Galactic Civilization III [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Gamerlord

2013-10-15, 05:17 PM

Ailurus

2013-10-15, 07:04 PM

Its probably just a graphical effect, but the (likely unintended) homage to Freespace Beam Weapons makes me giddy. And the ground soldier shots gives me hope that planetary invasions will get more attention than in GalCiv 2 (where it was frankly pitiful).

Overall, good news.

IthilanorStPete

2013-10-15, 07:58 PM

Sweet, sounds awesome! GalCiv is great.

warty goblin

2013-10-15, 08:08 PM

Oh hell yes. :smallbiggrin:
There is nothing about this so far that doesn't sound good, multiplayer (Here's hoping for some hotseat!) in particular sounds pretty nice.

I am curious just how much difference the 64-bit exclusivity will mean besides the obvious graphical improvement. Turn-Based 4x games are not particularly technologically intensive in my experience (And assuming they aren't radically changing the gameplay in Gal Civ III, it's not like the game will need to be constantly keeping track of a lot of stuff), and I always thought Gal Civ II was already pretty big, I'm starting to picture battles so big you can't tell what's going on. 0_0 :smalltongue:

Strategy games suffer a lot more than other genres from limited memory. A shooter or what have you can be made to restrict what the computer has to store in memory through level design etc, and so can lavish effects on the stuff it does put on screen.

An X4 style strategy game however has to be designed so that basically everything possible can show up at once. Which is why they haven't taken the graphical strides forwards that other genres have over the years; simply because they aren't throttled back so much by chip speed and renderers as the amount of stuff they need to be able to show.

This doesn't just mean better graphics; it also means that maps can be bigger, planets and stars can have more variety, etc.

And I'm kinda hoping this doesn't have tactical combat.

Gamerlord

2013-10-15, 08:13 PM

And I'm kinda hoping this doesn't have tactical combat.
I'm not saying it should, but they did have those Dominions-esque videos that showed any battle between two fleets. I was talking about those.

Tavar

2013-10-15, 08:54 PM

And I'm kinda hoping this doesn't have tactical combat.

Not having tactical combat would work, though I hope they change the combat system from the first games. Watching could be fun, but everything else was rather annoying or boring.

warty goblin

2013-10-15, 09:15 PM

Not having tactical combat would work, though I hope they change the combat system from the first games. Watching could be fun, but everything else was rather annoying or boring.

I'm mostly thinking that tactical combat tends to mean the player gets an enormous advantage, since I can probably outplay the computer against anything but overwhelming odds. While the tactical combat may be fun, it kinda reduces the importance of the rest of the game. Which is fine for something like Elemental, which is much more focused on taking Sovereign McAwesome out and kicking monster ass. For the much larger scale focus of Galactic Civilizations though, I think I'm less a fan of that sort of paradigm.

Tavar

2013-10-15, 09:57 PM

I'm mostly thinking that tactical combat tends to mean the player gets an enormous advantage, since I can probably outplay the computer against anything but overwhelming odds. While the tactical combat may be fun, it kinda reduces the importance of the rest of the game. Which is fine for something like Elemental, which is much more focused on taking Sovereign McAwesome out and kicking monster ass. For the much larger scale focus of Galactic Civilizations though, I think I'm less a fan of that sort of paradigm.

Oh, sorry, I didn't state that well. What I meant was that, even if they don't do Tactical combat(which I wouldn't see as a negative), I hope they change the core part of the battle system(ie, three weapon techs, and three defensive techs, and you essentially need to match each tech exactly for it to be worthwhile). The system just seemed really poorly designed to me.

I do think having some input on the battle would be nice, but it certainly doesn't need to be something like MoO2 or Elemental. Maybe something similar to Endless space.

Grif

2013-10-15, 10:27 PM

tensai_oni

2013-10-15, 10:43 PM

The trailer tries to look EPIC like Mass Effect, but who cares - it's not that you play GalCiv games for the story, it's always about the gameplay. And news about gameplay are really scarce for now.

Okay, grump time over. Get hype.

http://yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.com/yes.jpg

warty goblin

2013-10-15, 10:44 PM

Oh, sorry, I didn't state that well. What I meant was that, even if they don't do Tactical combat(which I wouldn't see as a negative), I hope they change the core part of the battle system(ie, three weapon techs, and three defensive techs, and you essentially need to match each tech exactly for it to be worthwhile). The system just seemed really poorly designed to me.

