here…
http://www.orionsector.com/index.shtml
or more specifically here…
http://www.orionsector.com/pages/galciv/galcivreview.shtml
edit - damn dyslexia
Pretty interesting. My only objection is that DeadDireWolf (who admitted to following the game’s development) gushed so profusely as to make my sneakers soggy. The first two reviewers seemed a bit more objective.
I’m getting this game, no question. It sounds like a winner.
Any rebuttal Brad? I am curious as to why squares were used to divide the galactic map rather than points… but I realize this is a minor quibble.
There are a number of errors in those reviews, though nothing overly major. Unrest is handled at both the planet and galaxy levels (not just at galaxy level, as one of the reviewers says). You do have a galaxy-wide approval rating that helps determine how your political party does in Senate elections, but each individual planet also has a morale rating based on a number of factors (how crowded it is, how many amenities the people have, whether or not you have any military garrisons in place, etc.). Individual planets can secede if you let them become too unhappy, though there are a wide variety of Social improvements that you can build to raise local morale (as well as a “propaganda” slider that lets you buy off your citizen’s good will).
One of them also says that there is no information about what planetary improvements do before you build them, which is not true. There is a little “?” button that you can press for any military and social project to display specific info on that project.
I disagree with the comment about the combat being “LAME.” The game doesn’t have tactical ship manuevering in full 3D or anything–more like Panzer General unit icons firing on one another until one explodes. The game is focused on grand strategy rather than tactical combat, and that’s fine by me. On the larger maps, micromanaging ship battles would probably lose its appeal pretty quickly.
Much of their commentary mirrors my opinion of the game, though. It’s not flashy, but it’s the sort of thing that starts out good and then continues to grow on you the more you play.
By the way, I’m DeadDireWolf @ the OS… :)
It’s cool though, you made me smile.
And I gushed for good goddamn reason. I’ve haven’t been that impressed with a TBS since the original Civilization.
Yeah, there are some errors. I hope I didn’t make any. I noticed some in the other guys parts but we didn’t see each other stuff before it was posted.
Can’t people objectively gush? Objectivity is the starting point of a review, not the outcome.
I don’t understand why they prefaced their review by saying how objective they were, though. Do we have reason to believe that they usually aren’t objective and this is am anomaly? Is it impossible to follow development of a game closely and maintain objectivity?
The reviews themselves are fine, though I find the style a little confusing. Trying to keep track of who said what three paragraphs earlier and how it fits with the final section is a real chore. It does give me one more reason to buy GalCiv, unless Brad wants to throw a review copy Zengamer’s way. ;)
Troy
No offense, Skinner. Glad I made you smile. :)
To answer TSG, (keep in mind, this is my sour, cynical opinion), I don’t believe an objective reviewer can gush. I put very little stock in any review that slobbers all over the subject (movies, games, etc.) – but the same is true for overly negative reviews. Nothing is perfect and nothing is absolutely imperfect; it’s a reviewer’s job to bring both these qualities to light.
Perhaps, I’m just the product of reading waaaay too many gushing previews and then having my hopes crushed. That cynicism has spilled over into gushing reviews, as well. :)
How can you not gush about a game you have put 10 or 20 hours into for a review and then still cannot wait to get home to play and then keeps you up to 2:00am? I agree that in most situations people are temporarily enamored with a game and slobber all over themselves in forums and/or reviews. However, if he put the time in, saw few flaws that impeded his gaming enjoyment, and is going back to that game an honest review is complete, then that just may be a game that deserves a little gushing. :)
Well, a gushing preview is another horse.
But I think that if a reviewer really loves a game, he is free to gush. Mind you, it is really hard to pull this off and not sound like one of those Midwest Radio guys who blurb for Steven Segal movies. It often smacks of poor style more than fanboy stuff.
I guess it depends on what you mean by gush, I guess. Avoid words like “Wow!” and “Too Cool!” for sure.
But yeah, I’m not a cynical guy. I assume the best intentions from reviewers, and the ones I really trust are the ones whose tastes reflect mine. So they can gush away. :)
As for nothing being absolutely perfect, you haven’t had my Vindaloo.
Troy
Next person to say ‘gush’ gets pistol whipped I swear to God.
I blushed as I rushed to see the thrush in the brush.
Can I get smacked around a bit instead? :D
I agree with Ben, there were a few errors. And combat is set up to be nice and streamline, there’s at least two paragraphs explaining how it works in the manual (many is the time I made a last minute stat check and pulled my ship back in horror to avoid losing it) One of the people full-on admitted she didn’t read the manual, which is HIGHLY reccomended for this game.
One thing that i would like to point out as thuroughly disliking is the fact that planets in star systems (of which there can be several) have a basic 1-30 rating, but have no kind of real resource importance. You don’t get any more or less production from this colony over that colony which really blows IMHO. Now if that basic number where split into a few seperate catagories like fertility, minerals, atmosphere, or whatever, then i’d be happy. That would put a strategic importance on different planets for different reasons other than population.
And the seperate ‘1-30’ rating has an effect on your planet’s morale, which has an effect on your planet’s production and research time, and the planet’s population growth. Which the population has an effect on your production and research time.
