Slash_N_Crash

Join Date 04/2006

Observations After playing through a game

Played a medium (or the next one up) map, loose clusters with all players, occasional everything as the Krynn.

I realize this is beta, blah, blah. Just giving my feedback.

1) What is with the scoring system? Everyone I met was double my score or more without much to show for it. I suspect area of influence, even if it is dead space, counts for too much. Also ships seem to be valued in the scoring way too much. It should be based on colonies, population, manufacturing, research and money making ability with only military ships counting. Starbases shouldn't count for much, constructors nothing.

2) Why can't non-aggression pacts be broken? or any treaty really.

3) Please de-clutter the treaties screen to only show treaties and how many turns are left for it.

4) If there is a way to see the other factions ideology, it is news to me. Also I would like to see what treaties they have with others. A screen where I can see all factions, their number of colonies, total military value, research, etc. would be awesome.

5) (reiterated from a previous post) What happened to the ship screen? Showing me all variations of ships and obsolete ships is a nightmare! I can't even multi-select and obsolete them. No, I have to do it one at a time! This didn't happen before. Flog the programmer who did this! (ok, as a programmer myself who made plenty of mistakes, just fix it asap)

6) Diplomacy still would show factions I eliminated! They could even vote! I took out the Yor, they had nothing, no ships even, but they were still there. I defeated the Drengin and they both went away. Then when I loaded up the save the next day BOTH were back! Also, after I defeated them they kept coming back begging for peace when there wasn't anything for them to live on! What is this, the ghost of Jacob Marley?!?!?

7) The influence calculation is just plan broken. It says 76% for victory. As I got closer to it, the screen said I needed 10% more when I was at 73ish (which given the map, I don't think I had more than 60 or so. To get the final victory I had to take over 93%! Again, that number seemed high, but whatever.

8) I made treaties with the Terrans like free trade and they accepted, only to have free trade treaty immediately show up as an option in the diplomacy screen! No matter how many times I got them to agree, it popped up again. This happened with culture as well with the Altarians where we did a one sided trade, so I gave the others trying to get the alliance choice to popup. Nope. In fact, only the Irridium had an alliance as a choice. Despite being massively bigger than the Alarians and larger than the Terrans, no alliance was ever to show up. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Also, what is with them saying it is good to see me walking upright when I have more techs, power, ships, etc. and they are overjoyed with me?

9) The start of the game is sloooooooooow. After you research up a bit, then it is a chore as you spit out techs even couple of turns and then have to run around playing whack a mole as your building crank out in no time flat. Ships are popping every couple of turns as well.

10) Starbases are too cheap. These are supposed to me massive things. Since I couldn't declare war and couldn't get an alliance with the Altarians and the Terrans, I went for influence. Cranking out constructors every 2-3 turns on several planets, fly them to the edges of their territory, build culture improvements, when it flips a planet, build more constructors, more starbases with culture improvements, when that flips, do it again, over and over. Not my idea of fun. However, at this point I had something like 50000+ in the bank and making tons a turn despite having something like 15+ starbases with 6 modules for culture and sphere of influence each. I wasn't even TRYING to make money. The sliders were for manufacturing and science with some gold. I rarely put money building on planets. I stop bothering with trade routes. Still made oodles of cash.

11) <Edited> apparently I missed building the missonary center and other ideology building only give 5 points when built, not per turn. My bad. What is to keep a player from abusing this by building it, destroying it and building it again?

12) Can you give us a visual on tiles that are other factions buildings? They seem to give you the benefits, but won't upgrade to yours. So you have to destroy them and build yours. Why can't it just auto-upgrade to mine if it is better? Also, if for some reason it won't give me any benefits, why wouldn't it be auto-destroyed?

13) The research tree is a mess. You get out of the age of exploration too fast, I think you said it was to allow invasions quicker. Just make invasions a late first age tech please. Actually, I am not a fan of restrictions on research by ages. I smells a lot like "gimp the player to help the ai" vs a real game mechanic.

14) (Suggestion) the ai should give large diplomatic penalties for putting starbases and fleets just outside their range. Especially if they are influence starbases that are stealing their territory! Building a starbase in someone else's sphere of influence should be an act of war. Imagine if China decided to come into US waters and build an oil rig, much less trying to annex coastal cities.