I kinda liked that system. It actually made a military a situational asset, instead of something that once built could carve up all comers indiscriminately. In Elemental or Civilization, once I get a monster badass army that can crush an enemy, I can pretty much crush all enemies; an issue that GalCiv 2 bypassed by making the utility of an army, and the tech that fueled it, conditional on the enemy it was fighting.

I do think having some input on the battle would be nice, but it certainly doesn't need to be something like MoO2 or Elemental. Maybe something similar to Endless space.
I was really just fine with sitting back and watching. The important battles were tense as hell, and it kept my focus exactly where it should be in a grand strategy game of galactic proportion: on the economics, science, logistics and strategy. Leave the battles to the admirals and captains, I'm figuring out what to do about the sapient warring beetles on my new colony.

Tavar

2013-10-15, 10:50 PM

My problem with GC2 is that it felt to binary: either you won almost effortlessly or the reverse. The only exception being suicide ships(max offense, no hp/defense) which were essentially a crapshoot from what I remember. Having the fleet's effectiveness be based on what material you have is cool, but having it be so binary....it was much easier to be unstoppable for much longer than what I've seen in other games.

tensai_oni

2013-10-15, 10:56 PM

My problem with GC2 is that it felt to binary: either you won almost effortlessly or the reverse.

How's that any different from other 4x games of its time? We get better designed games now sure, but remember that GCII is old. Well, by video game standards anyway.

Tavar

2013-10-15, 11:20 PM

How's that any different from other 4x games of its time? We get better designed games now sure, but remember that GCII is old. Well, by video game standards anyway.

It's older than MoOII, and that game had different outcomes as possible. Civ, for it's faults, had variable outcomes as well(persistent damage).

warty goblin

2013-10-15, 11:42 PM

It's older than MoOII, and that game had different outcomes as possible. Civ, for it's faults, had variable outcomes as well(persistent damage).

Damage in GalCiv 2 is persistent after the battle. Some of those mega-capital ships could take a long time to repair if they were seriously beat up.

Tavar

2013-10-15, 11:55 PM

I never really found myself using that option too much: like I said, I generally say either winning with little damage, or losing outright(and inflicting little damage), except on suicide ships.

Stuebi

2013-10-16, 12:37 AM

I was really just fine with sitting back and watching. The important battles were tense as hell, and it kept my focus exactly where it should be in a grand strategy game of galactic proportion: on the economics, science, logistics and strategy. Leave the battles to the admirals and captains, I'm figuring out what to do about the sapient warring beetles on my new colony.

I heard that opinion a lot on the Galciv Forums, and depending on who they listen to, the focus might indeed lie on everything BUT the combat. I would be a bit saddened by this tough. I would favor an option where you could "automate" your Battles if you're not the kind of player that likes to control them yourself, but there's still the possibility of doing it myself if i want to. I prefer a System that allows skill and strategy _inside_ of battles to influence the outcome, instead of just min/maxing everything and then be completely aware of the outcome beforehand. It takes a lot of the tension away, i think.

On a unrelated note, the ship on the front page looks AMAZING!

SaintRidley

2013-10-16, 01:38 AM

I'm in.

I just hope it doesn't become another MoO3.

Grif

2013-10-16, 01:59 AM

factotum

2013-10-16, 02:49 AM

I wonder if they're going to change it so the location of your weapons on the ship makes a difference?

Emmerask

2013-10-16, 05:06 AM

I´m just happy that it will have multiplayer this time :smallsmile:

aberratio ictus

2013-10-16, 05:15 AM

Oh god, something to look forward to :)

Although I was never really interested in the campaign, the freeform with my own species was what caught my attention.

tensai_oni

2013-10-16, 06:46 AM

It's older than MoOII, and that game had different outcomes as possible. Civ, for it's faults, had variable outcomes as well(persistent damage).

Ah, so that's what you mean. I thought you meant that one side is steamrolling the other as in, no one goes to war unless they have such an advantage the other side has no chance of victory.

I disagree. I lost my units a lot even when I was winning in GalCiv II. What difficulty are you playing on?

DigoDragon

2013-10-16, 08:12 AM

And the ground soldier shots gives me hope that planetary invasions will get more attention than in GalCiv 2 (where it was frankly pitiful).

I agree! It would be great to have a few more options to control for invasion battles. Generally in my games of GalCiv2, it's like once I research Tidal Disruption tech for invasion, it becomes just a matter of who's got more soldiers. Personally, I'd like planetary invasion to last bit longer. Maybe like a "Best two of three" fight for control of the colony.
It also be nice if there were options to undo the otherwise perminant damage to a planet's quality with certain invasion tactics. More kinds of terraforming techs to repair a planet maybe?

