My Beta Feedback
GalCiv3 Forums
[General]
Still no tool tips/explination on global game options
[Game Setup]
I would still like to see a preview to show people the difference between a clustered/spiral/etc galaxy. For clarity, this would not be the galaxy used in the actual game session but a typical example.
[Star Map]
Duplicate star name instances can appear in the map, so you have more than one Eula IV (not sure who named a start after the End-User License Agreement). As with the alpha, you lose the star graphics when you reload.
I think it should be possible to fully zoom out on large monitors, even if it means removing grid lines for larger galaxies.
[AI]
Even on higher settings, the AI seems fairly limited. It tends to just stack ships of all sorts. It builds colony ships when there are no planets to colonize. It builds constructor ships but not star bases. It builds transports but will not invade. It does seem a little bit territorial, but that is about it and it does not attack much outside of its zone. It doesn't build things next to each other in a sensible way.
[Mining]
Mining seems to be enabled but doesn't do anything. You would think it would at least generate revenue. It should be more clear in the UI a mining starbase can not be used for other economic or military purposes.
[Tech]
It should be easier to navigate from the tree to the chooser.
Description for Energy Phasing should probably be "this is nasty stuff" rather than "nasty staff".
Logistics should probably be called combat coordination.
Discovering an artifact near the end of a cycle should maybe give credit to the next cycle.
[Combat]
It seems like transports always win and defensive capability is not useful, even if the AI builds planetary defenses. This should probably be balanced in some way.
When you engage in combat, it should take you to a FPS game where you aim your cannons and try and shoot the AI ship.
When a race is killed off, there starport stays in the same place inactive and can't be destroyed or recycled. Also, it could take several turns after all the races are killed to recognize victory.
Since there are so many stacked ships, this should probably be handled better - maybe you try and choose one to attack and they choose one to try and defend. I've seen large stacks disappear at times after attacking only a few fleets, at other times you have to kill them all individually.
[Ships]
It should be easier to modify a ship slightly, it takes a lot of clicks to say, OK make one of these with the newer drive or cannon instead of missiles.
When decommissioning a ship, maybe there should be a recycle option, particularly if you are out of money to upgrade. It might make sense to allow an in progress ship to adapt to new technology, obviously there would be a bigger cost to a major change like hull type.
It would be helpful to know in advance how much building a starbase will cost. They seem to get very expensive for no (in game) reason. It should be possible to eject a constructor.
There should be a way to toggle star trek naming back on after using some non star-trek names. It should be possible/easier to name starbases and shipyards. For that matter, it should be easier to rename ships/fleets generally.
It should be possible to suspend a shipyard without taking production to zero. It should be easier to sort on such status in the UI.
Fleet range (remaining) should be shown in the top level UI.
[Economics]
It should be made clear you can build more than one research capital and such. The AI seems to build one on every planet.
It is hard to move the 3d slider sometimes, and you can get negative values (i.e -1% research) at times. Some military/local spending values are always skipped over in that control. There are also a lot of -0 values in the results or +values that just denote costs which is confusing.
I still don't like the model where you have to chose a tile, then an improvement, and then double click.
It may make sense to have recycling for non-linear improvements, especially related ones like a bank and mall. You could put a bank in a mall.
[Ideology]
It doesn't seem to be possible to get very far in the tree. Also, some of the benevolent options are also pragmatic etc.
[Charts]
Power graph is odd, if it gives destroyed races positive values.
