First impressions on the Beta

from Stardock Forums
First off, I'll say that I've played & loved this genre since before it moved to computers (all the way back to Metagaming's "Stellar Conquest", or even SPI's "Starforce Alpha Centauri", if that counts). I've pretty much played 'em all, as long as it was a board game, on C64 or on the PC (no Mac-only, Amiga-only or OS2-only titles on my resume, though). So, please take this as constructive criticism. I want lots of successful space 4Xers to enjoy!

Now to the bad news... the game is just not very engaging. Why is a little hard to fathom...

One thing is the map is a little busy... too much on there that isn't actually an object in the game.

Second, if you've got a telescope you know where the stars are, just not what is at them. I think there would be more sense of purpose if you could see all the stars and choose which to explore, rather than wandering aimlessly as in Civ or something (Civ gives you lots to do inside a city, which makes up for that).

I think first contact comes too soon. That is possibly a matter of taste - I like to be ready for visiters before I meet the neighbors, but I hear tell there is a game design philosophy that it is bad to leave the player isolated too long. All things considered, I think the traditional range limit from your nearest colony serves well to focus the exploration and prevent premature first contact.

I'm at July 2180, and that's all I have to say yet.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks for the feedback. What size map did you play on? The default, I believe, is a small galaxy so you'll meet other civilizations very quickly there.

I agree regarding the stars, the sectors are supposed to be color coded to let you know which sectors have stars. We could make it so that stars show up as gray spots in those unexplored sectors if others feel the same as you do.

Since the game starts in 2178 I'd say you're still awfully early in the game. If you have any suggestions on things you want to be doing during the first stages of the game, let us know.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, it is pretty early in the game, but I've colonized a couple of planets already.

I'm actually in the biggest possible galaxy, but ran into the neighbors before I could either talk to or shoot at them:) I've found a couple of colony worlds of the Drengin (cute - naming the "evil" race after your on-line network - is that an editorial?). I set all the AI's to "average".

I think what I'd like to see is all the stars on the galaxy map with their color codes for spectral type right from the start, but perhaps some shading difference between the background color of space which is explored vs space which is not.

I also suggest implimenting the traditional ship range limitation - where you can't send your ships beyond a certain distance from your nearest colony (but that distance increases with technology). I think this tends to focus your expansion better and produce empires with more or less borders, rather than just a galaxy-wide scramble to pick off the best real estate.

Being able to see the location and spectral type of all the stars in the galaxy would tell you where the direction for expansion would be, while the ship range limitation would force an orderly expansion in that direction. Combined, this would give the player a sense of purpose at the begining of the game.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
We had ship ranges in GalCiv 2, I didn't find them very enjoyable.

Here's how they worked:

Your ships could travel X sectors away from your nearest friendly star system. The mini map was color coded to show you how far that range was.

While it did give the beginnign game behavior you mentioned, the issue I had with it was that mid and late game you'd end up with nothing to do but sitting there researching techs because you couldn't get to the other races.

Any ideas?
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds like more an issue of tweaking the ranges and tech costs that grant them. The range limitation should not stop your expansion, just localize it and possibly channel it. Normally in this sort of game, expansion stops when you reach the edge of the other races' expansion. Then in mid-game you either stay home to exploit your holdings & build up for the endgame wars (or to pursue some non-military victory condition) or launch a "Crispy Critter" attack on your nearest neighbor (or defend against his). The only way you would be sitting around researching, unable to reach the other races, is if the range was so short you could not get from star to star, i.e. you existed by yourself in a cluster of stars separated from the rest of the galaxy by a gulf which was uniformly wider than your current ship range. I never saw happen in any game I ever played except at maybe the beginning level of ship range technology (and the next level up was always cheap so you were never stuck long, or into "mid game").
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Another thing you might want to look at to insure it doesn't turn into isolation is the routine for generating the galaxy. If the bulk of the stars with colonizable planets are part of a "galactic main" in which every star is "x" or less from its nearest neighbor(s) in the "galactic main", all player homeworlds are in the "galactic main", and "x" is the starting ship range, you would not have a problem. Even at beginning tech, all the players could reach at least one other race simply via expanding their allowed travel volume through colonization, and could reach any other race by conquering those in between them. There would still be usable stars that you could not get to without higher levels of range tech (i.e. those outside the "galactic main"), and higher range tech would open up new (better, shorter) routes to some that you could already have reached. However, there would be no sitting in isolation researching range techs before you could find the other races. On the other hand, in a large economy size galaxy the races would need to expand their volume through colonization quite a bit before first contact occurs (assuming an even geogrphical distribution of homeworlds through the galaxy).
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd be curious to hear how other people feel.

We could add ranges quite quickly (I roughed them in at the start because they are in the "might be nice to have" list).

What do other people think? Do you all want ranges on ships?

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I belive that it would make things more interesting. the only problem that I see is that in certain maps that have been generated by my system, there is the occasional cluster of stars in one corner or another, but the nearest systems are 4 or 5 sectors away.

But then, that might not necessarily be a bad thing, depending on what your game style is.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I very much in favour of having ship ranges, i just dont like the erratic borders i keep finding in the game with bits of empires all over the place, i would like more traditional borders like you find in games like moo2,botf,etc. ;)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,

As you may rmember from my previous comment I LOVED the ranges implementation you had in the OS/2 version. What I liked most about it was that it allowed the human player and all of the AIs to build up a considerable infrastructure before having to concern oneself about being attacked. Of course, the larger your galaxy the more affective and desirable ranges becomes, which may be one reason why I like ranges so much (I prefer grandious playing areas).

If you already have the guts in the code for it, I say the sooner the better. (However, until you and yours get to the balancing and tuning stage of development, ranges might cause some problems.)

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Ship ranges are definitely a plus - It adds to the strategic element of the game. I can remember many happy MOO1 games waiting to develop the next generation fuel cells so I could attack a nearby rich world.

Au revior
Mike