15) This has been brought up, but it drives me nuts. I can only buy one building a turn. Fine. Why can't I buy multiple building at once instead and they at least queue up? Having to go back every turn to buy a building is the height of micromanagement.

I won't get into the ai as that will be a constant that you are working on. I see some improvement on it though, so keep up the good work. The warning screen loading the game is correct, at least for me. I basically forced myself to finish this game and am in no hurry to start a new one until the next beta patch. It felt like a chore more than a game. This coming from someone who loves GalCiv2, FELH and other games you made. I applaud pushing it back to May. It will take at least a month just on polishing screens and cleaning up text. So take your time to do it right and I look forward to future updates.

Best Wishes

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

11) apparently I missed building the missonary center and other ideology building only give 5 points when built, not per turn. My bad. What is to keep a player from abusing this by building it, destroying it and building it again?

i havent tried the opt in patch but these buildings could not be destroyed last i checked which really annoyed me because there was no notification of it

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(2) " Why can't non-aggression pacts be broken? or any treaty really." It's a problem. If the AI can break a pack unilaterally, what's the point? If the AI can't and YOU can, that's a HUGE advantage to the player.

My suggestion is, all treaties have a game turn time limit, but are unbreakable without MASSiVE diplo hits to the third parties.

(7) The last patch fixed one huge issue with influence; you bring up another. It does need to be toned down, and/or the AI (and the player) need strategies to fight it. It's a balancing/polishing issue.

(8) The Free trade and cultural and research treaties definitely need to be fixed. However, alliance needs the alliance tech...owned by both parties. In a recent game I finished on one turn after the Drrengin surrendered to me by giving all the other AI alliance and then allying with them.

(9) I don't find the early game slow at all... I am on the edge of my seat racing to get planets, not fall too far behind in combat tech, finding and negotiating with the AI...just my take though. Your views are certainly allowed!

(10) I would add that not only starbases, but ships are too cheap. Again, it's a polishing thing, but I would agree that these need to be made relatively more expensive. Interesting that I have seen at least on person say on these boards that starbases seemed to be pretty useless. Oh well, not my view.

(12) having to destroy the AI buildings and put up your own makes a lot of sense to me. In GC2, they just disappeared on conquest. I would think their would be more issues on conquest, like morale takes Big Hit that slowly goes away.

(13) I have played on lot of games, mostly on Immense, and I really don't see the Age thing in research being an issue. Just my take, again. It does seem a bit artificial. I mean, the first age makes sense because the humans (idiots!) gave everyone hyperdrive. But what is the galactic event that triggers the next two ages? Perhaps something needs to be put in to make feel less ad hoc.

(15) Yes buying every turn is a problem. I would also say, however, that there is something wrong if a player or AI can build one after the other in a long chain, except in very special circumstances. When polish makes money a lot harder to come by, this issue fades a bit. But I am all in favor of any UI improvement that saves clicks.

Like I say, lots of good stuff to think about. Much has been touched on before, but that is perfectly ok. Thanks for the post!

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

(4) I think the AI ideology is predetermined by race. They make their choices in an AI sort of way.

(11) Yeah, the MC can't be destroyed (also after the latest patch)

Most of your observations are valid to some degree and are mostly attributable to being a beta

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Quoting Bamdorf,

reply 2

Many good points, many of which, as you suggest, are very likely to be overhauled as the game is polished, etc. I will just make a few comments. A general comment is that many things in the game are too easy/too cheap/OP, but that is largely because testing the game mechanisms is easier. But the points are valid, nonetheless.

(2) " Why can't non-aggression pacts be broken? or any treaty really." It's a problem. If the AI can break a pack unilaterally, what's the point? If the AI can't and YOU can, that's a HUGE advantage to the player.

My suggestion is, all treaties have a game turn time limit, but are unbreakable without MASSiVE diplo hits to the third parties.

(7) The last patch fixed one huge issue with influence; you bring up another. It does need to be toned down, and/or the AI (and the player) need strategies to fight it. It's a balancing/polishing issue.