I'm excited to see how this new game turns out. I STILL play GalCiv2 on occasion so if the next one is anything as fun, I think I'll be losing a few months of free time. :smallbiggrin:

GungHo

2013-10-16, 08:18 AM

I am curious just how much difference the 64-bit exclusivity will mean besides the obvious graphical improvement.
They'll be able to get a bit more complex with some of the scripting and other guts. You're not going to see much on the graphics. Most of that is offloaded to your GPU and is handled by drivers that don't really care whether you're using a 32- or 64-bit OS.

And, I'm quite happy about GalCiv3. I was thinking about if it was ever going to come out when playing GalCiv2 this weekend. I really hope they learned from Elemental. FELH is a great game, but it took them awhile and burned a lot (a lot) of goodwill to get there.

warty goblin

2013-10-16, 08:20 AM

I heard that opinion a lot on the Galciv Forums, and depending on who they listen to, the focus might indeed lie on everything BUT the combat. I would be a bit saddened by this tough. I would favor an option where you could "automate" your Battles if you're not the kind of player that likes to control them yourself, but there's still the possibility of doing it myself if i want to. I prefer a System that allows skill and strategy _inside_ of battles to influence the outcome, instead of just min/maxing everything and then be completely aware of the outcome beforehand. It takes a lot of the tension away, i think.

On a unrelated note, the ship on the front page looks AMAZING!

This actually working as intended requires an auto-resolve at least as good as I am. This has never happened in the history of ever so far as I'm aware, which means auto-resolve basically only ever gets used for fights I can't lose or can't win. Everything in the middle needs to be fought out by hand, which means basically that I win every fight I care about. Ever. That's the exact opposite of tension.

Now if they made the battle viewer look a bit less ass, that would be cool.

Choyrt

2013-10-16, 08:28 AM

Thanks for letting me know! This is AMAZING news. Imagine if they merged Sins of a Solar Empire with this!?!?!

Rustic Dude

2013-10-16, 09:30 AM

Hoo boy.

A new Master of Orion in the works and now this.
It's going to be interesting, to say the least.

Artanis

2013-10-16, 09:43 AM

ObadiahtheSlim

2013-10-16, 10:23 AM

I think the tactical combat from MOO2 was fun. However I wouldn't want it in anything that supported more than 1v1. It's very tedious for regular multiplayer. The tedium far out weighs the fun when you have a FFA.

Aotrs Commander

2013-10-16, 11:46 AM

Colour my interest only lukewarm.

I've played both GalCivs, and while they were fun enough, I never really grasped why people though they were so good. The combat in them was... banal, to say the least which I felt was a critical flaw in a game where you designed your own starships. (I also really HATED the random events. I like a few random events to spice things up, but GalCiv's "this alien race will just keep getting better until you kill them" and other game-breaking events always mean just giving up and reloading or not having any random events at all.) I also found the alignment system was a joke in terms of choice, since there was, I could see, no reason to EVER pick the good alignment, since not a single choice I ever found gave you anything for picking the "good" option and the "evil" options gave you crap-tons of stuff. (And my opinon was that the "good-specific" techs wer not nearly good enough to compensate for the evil techs AND all the extra crap you got for making the Evil choices.)

I tended to find most of my time was spent sending transports to stations, as well, and that wsn't very interesting (It's not much more so SotS 2, either, to be honest, but at least it's easier to manage them with a more finte amount of resources).

Except when I played the campaigns, which I made the mistake of doing in the environment of the final expansion. Whereby the Big Bads were so ludicrously over-powered (following the expansion rebalances) you didn't do anything except build troop ships to recapture your planets when the 10 or so aliens invaded them until you'd hit the top of the tech tree.

So while I might take a look at it, I'm not all that excited.

Tactical battles is probably something of a swinger for me. If it has then, I'll be much more inclined to get it earlier. Otherwise, it's just another Civ in Space, and I really want to be playing with starships. I mean, unless it's terrible, I'll probably get it anyway at some point, but it might be when it comes on sale or something.

I actually, horror of horrors, actually liked MoO3 *gasp* (though I only have played with mods and patches long after it's first release and have never played the prior games in the series to compare). The tech tree was so huge and long-winded, it actually forced me to start fighting and expanded early on, replacing fleets steadily over time as I teched up, something that no other game has managed to do (though SotS I & II, which I regard as currently the best of the rest in the 4X genera, came closest.) And with a galaxy of, like a thousand planets, you really felt like you were running and empire.

