A few thoughts of a 4x veteran

from GalCiv3 Forums

Just a few thoughts from a 35 year old guy who plays 4x games since more than 20 years starting with Master of Orion an Ascendancy.

 

First I have to say that in general I like this game!

I also played the two former parts of this series a long time.

But there a few things I either don't understand or they are buggy, playing on game version 1.5

I try to explain everything as short as possible. If needed i can offer screenshots for allmost every point.

 

1. If i start a new game, mapsize medium, pirate bases set to "none" i have at least 1 pirate base in my game. Allways! So is "none" >= 1?

2. If i start a new game, mapsize medium, ressource frequency set to "uncommon" i never ever get even a single elerium field. Othere ressources are ok. Nebulae setting doesn't change anything here. So is "uncommon" = 0 for elerium?

3. My custom race has the Intuitive ability. Since i have to start the game many times to get a balanced map i save in the first round and later load the best map. But i can't chose some free techs from my Intuitive ability then?

4. If i scroll down in the "Available Projects" from the planet surface with my mouse it doesnt scroll till the end of the list but stops somewhere at the endless projects. If i scroll further with the scroll bar on the right i reach the end of the list but the slider goes beyond the end sign of the scroll bar.

5. There's a limit of 60 logistics on shipyards but the AI doesn't seem to care since from midgame on i see e.g. Drengin Shipyards with at least 70/60 logistics in it's shipyards.

6. I like playing long games where i can research everything so a normal game takes around 500 turns for me. But no matter how win this game then, i never get more than 30-40 victory points?

7. AI trade offers are quite strange, e.g.: Yor offers me "Support System Assembly" for 7887 credits. I change the offer to 7877 credits and Yor tells me that this offer is not good enough. So I say no, start a new offer my self, choose "Support System Assembly" tech from him and offer 3628 credits for it and Yor say "Fair deal"! Hello? AI where are you hiding?

8. In fights i chose quick battle but a battle allways takes around 5 seconds. Very annoying if you have dozens of fights every turn. Is there a way to get a real quick battle as in earlier games?

9. Any trick to get balanced maps if you start a new game? The balancing is horrible, either you start with 50% of the habitable planets around your starting location an have a boring game since all enemies have to share the rest, or you find 2-3 planets in your part of the starting region and the enemies have 95% of the planets around their starting locations. Currently i start up to 20-30 games with fow disabled until i get a balanced map and then reload it without the fow cheat to play.

10. Can someone please tell the AI how to build competive ships and starbases? Even if they have researched good techs they don't seem to use it and just fill theier hulls with basic stuff and theier starbases with only a few upgrades.

11. I have read several times that on difficulty normal the AI doesn't cheat. But how can it be that an opponent who has the same amount of planets like me and the same value in economy can build AND afford a fleet 10x larger than me while i have allready a very negative ballance and can only survice with trading techs to other players? The AI doesn't seem to trade techs and also has war with most races. So where does all the money come from? (And I am not a bad player or a noob to this game)

12. Somehow it happens occasional that my production wheel lets me set 2 values in positive and one in negative, e.g. Wealth -20% and production and research +60% each?

13. Should a Dev read this: Is it possible to add some simple keybindings to a game in 2015? If i toggle through 20+ starbases or whatever i want to use my arrow keys to get from one to the next, if i want to leave menus like the diplomacy menu while checking the offers of 10+ races I want to use the escape button ... I know games which are more than 10 years old which offer such basics in usability.

14. Oh and espionage, tactical battles and a few other things would have been nice for a modern 4x game, too but ok, nobody is perfect... ^^

18,037 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

9. they aren't supposed to be balanced, they're random as intended

10. The AI not arming starbases isn't an issue because arming starbases is worthless.

11. The AI actually has a certain cheat at every difficulty: no stationed ships have maint costs. This + a better economy is why they can afford so many ships.

14. Tactical battles will never be a thing, but espionage will be in a future update.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I never play on a map less than Insane so your mileage may vary. 

 

Resources are tied to galactic structures. 

 

Elerium in nebulae

 

Durantium in ASteroids

 

Antimatter to blackholes. 

 

If you have those on 'abundant' and set your resources to your 'uncommon' it may help with resource distribution. 

 

There has been a request for in game map regen this will be coming. 

 

The reason why some things are available and some not for Intuitive is your home planet. Meaning on intuitive you will get free tech but I have found if my starting home planet has a resource bonus to research I will have <more> starting tech than other maps. 

 

As stated above maps are supposed to be random. I think modders will eventually mod up more even distribution of maps. I play on Rare/Rare habitiability so it makes finding planets rare and fun and puts the ai on my level. 

 

On normal the ai is not supposed to have any cheats/bonuses. It maybe that it is managing money far better which is possible. Do you specialize your planets for things like economy/research or production?

 

No tactical battles coming its never been part of the series and will not appear (for which I am happy about).

 

Regarding quick battles, its the time it is to quickly resolve the animations which are showing on the main map. A good suggestion (to our Devs)  would be to be able to disable 'quick battle' animations which would probably go a long way to speeding up the game a bit. I like them but that's me. 

