The "Review in Progress" Thread...

[Gelvan]

I'm not sure if exploiting a flaw should be considered a "bug" which needs to be fixed.

No offense meant - I'm just suggesting to play the game instead of searching for it's weaknesses. Because: You'll always find weaknesses if you search for them, that's in the nature of "things"... especially computer games.

IMHO it's not so important to hinder players from exploiting flaws, like this techtrading one - after all, it IS your descision if you do it or not.

The problem I see, if you change things like that, that you'll screw it and after the fifth revision or something, tech trading becomes meaningless in itself. Why not just let it as it is and let the player decide how honorable his play style shall be?

[yin26]

That is an excellent point, and I've seen games hurt in exactly that way (even Paradox erred, IMO, with EU2 by making the game eventually challenging even for the hard-core but upping war attrition too high, though they went back and relaxed things a bit).

Rather, what I'm looking for here is for the *AI* to be as clever as the human. No, I don't think the AI can ever be made to be as clever as a human on all issues, no way. But this tech thing is so central to the way money works in the game, on this point I think saying "just don't play it that way" is unrealistic. I say this because all I'm doing is trading tech in an obvious manner.

I think, in fact, the negotiations end of GalCiv needs some work. Not an overhaul, but some work, that's all.

Some ideas for fixes:

* Make sure all civs have universal translator as among their first techs so they can trade.
* If Civ A and B are in contact with each other and I sell Techs X,Y,Z to CivA, when I click over to sell to CivB, either CivA and I should have to try to low-bid each other or CivB will prefer to buy from either one of us depending on our alignment, etc. As it is now, you can just roll down the civs and get full price over and over for whatever tech you happen to have at the moment.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Gelvan
Concerning Random events: they were made to support the feeling that every time you play it, it's a new game.

Yes that is the concept and maybe in this game that will work. It does not work that way for the most part in other games though.
In any event being able to turn it off hurts no one, as you can leave it on if you like it or want a change.

[yin26]

I agree. Random events need to be made an option and/or reworked so that the player can prepare better to some degree ("The unmistakable sounds of Space Sharks is heading our way. Scientists think we'll have 24 months to prepare, and it seems the Space Sharks have more than 300 hitpoints!").

[Eric S]

Originally posted by Lemmy

I find it odd that something that Humanity can do NOW we can't do at the start of the game, 175 years in the future.

That's not completely true, we can only 'see' the big gas giants now, and who would llike to live on a gas planet
And even if we could detect earthlike planets, we'd still have to know about the living conditions on the planet, which is even harder then just seeing them.

Exactly. The only thing the AI gets that the player doesn't is knowledge at the start of the game of what color each of the stars is. It doesn't get any knowledge of the planets circling the stars.

Aside from that, the only cheats the AI gets is a 5% econ bonus at the next-to-highest difficulty level, and a 40% econ bonus at the highest level. If I ever play that well, I'll willingly give it that much of a lead. I'm not even playing on "Normal" yet.

[Tytan]

I agree that the AI should trade techs aggressively, they seem to be too eager to take the easy route and demand free money.

When starting your game, make sure to set your government spending to 100% and military spending to 100% until your 1000bc runs out. Make sure you have around 100b people on planets as a minimum. On the lower class planets, build 1 to 2 colony ships and then switch to constructors.

For better speed, research propulsion tech>>cold fusion>>impulse drive for more speed. Also research artificial gravity>>controlled gravity and buy/build gravity accelerators. Antimatter>>Warp Drive>>Hyperspace will boost it towards the mid-game.

Communications tech>>universal translator>>diplomacy and buying diplomatic translators will go a long way as well to improving your relations. Trade>>interstellar business>>interstellar marketing and buy/build the resturaunt of eternity will boost your influence as will Xeno Propaganda and buy/build the propaganda machine.

Most important of all, find minor races early and trade techs for money. Then boost governmental spending back up to 100% and crank out colony ships/constructors.

[yin26]

Yep, that's what I've done this last game almost to the letter, adding in my lease experiment (which has yet to play out fully since 'life' gets in the way)!

I think I haven't really reached the mid-game on this one yet, so I'll settle for having to get more tech for space travel. Looks like I've got half to 2/3rds of the techs you mention.

Most important of all, find minor races early and trade techs for money. Then boost governmental spending back up to 100% and crank out colony ships/constructors.

