GalCivII - Good game, shame about the details

Quitch

Join Date 03/2006

GalCivII - Good game, shame about the details

I don't have vast experience of 4X games. Colonisation and Space Empires III, those are about the only ones I played. Colonisation I beat as the English and never went back to it. Good fun though.

Space Empires III though, that game got its hooks into me deep. It's the only reason I look at 4X games. The demo was addictive and the full game amazing. I wasn't one for multiplayer, so it was purely AI fights for me. On hard, in a large galaxy with maximum civs it provided a real challenge for me... oh how I loved SEIII, from the various treaties, to the way you could customise civs, to random AI civs, simple to design ship graphics (I even released a ship style set... number 34 in the official pack I think it was, the Quitchonian Empire), random events... loved it. For some reason I never bought SEIV though, I guess I just liked SEIII too much and couldn't be bothered to learn the changes I'm looking forward to SE5 to see if it recreates the magic, though the new 3D look scares me.

Anyway, I was always intrigued by Galactic Civilisations because of the praise for its AI. I made AIs for the RTS Total Annihilation (not that there was much you could change), and have always been a fan of a strong AI. The multiplayer crowd tends to vastly overrate itself, and I got tired of reading replies to "Improving the AI" topics things like "Play a human". Well, some people just can't be bothered with that, aren't interested, want a more relaxing game etc. So, when Galactic Civilisations II came along, I decided to pick up a copy (I'd been buying up things from my back catalogue, so since I was in a spending mood...)

Anyway, the game has proven addictive. It took a little while to get into, for two reasons:

1. The economic model is rather different to what I'm used to, and there's quite the curve of learning what interacts with what etc.

2. The campaign is rather dull. I have since stopped bothering with it. What Westwood and Blizzard recognised, something Stardock haven't quite grasped, is that without an engaging backstory, without exciting events between missions to draw you into the story, and without characters to care about, there's no reason to play in a crippled version of the game when sandbox/skirmish mode is available. Since the GalCiv2 campaign offers nothing over sandbox, to play it is simply to bore yourself.

Anyway, I dumped the campaign and have been having fun on the Metaverse, after I finally penetrated the truly painful sign-up systems, which, as I recall, required at least two seperate sign ons.

And this is the problem with Galactic Civilisations II, it's a great game let down by countless niggly problems. The metaverse is one such issue, you can create a password with symbols in it, but that won't work in game because it doesn't accept symbols, but you've no way to knowing that.

I find the diplomacy aspect of the game severely lacking. Speaking to another race is useful only to see what tech, planets and ships they have (which in turn means there's little for the intelligence aspect of the game to do), and to trade for tech. Stardock say they want the AI to act like a human, yet the AI can threaten you, or tell you when it's coming to your assistance, yet you can't do the same to it. Space in GC2 feels very lonely because there's not much reason to talk to the other races, and so I personally feel the random Empires of SE3 had more personality because you'd threaten each other, make demands, and work your way up various levels of treaty which would in turn effect trade. There's really no reason to ally in GC2 since it merely helps them go for an alliance victory, and there's zero cost for them failing to honour an alliance in a time of war (or you for that matter), barring the difficulty in regaining that alliance later.

But the element of the game that really irks me is the UI. In the post-mortem, Brad said he'd learned you need to bring in fresh beta testers for each stage of development. He's right, and the fact that they didn't shows, simply because the UI falls apart in so many areas and smells of people getting used to "working around" problems. One glaringly obvious area is the fact you cannot order an upgrade for a stacked ship, or ship in a fleet, but you can upgrade that ship by choosing a mass upgrade from another ship. Also, Brad has talked about a game freed from the CD, but the game fails to provide a lot of valuable information, meaning you are tied to the manual!! There is no way to find out what a starbase module does without researching it and trying to upgrade a starbase (assuming it's the right type), so you need to refer to the manual. There's no way to find out your current logistics value without going to the research screen and adding up numbers from the logistics path. There's no way to find the logistics value of a ship unless you stack it with another ship... it's in the manual, but they've since changed the values!! Don't even get me started on auto-centring on a selected ship, or automatically moving to the next ship. The fact that some commands have tool tips while others mysteriously don't. That hotkeys exist for almost, but not all the main controls. The way it's impossible to see a planets focus without visiting the planet. That the starbase list is hidden as a tab in the ship view. That sometimes the game uses dropdown boxes while other times it uses lists you click through one at a time. That many items aren't sorted in alphabetical order. That you can reverse a sort order by clicking the name, but this isn't documented. That some races racial abilities are hidden while others aren't. That you can overwrite racial abilities, but not restore them. That the custom race's built-in racial abilities aren't customisable in-game (making the whole custom race thing bloody pointless).