Downside was so much management. In the end, I ran a policy that only the top 50 planets would actually be making starships, the rest had empty queues, as one turn ws long enough to do by the point I stopped my last game (about 500 planets in!)

My ideal 4X would combine GalCiv's aethetic ship creation with SotS's ship mechanics, with MoO3' insanely expansive tech tree and scope and with somewhere between GalCiv's and MoO3's planetary construction. (Probably with MoO3' planetary invasion mechanics, since while pretty mediocre it at least had some sort of depth to it, unlike the other games I've played where it tended to be glossed over (GalCiv) or nonexistant (SoaSE/SotS).)

Logic

2013-10-16, 12:19 PM

Many people LOST THEIR MINDS at the announcement of Starcraft II. I now know how they feel.

I cannot wait for this game.

DigoDragon

2013-10-16, 12:36 PM

I think the tactical combat from MOO2 was fun. However I wouldn't want it in anything that supported more than 1v1. It's very tedious for regular multiplayer.

If I recall, MOO2 did have an option to automate combat so you could just watch it unfold. I found that very useful when I just wanted to concentrate on specific major battles while the minor skirmishes can handle themselves. So, I'd personally like that toggle to be in the new game.

Oh, and MOO2 had an option that if you knew you were vastly outgunned, you could try to "Warp out" of the combat. It had risks, but it would be nice to have a retreat option. It allows for some guerrilla warfare as an option to fight a superior enemy.

Colour my interest only lukewarm.

(And my opinon was that the "good-specific" techs wer not nearly good enough to compensate for the evil techs AND all the extra crap you got for making the Evil choices.)

So is lukewarm a shade of blue? :smalltongue:

I personally liked the Neutral choice in GalCiv2. The discount for purchasing starships alone made it a powerful ability in my hands. However, yeah there wasn't much benefit to the Good choice. The morale bonus was hardly needed when it's easy to research the tech on my own, and the random morale events were pretty much a joke as there was no benefit to any good choice.

Cikomyr

2013-10-16, 12:38 PM

I hope the game's strategy system will favour a diversified fleet instead of a single, uniformed class. The best wargames are those with a diversified lineup.

I want to have corvettes and destroyers alongside battleships. I want it to have a purpose for these support ships..

Maye the game would benefit from having a "generic battle doctrine" a la Gratouitous Space Battles. Determining the quality of your officers/commanders, to see if they can improvise and pull off great tactics would be great. I posted a suggestion of the like during the old GalCiv2 development cycle

http://forums.galciv2.com/123277

ObadiahtheSlim

2013-10-16, 01:15 PM

Yeah I always went neutral. That discount and their research lab seem way to powerful compared to the good or evil options.

Talya

2013-10-16, 01:20 PM

GalCiv II just didn't hold my attention. I didn't like the "combat".

No 4x space game has ever held my attention since MOO2, which I still fire up every once in a while (had to install DOSBOX on my PC to do it.) I was so sad about the ugly mess that was MOO3. I'd love a real sequel to that game.

Emmerask

2013-10-16, 03:21 PM

I don't want player-controlled tactical combat. In multiplayer, it takes up a hell of a lot of time, so it wouldn't get used anyways. In singleplayer, it gives the human a MASSIVE advantage that negates a lot of the need for actually playing well in other parts of the game.

It depends on how smartly its integrated...
Sots2 for example had the least smart integration there ever was or will be in every universe that may exist... you could do exactly NOTHING!

If you allow players to design ships (something that can take just as long if not longer then battles), do diplomacy, check their empire (stats planet build queues etc etc), check research...
Also allow players to watch the battle (with spy tech) or to even participate if allys (the ability to give allys ships they can play).
Of course there should also be an option to autoresolve of course.

With all this there is more then enough stuff to do during battles for everyone.

Needless to say I really want self controlled combat integrated, without it a 4x game to me feels hollow, incomplete and overall I am just aggravated why the stupid ships didnt act the way I envisioned them to.

I think you guys will like what we're doing with the battles. I'm dying to talk about it but I'd be instantly killed off. I think it'll seem obvious in hindsight.

So I think there will be more then in the older GalCivs :smallwink:

Cikomyr

2013-10-16, 03:38 PM

How about having it being akin to Gratuitious Space Battles?

Basic preset battle doctrines. There ya go!

