Thanks for the link Zolth. Seem features always get cut in Beta.
Galactic Civilizations III - Stardocks Next 4X Game
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DArtagnan
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Does it match MoO2 in terms of RPG features, like planetary/ship leaders? What kinds of victory conditions are present? Are the weapons unique without simply scaling in damage, and so on?
In terms of weapons, I think Gal Civ 3 is similar to Gal Civ 2, in that there are 3 weapon damage types (lasers, bullets/shells/cannons and missiles) and 3 defense types, one to counter each of the damage types. So from a research perspective, you might have to research offense/defense technologies based on what would be effective against enemy ships. Of course, each of the damage/defense types scale in numbers.
Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
Victory conditions:
Weapons are beam, missile, and kinetic. It doesn't look like they are just a simple increase in damage but it doesn't look real complex, either. For instance, one track for the beam weapons increases damage and shrinks the size of the weapon so you can fit more on a ship. The other track supports making the beams have longer range and improve beam weapons over the fleet. So you've got some variety but not a ton of flexibility that I can find.
There are also choices to make like this one which establish your empire reputation. GalCiv2 had something like that, also. Hopefully this one is better balanced.
P.S. Frogboy posted a quick comparison of features through the first 4 GalCiv games. Hmmm, tactical implications to how you build your ship?? I think I missed something!
P.P.S. Steam post on Beta 6, aka Release Candidate. Also included is a road map of what should be happening down the line.
- Conquest - kill them all. (Not sure if that means taking every planet, just taking the capital, or actually exterminating every ship and planet.)
- Influence - your culture becomes so dominant that everyone wants to be part of it. (My personal favorite.)
- Research - research something at the top of the tech tree that's really hard.
- Ascension - capture enough ascension crystals and hold them for a bit. (This was added late in GalCiv2. I didn't like it much in that game. We'll have to see how it goes in this one.)
- Alliance - the good'old diplomatic victory.
- Turn Limit - I'm not sure exactly how this works. It sounds like whoever has the most points after X turns wins but the description says "Defeat your foes before time runs out." It does let me select just that option so it isn't just a time limit that means everybody loses if you don't finish after X turns.
Weapons are beam, missile, and kinetic. It doesn't look like they are just a simple increase in damage but it doesn't look real complex, either. For instance, one track for the beam weapons increases damage and shrinks the size of the weapon so you can fit more on a ship. The other track supports making the beams have longer range and improve beam weapons over the fleet. So you've got some variety but not a ton of flexibility that I can find.
There are also choices to make like this one which establish your empire reputation. GalCiv2 had something like that, also. Hopefully this one is better balanced.
P.S. Frogboy posted a quick comparison of features through the first 4 GalCiv games. Hmmm, tactical implications to how you build your ship?? I think I missed something!
P.P.S. Steam post on Beta 6, aka Release Candidate. Also included is a road map of what should be happening down the line.
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DArtagnan
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Thanks for the info, guys!
In the past, I've found the GalCiv games sterile and without personality. But maybe it's time I give one a proper go. Sounds decent enough
In the past, I've found the GalCiv games sterile and without personality. But maybe it's time I give one a proper go. Sounds decent enough
Kordanor
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I never played GalCiv1 and only experienced GalCiv2 with all the add ons, but I never found it being sterile. In fact I think it has more personality than any other 4X space game since MOO2 (which imho was a good game, but compared to todays games it had some horrible mechanics).
But for me the things which make it less sterile are at some other places to be found.
E.g. what made MOO2 a great experience to me was the music, the different races and their personality, their art, that gameplay wise the discovery of great planets mattered and planets had somewhat of a "personality", that you could see the planet from a side view when in the planet management screen and so on.
In contrast for example to Endless Space, which while having good music and feeling very polished, seemed extremely sterile and broken down to mechanics. Discovering a new planet didn't matter. The planets did not have a "personality". If you found a really awesome planet but the system it was in only had one planet, it was a shitty system nevertheless and so on.
BTW: If you need some 4X food, the game "Armada 2526 Gold" was also quite decent with some interesting different mechanics.
But for me the things which make it less sterile are at some other places to be found.
E.g. what made MOO2 a great experience to me was the music, the different races and their personality, their art, that gameplay wise the discovery of great planets mattered and planets had somewhat of a "personality", that you could see the planet from a side view when in the planet management screen and so on.
