Beta 1 Impression - My first game of GalCiv3

from GalCiv3 Forums

There were some unintuitive moments during my first game and I thought I'd give feedback now, because otherwise I'll get used to it or find work-arounds and don't notice these "issues" later on. But new players might be having the same difficulties as me, so here it comes:

1. Happiness-Wealth-System - micromanagement hassle: Don't like the constant (nearly every turn for all colonies) adjusting of the sliders on a per-planet basis to keep happiness at 100% or 50%, but not too much above it. Tiring and no fun. Too complicated (why jumps in bonuses and no gradual decline? - urges me to micromanage), better get rid of it or simplify it: I want to understand what is happening and why and keep happiness at a predetermined level (planetary governor), if it has to stay in the game.

System in Master of Orion 2 is still my favorite in that regard. 

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these other things are minor in comparison, but I noticed

2. Cataract (Tile property) says it gives +1 level to research, but doesn't

3. Typo at "High Approval Bonuses": "Influance Growth" instead of Influence with e

4. Sent constructor to starbase to upgrade it, didn't immediately found where to do it (upper right corner) - maybe a prompt or stronger highlighting?

Also sent Constructors to Starbases but wasn't told they had arrived - squandered a few turns and send more Constructors there then I needed ...

5. Is there a way to launch constructors from Starbases again, if I don't want to upgrade any more (I sent 4 ships there but only needed 2 upgrades, but couldn't send the constructors elsewhere, once they were on the same tile as the Starbase)

6. Happiness buildings not working as described (and couldn't even build the higher-tier approval buildings, even though I researched them) - combining all the bonuses and subtracting all the negatives I had like +80 % happiness and should therefore have been at 100 % (180% theoretically), but was way down at 30% or so ... why?

7. In managing the total production output, it would be nice to have a sum of all the listed bonuses (when you have like 6 different sources for bonuses, it get's tiresome to add them all up by oneself) displayed, as well as the base-value (derived from population, I think).

 

But as I said, adjusting all the sliders for all of the colonies all of the time (being incentivized by the discontinuous bonus-malus-system) is so tiring and broke the gaming experience for me :(

I had really hoped Galactic Civilization 3 would make the game mechanics more transparent and would require less tiresome "work" to keep the colonies at an optimum performance, so I could enjoy the game and strategy instead (had the same problem in Galciv2, but not in Master of Orion 2 or Civilization V, for instance).

I would recommend, they take out the happiness-mechanic or make it independent of the production wheel or at least make the bonuses continuous, so I don't have to fumble around with tiny adjustments on the production wheel every other turn for each colony.

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Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

On a related note to the happiness issues, I forget if it was Civ 3 or Civ 4 that was the last to have a city "go into revolt" or whatever it was.  They eventually realized the micromanagement to check each city was simply silly (and also not popular with players), hence why the newest games kind of have it be a global thing.  Not saying to make happiness simply be global (though maybe that could help, but I think it would feel funny in GalCiv3), but at the very least, have it be much more gradual, instead of large jumps.  Ugh, I didn't even play long enough this morning to start suffering from unhappiness, but I was afraid it would be be, painful jumps.  Please fix this, it's just a bad mechanic, really hurts "the elusive fun:.

 

After more thought, in Civ 4 it wasn't global, but the penalty for unhappiness wasn't as crushing... I think.  No "cities in revolt and being useless". Shesh, now I want to go play Civ 4, lol.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I think the wealth-happiness should be global so if your civiliazation is making money then the people on planets shouldent care if thier plane is losing money

if i make a world devoted to research its going to cost me money but the population is doing what they love , what they went to school for, and what they moved to this planet for. On top of that they are getting paid and they are getting some lucritive research grants from the government so why are the upset?

 

however i do believe that other factors should be planet based just that wealth should be a civlization wide modifier

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 2

I think the wealth-happiness should be global so if your civiliazation is making money then the people on planets shouldent care if thier plane is losing money

if i make a world devoted to research its going to cost me money but the population is doing what they love , what they went to school for, and what they moved to this planet for. On top of that they are getting paid and they are getting some lucritive research grants from the government so why are the upset?

 

however i do believe that other factors should be planet based just that wealth should be a civlization wide modifier
End of androshalforc's quote

 

Good Idea.

 

Make Empire wide happiness global to empire economy and change or make 'minor' not major changes to each planet. I agree with the specialization thing. I want to load up a class 16 ghost planet with Resarch centers and my techno capital and let the nerds go to town. The empire will POUR money there yet because it does not have stock exchanges and resorts the place will have no growth and be unhappy.

 

The current system penalizes a style of play where players cannot 'focus' individual planets. Penalties are un-fun.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

For number 5 - I have noticed when sending several constructors to the star base that a couple end up as defending it.  I've had to double click the icons to get them off the star base.  I then can send them elsewhere or back to the star base to use their upgrades.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Perhaps a building that applies a percentage of a planets approval from wealth to the empire would be a good idea so that it's more conceivable to build planets that specialize in production.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

exactly my thoughts, androshalforc. if they are unhappy, that THEIR planet is not producing wealth, but is sponsored by the empire, than by that logic pure wealth planets should also be unhappy because they don't manufacture or research anything and are thus dependent on the empire and other planets. makes no sense, to penalize (research/production) or favor (wealth) any one specialization.

I'm not against planet specific happiness (that is what the morale-buildings are for), but the bonuses/penalties should be gradual and not contain thresholds as to not emphasize micro-management OR be only difficult to influence, like population per planet class or maybe pollution (for industry-specialized planets).

 

ON FOOD AND HAPPINESS:

To take food into consideration now seems odd to me, because why should you be happier if you have twice the food that you need? You'd get obese and that can't be too much bliss, right? So unless population grows beyond food supply (which currently can not happen - why, exactly?), there should be no unhappiness from food. If however they do grow beyond it, it makes very much sense and would force you to further exploit your planets resources (i.e. land for food production) or to expand to new planets (population pressure, just like on earth!) or to set some strict birth control policies (think China) that may also impact happiness a little in the short term, but avoid larger happiness impacts in the long run. Would be a nice driving incentive to expand and later go to war - just to reduce population pressure ;)