That’s a shame. Have played one tutorial game and mostly finished a full game and will never return. I’m sure there’s lots for me to discover and enjoy but I simply cannot stand how quickly movement speeds ramp up and how this changes the game (particularly that the AI is presumably omniscient and doesn’t overly worry about sensors).
Had the exact same problem with GC2, as I recall?
That is a box quote of I ever read one.
So after my buying and playing through the Early Access edition of Master of Orion, I have become interested again in the various 4x Space Strategy options out there and have been madly re-installing and playing.
I have unfurled and modded up Sword of the Stars 1 Complete and had some fun with it. Sadly, while the game and underlying mods in the community are excellent, the graphics and interface options of SotS1 are very dated for me and difficult to endure. So then for a couple of dozen hours - and a few hundred turns into Sword of the Stars II. While the game (fully patched and expanded) is MUCH better than the code and reviews which went with the original game, it still is a very slow paced 4x. Too slow, to be honest. The tech exploration is very long in Sword of the Starts II. You could easily spend WEEKS playing the same game.
I flirted with re-installing GalCiv I and II, but I never warmed to those games. To be honest, it was the art direction which turned me off, The races didn’t do it for me and the cartoony art direction just rubbed me the wrong wayand screamed DON’T PLAY THIS GAME. (Yes, MoO 2 shares many of the same sins and I never liked the art direction in that game either.)
But, whatever the case, I decided to give Gal Civ III a try anyway and bought the game and its expansion last night. I must say that the eye candy is VERY pretty and the support for 5760x 1080p Eyefinity resolution out of the box was VERY appreciated. I look forward to kicking the tires on this one all week.
I have Endless Space installed too, but have not yet given it a spin. I was rather lukewarn on Endless Legend and I am looking for something… else? I don’t know. Something to grab and hold my attention. Perhaps GalCiv III is it. Here’s to hoping.
Great to hear. :)
Alright, I got a chance to dive into a game this weekend!
The Good: The Mercenary expansion is cool. I didn’t really understand what purpose a mercenary would serve, but they function as Heroes in a game like Endless Legend. That is you can station them at a planet for various economic benefits or they can be combat-related and provide bonuses to fleets, etc. I like this, it’s pretty cool, and really opens up different approaches and strategies from game to game. Big thumps up from me on this one.
The Bad: Before this game launched there were some UI complaints that that we discussed about in this thread. Some of them have been addressed (production numbers, etc) but others… not so much. When I colonize a planet and get the colonization event, I can’t see on that screen what kind of planet it is I’m colonizing! You know, where sometimes you find a planet that is going to have a Food penalty but a boost to Research or whatever. When I get the colonization event and am provided 3 options with various effects, I need to be able to see what planet it is we’re talking about here! There are times that I have multiple colony ships enroute and I have no way of knowing which it is unless I first cancel the colonization, go to the colony ship, examine the planet, and then re-issue the colonization order. This is annoying! Also, is there any way to see what the native planetary effects/bonuses are on the building screen?
And of course just to flog the dead space donkey some more: when setting up a team game, why do the teams not start in the same region as each other? I’m not just talking multiplayer, I’m talking about playing teams with the AI as well. Is this seriously still not implemented? It was mentioned a long time ago that it wouldn’t make the first major patch, but we’re far beyond that point now. The game is a year old and multiple DLC have been released. Is there some weird technical/engineering issue making it cost prohibitive to implement? Am I the only one who plays with Teams and thinks it’s silly to start on opposite ends of a Gigantic galaxy? Or maybe I’m a clueless idiot and I missed an option that was added to the game?
I’m having fun with this game, but ultimately the fact that the AI has complete vision of the map really ruins the eXploration part of the game… which tends to be one of my favorite parts of a 4X. It is so incredibly annoying that the AI knows exactly where all the resources and colonizable worlds are. Every game, if I don’t go on a mad rush to lock down everything in the vicinity, I’ll have the AI opponents steam in colony ships or constructor to the far reaches of my empire, where their ships have never even been.
I get that AI needs handicaps and I’m not opposed to it, but the map vision is just incredibly obnoxious to me. I just had an AI that I was on decent terms with be a complete idiot and steam a colony ship right into the heart of my empire and colonize Mars, despite no scouts ever even coming by. Of course it was an utterly stupid move, because it’s well within my Influence which means that the planet flipped to me straight away. The AI then repeated it again with another nearby planet, and then declared war on me immediately thereafter.
