Questions left over from last week..

Multiplayer

Some questions in this post Multiplayer Insight  Have you ever thought about having a multi-player dev stream over the course of several weeks with different non-stardock players?

1. Will multi-player get another look at an run through before release?
2. Lobby isn't generating all information on the games, could there be more information added to the lobby to tell people about the game type?
3. Could you add additional information in the diplomacy for multi-player games such as chat in trading screens?
4. Suggestion make it easier to see it's your turn when not on the main screen.
5. When playing the game where the same main race is being played by multiple players such as human Altarians and AI Altarians, maybe have the race colors be shifted slightly automatically so they don't appear on the mini map as the same race color?  Answered, in Dev Stream January 9th
   
6. Could you add more players to multi-player games please even if only AI?  Although by games release I would love to have a long game going on with 6-8 people where we get together daily/weekly for several hours to continue our game for however long it lasts.  Answered: in Dev Stream January 9th
   

1. Will the UP selections be increased.  In a normal game with UP on frequent by turn 100-150 you have had a chance to vote on almost all of them if not all. Answered: Dev Stream January 9th
2. When will the tech tree speed be added to the map screen or has this been scrapped?
3. A while back I had suggested using resources as a requirement or need for additional terraforming options.  Paul said he liked the suggestion but haven't seen or heard anything on if this may happen?  Thoughts?
4. Possible bug put more information on Galaxy settings.  Abundant habitable planets seem to be bad/broken in 0.61, I've selected this option in several games the first 18 stars I came across only 5 had habitable planets one of which had 2.  To me abundant habitable planets should be 1 on almost all stars with several with 2, 3 or 4?  Am I incorrect?  This appears to be an issue where it's set to something else for one game you exit to menu and go back in change to abundant and start new game it doesn't apply correctly to the next game.
5. When putting a ship in the shipyard to build, say 5 colony ships so that way one doesn't have to keep going back to select a new ship every time a ship is built, and one gets a new model because of technology being researched, why doesn't the shipyard auto change these ships to the newest make?  This would be a pain to have to go in and change the list every time a new make becomes available.
6. What do the purple tile bonus icons indicate?  When playing the Altarians they don't seem to match up with any specific building types like the others do.  For instance "Orange" tile icons indicate it's a manufacturing bonus of some sort, "Dark Blue" indicates research bonus, "Yellow" indicates economic bonus, "Light blue" indicates either influence or morale, and "Red" indicates military/defense.  Answer by peregrine23 "Tourism"
   
7. By Larsenex When can we expect to see the next size up in Map sizes?  Answered Dev Stream January 9th
   
8. By Larsenex When will we get more coherent and aggressive AI?  Answered Dev Stream January 9th
   
9. By Larsenex When is the approximate month for (release of) the combat viewer?
10. By Bamdorf What is the plan for the ship designations (supply, escort...etc).
11. By Bamdorf In GC2 (Still a great game) there is now a community update working (nearly finished, I think) on  getting the AI to use their tech trees and build out their colonies properly in Twilight of the Arnor.   What testing is being planned to check this in GC3?
12. By Bamdorf When I am building a ship if I wish to micromanage the use of credits, I have to switch back and forth between the planet screen and the shipyard to see if I am getting the ship in the right number of turns.   Is there someway this could be made less cumbersome?
13. By Bamdorf When might we see ship commanders in GC3 and will they gain experience?  Answer Seilore "They have stated in the past dev streams this would be in a future expansion or DLC."
14. By jiraesch Whats in store for the political parties & government system? And for the politics/ideology in general?
15. By jiraesch Will there be occupations, rebellions, uprisings etc.?
16. By RobTzu Production and research not carrying over.  It's micro hell.  Where is this on the priority list? Answered Dev Stream January 9th
17. By Peregrine23 Is there any chance we will see an in-game blueprint editor? Answered Dev Stream January 9
    
