Opening ideas (first game played)

from GalCiv3 Forums

So far I really like this game. I just started my first game, and I felt that my opening impressions will be useful. After all the first game can set the mood for new players to a game, and how we are after having played 10 games is a lot different than on day 1.

 

1) Right away I felt that I should be able to select what tile my Capital and starport are placed on. Nothing is worse than having a cool tile that can specialize in research or manufacturing and having your capital on it wasting the resource. A natural wonder under your spaceport, or mineral rich under them... Just a minor point that would reduce the amount of re-rolls on a opening game. Rerolling can be frustrating and time consuming. Then you get a pretty good one and re-roll just because you think it could be better and then regret re-rolling because you go on a streak of terrible random configurations.

2) Some game parameter that governs how many tiles/special features each tile may have in your opening settings (which I know are not in place yet) to avoid re-rolls. Just like in the Civilization games a player can re-roll their start until they get something they like, It's wasted effort and shouldn't be something that can convey an advantage. It's not a fun part of starting a new game.

 

3) A summary screen when you finish a technology that says something along the lines of "you have researched X" you can then see the thing(s) it unlocked. Sometimes it's nice to see this and think "ohh yeah, I was doing this before" this is useful after returning to a saved game after a spell being away from it, or even while grinding turns and not paying too much attention to things.

The same would be useful on the planet menu. When you have an idle planet and you click on the button, You see the new thing you built on the planet highlighted in some fashion reminding you what you built.

4) A ship completed notification would be great so ships don't start piling up waiting to be ejected. Also, it should say "Launched" I'd think, sounds better than eject. Ejecting a ship made me think the first time round... "will this cancel the job I just completed?"

5) I found the whole circle representation of how much space a planet has confusing until I settled each one and remembered which was which. Some clear way of seeing a planet's capacity before settling would be great. or a tool-tip summary that explicitly says"12 colonizable hexes(inert lore appropriate term)". During my first game I didn't know that the 12 meant 12 tiles. A tip saying this would smooth out the tiny learning curves a person experiences during their initial impressions of the game.

 

6) Geothermal icon has "+2 to population Impartments(sic))

 

7) It would be good to see how many credits we have and what the income is next to it. Losing credits is a serious problem and seeing the trend in surplus credits unfolding as you make choices without having to mouse-over every turn would be great. It would spur research into Maintenance decrease techs etc. if they were required before it became a problem.

 

I'll add to the post as I play again in the morning.

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Another observation that I think would be a useful addition would be to have a range indication of a fleet or ship when you click on it without having to attempt a move to see what your range is. The graphic can be a border with a dotted line of a different colour or faded nature. This can give you a good indication of what your range is when you see an enemy ship etc.

The colour coded movement lines for a ship once in motion is a good touch. I like that it shows in green, yellow red etc.

 

Double clicking a building task that is in the queue would be a good quick way to remove it as short-cut to canceling the build.

 

A tooltip or description when you mouse-over the various basic stats of attack, shield etc of starbases and ships/fleets would be good for new players. a 3 would say a attack value of 3. etc. For instance unless I look into it I don't know what the yellow pellets are in the ship stats.

 

a critical aspect to include would be mouse-over tooltips explaining what a planets given food production results in. Be it growth rate and/or population capacity.

Code surplus credits in Green, and deficit credit earnings in Red on the planet menu. As well as put total income, maintenance and surplus in the same tooltip when you mouse-over the credits. This saves a line in the planet menu and displays all the information you need in one view.

 

Mouse-over tooltips for all components displayed in the tech screen. For example: Component: Wake generator. I have no idea what this will do until I research it and look at it.

When you open the ideology screen and you have the "unlock" option when you select another option the "unlock" goes away until you exit the ideology screen and enter it again. If you cannot afford an ideology improvement it should also change the "unlock" to a red "Insufficient pragmatic points" or something.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm replying with one more feature I think would be a nice addition to the game.

I'm on my 2nd game start, and I can assume that in the full release version the starting resources will be VERY limited, and buying multiple colony ships at the start will not happen.

In this case the first colony will be the most important first step one takes into the Galaxy. It would be necessary to pick the best planet for the expense of all those valuable first turns and the construction projects you gave up in order to build a colony ship.

Idea:

You can conduct a surface survey of the planet. You can then view the constructable tiles themselves and see if they are clustered (for potential connection bonuses for like structures), or spread apart. 

You then have the option of conducting a More detailed survey. This will show what tiles are grassland, mountainous, etc.

An In-depth survey would reveal things like Ancient ruins, mineral rich, etc.