The list goes on and on. I created a topic over on the SD forums detailing no less than fourty seperate UI problems. Since then I've discovered at good twenty more, but I just can't be bothered to keep interrupting my game to note them down anymore, especially as 1.1, while a good patch especially in the AI areas, just failed to correct almost every UI problem documented (and the inability to upgrade ships in most circumstances is not exactly a low profile issue).

The game is really fun to play, don't get me wrong, though there are some things I think the Space Empires series did better (and some differences in GC I enjoy) I love it, but the whole thing is just lacking that final spit and polish that makes a professional product. Every time I encounter a problem I'm just left wondering, WTF didn't a beta tester spot this? Why wasn't this fixed?

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I have to agree that 1.1 seems buggier. I never crashed prior to 1.1 and usually crash once a session now. Often it is quite early in the game so it doesn't seem to be memory errors. Still, it's not bad enough to complain about.

However, that isn't the point of this post. I agree with almost everything pointed out so far, but for me the one important aspect of the game that needs fixing first is to get the AIs to build decent planets. If they can get this right, the AIs will have plenty of money and capacity to compete. Until they fix this the game is pretty boring. I do realize that I can play on the top couple of levels and get a decent game, but the level of cheats enabled in order to do this are not fun and wouldn't be so necessary if the AI actually knew how to play the game.

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I agree with first poster.
Game is good, but there are many minor annoyances.

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The OP makes some valid points. I've never tried the campaign. I can't stand playing a gimped version of the game just to see the story, this game or otherwise. I agree completely on the diplomacy comments, and the UI could always be improved.

Strategist, however, is a troll. Here he gives us a classic example of flame-baiting.

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Yes. And LordFu, however, is a freaking idiot. Here he gives us a blah blah blah.

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Strategist, you're a troll. Shut up and face it. You've been an irritating little whining jackass for as long as I can remember, with your moronic pro-civ agenda. I would suspect you of being employed by them, but I doubt a plant would be that stupid.

You dislike the forums? And the game? LEAVE. No-one will miss you. I'm not going to flame quitch, and I'm fairly sure you've dismissed me as a fanboy before. Both the points I make he agrees with: the economy takes a while to learn, and the campaign isn't really rewarding. I have found it annoying upgrading ships before, when I can't afford to mass upgrade them, but need my veterans upgraded. And they're stacked and I don't want them moved.

However, he is wrong about the custom racial abilities being unrestorable. Fixed in 1.1. I would also suggest he has a look at the wiki Link since the manual is innacurate anyway.

Posts like this are helpful and constructive. Posts like yours are annoying and do no-one any good, as no-one listens to trolls to begin with. And as for thumbwiz

Like known issues that don't get fixed between updates

Name them. Bugs, not design features you don't like. I challenge you to name 5.

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Here's a link to a list of all the UI issues I identified during 1.0X

https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=274&AID=111357

As I said, I've identified at least twenty more during 1.1, but just can't be bothered to keep jotting them down any more. If I see some of the above start to be fixed then I'll start taking notes again.

I don't see the point in banging on about the crashes. Brad has acknowledged there is a problem and it's the first thing they'll be looking into for 1.2. What more can they do now?

Anyway, this topic isn't for crash discussions.