So annoying.
The flip side is that its trival for a human player to have essentially complete vision of the map as well, by sticking all the sensors on a ship (probably cargo). At least last time I checked, admittedly many patches ago.
Also, what is up with the Altarans and their pathological desire to declare war every game, almost right off the bat? I don’t even know where they’re located. There’s still tons of uncolonized planets. I thought perhaps I was getting attacked because I was weak, so I hired some nice Mercs and built up a fleet. I have the highest Military Power score of all the races I’ve met so far. Yet here they are, the first message they send to me (beyond the greeting) is a declaration of war.
How does this make sense for the AI? I look at the Diplomacy screen, and they have a negative opinion of me. Part of it is due to Ideology (I’m Pragmatic). Fine. But I have a -2 “you are weak”. What? I’m the strongest power in the #$&!ing game, according to the charts. So what is it basing this off of?
That’s not even my biggest gripe with this crap, though. What logical sense is there for the AI to declare war right now? I’ve got multiple scout and survey ships exploring and I’ve yet to see their borders. They have to be ridiculously far away to the point where I wonder how on earth their combat vessels would ever reach me this early in the game (my guess is they won’t be able to). It just makes no sense from what I can see to attack right now.
There’s a lot in the game that I enjoy, but the issues I’m having with the AI are just driving me away from the game. I think I might just shelve it and wait for Stellaris.
I’m glad you’re taking one for the team and checking the game out. I had been thinking of firing this up again - I played 1 game at release, but I can’t build up the activation energy to reinstall and play it. I think the things that are frustrating you would frustrate me as well.
I’ll be the first to admit there may be mechanics that I’m just unaware of or not understanding; that’s part of the reason I’m posting my experiences here. The other part is to bitch and moan because things like I’ve been complaining about tend to drive me nuts. :)
An example of low-hanging fruit that was brought up at release and hasn’t been addressed: I get to a “United Nations” vote to redistribute the wealth of the richest player and am faced with a Yes or No vote. With no ability to see who the richest player is. With no ability to even see what my own treasury is, since I can’t back out of the screen without voting first. This was brought up by Tom I believe at release if I remember correctly, but it’s still not addressed. Same thing with Colonization Events, asking if I want +20% Manufacturing or +10% Research or whatever, without me being able to see what the planet in question is! I’d like to know if this is the Ghost World (+50% research) we’re talking about, because I’d absolutely take the +10% research with a penalty instead of the +20% manufacturing on that world.
Things like the above and the inability to start next to teammates in team games just frustrate me, when we’re a year past release. Do these things not bother the developers of the game? Do they not play their own game? Am I taking crazy pills? If the game wasn’t fun it’d be easy to just uninstall it and not look back, but there’s a lot of stuff I really enjoy! But these annoyances just keep smacking me in the face every time I start to have fun.
Man I hate when games make you make decisions without looking at the pertinent info too. Like Civ V and diplomacy. OK, you want to make a declaration of friendship with me but I can’t see what other Civs think of you. I think the InfoAddict mod adds a button so you can, but the base game didn’t. Games are guilty of this so often.
Agreed, it’s definitely maddening. I suppose I’m just supposed to memorize all details of the present gamestate at all times, right? :)
I liked Endless Legend’s solution to that issue. You can’t end a turn without making all the decisions, but the decisions don’t need to be made immediately. Someone offering you an alliance? The icon to talk to them is in the corner. Go ahead, look at your diplomacy screen. Check out their territory. Do whatever you need to do. When you’re ready, click on the icon and inform them of your decision. Everything comes in to play like that, even combat. About to enter combat, should you try to retreat or fight it out? You can look around and get more information before you click that little combat icon.
Gal Civ 3 does this in some instances. You can swap your research or building at any time. Would be really nice to mirror that to diplomacy and colonization decisions as well.
Yeah, Civ 5’s diplomacy drives me nuts in that regard.
Alright, so I’m a stubborn SOB which means I’m still pounding my head against the wall that is GalCiv3’s AI.
I started up several games with the intent of trying to avoid the early game war declarations against me. I was usually going Pragmatic because i love the Outpost upgrades so I decided to switch it up.
The first couple attempts were to go Benevolent and focus on Diplomacy techs, building embassies, etc to try to get my relations up and get Trade routes going ASAP. Going the more pacifist route was proving unsuccessful, though, as the war-decs come too fast and early.