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting exelsis, reply 1

9. they aren't supposed to be balanced, they're random as intended
End of exelsis's quote

Ok, if that's so. But no game makes fun if it is not balanced. I don't expect 100% balanced maps but imagine playing e.g. football 5 vs 10 or anything else...

Quoting exelsis, reply 1

10. The AI not arming starbases isn't an issue because arming starbases is worthless.
End of exelsis's quote

For the late game i agree with you, but ill the mid game it is helpfull, in early game even very helpfull!


 

Quoting Larsenex, reply 2

If you have those on 'abundant' and set your resources to your 'uncommon' it may help with resource distribution.

End of Larsenex's quote

I guess you didn't read my post carefully cause i had written "Nebulae setting doesn't change anything here."

Quoting Larsenex, reply 2

The reason why some things are available and some not for Intuitive is your home planet. Meaning on intuitive you will get free tech but I have found if my starting home planet has a resource bonus to research I will have <more> starting tech than other maps.

End of Larsenex's quote

Maybe i didn't explain it correctly, i have not a single point to spend if i reload the savegame! If i spend them immediately i can get 3-4 Techs for free.

Quoting Larsenex, reply 2

On normal the ai is not supposed to have any cheats/bonuses. It maybe that it is managing money far better which is possible. Do you specialize your planets for things like economy/research or production?

End of Larsenex's quote

This differs from exelsis answer? And in which way is it important if i specialize my planets if i say that the econmy chart of me an the AI are allmost identical? But yes i specialize my plantes and i micromage each planet cause i love doing things perfect. Thats why i play on medium, cause micromanaging an insane empire every turn would probably be crazy... ^^

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top
Quoting turbochris, reply 3
Maybe i didn't explain it correctly, i have not a single point to spend if i reload the savegame! If i spend them immediately i can get 3-4 Techs for free.
End of turbochris's quote

 

You are correct.  The behavior was pointed out to the devs.  Since the devs don't really believe in restarting for a perfect game (all games are perfect already, you know) it is not considered particularly game breaking and there is little priority attached to this issue.  This may get addressed as part of creating an actual restart option, which has been promised.  In fact, it may be one of the challenges involved in implementing the restart option.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


3. My custom race has the Intuitive ability. Since i have to start the game many times to get a balanced map i save in the first round and later load the best map. But i can't chose some free techs from my Intuitive ability then?

9. Any trick to get balanced maps if you start a new game? The balancing is horrible, either you start with 50% of the habitable planets around your starting location an have a boring game since all enemies have to share the rest, or you find 2-3 planets in your part of the starting region and the enemies have 95% of the planets around their starting locations. Currently i start up to 20-30 games with fow disabled until i get a balanced map and then reload it without the fow cheat to play.

14. Oh and espionage, tactical battles and a few other things would have been nice for a modern 4x game, too but ok, nobody is perfect... ^^
End of quote

3. This might be due to a difference between the event giving you the points at the start of the game and how they are saved if you don't spend them. If they're saved as overflow research points, try selecting a tech you want and at the beginning of your next turn it should get unlocked. So you're limited to one tech a turn unless you go in the tree view and select something further down a branch and it will try to unlock all techs on the way.

9. There is the maps dlc with some balanced maps and a mapeditor.

14. Espionage is on the roadmap and tactical battles well... that depends on what exactly you mean. If you mean controling your units during a battle, then I hope it'll never come or only as an expandalone as I enjoy just watching the ships fight without having to micromanage them.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks for the answers so far.

Found 3 more points which seem strange to me:

15. The best missile (Nightmare Torpedo) seems to be around 10x cheaper than the 2 other high end weapons. i was able to research it in 1 turn while the other 2 took around 9 turns researching? Maybe someone missed a 0?

16. If you destroy a unique building like the Singularity Powerplant you can't rebuild it anywhere e.g. on a better planet. Is that intended?

17. When destroying a planet there may happen two things: a) Planets which require techs to be colonized like Toxic worlds allways keep theier toxic symbol on the galaxy map allthough they are a class 0 planet after destruction. b ) the Lvl 25 worlds from the mega event (maybe also other planets) sometimes keep theier lvl 25 white image on the galaxy map allthough the tooltip shows them as class 0 planet after destruction. Happened several times for me and the AI seems also to be confused cause there are mostly colony ships lurking around but maye that's just a coincident.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Hm, not much activity here.

Made similar posts in other game forums an got a lot of feedback.

I hoped that maybe a Team member would have a look cause i am sure that there are at least a few bugs among all those findings...

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You shouldn't complain, you got 3x the views and replies compared to my suggestion thread, that I spent so many hours compiling, but never mind that.

