My Turn To Bitch & Whine...

Well, sort of :D

from GalCiv2 Forums

Actually, I'm not really going to bitch and whine so much as respectfully ask that the devs consider adding/incorporating/considering some of the items I'm going to bring up (or at least mention whether you're already doing/considering something). And for those of you who don't understand the concept of "honey and vinegar", shouldn't you be off somewhere kicking puppies and screaming at old grannies or something? You won't find anything here to start dogpiling on, these aren't the droids you're looking for.

Anyway, this is a really long post/list, so apologies before I start for the patience impaired. I've actually broken down my comments into categories that I hope will make it easier to read, but let me just say right now that NONE of the following is in regards to the economic model


UI Changes

I know several people don't have a problem with the UI, but many of us do. Mostly because we're used to doing things a certain way, and because after years of conditioning, certain things become counter intuitive due to that conditioning. At the same time, there are aspects about the UI in Galciv2 that are actually more than just being counter intuitive, but are actually causing some of us problems. For the most part, I'm not talking about things like what's being displayed on what screen and various appearance type aspects, I'm actually referring to the actual interface and input/control mechanics mostly.

1. Please consider using the arrow keys to scroll the map in the galaxy view. Personally, I can't really see much use for controlling ships with them, since you can't get them to move diagonally (at least that I'm aware of), but if it's really important to people, would using the keypad be a problem here? While this may seem like a preference issue, it's the largest culprit for causing fatigue in my mouse arm (yes, you read it right, fatigue!). Before GC2, the only game to cause fatigue like this was Diablo2, which as everyone knows is a clickfest, so you can imagine my surprise when it started happening in GC2. Since then, I've come to realize the problem is caused by the amount of mousing I'm finding I'm forced to do in GC2, and I can no longer help but be conscious of it as I'm playing. ANY change in this regard (general mousing I mean) would make me eternally grateful here.

2. Please add arrow key functionality to the planet view, as well as any screen which has multiple tabs. It would make life significantly easier for those of us who prefer to work from the planet view (especially those of us who prefer to micromanage the planetary focus).

3. Please fix/adjust the behaviour of the ESC key. The manual indicates that it will take us out of any screen we're in, but what it actually does is brings up the menu screen. I assume this is unintentional, as I'd imagine the intended functionality is that it takes you out of the topmost screen and then successive screens until you reach the galaxy view, at which point another ESC would only then bring up the menu. If not, it'd be VERY helpful if it did work this way.

4. Please add confirmation action to the Enter key whenever a dialogue pops up. Ideally, on screens where there is no confirmation or question, it'd be nice to have the Enter key act like the ESC key by taking you back a screen.

5. Please add toggle functionality/behaviour to the function keys. Right now, if I hit F4 to bring up the economy screen, pressing F4 again tries to bring it up again instead of removing it. Interestingly enough, when I actually click the buttons at the bottom of the screen, this is the behaviour that occurs (1 click brings it up, a second click removes it). It'd be nice if a second keypress behaved in the same manner.

6. I don't know if it's feasible since I don't think I've seen a single one of these in game except in the game setup screen, but would it be possible to change the menu item scrollbars to drop down menus? Again, it's just a lot of clicking, and while the wheel functionality helps here, it's still a lot more effort than simply 2 clicks to get exactly where you want, especially in certain lists where the scrollwheel seems to cause items to jump randomly (at least that's what it looks like).

7. Customizable keys? I think I recall reading something from a dev about customizable keys not being possible? This can't be true, can it? And if it is, would you consider at least adding two new key functionalities into the game? One for controlling middle mouse button behaviour (ie. pressing this key would act the same as pressing the middle mouse button right now), and another for controlling tooltips manually. To say that I HATE tooltips, would be an understatement that rivals calling Godzilla a big lizard, but there ARE areas where it's necessary by design, and so it would be a HUGE boon for those of us who have a personal murderous hatred of tooltips to be able to leave them disabled except when you hold down say ALT or something. I will seriously entertain requests of sexual favours for this alone.

8. I'm curious why you want to show destination lines as very faint? As well as showing the coverage ring when placing starbases being very faint? Really, I'd think you'd want these to be abundantly clear and prominent, wouldn't you? Or even better, why not just show them clearly when you actually click on/select a unit? Also, I hope you'll consider using a colour coding for the path line to indicate how far the unit would travel ala green for current turn, yellow for next turn, and red for subsequent turns (or something similar in that vein).

9. Would you consider adding a Continue Move functionality to unit moves? And to go with that, a change to how selecting units via the TAB key cycle works by including units that have move orders and only excluding units which have no more moves?

