DARCA1213's honest feedback for .80

The game is fun. Really.

First I'd like to thank Stardock for bringing back my favorite custom race icon. Life would not have been the same without it. :rofl: ((((((Now I have observations and suggestions. Observations in a bit of a crappy AAR format and numbered suggestions.

I picked a custom race with the yor tech tree and synthetic trait (because I think they need each other). On maps immense and bigger the ram was over 5GB on turn one so I am playing on a smaller one and its still really big thankfully. About 30 turns in I met the snathi and thought researching PI would be a wise choice, but first I researched enhanced training giving me a soldiering bonus. I also got some basic weapons tech from them.

About 7 turns later at turn 37, I sent my survey ship to the east and saw the unmistakable edges of light blue influence. I found the altarians! So I started building a freighter while I was working towards PI. As for map generation though, they were really close to me. So I was one or two techs away from making it to the next age and that delayed my research flow for PI as I could not research it yet. That's why I find ages a bit annoying, though not as much as before now that they are a bit more balanced. I instead looked at what the altarians had to trade, to my horror they were far more advanced than me with more weapons tech, colony techs, colonies, and PI. I ended up trading for it in a lucrative deal I don't think a human would have said yes to. I got PI, orbital manufacturing, and a trade resource for another trade resource 400 credits and wealthy population. Considering they were furious at me for being a opposing ideology and being "on a war frenzy" I don't think it was wise for them to trade that to me even with my +2 diplomacy points for my race.

So at turn 54 I had the trade route done with them, the snathi were conquered but the soldiering bonus did not show up in the invasion, maybe its disabled? Else it is a bug. Combat was also interesting, though I will say I am going to mod combat alot but overall I like the way it works apart from the ship range not being represented properly. There is alot of strategy involved and I like that. ;)

At that time I had already had ships in altarian space ( because they were to slow to get out when it became there territory. And they told me they saw the ships massing at there boarders. I really did want to be friends, but it just didn't work out that. In the AIs defense, it had medium hulls and was building military ships to the three colonies nearest to me that I had just barely missed colonizing turns before. By the time they got there to defend the planets , they were one turn to late, my transports had invaded two of their colonies.

I also had other issues. I sent a fleet to attack remaining snathi stations. Though I could still trade with them when they should have been dead and had nothing. I took everything they had for a peace treaty. I also had the iconians pop up in my territory when I was about to invade the altarians. There goes my first impression. XD though I had a warm relationship with them despite my flaws. And lastly I found another minor race in between me and the altarians, guess what I'm going to do to them... }:)

And that's the end of my game so far, now for the feedback :) :

 

1. There isn't a tool tip for frozen worlds saying what tech you need to colonize it.

 

2. There is a leaders name that is ISIS And wares a gas mask. Lmao

 

3. I was able to buy two improvements in one turn by clicking on the planet inbetween turns.

 

4. I say a system with 7 planets on a map, second time something like this happened and its wired and awesome at the same time. Though I don't have a save file for you guys as it was on a immense sized map I quit yesterday.

 

5. The large empire penalty is nuts. How can I ever get 100 planets if proper are.getting sad and.going bat shit nuts just because I got a new colony?!?!? All I would be doing is building approval buildings and never winning the game through conquest, especially on large maps where there are large empires. It just doesn't make snece for this game as it adds micro management and makes something hard, harder and unfun to ever attempt.

 

6. Custom ships show up in the colors of the race, but cord models like the constructor of the style you picked is in that races color on shipyard lists. It would be nice if it was displayed in my factions colors to be more immersive, I picked the drengin style for one race but digest using their colors compared to my obsidan hulls.

Also, it would be preferable to actually chose what colors I want instead of picking a list of presets and tinkering with material textures so it looks right. I wanted a make a black and white hull with blue and gray trim. Just saying, change that.

 

7. When switching the "show no grid outside of influence" setting, only the drengin obey it. But they do the opposite. When set, every race shows no effect but the drengin lose there grid inside of there borders. Interesting.

 

DARCA ;)

8,907 views 15 replies
Reply #1 Top


5. The large empire penalty is nuts. How can I ever get 100 planets if proper are.getting sad and.going bat shit nuts just because I got a new colony?!?!? All I would be doing is building approval buildings and never winning the game through conquest, especially on large maps where there are large empires. It just doesn't make snece for this game as it adds micro management and makes something hard, harder and unfun to ever attempt.
End of quote

This one is easy, actually.  I had a think about it since I last talked about it another thread.  Yes, the Trade Resources are flat bonuses, which means that Harmony Crystals won't counteract it directly.  However Approval Relics offer a percentage based boost to your morale (presuming they fixed the bug regarding that - haven't ran into one yet).  In fact, it's a 10% bonus for each Approval Relic module, yes?