18. By Natasin The only question I care about is whether we can have a diplomatic option to have closed borders. Answered Dev Stream January 9th
19. By imploadinggoat  Will the ships from the ship design contest and the honorable mentions be available for download in the Steam workshop at some point?  Answered in Dev Stream chat by Island Dog January 9th
    

1. Yor question:  In Galactic Civilizations II Twilight of Arnor the Yor had a dampening effect in their ZOA where the top speed of ships would be reduced.  Is this going to continue in Galactic Civilizations III?
2. Altarian question:  Why does it seam the Altarians don't get as many terraforming options as other races...
3. By peregrine 23, Yor & Drengin question: The Yor and Drengin science and manufacturing buildings are significantly worse than the base equivalents used by the Terrans, Alterians, and Iridium (10%/20%/30%/40%/50% vs. 25%/30%/40%/55%/75%). Is this on purpose?
4. By peregrine 23, Thalan & Krynn question: Can we get any word on the major characteristics of the final 2 factions or the traits planned for the current ones?

They did talk about this in the last dev stream from January 9

I missed the stream. Did they show the Battle Viewer?

Updated with replay.

I am seeing no interaction at all in the battle viewer.Looked very bland and dated beta or not.

Correct.  GC3 Combat Viewer is pause-only.  The battle itself is deterministic; there is absolutely zero for the player to control.  Hence the result can be computed within a few milliseconds, and the rest is just a nice display using quasi-3D models.  You can rewind, replay, pause, choose different cameras, and otherwise treat it as a frozen movie sequence.

You can't issue orders to change any ship's behavior, nor affect the outcome.  Instead, after that battle is over, you adjust the composition of your fleets.  That's Stardock's vision for GC3, and always has been.

The good thing about the lack of tactical interaction in combat is that it will add another major layer of strategy. They've mentioned this a couple of times, but fleet composition and ship roles will be very important. Because of this I hope they raise the logistics levels to allow for more interesting fleet compositions earlier in the game.

We have known that from day one, GC3 never meant to be a tactical war game.  It is strategic in nature where to need to plan out ship design and fleet make up as a function of enemy strength/weakness.    I like tactical battle games but also enjoy good strategic ones.  proper planning and prep is everything.

Oh well, I'm going to pass on this game I guess.

If it works like Civ 4-5, then it makes the game essentially a huge landmass with very few features, not a space game.   Space is very open and porous, and it is huge compared to the stars/planets that occupy it.   Rigid borders do not make any sense.   The provision of a diplomatic penalty for ships in the wrong SOI (as is currently implemented) is reasonable but probably needs balancing, like everything else.  Such a provision makes sense because one may be able to use sensors/telescopes etc. to notice the intrusion.   But space is too big to establish a front line and guard it.

Things like increasing maintenance while in another system SOI, or while getting beyond a certain distance from a friendly star system suggest themselves. perhaps.  

But in Civ a big idea was to find choke points and block them.   That tactic is for ground based games with terrain.  A star game lends itself to more of a "strong point" system, and to provision for self-sufficiency for a system or a small group of systems, or other ideas along the same lines.  It also creates a real purpose for things like sensors.  You really can't patrol it but you can watch it and respond accordingly.    Putting more ship capacity into engines thus also is encouraged.  And so on.

Galciv has some things in common with other 4x games.   But if it is going to be a space game, it needs to be qualitatively different from land based games.  I might add that the Beyond Earth Civ 5 expansion is not a space game, which to me caused me to lose interest.   It's just Civ 5 on another terrain/barbarian setting.   Some may like it, to each their own.  Personally, I want a space game to reflect something about the nature of space.  

Key word here is "combat viewer".  It is not tactical combat.  With that being said, could it be better, sure, how could it be better without introducing some sort of tactical combat, I don't know.  Suggestions instead of just saying there is no evolution to attempt to better the "viewer"?

So what were you looking for then?  Were you looking to see the ships shooting multiple rounds of lasers before the missles impacted?  I guess I'm still looking for what it was that you didn't like with it and what you would do to improve it?