10. Speaking of unit selection, could we get an option to disable auto-center/snap-to on unit selection? It's particularly trying because there's no arrow key map scroll control, forcing me to clickdrag the map back to where I was trying to observe to direct the unit in question, but if the clickdrag decides to take the focus off the unit, I'm not entirely sure if it's going to move the correct unit or another one altogether. And while I realize that behaviour is a bug which I'm sure will be fixed at some point, recentering on a unit is still inconvenient, as it usually requires that I have to relocate my view to where I wanted the unit to go in the first place.

11. I didn't see any mention of scrollwheel functionality being addressed in the preview list, so I'm just mentioning it here to make sure you're aware of it. Specificaly in regards to the fact that it only seems to be scrolling on the scrollbars themselves in many many displays rather than over the actual displayed item itself (ie. text). It's actually starting to bug me (heh) now as it basically negates the use/point of the scrollwheel, and again, it's just adding more mouse activity to my already fatigued arm

12. Have you considered altering the clickable size of the production focus in the planet view? Specifically, to encompass the entire area like one big button? Right now, even at the lowest resolution, the area to click on to select a planetary focus is rather small, and it would be nice to be able to click anywhere in the general area instead, especially since it's got a nice and clearly defined border already. Leave the image of the button where it is, but allow the clickable area to be the entire section of screen the information takes up.

13. And speaking of planetary production focus, have you considered allowing for 2 focuses or perhaps having a single reduced focus option? I know this is more of a design aspect, and I can totally see where this might not be desireable from a design stance, but if not, would that be possible as well? I'm just finding there are many times when I want to emphasize two paths of production, but not a third, and while I could control it universally, I only want to effect the change on a single planet rather than the entire empire.


Game Options/Setup

I've noticed several new additions to setup options in the coming patch/update, and I'm hoping you'll still be receptive to further ideas/thoughts in this area, as there are several additions that would make the game much more varied and enjoyable I think.

1. No Surrender option(s)? Call it a personal preference, but I actually prefer facing foes that are willing to die to the man, rather than folding like a wet paper bag I actually don't mind it when the AI decides to surrender to another civ while there are other civs in the game, but I just don't like having the last remaining civ give up on me, so I was thinking it might be nice to have a 3 way option with Normal play where the AI surrenders as it does now, a Last Man Standing option where only if the AI is the last remaining civ it will never surrender (not counting minor races) but otherwise the same as it is now, and a No Surrender option where no civs will ever surrender during the game. I imagine it's the evil dictator in me that doesn't find the satisfaction of xenocide quite so enjoyable when they don't put up a fight Also, I can see a really cool scenario emerging from this, where individually, the remaining civs would be crushed by the player, but as chance would have it, everyone decides to surrender to the second most powerful civ and the tables turn almost instantly on the player

2. Civ placement options? Primarily a max distance option that attempts to place civs as far apart as possible, but other options would be nice as well, like close quarters, racial enemies, completely random, etc.

3. No Anomalies option? Pretty self explanatory I think.

4. Always war option? And to go with this, fixed allies/enemies (though I realize this might be asking for a lot considering that I'd imagine it would have some kind of impact on AI behaviour unless there's code in there for this already)?

5. No Minor races? Or perhaps a gradient slider setting? Say 4 or 5 steps from none to crazy?

6. No resources? Or perhaps even a selector to allow for certain resources only?

7. Starbase limits? Say something like a slider that limits the number of starbases by affecting the minimum distance between starbases? From none to max (being similar to the current implementation) and maybe a commensurate sliding scale to costs as well.


Gameplay/Balance Suggestions

Once again, I won't be mentioning the economic mechanics of the game What I will be mentioning is a few aspects that I've found to be, well, lacking really. Or more precisely have some room for improvement.

1. Espionage. I actually have to admit, I was rather surprised with how simple a model the espionage aspect of the game was. That doesn't mean that's a bad thing, as sometimes simpler is...well simply better However, in this case, I kind of have to say it's a touch too simple. I realize there's probably a need to try to stand apart from other games, both in the present and from the past, but there are aspects that really kind of need to be included I think, not so much as a direct copy of one game to another, but more along the lines of a conceptual carryover if you will. For instance, there really should be some distinction as to the type of espionage agents should be enacting, as well as there having to be a better option for maintenance (longterm), and then there's also counter-espionage of course. I don't want to presume to tell you how to implement espionage, but hopefully my espionage model below will give you some ideas that you could mull over and consider implementing.

The model works based on 3 aspects: Cost, Infiltration, and Objectives. Pretty standard really for 4X games, but it's not quite the classical approach. Firstly, the cost aspect is just simply as it appears, the cost of utilizing espionage per civ. However, it's implementation is actually very similar to the current implementation, in that cost is a gradual application of espionage, resulting in slow gradual gains/progression. The critical aspect though, is that as you reach certain tiers of improvement, you must maintain that funding to continue to have a chance at reaping the benefits every turn. If you cut off funding, your espionage level drops every turn (at a fairly significant rate, say double to triple the rate of gains) unless you restore funding, thus making exploiting the -2000 credit cap extremely unappealing (assuming it remains, but even if it's removed, the result will be worse), as well as requiring that you properly manage and maintain your empire's finances (as dropping below the -500 bc ceiling will immediately cut off funding).

Also, while you can throw more money at it, only a fixed amount will always be applied leaving a percentage (say half) that will randomly add to the espionage level, in other words, say you have no espionage with a certain civ. Each tier of espionage (low, medium, etc.) is defined by X espionage points which are accrued over time via bc spending. Let's say that to reach the Low espionage level, you need to accrue 1000 bc. Now, being that the level is Low and not say, High, the maximum fixed addition can only be say, 100 bc (higher levels would allow for more bc per turn). This doesn't mean that the spending slider stops at 100 bc, but rather no matter how much money you toss at it, 100 bc will be the max guaranteed spending allowed per turn, HOWEVER, anything over and above 100 bc will have a random odds chance of being applied at a predefined percentage based on the level (lower the level, lower the overall percentage and lower the odds). So if you were to throw 500 bc at it every turn, only 100 bc would always apply, and the remaining 400 bc would have certain odds to apply a certain possible percentage range of that 400 every turn, thus simulating random factors in espionage. As you spend more money on espionage over time, the espionage levels rise as well as your bonus odds and percentage to apply X bc per turn. Playtesting will need to be done to determine if an upper ceiling should be imparted at each level, though I don't think it should, as it will allow the player to marginalize their spending based on what they know of the upper limits per level. Lastly, as I mentioned already, continued spending must be maintained to reap the benefits of espionage, though a 'bare minimum' spending will allow levels to remain where they are (I do think this amount should be fairly reasonable and perhaps should be based on a low percentage of overall revenue), a reduction in spending will begin to reduce the accumulated espionage points thus far gained, which would affect the possible outcomes of espionage gains as well as reducing the odds of beneficial espionage random events. Also, I'd recommend that certain espionage special events only be allowed to occur after a set minimum spending has elapsed and perhaps even going so far as to implement Special Ops/Missions which could add an entirely new dimension to espionage.

During the initial start of any espionage against another civ, an initial seeding or infiltration needs to take place. Options could include a range of options that are cost associative in their success rates, but there need be no 'hiring' of units per se. This infiltration process would of course need to be repeated if funding drops below a certain point (and I'd recommend not making that lower barrier the lowest setting, but just above it). Further, this seeding/infiltration process doesn't occur overnight, but over a random timeframe (say between 4-8 weeks) where while you're spending money on espionage, there's no chance of any return during this period. To be honest, this is the only part of espionage that I think could stand to be glossed over (infiltration in general) or expanded on, but it seems to me to expand on it would add a level of complexity and/or work that may not be necessary. I only include it to round out the suggestions.

Then come objectives. I like having 4 primary options that you could direct as a gradient slider for each where you have a fixed espionage total that can be applied in small or large quantities to each, or let the computer manage them for you. I personally like having the individual divisions directly relate/impact the chance per turn of an espionage act of that type being successful which would allow for multiple incidents each turn as opposed to having a single check to see if an event occurred and then determining by percentage which result it falls under.

As for the objectives themselves, they are: Theft, Sabotage, Counter-espionage, and Terrorism. Theft is straight forward, primarily tech theft, but planet information, unit deployments, and various other info related items could be stolen. Sabotage could range from improvements, to population, to ships, or even to special events such as population strike on a planet reducing production. Counter-espionage would cover the remaining gamut of cloak and dagger aspects like framing other civs, impacting enemy civs' espionage levels, etc. A huge realm of possibilities spring to mind here. Lastly, we have Terrorism which should be noted that it's really more of a special objective, in that they can only ever be used once per civ, doing so will be expensive, and the various tasks they will have available will be 'big' and/or 'important' missions (perhaps James Bond-like in nature). However, considering the current clime in western culture surrounding even the word Terrorism, I can understand if there's hesitation to implement this aspect. At the very least, I'd imagine a name change would be in order.

Lastly, espionage also needs to have a diplomatic impact, in that whenever an event occurs, it has the potential to improve or damage relations (sometimes with multiple civs involved). Obviously some would have more effect than others, so careful consideration should be give to just how much per each individual action, as well as possibly having an execute approval pop-up asking if you want an agent to go ahead with a certain mission (ie. are you sure you want to do this? type of thing).

Regardless, there you have it. It's actually fairly simple, adds a fair bit of depth to the game both in espionage as well as impacting other aspects of the game (hopefully for the better), and hopefully doesn't bog the game down with too much uneccesary elements/complexity. I'd be happy to expand and give further detail if you'd like, but I've left much of it purposely open ended or vague in certain aspects, figuring you'd like to make your own judgements since you're much more familiar with the game's mechanics and how some of this would affect them.


2. Combat. Personally, I would have preferred there be a tactical element to combat, but I don't mind the cinematic presentation. My only real problem with combat is that it's rather simplistic in it's application. From what I've observed, attackers will always go first and defenders go second (if I'm mistaken here, please correct me). The problem with this is that it allows me to use complete cheese in combat by completely forgoing defense and essentially making paperthin weapons platforms with engines. At the early stage of the game, this isn't really viable since almost everyone will have the same tech base and the tactic I'm about to lay out becomes a gamble due to how little damage can be applied at once. However, as you'll see further down, the gap in weapons tech that WILL arise because you don't have to research defense, will make the tactic exponentially more and more effective.

Basically, the tactic is simple. If the ships in your fleet can do enough damage in a single volley, the defender doesn't even get a chance to fire, thus making the need for things like defense (hell, even HP) moot. This assumes you remain tactically aware of your enemies so that you don't get ambushed and attacked, but that's dependant on the player not being stupid. The larger the fleet (and this is where smaller ships give a significant advantage), the better your odds overall. The advantages of smaller ships vs larger ships is debateable to a degree, however, as the technology disparity grows, the advantage of smaller ships in larger fleets gets larger. In most games I play, I tend to lose 2 ships total through the entire game, and usually only very early on where I'm still relatively evenly matched with the AI in weapon tech. Combat is unfortunately flawed due primarily to this one shortcoming (attacker/defender initiative). What I'd suggest is that there be an initiative aspect incorporated to combat to add a touch of complexity to the game without bogging it down unnecessarily.

Put simply, if an initiative value is incorporated into certain aspects such as tech level, weapons speed, hull speed, and engine speed, the problem of this singular dominant tactic disappears almost entirely. I do think the attacker should get a first round bonus to initiative (say 10%) but nothing that would give them first attack in all cases.

Initiative could be implemented in two ways, either in a simpler overview method, or in a detail method. In the simpler method, all initiative would do is determine which side has the higher initiative rating and determine the attack order based on that (I'd suggest doing so every turn rather than just determining it once and then alternating who fires when) which actually still works perfectly fine, though it still remains rather simplistic. In the detail method, each ship involved is given an initiative value, then analyzed for priority regardless of which side they are on, thus adding a layer of complexity (and dare I say realism!) to combat. Every turn, the remaining ships are re-assessed and given new adjusted initiative values (say based on damage taken) and combat continues until only one side remains.

As for how to determine a particular ship's initiative, I'd do so based on the factors I mentioned above, as well as damage taken and a randomization factor (this is to simulate pilot ability and pure chance) based on their hull size. The higher the value, the earlier they act in the sequence of events. This would also add a layer of complexity that I think players would generally appreciate, as well as fleshing out certain aspects of the tech tree to strive for, that normally may not have such a high priority (as well as perhaps even adding to the tech tree with new techs).

As for how to weight the initiative (ie. importance), I'd say the order of impact should fall to Technology, Hull size, Engines, and then Weapon speed. The randomization factor would be just that, random, so it doesn't really have a place in weighting. I'd also recommend that the randomization factor not be huge (to avoid trivializing the other values), but also not be insignificant so as to have a chance at swaying the outcome (say as much as 20%).

By incoporating initiative, it makes the need/use for defense significantly more important, as well as making any attempt at first strike cheese a complete gamble. Further, much of this will be relatively seemless to the player, but those that pay attention to initiative will be able to make use of it in a tactical manner (ie. players won't need to be utterly immersed in it to be effective, but those that are can improve their odds).


Well, that's about it Again, apologies for the rather long and detailed post, but I hope you'll consider some of the above in a future patch, as I really think they would add a great deal to the pay experience for the player, and personally feel that many of the changes would add significant shelf-life and replay value to the game. If you'd like, I can go further with the detail, and even supply specifics (ie. value/data tables and such) but I'd imagine you'd prefer to get to that point yourselves. Thanks for reading!

Jebus
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