RemingtonRyder

Be more specific about the sort of animations should be possible instead of citing an example like BSG. A computer game has dynamic elements (the player fleet and teh enemy fleet) whereas an episode of BSG with shooty bits follows a set storyboard. Therefore what is rendered has to be limited to work on the sort of hardware that the game is being targeted at, so that it can play right away. CGI scenes for TV on the other hand are done on more powerful hardware and can ta

You know, I've read the forums and looked at the site but I have to say I'm surprised that GalCiv III is being developed now. I was half-expecting to see something else being announced in its place. Though I guess I should have known, what with Stardock turning 20 (happy belated birthday!) that an oldie would make a comeback. :)

I'm fairly sure I don't get bent out of shape because a game is being released on another platform. Potentially it means more sales in the long term, which means I get to see more games I like being released, which also go on to be released on other platforms, and so on. I'm not saying the platform ports are easy but they have become more popular over the years. And frankly, Windows is pretty damn expensive here in Europe.

I think the key thing is to teach the AI the same tactics as the human player - to not overextend the economy so far by colony rushing that it is crippling for many turns to come. Hold onto colony ships until the ebbing of funds slows down, rather than sending them out right away. By all means plant a flag on an important world to get there first, but consider how the influence game is going to play out. If someone else wants to colonise that Class 5 rock nearby, let them

I think you have to consider that at the scales that units in tactical combat are animated at, it's questionable how much value is added with high quality animations - unless you have a cinematic cam for kill shots. Even Skyrim's combat animations are at times a bit crappy in an amusing kind of way, and there you almost always have an up close perspective. There's simply no way to have an individual animation for each possible enemy you'll be facing, the time and

I actually find it's more important to have a semi-contiguous empire rather than the most colonies. Your military can only be so many places at once. If you can't defend a planet that you've built all your infrastructure on, then it gets invaded and now the enemy has it.

Well I was going to vote, but apparently my GOG account got eaten.

That's fair enough though. Some people will have their reasons for not pre-ordering. Mine happens to be a lack of money to spend on games.

One of the things you would have to do though is make sure the AI isn't hampered by the tech tree arrangement. What is convenient and logical for humans isn't necessarily so for the AI.

In principle Steam isn't all that bad, it's the implementation which is a pain in the butt. Just for one example, I find its response to the mousewheel (ridiculously over-scrolling) really annoying. Can I adjust the scrolling anywhere? No. Thanks for that, Valve, you just alienated a customer with your one-size-fits-all philosophy.

The problem with testing a game like GalCiv though is that some bugs are not obvious. I mean, we can look for things that can cause trouble for the AI in the tech tree, but it can take hours and hours of testing to see if they react properly, and even then there isn't always a clear-cut case where one tech was researched when another one should have been done first. Granted, we're all maybe a bit more vigilant for these things now, but I worry that too many people will s

The AI may be good at colony spamming but that's not an optimal strategy in the early game. It's impossible to do research, continually build colony ships and continually add new colonies without going into the red. The AI has to raise taxes and reduce its rate of production as it gets into a loss-making situation. The human player on the other hand can make more optimal choices, gaining fewer colonies but securing a good position and having less down time and havi

The problem with the card system in Endless Space is that there are plenty of researchable cards which are free and unlimited in use. So each battle is an annoying card spam. If cards were limited then you and the AI would have to use them sparingly. Personally, I'm not sure a card system would do it for GC3. The one thing you could say about the combat resolver in GC2 was that if you and the AI brought evenly-matched fleets it would be a fair fight. Of cou