Strategist - no, what gets people annoyed is when people make a bunch of posts on the same topic.

This was originally a post over at The Octopus Overlord's, but someone there complained I should be posting it here where the Dev's would be able to defend themselves from my attack (??) So here it is

That's why it covers some of the issues already in my recent posts, because it was intended for another forum.

On balance, the SE series (3 and 4 anyway) have always been lacking for me. Different strokes for different folks.

I'm by no means saying that Space Empires III was better, just better in certain areas where GCII should learn from it. Other games may have covered those areas even better, but I can only speak from my experience.

Clearly he wants documentation, I've never expected (which is good, because I don't feel I've ever received, at least since Master of Magic) comprehensive docs.

No no, that's just it, I want the game to work WITHOUT documentation. Logistics for example, yes, you can find the logistics value of the hull by opening the Shipyard and memorising it for each ship type (unless another patch changes it), and then you need to open the Research window and add up all the numbers you've researched from the Logistics path, and then (and only then) will you know how many ships you can stack. Or you can stack some ships and then suddenly these numbers appear.

This is what I'm talking about. In most cases there's a way to do something, but it's an incredibly, unecessary, roundabout way.

Why do I need to split up ships to upgrade them for instance? If I select one ship and then upgrade all ships of that type then suddenly I CAN upgrade fleets. This is what I'm talking about.

Documentation? The manual should teach me the rules, but the game should provide me with all the data. Right now this isn't the case, meaning I'm tied to the docs in a way I don't want to be. I may as well need the CD to play.

Let's name another random niggle. Some race's ships display the race name when moused over, others don't... why? It's clearly helpful, yet only half done. That's my problem, the game is full of stuff like this.

In the end, if I don't provide my views now then my thoughts won't be taken into account for GC3.

I haven't played the new campaign, but this definitely wasn't true in GCI. Heck, just the experience of being at war from turn 1 taught me so much about using military force in the early game. Then there was the scenario where all the resources were in the center, setting up a big battle over starbases, and the one where you allied with the Altarians, which taught me the usefulness of permanent trade partners. Throwing the sandbox for a loop is fun in itself without a lot of blah blah.

But GC2 does this with scenarios, and therefore the campaign is wasted. If you simply want interesting setups there's no need for a campaign situation. The only thing a campaign brings to the table is an on-going story, or perhaps the ability to carry tech and troops from one mission to the next. GC2 does allow you to lose and go a different route (though I suspect most people don't know this, as they tend to reload when they look like they're going to lose), which is nice, but I need a real draw to play through this series of missions and I just don't see it.

F6, Stats and Graphs tab?

Much obliged.

F5 has a lot of that stuff. One UI thing they got right is that you can just right-arrow and talk to each civ in turn instead of clicking forward and back (I really want to be able to double-click a civ to talk to it, though.) That lets you see what you really want to know, what technologies they have that you don't.

The reports are almost impossible to read. Why isn't the tech bullet pointed, or arranged by area, or even in an expandable tree? Why not simply list tech they have that I don't? You can do it through diplomacy, but this brings up another niggle, if I open a particular view to replace the viewscreen, it's forgotten the second I move to another civilisation, and the buttons for the views are TINY.

1. The campaigns are not the same as the sandbox mode. They play completely differently for the most part, especially the Dread Lord missions. I guess there's the DLs on parade thing, but I haven't tried that yet.

But that's just it... they ARE the same, and therein lies the problem. I'm basically being offered the full sandbox game, or a crippled game which forms the campaign. All games with campaigns have this problem, you get full skirmish or crippled campaign. Well, other things are used to draw you into a campaign, like in Warcraft III for example you had side-quests, an engaging story and characters who you could bond with and care for the fate of (for the first act anyway). GalCiv2 has none of this. The alien races barely even speak to you, a wasted opportunity if ever there was one. I'd be more than happy to write an entire campaign story, along with scenario outlines, for free, just to show how it should be done.

