My feedback and suggestions

from GalCiv3 Forums

Feedback:

I don't like the way the tech tree is set up. It's too easy to click around in it and accidentally change your research project, because the last project highlighted is the one that gets researched and any time you switch branches of the tech tree you select the top item in the currently selected branch.

It'd be nice if the bonuses from e.g. Mountainous showed up somehow on the planet tiles without me having to inspect each tile individually. I have no interest in clicking through 10 or 15 tiles to see which ones give me the +X levels to improvement type Y bonuses (which also don't appear to affect anything - what exactly is this supposed to do for me, anyways?).

Several of the places where the improvement type being granted bonus levels are named is inconsistent - the ones that I've specifically noticed are 'population' and 'farming', as well as 'culture' and 'influence'. Please make the naming consistent; it's much easier to understand +X levels to Influence Improvements than having both +X levels to Culture and +X levels to Influence Improvements do the same thing when none of your improvements are listed as 'cultural'. Also, what do the bonus levels do? They don't change the listed stats for the structure, aside from the little number in the upper-right corner of the tool-tip that I assume is the improvement level, nor does it seem to have an impact on the actual planetary production, at least not that I've noticed.

One of the special tile items - I think the 'Ancient Wonder' - lists a couple of improvements to stuff on its tile and then another +2 to cultural improvements built next to it. However, this +2 level bonus is also applied to research improvements. Is this intended and not listed, or is there something wrong with the adjacency bonus for this?

Are there any 'approval' improvements? I noticed that there are tiles that give bonuses to approval improvements, but I haven't yet noticed any improvements that gain the bonus. I also haven't seen any approval rating anywhere in the game, and was under the impression that it and tax rates had gone the way of the dodo.

Even when the main map grid is on, it can be difficult to see against the background image, particularly over nebulae. This is bad - if I turn the grid on, I want to be able to see it.

 

Suggestions:

Give me an 'end turn' button separate from the 'show next idle thing' button. I don't always want to go through every planet/ship/whatever else I have that's idle, and I also don't necessarily want to set them into guard/sentry/auto-whatever mode. Don't force me to click through all of them to pass their turns or whatever else I'd do with them.

Give me a notification when ships, especially constructors and colonizers, are completed. Right now, I can only tell when that happens by keeping an eye on the planet listing to see when the queue changes, because things aren't automatically launched and there isn't a 'newly completed ship' indication anywhere.

That annoying 'end turn' beep should be something that I can turn off easily in the game options. Right now I'm either not seeing it or it isn't there, and the other sound effects haven't annoyed me to the point of wanting to be rid of them.

Auto-end turn should default to 'off'. I know it doesn't work right now, but the game should not default to assuming it knows when I'm done with my turn and I don't want to have to check it in the future to make certain that I turned it off after the last patch or something like that.

If it's not too much effort, I want to be able to rearrange the GUI. I'd rather have the minimap in the lower-right corner than the upper-right, because the lower-right is where I'm accustomed to find it most games other than flight simulators. I would also like to be able to resize individual pieces of the GUI rather than only having a sliding scale that affects all of them, because there are some parts that are more important to me, and other people might have a different set of preferences.

I'd like to have a list somewhere of colonizable planets, and a button associated with it that lets me assign a currently-existent colony ship to settle there as well as a button that allows me to assign a planet to queue up a colony ship that will automatically launch and and set course for that planet.

I think that's it for now.

