Questions from a concerned would-be buyer

Asmodean · January 11, 2003, 12:38

Some time ago, I was involved in a debate on the official MoO3 forums on whether Galvic and MoO3 would release at the same time: A spin-off of that debate was this other guy (he was a Drengin.Net subscriber, and thus was playing the Galciv Beta), who basically said that Galciv wasn't any good, and certainly no threat to MoO3.

First, here's the (unabridged) version of what he said:

Quote:

First let me state this...

GalCiv still has two solid months of coding to be done on it before it goes gold by their current ship date. This means there is a lot that will still change and needs to be done from the version i'm currenlty playing and what the final product will finally be like. So my current opinion of GalCiv is biased because it is an unfinished product.

Now on to why I think GalCivs gameplay is outdated.

As I stated in my last post, the element of conflict is what drives the rest of the game, wether it be doin a Genghis on the known universe or imitating neutral Belgium as panzers role through your front yard, if that element isn't something thats gonna knock my socks off then i'm gonna take my toys and go home.

Tech research is standard, you pick a technology, press 'Next Turn' till you get it. They seem to have a fair amount in the game, I haven't finished out the tech tree yet due to some late game bug problems.

Planet Developement - there are 5 governers i believe, the governers are actually your ques'. You load up your governer with different build priorities for then assign your planets under one of the governers. You can micro your planets, but I just hate that.

Population control - each planet has a moral, moral is mainly driven by your taxation level, the more crowded a planet the less moral they have, there are improvements you can build to boost moral... but the affects don't last long. Your planet gets too unhappy they can simply defect to another empire.

Economics - planets make money, improvements can help out, you set your taxation level, then you set your actual spending level seperately from that. you can also alter spending % on the 3 main areas; military(how fast you build spaceships), social(how fast you build improvements on your planet), technological(how fast you research). Those 3 areas' percantage has to total 100.

Ship building - certain techs you research give you access to a new ship. no customizing, no hairy eye ball death beam lasers, just a ship with hit points, attack/defens ratings and a move rating.

trade is simple, build a freighter send it to a planet, farther that is away from the building planet the more that trade route is worth.

so far this game isn't a micro management fest until you reach one area. Space Ships. There is no build que for spaceships that i've seen. there is no stack or group move command that i'm aware of. if you want to move 20 ships from 1 square to all the way across the galaxy you have to click the destination point for every ship.

I could get much more in depth than what i've written so far, but I feel that in all the areas that have been done before by these games, GalCiv has really not made any serious advances from the game play elements as they appear in Civ1 or MOO1. In the current state of the game I would rate it somewhere between Civ2 and MOO2 and their original games. Just with a lot of the micro management taken out.

Now where GalCiv really starts to gripe my bawlz is on combat. The play screen is one big 2-D grid. Each 'solar system' takes up one grid cell. each space ship takes up on grid cell (friendly ships can be stacked all in a single cell) You can move anywhere provided your ship has enough range to reach that grid cell. There is no interdiction, no this is my land and keep off of it or i'll treat you like an indian. ships go anywhere they please. combat is simply running your ship into his a quick calculation is done and you've either won or not.

Don't even get me started on what ground combat for control of a planet is like. They go so far as to have some random #'s to help "spice up" the action i guess. Before combat starts you have to hit the space bar, when you do so both sides have a range of random numbers it has been skipping through very rapidly. The range is based on your overall combat level. if you are way advanced it might be 15-20 while his is only 1-5. Once you hit the space bar it stops on a number on both sides and that gets figured into the overall equation i guess. It can help even things out a bit or make a tough match a cakewalk. I just can't stand the idea of having the player act to get the random number as the only innovative idea for ground combat they have so far. Otherwise ground combat resembles MOO1.

I feel that so far they have almost taken a step backwards in the evelution of this gaming genre. Or it could be they have the next latest greatest craze, it's even better than sliced bread and i'm a total yutz cuz i'm the only one who didn't like it.

BUT - they are still in developement, many features could still be missing that could improve this game. I have not been following this game so there could be features i'm unaware of.