Hell, imagine the entire campaign set on a single map, with each mission either allowing you to take planets which extended your range, or provided more life support systems. The entire campaign could play out on this gigantic map. Probably not practical, but THAT would be a draw.

Right now what you have is a game identical to the sandbox, but with less tech and therefore less options. Yes, you get a unique race, but they're nothing more than a really advanced tech civ. Where's the unique ship which appears and blows away the planet you just saved in mission X? Now wouldn't that get things moving?

Nope, it's purely limited sandbox.

2. Alliances are not pointless. If somebody declares war on you, it's nice to have someone else declare war in your defense. One thing I would like added in is that the AI takes account of your allies' military before it attacks you, because it doesn't seem to at the moment.

I agree I overstated that point, however if someone offered me an alliance I'd be really dubious because it's actually helping them win the game. Still, I did use them more in my last game to protect myself during my latest tech win.

1) I can understand the economic learning curve. I found a couple settings that work for me and rarely deviate from them because after numerous games I still don't have a "warm and fuzzy" feeling about messing with the sliders too much.

Don't worry, I don't think of this as a problem, it's simply very different from the Space Empires and Colonisation games, and so took some getting used to. I have a couple of UI niggles here, like being unable to see the impact of focusing research unless you hop off planet, and the way you cannot see focus from outside a planet, but the system itself feels okay. I believe it was mentioned social and military spending would be combined as they share a resource and that makes sense, but the current system seems solid, a good exercise in making sacrifices in X for benefits in Y.

but except for when I need to adjust espionage spending (another lacking area that I hear will be addressed with 1.2), or really need some cash, or a "missing" tech, I ignore the diplomacy screen altogether.

Espionage is effectively non-existent in this game, but that's a whole different topic (and something for the expansion I believe).

5) He has a few UI issues I don't agree with; ie: The starbase list isn't hidden...it's with the other lists.

I didn't find it until I ran across a topic where someone else was asking about just such a list. The Ships list certainly isn't the first thing to come to mind, and I don't tend to use said list.

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Touche'. However, these aren't really bugs, just little irritating features of the UI.

You have to admit it IS mostly bug free. Aside from the overheating issue, and the new memory problems (2 major bugs isn't bad)

So I'm still waiting for 5 of these major issues Thumbwiz was talking about. I've given you 2: Overheating and memory

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Quitch:
1 - GC2's econ model was a bit counter-intuitive for me also based on what I'm used to in other 4x-type games. It's not a bad model; it just took me a bit to grok it even after reading the manual and the tutorials. Probably a more detailed tutorial or manual would have helped here.

2 - I'm a campaign-mode kinda guy; in many games I play through the campaigns and I'm done with the game, never even bothering with sandbox/skirmish modes. But I sort of got bored by the end of the campaign also. It would have been great for a more involving campaign with cutscenes and detailed character stories. But given the budget constraints and that some players won't ever touch the campaign, I can understand why that didn't happen. Fortunately, the sandbox galaxies are pretty fun to play even without the narrative. Also, there is a fair amount of backstory available here on this web site (see the early journals) that doesn't really come out in the campaign, if you're interested.

I haven't played SEIII, but I have played SEIV, and personally was disappointed by the scripted AI there so I lost interest.

I agree with you about many of the UI complaints in GC2 - a few weeks spent solely on "polish", fixing UI issues and the typos/grammar, pre-release, would have worked wonders (and still would!). But I'd have to say I found plenty of UI issues in SEIV as well. Perhaps SEIII was better than SEIV in that regard, but I wonder if, like the GC2 beta testers, you've learned to see past/work around SE's flaws.

Anyway, one thing to keep in mind is that Stardock is commited to supporting GC2, so there's at least a chance we'll see the assorted flaws fixed. As it is, v1.1 is much improved over the initial release.

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As said before, I haven't played this game a lot yet. But the OP totally hit right on the nail as far as I can see. And I am not the most observant person on this planet, according to my missus, so when even I spot the exactly same glitches after 4 games then there really is something out there. AI and UI need some work.

