There isn't a games company that makes me want to pull my hair out... except Stardock. At this point I wish you'd smash this game out the park or turn it into a dumpster fire you don't seem to be able to make up which direction your going towards it's one step forward one back.
I've read the patch notes fired up the game and taken a look at some of the new features thought I'd give my first thoughts/impressions, I'll know more once I've played.
For a patch that was supposed to be focused on diplomacy adding two minor occasionally useful features and no mention of anything else might be surprising to some... is there more to come in the finished patch Stardock?
The Coercion and Bureau additions to me are the stand out changes in the patch, unless I've missed something they're the only things of real consequence. The Bureau building adds the individual planet wheel back into the game for 150 manufacturing cost, 1.5 maintenance and is available only three techs into the game. On the face of things it seems Stardock have completely caved into the people who wanted the wheel back.
Coercion adds a 25% production penalty (not including happiness malus) when production is 100%. If you set production to 75/25 you can use focuses to get production back to 100 and only take a 12.5% coercion hit... did you intend this Stardock? The consequence is you've just added a ton more micromanagement to the game, because that's what many players will do and even more micromanagement with the return of the wheel.
###My Proposals###
The games biggest problem for me is lack of player consideration and diplomacy, these flaws really suck the enjoyment out of the game for me. (By player consideration I mean Stardock has made scant improvements so far to unnecessary micromanagement issues poor UI/tool tips/and relaying necessary information that a player wants to know imo)
I actually think the bureau system could work but not as it stands. Currently people would build them on every planet it won't take long to do so, it will be as if the wheel was never taken away.
If each bureau built cost an increasing amount in maintenance e.g. 1st one 0 second 25 third 50 etc. so you could only afford so many per empire e.g. on your key planets that would be a great compromise.
I've mentioned this in forum posts before, players need to be able to change focuses without entering each individual planet even more so with the addition of coercion as I noted earlier.
The Diplomacy resource/tech/ship/planet barter system is an utter mess, micromanagement hell. It's too easy to exploit the AI and it's mind numbingly boring if you do so. I'd scrap ship trades. Roll tech and planet trades into the peace deal system poss tech too. Scrap tech trades add it to a espionage system. Resource trades could be done via freighters. These changes would vastly reduce micromanagement caused via diplomacy. Also preventing players from so easily abusing the AI, the state of diplomacy is making the game vastly easier to beat though incredibly tedious to do so.
This is part of a quote from the release of Patch 1.4.
"Sure, stalking YouTube players may seem wrong but then again, people openly posting their strategies are fair game right?"
If this is not just marketing BS I may be one of the players that was being referred too. (There are very few people who cover GC3 on YouTube and I believe I may be the only player who's made Godlike Let's Plays in English post release) If there's anything I can do by sharing strategies or otherwise just ask, hell I'd like you too. I feel my feedback on these forums have been a complete waste of time so far.