To sum this post up.... (dontcha just wish i started with the summary so you could say screw the rest of the verbage)

Qualifier: GalCiv is in beta still, anything I have said could be totally altered, fixed or fubared even more by release.

No realy micro management unless you want to use space ships.
All tech, econ, pop, build, spy, etc. areas have their own little twist on them to make them a bit different from other games but I do not feel they have advanced in any way. Just simply made different.
Combat blows wet meaty chunks that definitely do not taste better the second time.

I paid to play their beta because I remember the original GalCiv was a pretty decent game when compared with the current crop on games like it that were out at the time. After playing this new version a while now i'm left feeling that somebody used their wayback machine to bring the old design team to the present and they haven't learned a damn thing because of it.

Okay...so clearly this user is rather disgruntled. Can anyone (preferably Brad

, but I would certainly respect it if he didn't have the time to answer here) counter his arguments. I have always thought that Stardock were making a killer space 4X game, but he raises some valid points, and I would like to see them countered.

Asmodean

Draginol · January 11, 2003, 15:46

He has very legitimate gripes and many of those issues have already been addressed. That's the advantage of an open beta program. Players can tell us what they do and don't like.

Example:
Ship moving. Players demanded fleets. We now have fleets. Put your ships together, press a button, and they become a fleet that you can move/attack/whatever as a single unit. Makes creating convoys much easier.

Now, with regards to the most common gripes:

Yes, GalCiv has a Civ-style of tactical combat. You don't design ships (i.e. choose their weapons and such). And when they battle you don't tactically control the ships. You're leader of a civilization, your job is to run a civilization, not choose whether to fire the photon torpedoes instead of the phasers. So when two ships meet, one is destroyed.

Each ship has its own attack, defense, and hitpoints along with a level (ala Warcraft III heroes) which gives them additional benefits.

Regarding invasions:
It is much along the lines of other games in this genre (like MOO 2) where your soldiers aboard a transport land on a planet that you have space superiority and they battle it out. You don't control individual units of invading troops. Again, you're leader of a civilization, not a division commander. In GalCiv 1.x though we will be providing more general tactics (i.e. use mass drivers? carpet bomb? each choice has its own strengths and weaknesses).

But basically combat comes down to the ability of your soldiers, your technological sophistication, what defenses they've built, and what offensive enhancements you've built along with a "luck" factor which only makes the difference in close battles.

Probably the big thing that user didn't like, which we addressed, was that in the early betas you could load up an unlimited # of troops onto a transport. Now there are various kinds of transports with limits on the # of troops and range of the transports.

That said, SOME people won't like the game. there will be people who want tactical combat, for instance. I personally feel that those users have gotten plenty of games. Gamers like me, who enjoy strategic games versus tactical games haven't had much development aimed at us in recent years.

I do think there are some significant advances in GalCiv for the genre:

+ The starbases. No strategy game has a unit that acts like this. Imagine Civilization or even Warcraft III if players could build a building that had a radius affect on near by units and other structures. A building that gives, for instance, a +1 to attack to nearby units. Or increases trade on freighters traveling near by 25%.

+ Upgradedable resources. As you gain more technologies, you can build star bases on galactic resources and keep upgrading them throughout the game to make them more and more powerful.

+ 20 plus Civilization Abilities that you can upgrade during the game by taking a research path.

+ A REAL technology tree. I.e. one where you can really take multiple paths down and play out a strategy. I'm playing a game today (using an updated tech tree) where I have gone down the path of being a master diplomat. I have improved my diplomacy technology so much that I've managed to get the computer players to do my bidding by talking them into whatever I'd like. My military and economy aren't that strong.

+ An intelligent yearly status report. While some strategy games have a generic status dialog, GalCiv has a yearly status report with dozens (many dozens) of intelligent progress reports presented as a news broadcast. The information in it tells you what's going on in an intelligent, interesting way.

+ Random sub-plots. Events that make the game have a different feel each time. Not just random events but mini story arcs in the game that are rare enough that it'll take you months of playing to run into even most of them.

