Feedback and ideas from a *mostly* satisfied user

Feedback and ideas from a *mostly* satisfied user

Hi.

I'm hoping this will either reach the developers or generate some help from other forum members.

I've been playing since galciv2 came to retail. For the most part I''ve been very happy. One of my classic all time favoriate space 4x games was Master of Orion (MOO). Please exlcude the puke that was known as MOO3.

Anyways, issues I have with galciv2 are (and please let me know if there are ways to do any of this already).

1. If I have a massivley military producing planet, why can't I produce more then one ship at a time. In MOO, if I was producing 100 per turn and the ship I was builing only required 10, then 10 ships would be built. Here, it only produces 1 ship at a time even if the ship cost is only a fraction of what the shipyard can do.

2. I really miss having missles / shields on a planet for defense. I loved to be able to get a planet to a certain degree of readiness then leave it alone. Missles could be upgraded when new techs were researched. But I didn't need to manage fleets for plantary defense all the time. If a planet was attacked, they needed to get through my defense first before any damage was done thereby leaving me time to pull in ships for reinforcement.

3. I don't see why there is no defense net for areas of influence. For example, If I'm at war with someone, I usually don't know where their ships are until I'm attacked. This is because I usually play the game at max zoom out while still being able to see the regular map (i.e., non-tacticle). Some of the ships can be quite small and easy to miss. If I have the area of space equiped with sensors on stations, why can't I have some easy way of flagging all enemy ships. Or better yet, have my automated defense stations attack them up to 'x' parsecs away. At the least it would greatly make manageing warfare easier if quickly see exactly where enemy ships were in my area of space. In MOO, there were hot keys to take you to enemy fleets that were aimed at your colonies.

4. It seems ships don't remember their orders. I place a fleet on autokill and it only lasts for one turn. Again, related to the above, war requires too much micromanagment. I want to tell a fleet to patrol an area and then blast any ships they find (or tell me first and then have the option to engage). I shouldn't have to set this option each turn.

5. Again along the same lines, an even more automated way to do it would be to allow a weekly amount of money to be poured into the "defense fund". The more money that was put in, or the closer an enemy got to a colony, the more likely they would show up on a defense net alert screen and maybe be automatically fired upon without the player actually having to manage a bunch of fleets solely for defense. Of course research paths would make this more or less reliable and other techs would allow for stealth ship to slip on by and attack without notice (until they attack). A weak enemy wouldn't even be able to get their ship near a planet or base without being automatically destroyed while a more advanced one might slip in some hunter-killer class ships to take a strategic base ahead of the fleet.


Anyways, thanks for listening. Comments welcome, flames not.

5,847 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
GalCiv isn't MOO. Some of us were not MOO fans. I didn't care to mess around with 20,000 ships where a planet was making 40 per turn.

I like option #3 but then why aren't you playing in strategic mode at that stage?
Reply #2 Top
1: Building 10 ships per turn from a single factory is impossible. The quantity of production that you lose is pretty minimal.

This game is not about bringing to bear vast armadas of warships. You use smaller numbers of ships that you have to take care of and keep track of. Indeed, I've had heavy fighters that have had more HP due to experience than medium hulls.


2: This game is aggresive in war. The attacker has a distinct advantage, and defense is penalized.

Hit them before they hit your planets.


3: See point 2. Also, you can build fast cargo hulled ships with lots of sensors if you need to keep tabs on an area.


4a: The autokill thing may be a bug.

4b: This game is not about having the game play itself for you. Once again, it's about small groups of warships. That means that you have the time to micromanage them meaningfully.


5: See 4b.

However, I like the idea of having stealth technology. That is not the same a cloaking. You can still see a stealth fighter, just not on radar. A stealth ship should effectively 1/3 or so the sensor range of ships trying to detect them. So a ship with 6 sensors could detect a stealth ship at range 2.
Reply #3 Top
I love stuff like missile bases for def - I would looove to have such techs included!
Reply #4 Top
I agree with a few, esp the game NOT remembering my orders, on some commands
Reply #5 Top
I think automation is good. You can choose to use it, or not, but anything that makes the game play smoother will make the game more fun. Some people like to manage a ship turn by turn, and others want to just put it on patrol, RTS style.

I also agree with the production complaint. Research doesn't have this problem, why should ship production? Simply stating that the game isn't about massive fleets isn't an answer because for a specific player the game might be about exactly that. Everyone has a different take on how to play, and the game supports that. It's part of what makes Gal Civ II so cool.

I love the radar/stealth idea, which would provide a whole 'nother line of research: Stealth and Detection. Perhaps it could just be a higher level sensors branch, so that people don't have stealth early on. Cloaking could be higher yet. There could even be a race that has advantages in this, and tends to show up at undefended planets with an invasion force.

Some of the ship management stuff is annoying, and I'm looking forward to 1.1 to see what has been improved.
Reply #6 Top
Stealth would be a good option. We can do that today, why not 200 years from now?

1. If I have a massivley military producing planet, why can't I produce more then one ship at a time.

I'm with you. During the "Dreadlords on parade" scenario, I had one planet surrounded by economy starbases that could produce a superdreadnought (with massive weaponry/defenses) every single week. If it can do a superdreadnought in one week, why not 50 fighters in that same week?

2. I really miss having missles / shields on a planet for defense.

Not what you meant, but this is what I do for the same purpose. I build a military starbase around every key planet with all the possible modules. Every planet should have *at least* one defender in orbit.

If I know an attack is coming and I can't fight it off, I'll put a whole fleet into orbit (with orbital fleet manager). Fleet + orbital manager + starbase = Attack that planet only if you're tired of your warships >: )

3. I don't see why there is no defense net for areas of influence. ... At the least it would greatly make manageing warfare easier if quickly see exactly where enemy ships were in my area of space.

Are you putting sensors on your bases? You can see up to 15 parsecs away if you install all the sensor modules. Build a string of them around your territory, or build a cheap cargo hull ship packed with sensors. I do either/both, depending on what's going on.

4. It seems ships don't remember their orders

God that's annoying. What I want to do is tell a warship to guard + autoattack, but autoattack only works for one turn.

For my own suggestions, I'd like to see starbases be able to attack ships within their range. If they can project firewpower for your ships, why can't they attack on their own?