This is part of what I'm trying to decide about the game: Doing this, it's rather easy to cover the lease strategy. In fact, I never dropped my spending below 100% yet! The lease amount goes up, but then I just get my civs on the line and get a bunch of money.

Well, I'll reserve judgement on this until I play out tonight's game.

[Gelvan]

@Yin
I agree with you, rather than let it be, the AI should tech trade faster too. But then everyone has the highest technologies quite early, and this drains the happiness for getting new techs.

Maybe a tech trading restriction would work, let's say you can trade 3 techs per round, full stop. Furthermore this would (maybe?) make it possible to write a subroutine, where the AI is forced to trade 3 techs per round, if he can. Furthermore this number could be changed by the UP.

[ChaotikVisions]

So is there not an option to turn random events off? A way to turn off alignment would be nice too, since I can't really see the reason to have it. Especially since from what i've read your goverments as they advance become more free. So I could change to a goverment that gave even more freedoms and the chance of losing the senate, but i'm evil.

Why can't I kill those oppose me instead? Abolish the senate, they're useless. Send death squads to all those who oppose me. Use troops to quell rebellious planets, etc... I mean the whole thing sounds nice, but the only differences i've heard for the alignments are a few techs and affect on AI relations.

I've also read theres no build individual build queue for planets, only set build queues you assign to planets, which is a pain as well. Surely it can't have been that hard to include a regular build queue could it? But anyway, i'm still waiting for the demo but i'm not liking some of what i've been hearing.

[vmxa1]

I ran into the debacle know as the senate last night and wanted to throw the CD as far as I could.
I wanted to go attack someone and the senate said no.
Hum where have I heard this before (civ2), did I like it then (no way).
Ok then lets change governments to get around this, senate says no, huh.
This alone is a game breaker for me. I am now forced o stay in the lowest form of government or I am not really in control of my own empire.
To tel you the truth, I was not in love with the game before this occurred, but I was still playing.
The game seems to be heavily leaning towards trade and diplomacy, thinks I am not interested in doing.
I do not find it fun to go around to all of the race constantly trying to figue what kind of deal I can make.
It is one of the things I dislike about Civ3, but at least you can accept a handicap and not do it in civ3.
Here if you do not want to trade and gather votes, what is left? You can not design ships, you do not have tactical combat, where is the fun?

[vee4473]

wow, i have not gotten to the point of declaring war while being a form of gov't that won't let you, but i'm with you...if it is like civ2 where the senate can over ride you, well...that sucks.

[vee4473]

although, i kinda like the senate idea. Except of course when my party gets voted out and i lose all the bonuses associated with that party.

i wonder why it wouldn't let you switch government, wmx...?

[cyphron]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I ran into the debacle know as the senate last night and wanted to throw the CD as far as I could.
I wanted to go attack someone and the senate said no.

I don't know if this applies to you or not but...

In my games, as long as I keep my approval ratings high (55%) and retain control of the senate, I can declare war any time I want. You have to retain control of the senate!

[vmxa1]

I don't know. I am thinking of trying to surround their system and try to provoke them.
If that does not work, I will start a new game and no switch to Republic form of government. I understand that Imperialism will not behave that way.

[Nirvana_CN]

Yin

I play solely on the AI as "Bright"

And trust me..they DO trade techs big time! Maybe too much for me to keep up with. I used the money for techs thing as you did, but on my games they dont bite, the most they ai's are giving me are 100bc for a month or two..and this s for key techs like the Dreadnaught or Battleships.

Also Yin, if your Transports are only moving one unit per turn, im gussing you haven;t gone down the research route that leads to "combat Transport" yet? Or maybe the gravity tech path that potentially adds +3 to all ships pretty early on in the game?

Also i like to add in the +1 movement in my Civ setup, makes me much faster to colonise early on, and my ships have a superiour range.

I have played 6 games, and lost..well 6..lol its certainly a challenge...my last game was the closest..until i realised what a "Terror Star" actually did..needless to say i was not fully prepared for it, all my ships were in his space, but when he used the star on my top 5 $$ producing stars..i resigned..(Yes it does seem he focused his attack on my 3 biggest $$ producers, and then took out my 3 biggest production centres...very impressive )

Just some hints that might make your game a bit more fun!