Crashes is not an issue here. My system used to crash on Galciv. But I followed the excellent advice on the bug forum, increased memory and updated video drivers, and now it totally works. (Incidentally, now Civ4 works a lot better too, so a thanks there)

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Jiamas, what did the AI do wrong, and at what level?

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I agree with many of Quitch's concerns. There are a lot of inconsistencies (UI-wise) in the game. Things that should be readily discernable don't. When you mouse-over a ship, you may or may not get information about what race it belongs to. A ship parks on the same square with other ships cannot be upgraded only because there's no button for it. They have like 15 categories for sorting your planets, but you have to click-click-click-click to find what you want instead of a drop down menu. They provide you with separate tab for your own planets and foreign ones - that's nice. But they lump every starbase of every race into a single starbase tab. Some information is a hold over from GCI, for example when you establish a trade route in some screen they still refer to the revenue as per month.

Sure, these issues are not show stoppers. But I think a good game like this should not be hampered by inconsistent and poorly designed UI. A good UI makes it a joy to play a game. Just like CIV4. The F6 colonies menu is a step in that direction

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Touche'. However, these aren't really bugs, just little irritating features of the UI.

The UI is between me and the game, it's how I interact with the world of GC2. It's the single most important element of the game. My thread identifies over 40 (48 I think) seperate UI issues, and since then I've spotted about 20 more. Each may be minor in itself, but they add up.

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I would agree that I enjoy the game despite the UI rather than through the UI. Which isn't a great advert for Stardock's non-gaming portfolio...

And I still contend that the campaign plays very differently from sandbox. I certainly use totally different strategies. A full galaxy campaign would of course be superb, but it is of course much harder to achieve. I don't know if you've every played Imperium Galactica II, which has quite a few similarities to Gal Civ (though it wasn't turn based). That had a single map campaign, but it didn't work particularly well. If you destroyed the wrong race early on, you'd basically stop getting campaign missions, and it really did turn into 'exactly like sandbox'. I actually never completed the campaign- not because I lost, but because the missions would just stop. I ended up having to win by conquest.

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The rest of you should consider how much shit your going through just to play this thing.

I'm very sorry for your bad game experiences, but do not make the assumption that everybody else is having the same issues. I, for one, am going through no shit to play this game. In fact, it's right up my alley with a space set game with time to think and the option to play long or short games, long or short sessions.
The initial sentence also goes for many others on this board, I do think StarDock appreciates your input and views, but don't assume that they're shared by all others (by many, perhaps, but never all). There is, and never will be, a one single truth.

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I'm sure this has been explained somewhere but I seem to not be able to find it. What is meant by overheating issues with reference to GalCiv2?

edit: OK, I finally found the explaination. For those who might not know, the polygon count and other items for mods are not limited which means that you can put a ship that has a large amout of polygons in it which makes your video card GPU be utilized more. As the utilization of GPUs increase, more heat is generated which can get to a point and cause a problem especially if your cooling is not sufficient.

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The Ships list certainly isn't the first thing to come to mind, and I don't tend to use said list.

That's because it floats over the map and you can't close it with the keyboard -- am I wrong? If I knew a hotkey for "show the main map" I would use F1, F2, and F11 a whole lot more.

I get your vision of the non-sandbox campaign now. I think Brad resists it because he is afraid of any scripting for the AI at all, even how not to build freighters in a universe where you're alone against a team.

Some information is a hold over from GCI, for example when you establish a trade route in some screen they still refer to the revenue as per month.

Nice catch.

Espionage has changed very little since GCI, yet it feels a lot more useful now. I am always wanting to check someone's soldiering stats or look at their planets -- allowing that was a great improvement.

Why not simply list tech they have that I don't? You can do it through diplomacy,

I had the same thought, but how about listing techs they have that not everyone in the universe has -- showing you the leading edge, and trade opportunities.