Each survey can take additional time (each phase doubles the number of turns. 2, 4, 8 or something), which can be spent while a colony ship is being made/traveling to a destination. You will know in advance which planet you most need to settle as your first colony. This also serves to give survey ships something to do once you've explored your maximum range instead of just putting them on Sentry or guard.

 

It would also be a bit more realistic if the unexplored map had the star's size and colour represented. Basic astronomy gives us distance, Mass/radius(size) , luminosity and peak wavelength (colour) are known from ground based observations. It would make the unexplored fog look more visually appealing and players can speculate that certain stars have a higher likelihood of having habitable planets. Whether or not this is the case is up to the Devs, but some could have more gas giants, some could have more habitable planets, and others a higher chance of debris/things to explore, and it wouldn't be a certainty a Blue star may have a outstanding planet, and a Yellow sun may not. Just a % chance.

This lets the player feel more like an explorer probing into the unknown depths of space.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Greetings Malevolent Salmonidae.

Very good points all around.

 

My personal preference on the the ship movement range indicator would be a system similar to the Total war games. Where you can plot the line while holding the button and see how many turns it takes to reach places. I like it because you can see where you would be in X turns. Total war also combines this with a highlighted area for primary range. Could be useful to know if an enemy can catch you next turn, without actually counting hexes manually.

 

About the ToolTip, I think there is still a lot of work and I am sure SD have a lot of ideas not yet implemented. But If I may I would like to point at the game Endless Space. I think they made a very good implementation of the tool Tip. While I find this game average overall, their tooltip implementation is nice.

  HoMM VI has a pretty good tooltip too. They have a feature where Right clicking an area will make the tooltip appear immediately, I found myself using that all the time.  Waiting 1 sec for the tool tip to appear may not sound like a big deal but if you check tool tips often, it adds up.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like your points.

I'm also in agreement that SD will implement many tooltips and icons/features as this Alpha test progresses.

I often find myself in games I'm experienced in using the tooltips, as a reminder, a self-congratulatory pat on the back when I improve some aspect and gloat to myself on the improvements I'm witnessing etc.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Playing through the game after taking over a week off to refresh my eyes.



One issue I noticed right off the bat is when you collect debris before you start research on your first turn, and if that debris gives you a research boost, you don't get said boost when you select your research.

Any boost in research should be held in reserve for when you select a topic. If you are between techs this could also cause an issue of lost tech points.

 

A number of turns till completion on the planet summary screen would be awesome. I can see it's getting close or guesstimate how many turns, but to see the turns I still have to go to the individual planets.

 

I would love to see events occur on planets I already have colonized. I'm sure this is on the drawing board, but unrest, protests, civil advances, newly discovered wonders, ruins, energy, resources etc. interactions with other races, ship in transit events. It would also be good to have story events that don't have an effect on the game other than your ideology.

For example. A solider refuses orders for some moral reason, a pardon request by citizens for some person, A choice of names for some government or military facility. 1000's of potential stories for the same benefit keep the game looking diverse and different each play-through.


Have some events dependent on others, in an invisible tree of sorts, if not for impact on food, production influence etc, then just on story lines.

 

I would say that the more intuitive button layout for upgrading an existing structure would be "destroy" "upgrade" "Buy" in that order. Often I catch myself almost destroying a building instead of upgrading it, and occasionally I do destroy it. A confirmation regarding destroying any building would be necessary before any building is actually destroyed and potentially setting you back many turns.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

My thoughts to your first 7 points...  So far I like what I see...

1.  Capital's have been system generated, in Galciv2 it wouldn't have special tiles underneath them, that is something that is still being worked out.  Starport the only one that is system generated currently is the home planet, and I believe you may destroy this and build a new one elsewhere if you choose to do so.

2.  The whole planet screen is being redone, set to be seen in beta 1 according to the video streams.  This may fix some of this but it is set to be random.

3.  Galciv 2 had the indicators on the right side of the screen after everyturn letting you know this for ships and buildings...  This hasn't been included in Galciv 3 (possibly because it's Alpha) but, I hope it does find it's way in one way or another.  Research maybe have something in the research screen indicating this being the game already lets you know that your done researching and tells you to research something new.

4.  Ships leaving orbit is something else that they've been working to improve we should see a better impletation of this in Alpha 2 or Beta 1.

5.  Area around a planet fluctuates based on influence of the planet, so what a planet starts with is not always what it will be even a few turns later.

6.  Many issues w/ bonus's and spelling alike. (All being worked out as part of Alpha) but, good catch..

7.  I agree it's not the easiest to see this, if you go in your settings for manufacturing/research/economy you can see how much you are gaining/loosing per turn.  (hope this gets better as development continues.)