Emmerask

2013-10-16, 03:43 PM

How about having it being akin to Gratuitious Space Battles?

Basic preset battle doctrines. There ya go!

Yep Gratuitous Space Battles or Birth of the Federation style would be fine with me.

DigoDragon

2013-10-16, 03:58 PM

I hope the game's strategy system will favour a diversified fleet instead of a single, uniformed class. The best wargames are those with a diversified lineup.

That is an interesting thought. I do find that as I research new tech I only have the need for (at most) three types of ships. Only two of which ever go into battle and are almost always of the largest available hull. The computer AI kind of does that too, although I never see it decomission it's older ships so it has the false identity of a diversified fleet at first.

Cikomyr

2013-10-16, 04:07 PM

That is an interesting thought. I do find that as I research new tech I only have the need for (at most) three types of ships. Only two of which ever go into battle and are almost always of the largest available hull. The computer AI kind of does that too, although I never see it decomission it's older ships so it has the false identity of a diversified fleet at first.

But thing thing is; in real world navy (or other many Sci-fi settings) you see massive fleet composed of a multitude of vessels. Carriers/Battlestars, battleships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, gunships and fighters. Each one has a purpose (even if utility might overlap between classes); sometimes it's simply offering a screen to protect your bigger guns.

Tavar

2013-10-16, 04:09 PM

Yep Gratuitous Space Battles or Birth of the Federation style would be fine with me.

Probably less than GSB, but I would prefer some input regarding the battles.

Kish

2013-10-16, 05:50 PM

Hoo boy.

A new Master of Orion in the works
What?

Everything I can find about a new Master of Orion online is jokes.

Emmerask

2013-10-16, 05:52 PM

But thing thing is; in real world navy (or other many Sci-fi settings) you see massive fleet composed of a multitude of vessels. Carriers/Battlestars, battleships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, gunships and fighters. Each one has a purpose (even if utility might overlap between classes); sometimes it's simply offering a screen to protect your bigger guns.

Yeah, sadly no space 4x game to date with ship design (as far as I know) has ever managed to make smaller ships important once bigger hulls where available.

Well there was Homeworld which had a use for smaller ships... however that was without ship design.

Would be nice though, to me it always looks much more epic with a giant command ship and tons of smaller ones around it.

Rustic Dude

2013-10-16, 06:27 PM

What?

Everything I can find about a new Master of Orion online is jokes.

The guys at Wargaming (World of Tanks developers) bought the rights to the franchise last year along with the Total Annihilation ones, and recently said in one of their WoT Q&A that they are starting development of their own MoO game.

It seems that they hired a pretty sizeable chunk of the original MoO 2 devs and those guys are starting their work.

Cikomyr

2013-10-16, 06:48 PM

Yeah, sadly no space 4x game to date with ship design (as far as I know) has ever managed to make smaller ships important once bigger hulls where available.

Well there was Homeworld which had a use for smaller ships... however that was without ship design.

Would be nice though, to me it always looks much more epic with a giant command ship and tons of smaller ones around it.

Basically this.

I know it's somewhat counterintuitive, but my first action would be to make sure that, tonnage-for-tonnage (or industrial production for industrial production), smaller ships carry more weapons.

Larger ships are necessary for a number of reasons. They can carry larger scale weapons that have longer range, or can execute specific missions. They are the C&C network of the Fleet. They are the repair base, supply centers.

If I were to imagine a basic fleet, here how it would go:

First of all, the punches: the Starfighter. They are the fastest and deadliest crafts. However, their weapons are short-range and have to expose themselves to reach their targets. There can be multiple kinds of Starfighter; from Interceptor to Bombers. A squadron of Starfighter carrying weapon X (torpedo, laser, etc..) is going to be the most cost/effective way of carrying destruction, no matter the potential hull size.

Starfighters are, ultimately, short ranged. So you need a Carrier to move them around. This can be armed, in which case it becomes the equivalent of a Battlestar.

Ultimately, however, a Carrier is obviously very vulnerable to Fighter strikes. Unless your contingent is specifically made up of Interceptors, you will suffer bad casualties from the opposition's fighters. This is why you need specific anti-fighter weaponry to screen against opposition attacks; like Flak Turrets or Mines. These do not fit on a Starfighter; so you need to have Frigates to deploy them around, as we have established the smaller crafts are the most effective way of carrying weaponries.