In contrast for example to Endless Space, which while having good music and feeling very polished, seemed extremely sterile and broken down to mechanics. Discovering a new planet didn't matter. The planets did not have a "personality". If you found a really awesome planet but the system it was in only had one planet, it was a shitty system nevertheless and so on.
BTW: If you need some 4X food, the game "Armada 2526 Gold" was also quite decent with some interesting different mechanics.
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DArtagnan
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I agree that Endless Space was bland and generic. I think it's much like GalCiv and GalCiv 2 in that way, actually.
I think MoO2 design and SimTex design in general is much more interesting than anything from Stardock and their dry and perfunctory approach. The guy in charge admitted that he's got no real interest in game design - and it took the vast failure of Elemental for him to finally say that out loud and get another guy to do the majority of the design work - which is why Fallen Enchantress is much better than anything Stardock ever did before. Here's hoping he's stayed far away from GalCiv 3 in terms of mechanics.
SimTex understood the value of choice impact and how you don't have to obsess over balance when going for what's fun. You can see this just by looking at the custom race options - and how you can create some truly fun and unique races, instead of GalCiv's 10% to this and that. At least, that's how I remember it.
MoO2 had a lot of unique features that I've yet to see in any modern TB 4X competitor set in space - including how telepathy can be used to dominate planets and ships, ship boarding and take-over, RPG-like planetary leaders and ship commanders, technology miniaturization, and all sorts of little touches that all add up to a rich experience.
I also loved how almost all weapon technologies were useful - even in the latter stages of the game, because they had unique strengths and weaknesses.
Everything had personality and care that went into both the design and the aesthetics.
Obviously, it's almost 20 years old - so some things are out of date, including a painful amount of micromanagment and a clunky combat system.
But I consider it completely and totally unsurpassed when it comes to the space 4X genre - and I've played them all.
I tried Armada 2526 Gold, and it wasn't for me.
You also seem to like the mechanics of Pillars of Eternity? I guess that makes sense - because it has that same overly balanced and dry approach to game design that I'm not a fan of. Give me the mess of 3rd Edition D&D any day of the week and thrice on saturdays
Kordanor
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The two most negative things I remember about MOO was the combat, which essentially was that the attacker always gets the first move with all ships and will always win with an equal army. Which is probably irrelevant for single player, but really sucked in MP.
The second thing is that I didn't like the concept of a genocide being the most effective way to improve your people. Mechanic wise Droids were more effective than your own race. So you basically killed everyone and replaced them with droids. Which was a pain in the ass to do and didn't really feel right.
The second thing is that I didn't like the concept of a genocide being the most effective way to improve your people. Mechanic wise Droids were more effective than your own race. So you basically killed everyone and replaced them with droids. Which was a pain in the ass to do and didn't really feel right.
I guess you are talking about Brad Wardell, who is the CEO of Stardock. He still is involved in decisions in GalCiv3 from what it sounds like in the stream (well, the whole series is his creation after all), but from what I know he is mainly involved in programming the AI, which was extremely praised in GalCiv2.
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DArtagnan
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They actually changed that in a patch shortly after release, adding initiative on ships - based on their speed.
Androids, you mean? It's true - but that makes a lot of sense to me, actually.
Yep, he's the one.
I'm fine with the AI - though I tend to play these games in multiplayer almost exclusively.
I find the notion of a challenging AI somewhat ridiculous. To me, AIs are just simple patterns you need to learn - and then victory is inevitable. Not really something that excites me
Kordanor
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I find the notion of a challenging AI somewhat ridiculous. To me, AIs are just simple patterns you need to learn - and then victory is inevitable. Not really something that excites me
Pretty much depends on how you play.
E.g. in 4X games I never ever reload, because otherwise, yeah, victory is inevitable in most cases.
While I also mostly play such games in Multiplayer, I am mostly playing together with just one or two other players. Having a couple of AIs adds some additional dynamic to the mix and makes the whole game more "alive".
With that I mean that while I see how a 1v1 player vs player experience can be fun, playing 2 out of 16 nations or so on a huge map in Civ 4 is an extremely different experience which makes you much more immersed into the "world" if you can call it like that. A little bit like Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron.