(8) The Free trade and cultural and research treaties definitely need to be fixed. However, alliance needs the alliance tech...owned by both parties. In a recent game I finished on one turn after the Drrengin surrendered to me by giving all the other AI alliance and then allying with them.

(9) I don't find the early game slow at all... I am on the edge of my seat racing to get planets, not fall too far behind in combat tech, finding and negotiating with the AI...just my take though. Your views are certainly allowed!

(10) I would add that not only starbases, but ships are too cheap. Again, it's a polishing thing, but I would agree that these need to be made relatively more expensive. Interesting that I have seen at least on person say on these boards that starbases seemed to be pretty useless. Oh well, not my view.

(12) having to destroy the AI buildings and put up your own makes a lot of sense to me. In GC2, they just disappeared on conquest. I would think their would be more issues on conquest, like morale takes Big Hit that slowly goes away.

(13) I have played on lot of games, mostly on Immense, and I really don't see the Age thing in research being an issue. Just my take, again. It does seem a bit artificial. I mean, the first age makes sense because the humans (idiots!) gave everyone hyperdrive. But what is the galactic event that triggers the next two ages? Perhaps something needs to be put in to make feel less ad hoc.

(15) Yes buying every turn is a problem. I would also say, however, that there is something wrong if a player or AI can build one after the other in a long chain, except in very special circumstances. When polish makes money a lot harder to come by, this issue fades a bit. But I am all in favor of any UI improvement that saves clicks.

Like I say, lots of good stuff to think about. Much has been touched on before, but that is perfectly ok. Thanks for the post!

Very good reply sir!

Now my reply to your reply!

2) I say the AI AND the player should be able to. Also with large diplomatic hits with everyone. Seriously, the easiest example is Nazi Germany and Russia. Thank goodness! Can you imagine what would have happened, even without allying?

7) Agreed

8) I had it, gave that and the other alliance focus techs too. Nothing

9) On immense I can see that, I choose a smaller map to get on with other ages and see how that balance worked. Also, remember I played occasional planets and occasiona; hospitable planets. This really limited what you could do early, which is fine by me. I find if I can grab a bunch of stuff early, the AI didn't stand a chance. Hence, the lesser.

10) Agreed again!

12) Agreed again, maybe not massive, after all, the civs will do what they can to live. Perhaps evil races get production bonuses but a nerf on money and influence?

13) See point 9

15) really it is a major point of all games with this. Throwing money at a problem usually gets you poor results. I would rather the money shorten the time, but by turn. By this I mean that each "rush" of a turn costs more. So shortening the build by one turn costs 10% more and 2 turns escalates to 121%, etc. I don't care how many workers you have, you cannot build a skyscraper in a month

I figured some of this had been touched on, but I wanted to express my opinions as well in one concise post. Thanks for the thanks!

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Quoting Franco fx,

reply 3

(4) I think the AI ideology is predetermined by race. They make their choices in an AI sort of way.

(7) The influence calculation is confusing the percentage in the left column is supposed to tell you how close you are not how much more influence you need. If it says you need 10% that means you have 65% and are closer than 65% to victory, (if you see what I mean)

(11) Yeah, the MC can't be destroyed (also after the latest patch)

Most of your observations are valid to some degree and are mostly attributable to being a beta

Thanks for your input.

4) I realize that, however, there doesn't seem to be anything that says this faction has 8 benevolent and to practical ideologies. Something like that. Also, it should give a penalty for your secondary ideology, etc. IMO

7) That is how it SHOULD work. However, it said I had OVER 76% and still needed more. That looks like a bug to me.

I also said, I realize it is beta right off that bat. I was just trying to target, what I felt like, were flaws. The more opinions the merrier! Whether we agree or not.

Cheers

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Quoting Slash_N_Crash,

reply 5

/snip/

I also said, I realize it is beta right off that bat. I was just trying to target, what I felt like, were flaws. The more opinions the merrier! Whether we agree or not.

Cheers

You needn't apologize... I think we are really at the point (and with the attitude of the Stardock devs, may always be at the point), where people's opinions matter. The only thing I find a little annoying is when people review a Beta game with no constructive component in their review as if it is six months past release. I see none of that in your post, and it got me thinking about some things...so it works all around.

Cheers +1

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