Now, we have a very interesting fleet disposition. A Carrier sorrounded by Frigates who shield it against ennemy Fighters. Thing is, with the Frigate screen, nobody has the capacity to hurt the other side with its fighter. You need a certain amount of long-range weaponry capable of punching through the frigate screen. These can only be carried around by Destroyers and bigger ships. Obviously, you could load these up on the Carrier, but it's more cost-efficient to just build Destroyers.

So we end up with:

Starfighters (Bombers-Generic-Interceptor)
Frigates (fighter screens)
Destroyer (Frigate-punchers)
Carriers

That's a nicely diversified fleet, neh? :smallbiggrin:

houlio

2013-10-16, 07:09 PM

Kurgan

2013-10-16, 07:14 PM

Reading through this thread, I am thinking an old thought of mine: this game would be amazing if they basically just rereleased Star Wars Rebellion with the serial numbers filed off, more than 2 factions, and a diplomacy system.

I'll admit, even though it shows its age, Rebellion is STILL my go to space strategy game.

Winter_Wolf

2013-10-16, 07:55 PM

I can't say I'm jumping out of my chair about GalCivIII. The mechanics of GalCivII got old rather quickly, and the main appeal quickly became "virtual LEGO starships". They really need to up the ante for the third if they want to spark my hunger for it.

I tell you what, though: I'm all for 64-bit only if it means I don't have to see the frequent, random crash to desktop that I had with GalCivII. My computers were well above recommended specs and in the "supported OS" sweet spot, and still I got lots of CTD. It got really aggravating that I could play all of two turns before it happened, and it took longer to load games than it did to take a turn.

So the tl;dr: I'm mildly interested, but it's not going to be a pre-purchase or even release-month buy unless they can show me really, really impressive stuff.

warty goblin

2013-10-16, 08:00 PM

I've never really had a fondness for teeny little space fighters zooming around. Way less interesting than a couple nice big capital ships unleashing hell at each other.

(And by the second expansion, support ships could be quite useful in GalCiv II. Even before that, a careful understanding of the target selection rules meant that you could use small, weak ships as a sort of ablative screen in front of your actual important vessels.)

Grif

2013-10-16, 08:24 PM

In SotS, cruisers were still really important even after getting the final dreadnought tech, since upgrading entirely to a dreadnought fleet was a little cost prohibitive. Cruisers were really nice for dealing with small threats, random encounters, and helping to do things like fill out a fleet's point defense screen (and all at a very reasonable cost).

Well, to be fair, destroyers saw little use aside from the early game, except perhaps wild weasels type and maybe the occasional minelayer DE.

Aotrs Commander

2013-10-17, 03:41 AM

It depends on how smartly its integrated...
Sots2 for example had the least smart integration there ever was or will be in every universe that may exist... you could do exactly NOTHING!

Huh?

I'm not sure I follow what you're getting at. I.e. whether it's a swipe at the game engine or whether you were suffering from some serious bugs...

I didn't find SotS2's combat much different for SotS1's, though with larger maps and the useful addition of actually being able to see the damage track...

Mind you, I did only play it a couple of months back, so only now it's actually been rendered, y'know, functional.

Emmerask

2013-10-17, 05:23 AM

Huh?

I'm not sure I follow what you're getting at. I.e. whether it's a swipe at the game engine or whether you were suffering from some serious bugs...

I didn't find SotS2's combat much different for SotS1's, though with larger maps and the useful addition of actually being able to see the damage track...

Mind you, I did only play it a couple of months back, so only now it's actually been rendered, y'know, functional.

I was talking about the multiplayer integration of combat in sots2, the combat itself was perfectly fine.

If another player is in combat and you have none yourself, you can not go into any submenu (research, ship design, detail planetary view etc). You are confined to the universe view with only the most basic infos... it is the worst designed thing I have ever seen^^ (In sots1 I think it was actually possible to do stuff).

Though if you have only played single player sots2 then you will not have noticed it of course because there such a system works perfectly fine :smallsmile:

During the 10 or so minutes a larger combat takes you want the other players to be able to do useful and equally time consuming stuff like designing ships, getting an overview of the empire (income, trade, build queues etc), diplomacy etc and not them staring at the screen wishing they can finally do something again :smallwink:

Aotrs Commander

2013-10-17, 07:16 AM

I was talking about the multiplayer integration of combat in sots2, the combat itself was perfectly fine.

If another player is in combat and you have none yourself, you can not go into any submenu (research, ship design, detail planetary view etc). You are confined to the universe view with only the most basic infos... it is the worst designed thing I have ever seen^^ (In sots1 I think it was actually possible to do stuff).

