2011

Has anyone taken Intrigue for a good spin yet?

2012

I’ve played a few games. The Governments are an extra way to customize your Civ a bit. There’s a tax slider now that gets used. Commonwealths are absolutely useless for a couple reasons. For starters, better Governments give you more than enough planets you can control, so I’m never over my limit (aside from the very start of the game where I just temporarily deal with the approval hit) and have no need to split any off. Worse, they’re not vassals. It seems like they can ally other players, and other players can declare war on them while you sit on the sidelines and watch them get eaten (which of course they will, because they’re tiny). I was pretty intrigued (oops, no pun intended by that) by the idea, but they’re completely useless and the implementation is poor.

From my experience of around 10 hours with the expansion, you pay the asking price for the ability to choose a Government a few times in a game. That’s the only thing I noticed. I thought a Dev diary mentioned that colonizable planets were more rare, with planets requiring techs taking their place, but I haven’t noticed it at all. Colonizable vs tech locked seems to be at a 5:1 ratio.

Oh, I think they did change food this expansion? You can only build farms on specific tiles. I like it in concept, but it seems REALLY random the hand you’re dealt. Sometimes planets have a ton of arable land, other times barely any at all. There needs to be a way for a player to develop arable tiles once they have terraforming tech or something, even if it’s not as good as a natural farm tile. On the other hand, it’s kind of annoying to colonize a planet with arable tiles as a race that doesn’t need food. Why can’t I build factories or anything else on the tile just because it’s arable?

The new food system also doesn’t feel balanced. It can be severely limiting in most games, but meanwhile the silicon and synthetic races seem to crank population like they always have. I’m not sure if they tweaked them in this expansion, but it didn’t really feel like it.

Intrigue felt like a good patch, but not much of an expansion. Maybe if commonwealths were better implemented and more important I would feel differently, since it was a major feature of the expansion. Governments I pretty much just pick the one I like when I get a new tech and unlock them. They’re usually a pretty obvious choice, you pick the one that aligns with the victory you’re going for. You can change governments, but only on a lengthy cooldown. I didn’t find much of a reason to do so, aside when a tech unlocked a new one. Still, a nice extra way to customize your play, even if they felt like an obvious choice most of the time.

I’m not an expert in the expansion or GalCiv3, that’s just my impressions over 10 hours with Intrigue.

Edit: I forgot about the crises… which isn’t surprising. They’re event chains that pop up a couple times a game. You’re presented with options on how to deal with the situation, each option with a % chance of success. Those options either align with Ideology, or things like Military option, Science option, etc. The area you’re focused on will likely be the one that you pick, as it’s the only one that has a decent chance of succeeding. If you fail, you get things like either minor penalties or things like your homeworld blowing up if you fail your dice roll in which case you restart your game because seriously? Come on.

2013

KevinC:

I’ve played a few games. The Governments are an extra way to customize your Civ a bit. There’s a tax slider now that gets used. Commonwealths are absolutely useless for a couple reasons. For starters, better Governments give you more than enough planets you can control, so I’m never over my limit (aside from the very start of the game where I just temporarily deal with the approval hit) and have no need to split any off. Worse, they’re not vassals. It seems like they can ally other players, and other players can declare war on them while you sit on the sidelines and watch them get eaten (which of course they will, because they’re tiny). I was pretty intrigued (oops, no pun intended by that) by the idea, but they’re completely useless and the implementation is poor.

From my experience of around 10 hours with the expansion, you pay the asking price for the ability to choose a Government a few times in a game. That’s the only thing I noticed. I thought a Dev diary mentioned that colonizable planets were more rare, with planets requiring techs taking their place, but I haven’t noticed it at all. Colonizable vs tech locked seems to be at a 5:1 ratio.

Oh, I think they did change food this expansion? You can only build farms on specific tiles. I like it in concept, but it seems REALLY random the hand you’re dealt. Sometimes planets have a ton of arable land, other times barely any at all. There needs to be a way for a player to develop arable tiles once they have terraforming tech or something, even if it’s not as good as a natural farm tile. On the other hand, it’s kind of annoying to colonize a planet with arable tiles as a race that doesn’t need food. Why can’t I build factories or anything else on the tile just because it’s arable?