5,316 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Also, what do the bonus levels do? They don't change the listed stats for the structure, aside from the little number in the upper-right corner of the tool-tip that I assume is the improvement level, nor does it seem to have an impact on the actual planetary production, at least not that I've noticed.
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Levels provide certain stat-bonuses, depending on the improvement. For example, the Basic Factory produces 10% more manufacturing per level, while the Starport provides 5 more HP per level for all ships build on the planet. You can see the current bonus value at the bottom of the tooltip, but only if the improvement is at least level 1.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that extra bit on the bottom of the tool-tip. I think it really ought to update the stats in the portion of the tool-tip that describe what the improvement actually does, though, rather than having an additional bonus listed at the very bottom. It would also be nice, even if the base stats weren't updated to reflect changes due to level, if the tool-tip would tell you somewhere what bonuses it gets from gaining levels. I also think that it might be nice if there were more cross-category bonuses, although maybe those will show up deeper in the tech tree or on other factions, as I've only played Terrans so far and haven't gone that far into a game yet.

 

More feedback:

There's an anomaly which comes up as 'Unfortunate Genus' and then proceeds to go on about how some fool became a genius by touching something and then had his head explode. Perhaps this should read 'Unfortunate Genius'? Or does my empire divide people into races that get assigned different jobs, or have a full genus in the animal kingdom dedicated to this kind of thing?

It seems that the Ancient Wonder isn't applying the +2 levels to Research Improvements to improvements built upon the Ancient Wonder tile, but rather to the improvements built around it. It does appear to be properly applying the +3 levels to Culture Improvements on its tile and the +2 levels to Influence Improvements on adjacent tiles, though this is an example of where you're using two different names for what appears to be the same kind of thing - there is not an apparent difference between 'Culture Improvements' and 'Influence Improvements', yet the Ancient Wonder's tool-tip uses both names to describe its bonuses.

It would be nice if the Fusion Power Plant and similar one-per-planet improvements mentioned that they were one-per-planet deals rather than a 'why bother with basic factories' kind of deal.

What does +1 Culture Production do? Is it influence, as used to create the influence borders, or something else? I don't see it listed on the planet details in the planet management screen, and I haven't noticed it on anything but influence structures.

If I research something that's entirely an upgrade to another structure, let's say Structure A, and I currently have Structure A queued up to be built on several of my planets, the upgrade structure ought to replace Structure A in the queue.

I find it slightly annoying that I can't just choose not to spend ideology points. If I'm supposed to be crafting my people's ideology, then I'd rather like to be able to have a largely malevolent society that nevertheless doesn't make use of e.g. forced labor camps, or a largely benevolent society that doesn't go in for mediation, yet since it appears that I'm required to spend points once I have enough to unlock something, it appears that in a sufficiently long game where I choose to go up one specific path that I'll eventually have enough points to unlock everything in that path, which under the current system would require that I take everything in that path. It's also a bit irritating because it seems as though I could play a mostly-benevolent society which occasionally dips into the darker side of things and end up in a situation where I'm forced to take gladiatorial combat or forced labor or some such thing when what I want is for my empire to be the 'nice guys' in the system, or vice versa.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Give me an 'end turn' button separate from the 'show next idle thing' button. I don't always want to go through every planet/ship/whatever else I have that's idle, and I also don't necessarily want to set them into guard/sentry/auto-whatever mode. Don't force me to click through all of them to pass their turns or whatever else I'd do with them.
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Nothing like being forced to unlock an ideology rank before you are allowed to hit next Turn. XD

I find it slightly annoying that I can't just choose not to spend ideology points.
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Sounds familiar.
 
If you could destroy buildings (which we can't, right? At least I haven't done it), you could destroy your current ideology ones once you buy the ranks that you desire. But yeah, being forced to spend the points may not be an uber idea.
Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You can go into the console by hitting tilda, the ` key bellow escape and type help, one of the commands that comes up lets you end turns without using up all idle colonies, ships, ideologies and techs - can't remember it off the top of my head!

 

Fate,:beer:

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Fate, reply 4

You can go into the console by hitting tilda, the ` key bellow escape and type help, one of the commands that comes up lets you end turns without using up all idle colonies, ships, ideologies and techs - can't remember it off the top of my head!

 

Fate,
End of Fate's quote

That should be "Turnactions."

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thank you Suomi!

 

Fate,:beer: