First off, I had/have very, very high expectations for this game - and I think many others do too, and that's a big reason why there are so many "constructive" posts about feature/enhancement requests and/or bug reports. For me I think this high expectation level has made me hypercritical of even the most tiny flaw in the game.
I think the game is a bit buggier than I expected it to be, considering how long the relatively open beta was and how long the gamma was. I would expect a lot of issues I've seen to have been caught long, long ago. There will always be bugs in software - it's nearly impossible to test every possible combination of rules, events, etc. But simple things like selecting ships, social production, and lots more not working properly kinda boggle the mind.
I'm also experiencing periodic CTDs on a reasonably clean system with up-to-date drivers. Some may be due to known game issues but that doesn't make them any less unpleasant. Fortunately the game saves quickly so setting autosave to 3 turns or less can usually safeguard against CTD woes. I play a lot of games and a lot of high end games and they don't crash this much (or at all) unless they have known issues (that are often never dealt with due to publishers - I do believe Stardock will take care of everything that can be taken care of).
What I consider to be AI flaws are also bumming me out. "Intelligent" AIs suiciding transports into my fleets, not always developing planets well, suiciding fleets into a starbase and barely scratching it, AIs not using ships you gift them - especially after they request aid, AIs declaring war when they have no hope of ever reaching me (not huge, but it makes me doubt the AI in general), etc. AI is touted as one of the best things about GalCiv I and II - and things like this just bug me because they are not examples of good AI. (Sorry, but it's true.) How could issues like these not have come up in beta, gamma, or internal testing? These are commonplace events, not special cases.
I've also think I've had some wierdness with saving/loading.
One problem for me is that when I notice or read about things I *can* see not working properly it makes me doubt the things that I can't see or that I don't pay as much attention to. Are my bonuses working right? Is the AI doing other little things well? Etc.
All told, I'm not as into this game as I expected and I too await patching to get to the point where I can play without being annoying by all these various things to some degree. I can play the game and have some fun - but I haven't been totally blown away by the game as I expected to be due to these various issues. I want a full blown and challenging strategy game, not just a ship design simulation.
My impression of the game is also that it's buggy. I've played other games--well okay, lots of other games--and this is simply significantly buggier than average. |
Sadly, I would have to agree.
If you're not noticing bugs then more power to ya, game on.