had no clue how to launch a colony ship from my planet that I had just built, and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out that I had to double click on the tiny icon in the planet's orbit window, load people on it and then launch it. I think that requires a bit more explanation or should be cleaned up some. Perhaps whenever a colony ship is built, a dialogue for loading and launching it should appear automatically?

The other thing is map scrolling/ship movement. The moue buttons seem to trip me up. I will have a ship selected, and then want to check out a planet, click on the planet and oops! my ship starts going towards the planet. Minorly frustrating at times.

Documentation: 5

The manual is far to basic, and getting ingame help is not really all that possible...why can't I right-click on a button to see what it does?

Technology is the worst part here...The long descriptions are nice background, but there's no practical description of what the techs will do and how they will help me. I can build a doohickey if I research this? Well, what does that doohickey do? No way to find out prior to researching it.

The tutorial mode is terrible--I like windows popping open, giving me step-by-step instructions on how to do thing. That's what tutoring means. The obscure little window at the bottom of the screen with somewhat vague comments meant to be helpful is, frankly, not all that helpful.

This is the most disappointing aspect of the game. Still, the manual does provide enough info to jump into a game and know what to do right away.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics aren't supposed to be astounding, and they aren't, but they do what they're supposed to do well. I think they could be improved considerably, but they aren't as awful as some reviews led me to believe. The worst, IMO, is the galactic minimap. Far too pixilated for my taste. But what's most important is that they adequately immerse me in the universe and are clean, not confusing me at all. So they are fine.

Sound/Music: 7/10.

The music is good, setting the right atmosphere without being intrusive. It doesn't wow me like Diablo did, but it does what it is supposed to do. Far superior to Civ3 music, IMO, at setting the right atmosphere without being obnoxiously repetitive.

Sound isn't much of an issue--it's there, it's not very noticeable. That's a good thing, since it doesn't get in the way.

These are just initial impressions, but so far the game is impressing me very much. The CTD is worrysome, but future patches are going to address such issues, and it was the only technical problem I encountered running the game. Right now I'd say overall is 8.5/10, which could easily change upwards with a few fixes to the interface and in-game documentation.

Now I have to wait 6 hours to play again...garrrrrr!

[vmxa1]

IG is only the distributor, not the publisher or the design house.
Stardock was working on the game before the got with Strategy First and IG.
Of course there are no guarntees, but I am not seeig a lot of irate consumers so far.

[Eric S]

O.K., the one bit of music in the game that grabs me every time is the music in the Diplomacy screen when you're talking to the Drengin. Really sets the "you're dealing with pure evil" mood quite well!

[MarkG]

AFAIK Stardock financed and will finance GalCiv. which means IG acts only as the distributor

[MarkG]

ah yes, downloaded it yesterday, started playing today!
one word: this IS "civ in space"

[Trifna]

Awesome! It's the best TBS I know to date!! It really is the game that includes best every aspect of an empire, the inner workings of a civilization. Maybe the society could be a little more detailed though (for now: only imperialism, republic, democracy and federation). Yet, I played about 20 hours.


(I already played (not all 100 hours): Civ 1-2-3, SMAC, Capitalism, Corporate Machine, Colonization, MOO3, Europa Universalis)

[vee4473]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Technology is the worst part here...The long descriptions are nice background, but there's no practical description of what the techs will do and how they will help me. I can build a doohickey if I research this? Well, what does that doohickey do? No way to find out prior to researching it.

I don't think that the tech descriptions are too vague. When you click on a tech to research , it shows you all the advances you can build when the research is done.
(any new ship, weapons systems, planetary improvements.. etc..)

As for the tutorial mode, i'm still trying to figure out exactly what the difference between having it on or off is..

[vee4473]

after further consideration let me say that with regards to the tech tree, it would most definitely be a huge plus if in addition to just listing the various things you can build as a result of a tech, it actually gave a chance to click on the various things to get a description.

yes, it can be better.