The new food system also doesn’t feel balanced. It can be severely limiting in most games, but meanwhile the silicon and synthetic races seem to crank population like they always have. I’m not sure if they tweaked them in this expansion, but it didn’t really feel like it.

Intrigue felt like a good patch, but not much of an expansion. Maybe if commonwealths were better implemented and more important I would feel differently, since it was a major feature of the expansion. Governments I pretty much just pick the one I like when I get a new tech and unlock them. They’re usually a pretty obvious choice, you pick the one that aligns with the victory you’re going for. You can change governments, but only on a lengthy cooldown. I didn’t find much of a reason to do so, aside when a tech unlocked a new one. Still, a nice extra way to customize your play, even if they felt like an obvious choice most of the time.

rev

2014

Thanks Kevin. It doesn’t sound great. The governments and food system as described by Brad sounded like they would be good ideas. How about the market / baazar? That also seemed like a good addition.

2015

I think they’re both good ideas. Governments I like, food is good it just needs some tweaks and it’ll be in a good spot. Maybe you should be able to create arable tiles with use of one of the rarer planetary resources (Monsantium or whatever?). You should also be able to build on arable tiles if you’re not a race that uses food, and the non-food races seem like that could use some tweaks since it felt to me like they weren’t addressed with the food/population change. Maybe I’m wrong on that, though.

I haven’t had too much of a need to utilize the markets yet. It’s useful if you’re missing a particular resource but I never sold much of what I had. It would probably be more important at higher levels of play where you’re trying to squeeze every advantage you have. Selling a bunch of resources to get the cash to rush a new ship might give you the edge you need in a close-fought game. I’m not expert at the game and so I’m not at that min/max level where every credit counts.

To reiterate, please just take all this as my personal experience rather than an in-depth review. I’d like to hear what hardcore GalCiv3 players think about the expansion because it might be a lot different than my lukewarm reaction.

2016

Yeah, I’ll be skipping this for now. Thanks, KevinC!

Also: GalCiv and other Stardock games are never on sale over at GOG.com, are they?

2017

Mercenaries expansion is 25% off right now on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/411650/Galactic_Civilizations_III__Mercenaries_Expansion_Pack/

2018

They have occasionally been on sale there, but for sure they are more expensive than on Steam.

Diego

2019

Yeah, the prices of Stardock games on GOG are frankly ridiculous.

2020

You can destroy arable tiles so that you can build something else on them.

The higher level farm techs super charge the arable tiles also.

Intrigue also introduces the Crisis system as well as the Galactic market in addition to governments, elections, cabinets, commonwealths, etc. ;)

2021

Oh, that’s great, I didn’t see I could do that when I played a Silicon-based civ. Thanks!

2022

GalCiv III, the Intrigue expansion, and the Gold bundle are all on sale in the Steam sale. Great time to pick it up. :)

2023

Has there been any feedback on the Intrigue Expansion yet? Still not seen anything that flags this as a must have DLC. The feature list sounds interesting, but sounds just like more busy work that doesn’t fundamentally effect the overall game play. Sounds more like a slight expansion to the whole Good, Neutral, Evil ethics by allowing you to have Good, Neutral, Evil ruling methods.

2024

The overall response to Intrigue was kinda… meh? Not as hefty/worthwhile as Crusade.

Personally, the excessive amounts of DLC have turned me right off Stardock, so I haven’t kept up with what they’ve been doing as I once did. That, and the fact that the most recent releases have all left me feeling quite indifferent. I think Stardock are a bit rubbish when it comes to developing; the games they’ve only worked on as publishers have generally been better. For example, I checked out the latest version of Star Control for a few hours, shrugged, and then uninstalled it.

Sorry.

2025

Can you define “excessive”?

Galactic Civilizations III came out May 2015. That’s a bit over 3 years ago. There is a total of 10 paid DLC for it. That’s a bit over 3 per year and that includes 1 expansion pack per year so basically 2 DLC + 1 expansion per year. Is that excessive?

Regarding Star Control, it hasn’t been released. What exactly did you check out?

2026

$30 for the base game (which was very bare-bones upon release) plus ca. $80 for all DLC, so for a total price of around $110. That seems on the level of something like a modern Assassin’s Creed game (for the Ultimate Edition or whatever with the base game + season pass etc.). That doesn’t seem like a good value proposition to me.