15. I'll look into the xmls to see whats up. Did it say 1 turn or did it take only one turn, in the later case you might have had some overflow research from the previous tech you researched. Jup there is something wrong with nightmare torpedos:

<Tech>
    ...
    <GenericName>PhotonTorpedos</GenericName>
    ...
    <ResearchCost>2465</ResearchCost>
    ...
  </Tech>

<Tech>
    ...
    <GenericName>NightmareTorpedoTech</GenericName>
   ...
    <ResearchCost>128</ResearchCost>
    ...
  </Tech>

<Tech>
    ...
    <GenericName>DoomRayTech</GenericName>
    ...
    <ResearchCost>2465</ResearchCost>
    ...
  </Tech>

<Tech>
    ...
    <GenericName>SingularityDrivers</GenericName>
    ...
    <ResearchCost>2465</ResearchCost>
    ...
  </Tech>

I submited a ticket concerning the researchcost of the endgame missile weapons.


16. That is the galaxy unique right? Did you rebuild it in the same turn? If you didn't rebuild it on the same turn an ai might have built it since there can only be one of those in the galaxy you wouldn't be able to build it anymore.

Other than that yes there are quite a few bug in the game but don't worry it just takes a lot of time to fix everything and some stuff might be lower on their priority list.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

That's sad to hear if noone cares about the effort some people do to improve a Software product.

As an employee of a software company all i can say is, that this is the best way to find out which value the customers have for a company.

 

15. Thank you for proving that here is a bug!

16. Yes, the galaxy uniques. Just tried it with the "Virtual World" and "Cultural Beacon" buildings. Even if you try to rebuild them in the same round they are not available any more after destruction.... So either intended or buggy!

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

We do read all the posts. And we do nearly monthly updates of the game that are fairly substantial.

The AI doesn't cheat on normal. It gets economic bonuses at higher levels.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You're forgetting that AI have no maint costs on stationed ships at every difficulty.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting turbochris, reply 9

16. Yes, the galaxy uniques. Just tried it with the "Virtual World" and "Cultural Beacon" buildings. Even if you try to rebuild them in the same round they are not available any more after destruction.... So either intended or buggy!
End of turbochris's quote

I'll see if I find the relevant code in the xmls but it might take a while since I'm not yet familiar with them or the file structur.

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10

We do read all the posts.
End of Frogboy's quote


Really? Have you seen my suggestion post? Lot's of ideas for future patches/expansions and most important with a lot of thought put into. I've worked hours upon hours on it and probably also will in the future even if all I ever got was a single replie. v_v
If you've not seen it, would you please take a look at it? :pout:

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 10

We do read all the posts. And we do nearly monthly updates of the game that are fairly substantial.

The AI doesn't cheat on normal. It gets economic bonuses at higher levels.
End of Frogboy's quote

I don't doubt that you do monthly updates!

But i want to get feedback if such a collection of findings is usefull cause otherwise i can save my time doing this.

So if I, the user gets no feedback i get the feeling that noone cares...

(Maybe a helpfull link which can better explain what i want to say since i am no english native Speaker: http://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-complaints-good-for-business/ )

But thanks for at least answering 1 of my 16 questions now.

 

Quoting exelsis, reply 11

You're forgetting that AI have no maint costs on stationed ships at every difficulty.
End of exelsis's quote

Isn't that some Kind of cheating, too?

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting turbochris, reply 13



But thanks for at least answering 1 of my 16 questions now.


End of turbochris's quote

 

I think it is unrealistic to expect point by point replies.  There have been other such suggestion threads and commentaries.  Having a Stardock employee dedicate the necessary time to reply to enough forum posts to not look like they are playing favorites, both here and on Steam, would be time not spent on improving the game.  As it is, we get the occasional active reply giving us evidence that they do read the posts, many of those replies from the CEO.  I find that remarkable and cannot come up with a similar example of customer awareness from other games.

However, instead of getting praise for being exceptional, they are pushed for more, more, more.  A thanks like that is as good as a slap in the face, only it has a sneer in it, too. 

Reply #15 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting erischild, reply 14

I find that remarkable and cannot come up with a similar example of customer awareness from other games.

End of erischild's quote

It's good to see the odd post from the developers.  But such interaction is not unusual at all ... these days at least.

Some developers have private forums for Development/VIP teams e.g. Amplitude, Matrix.  Whether philosophically you agree with a private approach to this or not, it doesn't change the fact those interactions exist, and are sometimes very significant.

Some developers are more public in their interactions.  Starpoint Gemini 2 is an example.  A number of developers are pretty active publicly over in the eXplorminate forums e.g. Polaris Sector.  I can point to a number of other developers that interact in their respective forums, albeit not always with success.
 
While I agree that point by point replies are unrealistic, an extra post or two in key threads would help inspire confidence and encourage effort to continue to provide feedback / save games etc.  I'm relatively new here and so not sure if it's worth the effort to post.  Is it really the design intent to be able to win Alliance Victories on Godlike on a Huge Map in 38 turns without reloads or the slightest hint of "cheating"?  Surely that merits a response?
 
Anyway, it was certainly worth the effort posting in the Matrix forums, where there was interaction in key threads, patches were filled with improvements we had proposed, so I'm hoping it proves to be the same with Gal Civ 3.  But to claim it's somehow an exception here is a bit ridiculous.