Though if you have only played single player sots2 then you will not have noticed it of course because there such a system works perfectly fine :smallsmile:

During the 10 or so minutes a larger combat takes you want the other players to be able to do useful and equally time consuming stuff like designing ships, getting an overview of the empire (income, trade, build queues etc), diplomacy etc and not them staring at the screen wishing they can finally do something again :smallwink:

Riiiiight! With you now!

Yes, okay, that does make more sense! As you correctly surmise, I only ever play single player, so no, I would never have noticed that.

That does seem kind... Critically stupid, really.

I mean, I am not in any way a programmer or anything, but I must confess in a situation like that where there's a player verses and AI, I'd have at the very least considered an option for (one of the other) players to jump in and take command of the AI fleet. But even then, being stuck unable to do your empire management is stupid...

On the other hand, this was SotS 2, which only really got to playable status nearly a year after release, so...!

DigoDragon

2013-10-17, 07:35 AM

But thing thing is; in real world navy (or other many Sci-fi settings) you see massive fleet composed of a multitude of vessels.

I agree with you, dont get me wrong. I was only mentioning that in my experience with GalCiv2, such diversity is pointless with fleet construction. I would like to see reason to diversify. Perhaps two ways to do that is to 1) Put limits on what hull sizes certain weapons can go on, and 2) ships get bonuses/penalties fighting different sized opponents.

Would be nice though, to me it always looks much more epic with a giant command ship and tons of smaller ones around it.

Heck, just looking at the Youtube video, we see a huge battleship warp in and it is surrounded by small fighter craft like a point defense. We even see many of those small craft launch from the big ship. So yes, epic it would be.

That's a nicely diversified fleet, neh? :smallbiggrin:

I'd say so. It also gives a reason to branch out the tech tree among the different classes of ships so you have a lot of science to do if you want to upgrade everything at once.

Cikomyr

2013-10-17, 09:38 AM

I'd say so. It also gives a reason to branch out the tech tree among the different classes of ships so you have a lot of science to do if you want to upgrade everything at once.

Well, if you like my idea, I suggest you create a StarDock account and go talk a bit in My Suggestion Thread (http://forums.galciv3.com/449094/page/1/)about it so more people will see it appear on their radar.

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

/shameless self-promoting

Triaxx

2013-10-18, 06:55 AM

Wargaming bought Total Annihilation's rights? Someone finally pried it away from Atari?

Oh, GalCiv III, sounds fun. I wouldn't mind having some more control over how my ships fight, if not Rome:Total War level of involvement. Perhaps just formation commands.

I always make fleets of one or two large heavily shielded ships and lots of small well armed ones. The AI tends to concentrate on the larger ships instead of the small ones for some reason.

DigoDragon

2013-10-18, 07:23 AM

The AI tends to concentrate on the larger ships instead of the small ones for some reason.

Strange, in my games the AI seems to pick on the smaller ones first. Maybe ship components have something in the calc in addition to hull size?

Cikomyr

2013-10-18, 07:55 AM

Strange, in my games the AI seems to pick on the smaller ones first. Maybe ship components have something in the calc in addition to hull size?

I tought the AI went for some sort of Weapon/shield ratio?

Logic

2013-10-18, 08:00 AM

Wargaming bought Total Annihilation's rights? Someone finally pried it away from Atari?
Atari may not have a choice, as it is going through the bankruptcy motions and selling off its assets to pay its creditors.

Oh, GalCiv III, sounds fun. I wouldn't mind having some more control over how my ships fight, if not Rome:Total War level of involvement. Perhaps just formation commands.

I always make fleets of one or two large heavily shielded ships and lots of small well armed ones. The AI tends to concentrate on the larger ships instead of the small ones for some reason.
I think they will probably address that in the future. After all, Stardock did eliminate the Super fighter fleet bug. (Compose a fleet of only fighters, and no matter how large the opposing fleet is, when they attack, they destroy one fighter and end the battle. Meanwhile, your fighters are permitted to continue fighting to your heart's desire.)

IncoherentEssay

2013-10-18, 08:27 AM

In my experience the targeting priority in GalCiv II is: guns+fleet modules > fleet modules > guns > everything else.
So a large 'carrier' ship with a fleet offense module, tons of shields/PD/amor and nothing else could tank for a swarm of tiny/small/medium ships with nothing but guns. It was fairly cost efficient as the big expensive carrier had no upkeep due to it's lack of guns.
Of course, it only works reliably if you have Luck (preferrably the 50% from trait+universalist) so that the carrier can rely on the guaranteed minimum defense roll.