Now in fairness, most of this stuff wasn't in at the time of that player's post (they only showed up in beta 4 for the most part). But there will be people who don't think that these things are a big deal. that instead we should have had a 3D rotatable map or ship design screens or tactical fleet combat (in other words, we should have made MOO). But I personally think there are a LOT of strategy gamers who are looking for strategy games that are less action oriented and more strategic in their nature.

In other words, we want players to be able to build their own civilization.

Hope that answers your query!

Asmodean · January 11, 2003, 15:55

Thanks for your speedy reply, Brad. Appreciate it.

Yes you did answer my query. Specifically regarding combat. I, too, like the strategic games more than those that operate on the tactical level (which is probably why i never spent more than a few hours playing Imperium Galactica II).

Actually, another question comes to mind: Have any decisions been made with regards to European release of this game. Same time as in the U.S., or will we (once again) have to wait a month or so to play?

Asmodean

Edit: I know I could have bought the Beta, but I didn't want to spoil the fun of having the brand new finished game in my hand, shaking with anticipation, as I installed and played my first game. What can I say: I'm just not a beta guy

LDiCesare · January 11, 2003, 17:32

Quote:

Yes, GalCiv has a Civ-style of tactical combat. You don't design ships (i.e. choose their weapons and such). And when they battle you don't tactically control the ships. You're leader of a civilization, your job is to run a civilization, not choose whether to fire the photon torpedoes instead of the phasers. So when two ships meet, one is destroyed.

Hey Brad, yes, some players want it so. I hated the AI in MOO and MoM because I had to play tactical because the ai couldn't do it decently.
In fact, the biggest question I have with MOO3 is whether tactical combat will be a click fest or not? If it looks like it is, I won't buy the game, whereas I am pretty sure I will buy GalCiv.

I think there is one thing which would have been worth having (maybe is), it is the combined arms tactics. Yes, I said tactics, but I don't mean archers + flankers + meleers as in CtP2, but more something like Moo where ships had special abilities that complement one another and call for special techs to counter (like automated repair means you will want to build big ships, warp dissipator to freeze your opponent help defend planets and ships with missiles, etc.). I don't mean you have to use them in combat, but when you know your opponent uses ships with heavy shields, you decide to use ships with shield-piercing. That is strategy too. So to me the combat model looks a bit simplistic, but I don't think that will bother me a lot.

And yes what about European release?

Urban Ranger · January 12, 2003, 05:57

Combined arms tactics can be handled by giving bonuses to groups of ships having the right complements of weapons and equipment. In the board game Federation and Empire, a carrier battle group has bonuses and is very hard to kill - you have to detroy one ship at a time with really concentrated firepower.

Maybe they can do something similar in Gal Civ.

Asmodean · January 12, 2003, 18:25

Also, I would like to see how this game plays if you decide to go with a peaceful empirebuilding strategy. How well does it play if you choose to fight only defensively. I like to employ this strategy, as I find it more funny to build planetimprovements and colony ships, than fighting units.

Asmodean

Draginol · January 12, 2003, 20:11

Ships have ranges on them (how far from friendly star systems they can travel).

Some of the units are very powerful but short range. So one good strategy is to fight defensively, protecting commerce.

One strategy I employ goes like this:

I bulid up star bases in my sectors that give my ships attack bonuses. I slowly expand these star bses to magnifiy my cultural influence so that nearby sectors come into my thrall. Eventually those foreign planets will fall to my cultural domination and I repeat.

It's not an easy strategy to achieve since the AI is aware of this tactic and can work hard to make sure that your trade income is minimized (which you'll need to pay for all this stuff). But turtling can and does work pretty well depending on the circumstances.

Asmodean · January 13, 2003, 06:17

So you use your starbases to project your might to nearby starsystems. I like this.

*Insert picture of Asmodean drooling here*

Asmodean

Draginol · January 13, 2003, 11:55

Precisely.

You can build star bases anywhere you'd like. They in turn can be upgraded by buiding constructors (a unit) that when they intersect with a starbase will add a module to them.

These modules can be things that locally magnify the strength of your ships, your cultural influence, your economic power, production, and more.