Alright, if the carrot isn’t going to work for me I decided to try the stick. I tried going both Pragmatic and Malevolent and focusing heavily on military techs and putting a much larger emphasis on building warships and having a large standing force. Still no dice. Still war declarations shortly after contact.
The amusing (read: infuriating) thing about this is the wars don’t even make any sense. In the game I was complaining about a little up-thread, the Altarians declared war on me and I couldn’t even find where they were. Eventually I found them by sending a survey ship through a wormhole (which is how I assume they met me initially). They were halfway across the (Huge-sized) galaxy from me, with not one but two other races between us. They had no capability to send ships to me or attack. In fact, I let it play out another 100 turns (I’m playing on the slowest pace) to see if anyone showed up but they never did.
The same has held true for the other wars. Maybe they get a ship or two near the borders but that’s about it. I don’t even think they have planetary invasion tech yet, as I’ve yet to have my planets taken in any of these early wars. They just keep attacking my free drones (I’m playing Iconians) that are at every planet. Over and over and over. Until I get my fleet down there and wipe them out.
So thus far I’ve been unable to find a way to not brawl with my neighbors to start. I’ve tried going benevolent and diplomacy with no luck. I’ve tried going Pragmatic and just trying to make sure I have a good military with no luck. I’ve tried going full-on Malevolent, focus heavily on military techs and building a big fleet with no luck. In every instance people just declare war in an incredibly ineffectual manner.
So what’s up with the AI here? I’m playing on Normal, for what it’s worth. I can look at the charts and my Military Power is good. There are plenty of uncolonized planets to pick up, so it’s not a lack of resources or areas to expand to. I’m convinced that most of the time the AI doesn’t even have the capability yet to wage war, either being too far away or lacking the navy/techs to destroy starbases or invade planets. So what’s causing the AI to be so aggressive and stupid?
I’m not a fan of the “boardgame” style AI where it plays to win as opposed to playing realistic, but I can deal with that. Even if this is a boardgame AI just playing to win, I don’t understand what it’s doing. Why declare war on me when they lack the capacity to do anything as opposed to colonizing all the remaining planets around them, or building up starbases and their economy?
Does anyone here have much current experience with the game that might be able to share some insight? Any Stardock people want to chime in? Because I’m at a loss to explain why the AI is being so aggressive (oftentimes stupidly so).
I’ve been sitting on the fence whether to buy this and I’ll be the first to admit my memory is going, but the early game problems (map vision / war decs) were a problem with Galactic Civ 2 as well. It was all about killing your early game to get colonizers out as far as possible and to build a small offensive force to game the system.
It sounds like from what you’re posting, that they’ve decided this is a core feature of the gameplay they don’t want to change from GalCiv2.
Bummer.
Playing as the Terrans on Normal I do not get war declared early. My current game I went benevolent for the influence tree and kept my military power up and I haven’t been war declared once. I’m playing on a medium map with 3 other AI I have taken over Iconian planets with both influence rebellions and the influence bomb from power number 3 and they are allied with me. I haven’t fought a single war this game, so I don’t understand how you are get war decced so quickly in your games.
I do make a point of establishing a trade route early with all major races for the diplomacy bonus, and i picked up enough + diplomacy techs, and granted smal requests.
At this point, to be honest even as a long time Stardock fan, I just don’t think this game is fun enough to recommend. It’s technically well made, but it just seems to be lacking in terms of the gameplay being fun- too much tedium and too many niggling things i just don’t like. About the only way I’d give it another chance is if Brad’s remake idea happens, as that sounds like it would solve many of the things that make the game unfun for me. (Then again I loved Sorcerer King to death and that didn’t sell well…)
At the very least I’d wait for Stellaris before deciding. I’ll probably be back into Stardock stuff when Star Control is out since I loved SK.
I did try that route with the Terrans for the Diplo bonus but I mostly played Iconians. I’ll give them another shot going the Benevolent + Diplomacy techs route and see if maybe I just had bad luck. Thanks for the input.
I like the game, but the ship designer ruins it for me. Every time I start the designer I feel it interrupts the flow of game. If the ship designer was removed from the game and placed in the main menu and you did all the hull designs and ship sets there then all you would have to do is add components during the game like SEIV. I feel the game would then have a much better flow.