Well that means for each Approval Relic Module one hooks up, one would be able to get 10 more planets for "free".  Or at least counteracted.  And one can hook up, what, 4 or 5 modules to a single Approval Relic (giving 40% to 50% boost eventually).  I forget the exact number by the end of the game  If there any amount of Approval Relics in a game, one shouldn't run into too much trouble when it comes to Large Empires.   If anything, it means fighting over those relics becomes even more important than it was before. :)

Reply #2 Top

If you need to scavenge the map for these when I personally play with them on occasional, its a major problem. The game is built around wide, not tall and growth is impeded obviously here. Such a play style as you describe is not preferable for playing. Imho.

Reply #3 Top

Well, I just did a quick check and it appears that the Approval Relic bug has NOT been fixed yet.   So, Yeah. That could be a major problem as that is one of the things that provides a percentage based bonus to morale.  And percentage base is key because that is what the empire size penalty is based on.

Getting all of the flat bonuses in the world won't do one any good if one is at -100%.  What is needed is sources to counteract that.

Makes me wonder if having Harmony Crystals be a percent base boost (5% maybe?) instead of a flat 1 bonus would be too game breaking or not.

This would help conquerors coz they could just capture the planet that had Harmony Crystals to keep their empire nice and happy.

Either way, the way to counteract this, currently, is find percentage based sources to morale.

Reply #4 Top


5. The large empire penalty is nuts. How can I ever get 100 planets if proper are.getting sad and.going bat shit nuts just because I got a new colony?!?!? All I would be doing is building approval buildings and never winning the game through conquest, especially on large maps where there are large empires. It just doesn't make snece for this game as it adds micro management and makes something hard, harder and unfun to ever attempt.
End of quote

I am playing on an insane map and currently have 119 colonies.  No colony has an approval improvement.  My global economy is set at 40% production, 40% research, and 20% wealth.  I have completed the benevolent ideology tree.  I control 2 morale resources but the starbases are not fully upgraded.  Most of my colonies have a 100% approval.  Less than 10 are below 80%.  5 are in the 50% range.

So far, I have not found it hard to maintain good approval.

Reply #5 Top

I restarted another game on Excessive and I have 12 factions including all the Vanilla ones and all Minors. As Terrans going up the Benevolent tree its easier to keep approval than going up the pragmatic or malevolent. 

Reply #6 Top

In reference to the large empire penalty, its really negligible.  I started a new game and so far have ignored morale, while still pretty early in the game I got down to 38 percent morale on Iconia and the only penalties were -3.6% to influence and planetary defense, non synthetic races would also have a growth penalty.  I agree its poor design and I don't like it either but at the moment it seems to have very little actual effect.

Reply #7 Top

Quoting Hamilmac, reply 4
So far, I have not found it hard to maintain good approval.

End of Hamilmac's quote

That's because you're getting a 50% bonus to approval to all planets from Affinity IV and a +5 flat bonus to your first five planets from Affinity III.  Throw in random happiness from Scenic Worlds and random colonization events, and I can see why you're still in the black.  Some of the techs are probably helping too.

Problem is, Approval Relics are NOT working right now as far as I can tell.  So any and all bonuses that one is supposed to get from them ain't happening.  And this is a major major problem on large maps, as there just aren't many sources of percentage increases to happiness that affect the entire empire.

Even with them working, I'm not certain it's enough, actually.  Doing a quick scan of an Insane map with the fog of war lifted, it doesn't appear that there are more than 50 Approval Relics galaxy wide.  Even if I am massively under counting and there are 100 or 200 of them, that's still not enough for a Conquest Victory.

Why?  Well because I wanted to see what happened, I did a Colonize All on an Insane Map and wound up with something like 1600+ planets.  That's with another 100 or so planets claimed by others.  Maybe more.  Didn't bother to count.  Even if one is getting 1000 percent boost from maximizing 200 or so Approval Relics that's STILL not enough to cover the penalty 1600% to 1800% penalty one is going to wind up with.

So one of three things is needed.  Either more sources of a percentage based increase to approval that work empire wide, tweaking the empire size penalty so it isn't percentage based any more but is a flat deduction, or tweak it some way so it is more lax on larger map sizes.  Or some combination of the three.  Because as it stands, I am coming to the conclusion that even with Approval Relics working, it might not be enough.  Might depend on the rest of the Approval Techs that are currently locked.

Reply #8 Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 7

Problem is, Approval Relics are NOT working right now as far as I can tell.  So any and all bonuses that one is supposed to get from them ain't happening.  And this is a major major problem on large maps, as there just aren't many sources of percentage increases to happiness that affect the entire empire.
End of BuckGodot's quote

I don't know Buck. I am seeing the mouse over telling me that the relics are working and I can visually see approval rising when I add a module. The boost is not reflected on the planet screen but Earth with all the shown bonuses has an -11% large empire penalty, yet my approval is 100%. I am pretty sure it's working but not displaying properly.