Here's another example that's kind of fun:

Trade is a LOT more than simply building a freighter and sending it somewhere. While someone at first glance might think that's all there is to it, it's a lot more sophisticated than that.

When you build a freighter and create a trade route, a little trade ship is created that travels back and forth on the route. The money you collect from the route increases as the trade ship travels. The further along on its route, the more money you make.

This has significant importance because if you're at war, protecting those trade routes becomes vital (And why you may not necesssarily want to simply send a freighter to the other side of teh galaxy to maximize your route -- if the trade ships get whacked a third of the way there, you won't make hardly any money on the trade route).

Here's where star bases come in: You can build a line of star bases along your trade route that magnify the income you make from these trade routes. As you upgrade the star base, the amount can go from 5% increase in the income to 50% (over several upgrades).

Hence, if you can firmly control the route and fortify it, you can have a huge advantage over your opponents.

After 1.x, we hope to add another victory path -- the way of the marauder. Someone who gets rich not by building a real economic base but instead researches technologies that allows them to build marauders that prey on trade ships along with technologies that help cover up the fact that you're the one doing the privateering.

moomin · January 13, 2003, 13:15

Marauder victory? A risky proposition, but I sure like it. Pirates of the High Space Lanes, or somesuch.

LDiCesare · January 13, 2003, 18:06

Wow. The star bases looks like an interesting feature. I guess it would allow you to play OPC (One Planet Challenge) as a trader?

Asmodean · January 13, 2003, 19:59

I'm definately happy with trade being an important part of the game. I really liked the civ2 model of trade, whereas the way civ3 handles it does not really go down well with me.

No word on European release, Brad?

Asmodean

Urban Ranger · January 14, 2003, 05:58

Quick question: how is logistics handled? Is it possible to defeat an invader by cutting off its supply route?

GeeTabs · January 15, 2003, 15:17

I'm really looking forward to this game. Still, the combat aspect is still a little unclear. Can anyone out there compare it to, say, the type of combat used in Stars!

Thanks in advance.

WarpStorm · January 15, 2003, 22:44

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the combat seems Civ-like (not that that's a bad thing).

Neuromancers · January 27, 2003, 22:11

"Quick question: how is logistics handled? Is it possible to defeat an invader by cutting off its supply route?"

Yes it is possible!

As Brad explained earlier, ships have ranges on them (how far from friendly star systems OR STARBASES they can travel).

Simply invade/destroy their nearest friendly system/starbase and the invading ships will have to move back to what their range allows them.

Whether this tactis is effective depends on the size of the galaxy. If they are your close neighbours, it's very likely that your systems will be "in range" for most of their ships. You (and the AI) can also do research that gives you ships with greater range and/or increases the range of your existing ships (newer engines).

I'd also like to mention that IMHO the AI in this game is likely to become the best so far, in a space strategy game. I win Moo2, HUGE, Impossible 95% of the time, but I've been having serious trouble with the AI in Galciv.

Brad has also said that the AI will "learn" from the best players through a metaverse where players can send in their results.

Draginol · January 28, 2003, 00:02

Let me elaborate on that.

There's an old saying: Tactics are for amateurs, logistics are for professionals.

We wanted players to be able to win by screwing up their opponent's logistical base. But we wanted to do that without the game becoming painful.

For instance, you don't want to force players to have to deal with things like delivering food and fuel and weapons to distant fleets. That gets tedious and frankly, would make the AI a total bastard to deal with because the AI never would get tired of zinging your supply convoys and such but human players would get sick of it.

So we went to the drawing board and tried to find a way for us to highlight logistics AND the fact that the AI plays by the same rules the player does. And so we came up with two things:

1) Trade ships.
2) Star bases logistics.

A lot of your income comes from trade. Some people have poo-poo'd the trade in GalCiv saying it's "simplistic". But it's not. It's only simple to create a trade route. But a lot of thought has to go into how to create them.

That's because when a freighter reaches a destination, a trade ship is created and it travels back and forth. Th eamount of $$ you get from that route increases as the trade ship progresses.

