GalCiv3 Forums
I don't like it how I have no idea what is going on around me. I would like it a lot of the game informs you about things like other AI's declaring war on each other or signing diplomatic and/or trade treaties.
Hardocre,
I want a bit more 'life' added to the game. This would fall under your request. Back in GCII we had a 'banner' that flowed across the top of the screen and it was like 'ABC, Channel 7 'Galaxy NEWS" and you would get a 'faux update on stuff going on which included who declared war on who. I would love this type of immersive snarky 'news update' Also information for me presented like, ..."Grand Duchess MDX version 6 of the YOR has started trade with the Altarians today" would give us info and lend to immersion.
I agree. I remember those updates. Even MOO2 had them. I hope they will return soon. Perhaps DLC?
They're tricky to do right tbh. Get it even a little wrong, and they become tedious and annoying distractions rather than useful; and while you could just put them in the event log that way turns it into another piece of administrative busywork rather than a cool, immersive feature. The simple fact is, even when this idea was done well (MOO2 and GC2 both managed it), the information itself just wasn't that useful - and if it WAS useful, it would have been better to have that accessible to the player at all times, instead of randomly dropping it into news casts.
The fact is, if I'm playing a 128-empire game, do I really want to start every turn with 20 news items about how 1 3-planet empire has invaded another 4-planet craphole on the other side of the galaxy? Probably not. But do I want to be alerted when 2 neighbouring powers go to war with each other? Hell yes, I want the screen to go red and a klaxon to sound. The ideal would be something where I can flag empires as 'of interest', and have just their news reported to me; but this would still become very dull if I'm watching 10 newsreels every turn. Stardrive 2's rapacious warmongering AI went to war so often that I regularly received 2 or more largely identical newsreels in a given turn, which were tedious, repetitive and boring after the first 100 turns or so.
This could be solved by allowing the player to choice to only get news about certain empires. Say there are a couple of factions that you concerned about and only want to get news from them. Then the game should allow that. Problem solved.
There are decent amounts of information provided in the notifications tab. Races going to war, etc. But right now its completely flooded with trivial events. While a flavor based feature like a "Galactic News Brief" would be fun, you still need to know what information to report in such a feature.
I think they could have a much more simple system by allowing quick and easy filtering of the information in the notifications tab. Right now, especially with larger map games, the notification tab is too difficult to scan for information, every single turn. Later, they can add a fun galactic news feature, but then already have a filter system in place to allow the user to customize it as they see fit.
Well, yes. That's why I said as much in the post you quoted. But even then, you need to avoid frequent repetition, and to draw a line between what a player will want to know about, and what he won''t give a toss about. Otherwise you flood him with useless information and trying to sift out the useful bits becomes a chore.
As I say, Stardrive managed to make hearing about important stuff like other empires going to war boring and repetitious, despite modelling it's own 'news reel' approach on the highly effective MOO2 Galnet events. And I don't know of anyone who really read the newspapers in Victoria 2 more than a couple of times before basically ignoring them forever after. It's really hard to get it right, because everyone has their own subjective opinion of what is important, which empires that they want to know about changes throughout the game, and how often they want to be updated before it becomes an irritating formality - and the last one tends to change depending on how busy the player is anyway. I don't mind hearing about stuff early on, when I don't have much to do, but if I'm in the middle of executing a military campaign the last thing I want is the pacing of the game ruined by frequent interruptions to hear about stuff that isn't relevant to the matter at hand.
If they do it right, then it's a great addition to the game; it's immersive and it serves a genuine need. But it's done wrong, then it's at best ignored and at worst really detrimental to the game.
Wouldn't the simplest solution be to only receive information involving races you've encountered? I would think that might filter it for all concerned. After all, I don't care who's going to war on the far side of an Insane galaxy, lol. As you branch out in game, your knowledge base will naturally grow.
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