That said, I love how they implemented multiplayer in GalCiv3 (or at least from the concept as I haven't played it yet).
To explain it to people who aren't aware of the situation:
Most 4X games have a big problem of taking turns in multiplayer. You have the choice of going full turn based, or going simultaneous.
Full Turn Based has the advantage that you can take your time (within the timer if you set one) and that it is completely strategic. Your PCs speed or your ability to click fast have almost no impact. It is in generall the fairest way to play. With the exception if the game puts a lot of pressure towards the beginning or ending of the turn (e.g. if you are the last one to take a turn, you might have an advantage in planning production in cities, players whose turn is already past, cannot for example change production to military when this last player destroys all their units). But this is highly depending on the rest of the game mechanics but hardly is a factor from what I can tell.
The big disadvantage: It just takes AGES. And with each new player one turn takes longer.
Simultaneous Turns: All players start their turn at the same time and can do actions at the same time. This menas that a player who is faster might get some benefits by that.
Lets say that two scouts are at a hut and could get it in that turn. The player who can click there faster, either due to loading time or due to faster reaction, will get the hut.
Another example would be the following:
Player A shots at Player Bs melee unit with an archer.
Before Player A can shoot again with a second archer, Player B moves the unit away.
Another example: Player A has to movement points and gets near an enemy unit and discoveres it, before the player can click to move away again with the second movement point, player B attacks him with his unity (or the city) which might kill player As unit.
So generally playing simultaneous turns is a pain in the ass if you want to play strategy instead of twitch based RTS. But it is necessary if you want to play a game in a timely manner and not via email or something like that.
Personally I used to play Civ 5 with my friends (still have the scores of 25 Civ:BE and ~100 Civ 5 matches) with some house rules to actually make it work.
While Civ 5 offers to switch dynamically to turn based when war is declared that makes it take ages. So what we did is doing everythind simultaneously BUT troop movement once some players are at war. E.g. Player A declares war to B, C is still at peace. Player A goes into the boarders of B, and B can decide either to react in this turn or to move first in the following turn. Either way, we basically change to turn based combat and tell in TS when the troop movement is finished so that it's the next players turn. However all the players can do all the other actions, like city management, moving troops in the backyard withouth having to wait. This basically gave the advantages of both worlds.
And now we finally come to GalCiv3's System. While GalCiv 2 did not include Multiplayer at all, GalCiv 3 implemented it in one of the best possible ways: It basically does what we already did via houseroules, just in a little different way. All players cann always give orders to planets, and also give orders to units. However during the "Master Turn", there are multiple sub turns of each player where these movement orders are executed.
So lets say, that turn 1 starts.
Player 1's turn begins. He gives movement orders which are directly executed, he sets up his planets and so one. During the very same time, all other players set their constuction plans and already give orders to their ships.
Now Player 2's turn begins: His ships will automatically move the way he planned it during Player 1s turn. If they still have movement points left, he will be prompted to use them now.
And so on. It is an extremely simple, but extremely good solution and I am wondering why nobody else implemented it like that. (well, I guess one of the reason is, that Firaxis as the other big player doesn't care much about multiplayer and completely focuses on singleplayer which also explains all these horrible mechanics and balance flaws in Civ 5 which hurt MP but hardly affect SP).
Sorry that it got a little longer.
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Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
Most of them have some form of tech miniaturization, I think. RPG-like planetary rulers/leaders are a big thing in Endless Space. Sword of the Stars 2 a lot of psionics, boarding parties, admirals (they can gain skills but I wouldn't call them RPG-like), tech miniaturization, a vast array of weapons, quite a few defenses, and REALLY different factions fighting each other.
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DArtagnan
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Sure, but none of those games had them all together.
I don't want to play a game that has SOME of my favorite features, when there's another that has them all.
Endless Space is super sterile and dull.
Sword of the Stars 2 was a completely broken mess, and while it may be fixed today - it was very light on the planetary building side, which I don't like.
I hate the way so many of these 4X games make the planetary design/building aspect into something abstract and streamlined.
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DArtagnan
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Not reloading is just extending the learning process.
I tend to equate the learning/discovery process as the "fun" part of the game when going against the AI, but I don't expect to win until I know what the rules are.