So there's two things you can do in this from a logistics point of view, you can starve their trade by taking out those trade ships.

And you can take out star bases that support them. I tel you, this is one of the funner parts of the late game tactics part for me. The AI in beta 5 (not released yet) is really good about building a line of star bases where its trade routes go and building them up to give bonuses to trade ships that pass through those sectors. You can really cripple a player if you can make surgical strikes on key sectors. If you don't plan well the AI will squash you but if you can nail the right star bases right away, you can gain a real advantage.

In on game last night the Altarians were taking the culture path to victory (I knew this also because I was in the debugger and knew which strategy they were going after but I digress ). I could see them building up culture star bases and slowly growing them outside their main territory. I could also see them going after the influence resources and building them up.

The Drengin also saw this and informed me that they believed the Altarians were going to soon declare war on me and then them. So I built up a strike force and attacked those key star bases. Within a couple turns their influence had dropped to far less than mine. And the Drengin and I were able to eventually beat them and win the game.

But that was something that was really fun, even as a developer, because I realized that there were many different strategy choices available to me than the usual "attack planets and invade, repeat." Which wouldn't have worked anyway since those star bases provided +8 attack to their forces.

notyoueither · January 28, 2003, 02:42

The AI comes and tells you that so and so is persuing such and such a strat and 'we' should gang up on them?

Jamski · January 28, 2003, 03:52

I love it, the AI is helping you beat itself. Now that sounds cool. I'm not sure I could trust it though.

From what you're saying, Brad, it sounds that the game will be a lot like the original Civ, at least in terms of combat and movement, and the trade routes are simply a bit less abstracted than in Civ1, in that the actual trade ships can be seen and attacked. Bearing in mind that Civ1 was better that both Civ2+3, IMHO, do you have a feeling of going "back to basics" and correcting some of the excesses of the later Civ games. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the feeling this is really a game for game puritans (and there's a lot of us about) for whom its more important that the game plays well, than how it looks, or how realistic it is.

I'm full of anticipation.

-Jam

notyoueither · January 28, 2003, 07:44

Quote:

Originally posted by War of Art
I'm full of anticipation.

Ditto.

Draginol · January 28, 2003, 13:43

Well taking a few steps back, the real goal here is to create a game in which you are the leader of a civilization. And as a result, try to abstract things and include things to a strategic level as opposed to a tactical level.

So what does that mean?

Basically the game mechanic is simple but the strategies involved with them are complex. Sending a freighter to a star system is pretty simple to do.

BUT deciding where to send the freighter takes some real thought. The further I send it, the more money I get from it IF it completes its trade route. On the other hand, if I send it on a nice short straight path I can build up a ring of star bases along the trade route and really crank up the money I get from the trade route.

Asmodean · January 28, 2003, 17:37

That last little piece of info from Draginol is pretty important. In my current game my manufacturing capital is located near the center of my empire. Therefore is is the ideal place to build constructors (the space ships that build or upgrade starbases). That planet is building nothing but constructors, and I can't wait to have my trade routes backed up by starbases all the way.

Now we'll just have to see if I can protect them too.

Asmodean

Draginol · January 28, 2003, 18:04

With the additional month of development, I'd like to try to add more types of star base modules. The star bases really have the ability to generate a lot of interesting strategies. The only real limits are making sure the AI does it.

As you can imagine, it wasn't trivial to get the AI to coordinate not only the right time to build constructors but to place star bases in intelligent spots and know what and when the right module to add to it was.

Sarxis · January 29, 2003, 12:59

Man, from the things you guys are saying, I am going to have to check into this game for sure now.

But an additional month of development is always nice- add some features please

Harry Seldon · January 29, 2003, 15:53

This game sounds fantastic. I don't know that I'll rush out and buy it on day one, but I definitely want to hear more about it.

pg · February 2, 2003, 23:40

wow, if all this is true galciv is going to be great. i wish i'd heard of it before. sounds like galciv could be a real revolution - more than just a convoluted evolution like the civ games. at worse it sounds like a substantial evolution. i love games which break new ground!