I started gaming in the early 1990s, so I’m used to buying a game and that being it, bar perhaps a few bug fix patches and/or the odd content patch, and maybe an expansion pack down the line. Kind of what Firaxis does with the XCOM games: that seems perfectly fine to me. I’m also okay with some modern developers supporting the game long-term and releasing the odd cheap DLC or decently priced expansion pack, like Darkest Dungeons or War for the Overworld.

But when a publisher starts releasing large amounts of small DLC packs and expansion packs, like what Stardock does nowadays and what Paradox does, it becomes too much in my eyes. It feels to me like there’s just stuff bolted onto the base game that it becomes this Frankensteinian thing and where I feel, especially considering the prices that Stardock charges, like your squeezing your players.

See above. It’s the number of releases plus the cost involved, plus in this case also the status of the base game at release. I suppose it has worked out fine for Stardock, but I personally don’t like it.

The beta (or whatever it is) on Steam. I know it’s under NDA, so I won’t talk about it in detail, but I’ve bounced off it the few times I checked it out, including after the last major update. I’ll check out the final version when it’s released to see if my opinion has changed.

2027

Fair enough. I guess my question would be, what game publishers should be used as a standard bearer then? If you want games to be developed after release, someone has to pay for that development. What other model would you like to see?

For example, let’s use Civilization VI. It came out in October 2016. They have 7 DLC (on track for 5 per year, nearly twice the pace of GalCiv III). Its base price is $59.99 plus $65 in DLC.

In the days before DLC, developers would release their game, put out a patch and move on. Now, games can continue to be updated and evolve. Developers and artists have to be paid for their work. It’s not a matter that the games are “bare bones” when they ship. They evolve based on player feedback.

In the 1990s, a game would be $50 (which would be $80 now) and you might get one expansion. The games were no more “complete” they simply didn’t get updated.

2028

I don’t want games to continue to be developed after release. I’d be happy if game development went back to how it used to be, and how board games are now, i.e.: release a game that is feature complete and actually good, then publish some bug fix patches if necessary, and perhaps release an expansion pack or two further down the road. Then move on to the next game.

I dislike games that continuously change after release; it makes me feel like I wasted my money when I bought it at release, since obviously the developers thought it needed massive overhauls to actually be good. Just give me a good game from the get-go and have that be it.

That’s also excessive to me. XCOM’s the somewhat better example: the base game, some minor DLC (completely skippable, too, and I sort of wish they didn’t), and a major expansion pack.

I think that’s debatable. I still play, for example, Master of Orion, which was released in 1993. It felt complete then and feels complete now. Similarly, the rebooted Master of Orion from 2016 is a good game, that received some pre-order bonus material and an expansion pack with three races and some additional stuff. I’m perfectly happy with these games as they are.

In my experience, you can keep tinkering with something to try and get it perfect, but at some point, you just have to let it go. It helps that I work as an editor and writer in traditional media: we don’t get the luxury of just “patching” a book or an issue of a magazine, or to keep adding stuff to them after they’ve rolled off the presses.

2029

That’s an interesting perspective. I am very glad you shared it because it makes me wonder how many other people feel that way.

Here’s what I mean by that: I have always looked at software as a service. That’s the world I come from.

For years, Stardock treated its games as a hobby. Almost 80% of our profits come from software. The games were just…this thing we did with spare engineering resources. We stopped running the company as a hobby after the Elemental fiasco but we have, even since our OS/2 days, viewed software as a service: Always being updated, enhanced, built on.

But your view is the opposite. A game, like a board game, should be fixed. You release it. That is it. Don’t release it until it has reached its full potential and then freeze it in time. It’s done. Let the game be enjoyed as it is.

I am going to have to go noodle this a bit further but your post is probably the single most insightful thing I’ve read…well in a very long time. I genuinely never thought of that point of view until just now. Thank you. I know this is going to sound odd but you literally just made my day.

2030

I think this viewpoint on a digital game as very old school (saying this as someone who is 58 years old). There was no choice when games were distributed on floppies etc. The internet changed this making it easier to come out with expansions and small upgrades.

The music industry used to be single hits (45s) and then went to LP Albums. But digital distribution kind of cycled back to buying single songs again.

If a player likes a game as is than you do not have to upgrade it. Not sure why different kinds of players can not benefit. I guess the impression is that companies are holding back some aspects that would have been included in the old days?