Once I learn the rules, I've never met an AI in a TB game that wasn't a complete pushover.
That said, I stopped caring many years ago. Maybe they've improved this aspect in recent years.
I never feel any satisfaction when beating a bunch of scripts and simplistic AI routines. I really need that human feedback
I agree, and I also add AIs to multiplayer games like this. But not for challenge, more for flavor - as you say.
That's why the best TB multiplayer games have combat systems without manual controls. Instead, you give "general orders" to your army - and they fight it out without player input. Check out games like Dominions for a great implementation of this system.
Civ is atrociously bad in multiplayer - because of the way they make you move around a million individual units, both military and civil.
It's horrible design that should have been improved long ago. Call to Power fixed it to an extent, but Firaxis are apparently too stupid to do that.
House rules can alleviate the issue to an extent, sure, but it really shouldn't be necessary.
They should have made armies into combined forces - and combat should be executed without manual input - at the end of all turns, once players were engaged. It would be simple and easy to do.
Settlers and workers should be eliminated from the game, and they should instead use the excellent system from Call to Power - with a combined "workpool" where the player spends resources when manually adding roads and buildings with the mouse cursor - with reasonable build times/costs. So much easier and it makes a LOT more sense than spending 20 years to build a single road tile, and having to automate a visible unit that clutters the map once you have more than a handful.
And now we finally come to GalCiv3's System. While GalCiv 2 did not include Multiplayer at all, GalCiv 3 implemented it in one of the best possible ways: It basically does what we already did via houseroules, just in a little different way. All players cann always give orders to planets, and also give orders to units. However during the "Master Turn", there are multiple sub turns of each player where these movement orders are executed.
So lets say, that turn 1 starts.
Player 1's turn begins. He gives movement orders which are directly executed, he sets up his planets and so one. During the very same time, all other players set their constuction plans and already give orders to their ships.
Now Player 2's turn begins: His ships will automatically move the way he planned it during Player 1s turn. If they still have movement points left, he will be prompted to use them now.
And so on. It is an extremely simple, but extremely good solution and I am wondering why nobody else implemented it like that. (well, I guess one of the reason is, that Firaxis as the other big player doesn't care much about multiplayer and completely focuses on singleplayer which also explains all these horrible mechanics and balance flaws in Civ 5 which hurt MP but hardly affect SP).
Sorry that it got a little longer.
Sounds interesting. I'll check it out
Kordanor
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It partially extends the learning process of course. But you also play extremely differently. With reloading you can take chances. Let's say you just declare war, see that it doesnt work out and reload. If you are not reloading, you are generally more careful. It is almost like emulating a multiplayer game. Of course with the big difference that your opponent is more stupid, but cheats instead.
Well, there are different things of course. Like the combat within your "turn" (one way or the other) must be passive. If you have active combat like in MOO2 for example it wont work, or it will take ages. It's just logical. If you are playing with 4 players and one guy is taking a 5 minute tactical battle 20 times his turn...well, have fun.
Another "great" example in that perspective was Endless Space, where you attacked an enemy scout first and chose not to make it interactive for you, so that the other player is prompted to play that battle. If you are lucky and he does it, you can then attack with your real army some important targets which the other player cant play then as he is still in the other combat. Great design.
On the other level, and this is where you talk about eliminating single units, workers and so on is the strategic layer.
Thing is, that you need to design the game completely differently from scratch in that case.
So that you do not send a ship three tiles forward and one tile left, but instead give an order "Fleet 1, fly from Sol to Alpha Centauri", which is then executed between turns.
While this would work for multiplayer, this is of course also very different gameplay.
And if you want that "free map roaming around" experience for single player, than you have to find an adaption for multiplayer that works.
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Kordanor
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And there is a new recording of the latest stardoc dec stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf2S6JsMUuo
This time your beloved Brad also joins in. Only watched first 20 minutes yet, but it's very interesting so far and you can also see how shiny their planets look now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf2S6JsMUuo
This time your beloved Brad also joins in. Only watched first 20 minutes yet, but it's very interesting so far and you can also see how shiny their planets look now
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DArtagnan
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I don't know Brad, I just know I don't like his designs
But I bought the game now, so it better turn out to be nice!
But I bought the game now, so it better turn out to be nice!
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