Reply #9 Top

Quoting Franco, reply 8
I am pretty sure it's working but not displaying properly.
End of Franco's quote

That's really good news. :) I had only done partial testing with the Approval Relics in Beta 5.  If it is working, that'll help a lot.

Still, unless there are other sources of percentage boost to approval I don't know if it'll be enough. 

My soloution would be to make the Harmony Crystals be a % bonus instead of a flat bonus. That makes it like most (all?) of the other trade resources. Or perhaps make the Malevolent trait that boots approval when invading a planet a % bonus instead of flat.

Then it would probalby be doable under the current setup.

Thanks for the correction, again! :)

Reply #10 Top

Quoting Hamilmac, reply 4

So far, I have not found it hard to maintain good approval.
End of Hamilmac's quote

Okay, I spoke too soon.  I am now on turn 175 with 148 colonies (-148% to approval) and colony approval has started to tank.  I have several colonies that in the span of a few turns have dropped into the teens on approval.  I even added two approval relics (4 total for a +130% approval bonus) and they are not helping.  Since they don't show up on the planet Approval pop up, I can't tell if the game is processing the bonuses to not, but now I don't think so.

Reply #11 Top

The real problem stems from the fact that somenpeople are civilization fans. In civilization you can't build big empires. For me this was an acceptable drawback because the ai was at least keeping up technologically. They complained at least twice about the colony rush. The second time they met no opposition. Stardock is trying to appease these guys.

The problem with this is that most fans Iike the colony rush. Galactic civilizations had a compromise which I didn't mindnehich was the economic wall which I didn't mind since this didn't. Hinder me. The problem is people don't like this solution. This forces them to postpone the colony rush unless they make this sn option. Make it an option that I wouldn't use because I like a lot of planets with sn ai that can keep up. To sum up we have two sides with opposite ideas on how a game should be played. Honestly thr best solution is to have an option to hinder large empire building which ypu could shut off.

Reply #12 Top

Quoting Hamilmac, reply 10

Since they don't show up on the planet Approval pop up, I can't tell if the game is processing the bonuses to not, but now I don't think so.
End of Hamilmac's quote

 

according to the xml's approval relics provide approval which was removed in B4 (maybe B3 ) and replaced with goodsandservices therefore ATM approval relics do not work 

Reply #13 Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 12


Quoting Hamilmac,

Since they don't show up on the planet Approval pop up, I can't tell if the game is processing the bonuses to not, but now I don't think so.



 

according to the xml's approval relics provide approval which was removed in B4 (maybe B3 ) and replaced with goodsandservices therefore ATM approval relics do not work 

End of androshalforc's quote
As I detailed in this post (https://forums.galciv3.com/463009/get;3534913) it does appear to be working as of Beta 5.  Nothing else I did could explain the approval jump I received between turns.

Reply #14 Top

0.81

 

 

1. Guardian drones module has a typo. Tough is spelled wrong.

 

2. game uses alot of ram that makes the game freezes and want to shut down. The screen blink and I see my desktop but it lucky decides nit to close out and I can play normally for about 10 more minutes untill it repeats.

 

3. Resistance does not calculate right as the have is 50% and when I get 35% from PDS and 80% from MA the 50% disappears and I am left with 115% from the two improvements

4. It was funny when the altarians came to me for peace saying they were tired of fighting. Don't worry, they can rest when they are dead. But only because information warefare invasion does not work and the surviving population disappears and the amount in the colony ship just go to the planet.

Also, when attacking with two transports, and only half of one is used in battle. I would much rather still have one transport vs. having them on the planet.

 

5. Other civs think I want a research victory and hate me although research victory is disabled.

 

6. The population cap is 30 in the game code but with the synthetic race trait at least ita ineffective. I'm well over that on a few worlds.

 

7. Being able to terraform all salvageable tiles is cool with the ultra terraformer but there are too many tiles and the classes get high fast.

 

8. With starbases being crucial, why am I not using them, as the yor I should have really good ones too. But ita easier to just build on planets with so many times and great improvements right now. Like I saw to people that want to live on mars, "there is nothing is space for you." as for mining though, I sometimes do if I see the right resource but I do well enough with augments or some relics sometimes. Also I forgot about asteroids, its like why care about 10 bits of production and go though the whole branch when there is so much better things to research that are more effective.

 

9. For future reference, I think the terrans should get some cool engineering techs, they did go to the dread lord world after all? They should have something cool to show for it, something more than a arbitrary stat.

 

10. I can't wait till we can build multiple units a turn. It made me happy and excited when I heard that when shipyards came out. I hope you all remember...

P.s, incremental building sucks paul/whoever likes it. Really slows down my turns, production, and the game. I'm losing the will to live. Lol

 

 

DARCA ;)

Reply #15 Top

Neuro linking in the terrans tech tree gives a influence bonus instead of a research bonus.

Also, (as suspected) the synthetic trait does not work with any tech tree but the Yors...who forgot the warning label! XD