DigoDragon

2013-10-21, 07:44 AM

Of course, it only works reliably if you have Luck (preferrably the 50% from trait+universalist)

I love that combination of Luck. It really helps early on when my neighbors rush me into combat with better military tech.

Martok

2013-11-05, 08:34 AM

Definitely looking forward to this. :smallcool: I liked GalCiv2 a lot, I love Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes (despite its predecessors being not so great), and I've always liked Stardock's transparency with their fans regarding game development.

Given that it sounds like Galactic Civilization III will address my main critiques of the previous game -- lack of atmosphere/immersion (including/especially "lifeless" galaxies), no tactical combat, and needing an advanced degree to understand the economic system -- right now, my primary concern is keeping my expectations at least somewhat realistic!

Mando Knight

2013-11-05, 12:30 PM

Atari may not have a choice, as it is going through the bankruptcy motions and selling off its assets to pay its creditors.

In other words, yes, they are prying it from Atari's cold, dead hands. Turns out that's easier.

Grif

2013-11-05, 12:36 PM

In other words, yes, they are prying it from Atari's cold, dead hands. Turns out that's easier.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this. But Wargaming, while having a fantastic hit on their hands with World of Tanks, are considerably less successful with their other two upcoming games, World of Warplanes and World of Warships.

Plus, their dev record isn't exactly stellar.

warty goblin

2013-11-05, 01:00 PM

Plus, their dev record isn't exactly stellar.
When it comes to turn based wargames, I remain to be convinced they actually get any better than Massive Assault.

Logic

2013-11-06, 01:32 PM

I really hope that the Starship creator is launched as a stand-alone program as well. Even if it's only the cosmetic pieces it would be a great thing to have.

Rockphed

2013-11-06, 02:37 PM

I actually, horror of horrors, actually liked MoO3 *gasp* (though I only have played with mods and patches long after it's first release and have never played the prior games in the series to compare). The tech tree was so huge and long-winded, it actually forced me to start fighting and expanded early on, replacing fleets steadily over time as I teched up, something that no other game has managed to do (though SotS I & II, which I regard as currently the best of the rest in the 4X genera, came closest.) And with a galaxy of, like a thousand planets, you really felt like you were running and empire.

Downside was so much management. In the end, I ran a policy that only the top 50 planets would actually be making starships, the rest had empty queues, as one turn ws long enough to do by the point I stopped my last game (about 500 planets in!)

My ideal 4X would combine GalCiv's aethetic ship creation with SotS's ship mechanics, with MoO3' insanely expansive tech tree and scope and with somewhere between GalCiv's and MoO3's planetary construction. (Probably with MoO3' planetary invasion mechanics, since while pretty mediocre it at least had some sort of depth to it, unlike the other games I've played where it tended to be glossed over (GalCiv) or nonexistant (SoaSE/SotS).)

I wanted to ask if you ever played the space empires series, but I cannot remember which part of your post prompted that question.

At any rate, I agree that an ideal 4X would have some nice aethetic ship creation, some actually useful mechanics to those ships, and a tech tree that is expansive without requiring going down all the trees at once. Also that planetary invasion is one of the most frequently phoned in parts of space games.

I know SEIV and SEV had machanics that made it so invasion was both profitable and straightforward. Also the troop design flowed right in to the fighter and star-ship design. Space Empires III, however, had a troop system that made conquering enemy worlds almost worthless. Oh, and a morale system such that throwing planet wide parties for a couple months made your conquest forget that you rolled in with the death machines.

On the gripping hand, I have a slight hope that this will not be as bad a disaster as Elemental, but I do not hold out hope.

Martok

2013-11-11, 11:13 AM

On the gripping hand, I have a slight hope that this will not be as bad a disaster as Elemental, but I do not hold out hope.
Um, why? :smallconfused:

While there's no denying Elemental was bad, Stardock seems to have since learned their lesson, a point that Legendary Heroes illustrates well: It's orders of magnitude better than the original, and is now widely considered to be a good/fun fantasy strategy game.

In addition (and perhaps more importantly), Galactic Civilizations is Stardock's flagship series, and they already did a solid job on the first two games. (They may not be to everyone's tastes, obviously -- I personally am not a fan of the first one -- but both titles were well-made and generally well-received.) And since most of the original team behind GalCiv2 (which apparently continues to sell well) has returned for the franchise's third installment, I'd think there was every reason to be hopeful.