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For the love of god not another Troll. (quickest response to the OP)
Longer Response - (Not a troll, a thought out post just didnt like the title )

1) So it's different, big deal.

2) While you are entitled to your own opinion so am I. My opinion is that you are wrong on this points bigtime. Campaign does have a story if you cared to read a bunch of dev journals. The DL is more than sandbox and makes it interesting to play against a much harder enemy sometimes.

3) btw wow is your post long.

4) Ugh I will not buy into SE III was such a vastly great game compared to GC2. IMO the AI (without putting anything down) doesn't compare favorably, when you compare GC2 with SE III. SE III had a lot of techs, yes. I don't feel the AI used them well. I'd love Frogboy to re-do its AI

I know that won't happen though, competition and/or copyright infringing. etc. I would like some of the techs getting in though like the numbers and sizes of hulls. The playability factor which matters most, AI in GC2 puts up the best game.

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1. I didn't complain about the economy, I said it took a while to get used to it wasn't made into a complaint at any point. What next? You'll flame me because my first RTS took me a while to learn the mechanics?

2. The dev journals have nothing to do with the campaign, unless the campaign is popping up dev journals between missions. The story is threadbare, and each mission ends with the most minimal amount of text imaginable. I certainly didn't feel sucked in. It is exactly the same as the sandbox, with the Dreadlords just being an enemy with a big tech advantage.

4. I used SEIII because that's my experience with the series, but SEIV does even more. GC2 doesn't do as much as the Space Empires series, and that's not a problem to me, but I find that many areas of GC2 that do exist lack the polish they need.

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I was asked what the AI did wrong -
Campaign - tough - built 63 ships for defence. Each & every one without any weapons (I heard this might be game-mechanic error, AI not being able to desing ships.

Normal game - Crippling level (standard AI for the level) - Declared war. Let me build defenses for 6 rounds. Sent unarmed transports, while garrisoning planets with +26 attack medium ships (I had about 4 fighters, +6 attack small). War should have lasted 3 rounds. It lasted about 55 after AI won through massive boni.

Normal game - Crippling level - Weak AI declares war. Again lets me build defenses. Fails to realize that I'm friendly with our common, extremely powerful neighbour. Unarmed transports again, of course. Garrisons planets, so his forces can be destroyed piecemeal. After losing 70% of his planets, wants peace, but fails to give a single tech for it (ok, so die then)

- In short terms, it feels to me that the AI is so stupid that the only way to get a challenging game is to give him really really huge advantages.

Should be solvable pretty easy, though, and from the number of posts here I should think the Dev's have got the message by now. Glad they are working on it.

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This is the Alpha and Omega

BWAHAHA! A bit full of yourself aren't you? As for crashing, I guess you never played Civ4 until the numerous patches had already come out to fix the crippling problems that made the game literally unplayable for the majority of users with ATI graphics cards, and was not particularly nice to nVidia owners either.

Not nonsense. 1.0 played flawlessly. 1.1 crashes, simple as that. My computer is clean also, everything up to date, virus checks etc......No, this is still a beta version that's not finished.

Show me ONE computer game that IS finished, as in completely polished UI with no flaws, no bugs, no crashes or screwups ever, works perfectly in every way all the time. It's impossible, because it doesn't exist.

Ok, back to business. Auto-focus on next ship – must….be… removed….

Why? Many of us prefer it that way. If you don't want it, ask for the ability to choose whether the game behaves that way or not via a setting in the Options.

love of sensor ships

Only evil races love censorship...oh...nvm...oops

I'm getting the out of memory error message during autosaves every 4 or 5 weeks

I've said it over and over, and I will continue to say it, autosave was the worst thing ever invented for computer games.

Campaign does have a story if you cared to read a bunch of dev journals

There is a problem if the story is in the dev journals, and not in the game itself.

it feels to me that the AI is so stupid that the only way to get a challenging game is to give him really really huge advantages

There is no game in the world that can provide a challenge to a human being without "cheating". Even IBM with their Deep Blue knew that Gary Kasparov would beat the snot out of the machine in a rematch, and that computer was purpose-built at great expense, including a huge programming budget, for the sole purpose of playing chess, a game with a very limited set of pieces and strict rules compared to GC2.