One thing I gotta say that I neglected to say in my review: the game needs some sort of alert you can turn on to tell you when enemy craft come in sensor range of your planets, I’ve lost too many enemy territory planets to sneak attacks. It needs some sort of alert that can be turned on and off.
I thought overall it was a pretty fair review.
There were only a couple of points I would like to address:
- Graphics. I felt Klemeroni fixated a bit on the graphics. While GalCiv certainly isn’t about being graphically wonderful, I think it compares very favorably with Master of Orion 3.
I also tend to think that some people lose track that these games, at the end of the day, are products. That means that we have to program them for the demographic of people who buy these games. The reason why 4X games tend to be 2D isn’t because we 4X game developers don’t know 3D (heck, look at Stardock’s Object Desktop, we use the latest in 3D hardware constantly and we develop the benchmark program some game sites use for Windows XP testing). The reason has to do with the people who buy 4X games – people with “older” systems.
Net result: 4X games tend to take a bit of a hit in some reviews because the graphics capabilities are targeting people with less capable systems.
But like I said, I think Galciv’s graphics are very comparable with other recent releases in this genre. It always pains me when someone will say that game X’s graphics are like a game from 1995 or something. People in 1995 were not playing games at 1024x768x32bit color – unless they were playing one of Stardock’s OS/2 games. ;)
- Originality. I really think that the moral/ethical aspects of GalCiv are pretty ground breaking. And while I’m certainly biased, I think the AI has a lot of ground breaking features to it. 6 different AI engines. And then there’s the Metaverse, the star base game mechanic for magnifying your abilities, and having truly
But really, the bottom line is that these were reasonably fair reviews. And by fair I mean the people actually played the game. Sure, I could nit pick minor things (like Klemeroni generally reviewing the game as if it was supposed to be a MOO game and missing some details) but overall, all we can ask is that the reviewer play the game and they certainly did.
I remember reading that somewhere but I can’t remember where. Can you elaborate please. I have noticed that tax collection on anything below a 15 level planet is atrocious.
Where can I read your review?
I agree that this would be helpful. Turning on “follow enemy ship movement” (or something like that–I’m paraphrasing) in the options menu helps, though. Every time an enemy vessel moves within your sensor range (whether it’s near a planet or not), you’ll see it.
Admittedly, this can get annoying and sometimes even dizzying on big maps as the view flashes through several dozen visible enemy ships as they take their turns. I usually keep it turned on anyway, though.
It probably wouldn’t be very hard to add a “Watch enemy ship” moves where it behaves like the watch alien ships but only does it for those you’re at war with.
We could even go down to “Watch enemy transports” moves one.
Okay, there are a number of different star systems in the galaxy (more or less depending on what size you select) and each star system is represented by a star, from white stars to blue to green and more, most likely you’ll find the habital planets in systems with a yellow star.
When select a star system you’ll see the number and class of each planet in the system, the higher the number the better. Anything below 15 is bad; the people will be unhappy, they’ll pay less taxes because they are unhappy (they just stop paying taxes, nothing you can do about it, they stop paying if you raise the taxes too high as well, you’ll find you’ll LOSE money that way) And, if they are unhappy enough, they may defect and form their own government. As the game progresses you can build things that improve the planet and the morale (yes it has plenty of info of what the buildings do).
Bad morale also slows production noticably, and research as well, nothing you can do about that either (except increase planet class or morale).
Basically you have to treat your people like people, don’t put them in some hell hole. And you can even colonize more than one planet in a star system, it counts as two seperate.
It probably wouldn’t be very hard to add a “Watch enemy ship” moves where it behaves like the watch alien ships but only does it for those you’re at war with.
We could even go down to “Watch enemy transports” moves one.
Nono, no need to go this far, just something that will alert you if an enemy comes into scanner range** (something that can be turned OFF) would be best, I’m usually losing a two front war and it’s hard enough to keep track of everything. That would be a GREAT improvement.
Also: Did you steal some music from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’? I could swear it was the same song.
[color=red]**Edit[/color]: I meant to say ‘scanner range of certain planets’ sorry.
Also, on being biased and all (a direct effect of the MoO3 backlash I think): I’d never heard of this game till Brad’s example on how to lose a game badly. Also my review was the FIRST. So remember that for the history books.
Peace and God bless!!
Thanks but I thought you had some greater insight than what was in the manual. I was hoping for more specifics but thank for your effort in posting the info.
Also, in my review I had said there wasn’t a good system for locating planets. I just found that the combination of the tactical map and planets list works very well. It never occured to me that it worked like that. Gald it does, sorry I missed it. However, I think that only works for your planets and not enemy controlled ones.
Also - Brad any way to make sensor range and non-sensor range look a little more different? It looks as though you have a black transparent over explored space to make out of sensor range. It appears to me to blend to well with the general black of space. Any chance of making a blue overlay or some such thing? I swear I can’t tell, easily tell mind you, where my 5 range sensors end FOW picks up. Did I make any sense?
The encyclopedia has a LOT of extra details on how things work.
Yes, you’re right. I like the continual updates there as well. My problem ia sleep deprivation, I’m afraid. i’ve read everything out there, manual, encyclopedia, Java Scout, survival guide, etc. Now I can’t remember where I read something if i need to refresh my mind. :)