For the sake of the thread and one question that has technically gone unanswered:

5 bugs in 1.10.027 (not UI or AI design issues)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1.) Pathing rarely finds the true shortest route to a destination.

2.) Memory leaks that cause some users to crash.

3.) Some users crash on reload, even with the latest drivers.

4.) Autosave that causes some users to crash.

5.) Missing productivity when the game is reloaded, which is clearly visible in the graphs as well as from observation of the colony and starport production.

There are others, but those are the most serious in my estimation, and they add to the interface niceties (and necessities), and the typos that individually are excusable but add up to making Stardock look bad when taken altogether, and many other things.

Make no mistake, I love GC2, and think it is far better than products put out by the majority of the competition, definitely up there with the best of them, but I am a perfectionist at heart and can't help but notice each and every little detail I encounter and wish it were not there.

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It's ridiculous to call things you don't like about the UI a "bug".

In Civ IV, I click on a city and I can only see projects listed as icons. Is that a bug? No. Is it annoying? Yes.

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5 bugs in 1.10.027 (not UI or AI design issues)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1.) Pathing rarely finds the true shortest route to a destination.

2.) Memory leaks that cause some users to crash.

3.) Some users crash on reload, even with the latest drivers.

4.) Autosave that causes some users to crash.

5.) Missing productivity when the game is reloaded, which is clearly visible in the graphs as well as from observation of the colony and starport production.

You listed one bug 3 times.

1) Never seen this. Ships seem to take the quickest route here.
2,3,4 are the same problem.
5) This was originally done to discourage people from constantly reloading the game to cheese it. They have said they will look at changing this in the future since so many people object.

You've listed 1 bug that was introduced in 1.1 and doesn't affect very many users as a % (see graph on left).

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People are entitled to an opinion, and the points made made Quitch are certainly detailed. But for me, the game is a LOT of fun. This means I'll live with minor niggles, and I don't think anything other than minor niggles have been mentioned here. (I haven't palyed the campaign as having too much fun creating my owns games)!

For instance, noting that you can't see your Logistics Points for ships and your Logistics ability without a bit of effort.. Yes, seeing this at a glance would help, but it is minor, very minor niggle. The game has very few actual bugs. Bugs ruin games.

And don't get me started on manuals and docs. When have you ever played a game with a decent manual, that wasn't immediately out of date? Try the Wiki site, this is excellent.

The game is fun , and none of the above really spoils that fun. Well, not for me anyway. The fun is learning the many strategies that exists to win, and out-smarting the solid AI opponents (that don't cheat)! That's important.

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For instance, noting that you can't see your Logistics Points for ships and your Logistics ability without a bit of effort.. Yes, seeing this at a glance would help, but it is minor, very minor niggle. The game has very few actual bugs. Bugs ruin games.

Niggles are what keeps good games from being great games. Niggles are what keeps GC2 from, in my estimation, reasonably having a score of over 90%.

And don't get me started on manuals and docs. When have you ever played a game with a decent manual, that wasn't immediately out of date?

Well, let's see. Civ 1. Civ 2. KotoR 1&2, NWN... pretty much most PC games.

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Niggles are what keeps good games from being great games. Niggles are what keeps GC2 from, in my estimation, reasonably having a score of over 90%.

This game did get excellent reviews, have you not noticed these?

Well, let's see. Civ 1. Civ 2. KotoR 1&2, NWN... pretty much most PC games.

Hmmmmm... slight over-statement to try and score a point!

Most manuals are actually produced alongside development and are often incomplete and have plenty of E&O. But it's a mute point as a good tutorial is much better anyway. I rarely start by reading one, and I bet most people don't.

Again, try not to get hung on these minor details. You won't enjoy life in general if you expect perfectionism in everyhting you do. Chill.

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