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GalCiv2 Forums
GalCiv2 Forums
I gotta say, you guys rock. So many features of this game seem to be designed specifically to fix what otherwise would be a nasty annoyance. The little icons over planets, the rally points, the ability to turn off certain annoying features (GNN News, quarterly reports, etc), the fact that you can see how long each planetary improvement would take to build.
And you not only admit when something is a bug, you call it a "screwup". Other publishers act like you've slapped their sister if you suggest they messed something up. This is the first game I've played that feels like another gamer designed it, rather than a programmer.
These are some things I'd like to see improved or redone:
Fleet combat: I ranted about this in another post. When two fleets go at it, my ships all attack the enemy's weakest ships. When there are two dreadnoughts, three battleships and a number of fighters, I DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR FIGHTERS. I want to kill their dreadnoughts as quickly as possible, rather than waste time with smaller units that I can kill later.
That is just ignorant combat tactics. Ask any navy officer - you go for the carrier, not the frigates escorting it or the fighters protecting it. I'm not going for cheap kills, I'm trying to win. I lost a huge number of massive battle fleets trying to kill pirates because they were wasting their attack turns on fighters and ignoring dreadnoughts.
I understand its turn based and not realtime, but I want at least to be able to pick which enemy ship to concentrate on during my attack. Or at least tell it to go after the most powerful ships first. I would NEVER waste time on a fighter if there's a battleship that needs killing.
Eyes of the Universe: Increased sensor range - very cool. See all ships on the minimap - not cool.
If you're playing a gigantic or huge galaxy with several other races, that'll slow the game down horribly. It's happened to me. Plus, that's just too much advantage to the player, being able to see ships that aren't within sensor range.
Galactic Privateer: I honestly think this one is broken or something. It's supposed to prevent attacks on your freighters. And it does, when pirates or Dread Lords try to attack. But, in the same game where the Dread Lords couldn't attack my freighters, the Korx could. They declared war on me and started blowing up my freighters. What happened to my protection??
Also, although the Dread Lords couldn't attack my shipping, they kept trying anyway. It was like they were obsessed. There must have been two dozen battleships following one freighter along its trade route. Which wouldn't be a problem, EXCEPT that it kept focusing on that freighter because of the attempted attack. I had to turn off "Move camera to attack" because of it and I really like that particular feature.
Planetary build queue: I can't stand this one. The game automatically focuses empty tiles when I'm building and it drives me crazy. I build in a certain order - starport > factory > fleet manager > planetary defense > farm > approval building etc. But the game seems obsessed with a certain order. I save the terraforming etc for last, but it keeps focusing on unusable tiles and I keep having to switch to another and back and forth. Or it keeps focusing on bonus tiles I don't want to use just yet. Drives me friggin nuts. So, no autofocusing empty tiles. Or make it optional, because I'm sure some people like it.
Autofocus ships with move points: GAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it STOP focusing on ships with movement points! I'm trying to watch a war or trying to manage an armada of fleets or WHATEVER and it will not stop yanking the camera around to a ship I'm not ready to deal with yet. I don't want it on sentry or guard. I'll get to that ship when I'm ready. LEAVE ME ALONE SO I CAN PLAY THE GAME!
Stacked ships: I consider this to be a bug. You stack 3 ships on top of 3 other ships. One of those ships is still focused. When you select another ship somewhere and tell it to move, the focused ship you just stacked thinks you're giving it an order and it moves, totally screwing up what I was trying to do. Once I select another ship, CLEARLY that's the ship I'm giving orders to, not the one I just finished with. Please fix that.
Also, I'd like to be able to A) disband a fleet sitting in a stack of ships/fleets and
see the ships that are in that fleet and their abilities, just as if that fleet/ship was not in a stack. Sometimes I move in reinforcements into a stack with a fleet that just got shredded, only to have to move it back out because I can't disband the current fleet.
Shipyard: I have several suggestions for the shipyard.
I'd like to be able to see what components a ship has by selecting it in the shipyard. The only way to do that now is to build the thing and launch it. Not the best way to see what weapons a new dreadnought or battleship has.
When upgrading a ship, I'd like for it not to lose the components I added. That it keeps the jewelry is fine, but that's not what I'm upgrading. I have to work around this by building a ship, launching it then WRITING DOWN what it has. Bleah...... Maybe add a new button specifically to clear out existing modules without removing jewelry. It would be nice if I could pick a core ship for upgrade too. I like some of the designs, if not the weaponry.
I'd like for it to show me my current bonuses alongside the default ship abilities. Like, if all of my ships have improved sensor range or speed over the default, I'd like to see that. That way I don't add engines, sensors, life support and other stuff I don't need currently.
Bug - Doom Ray: The doom ray doesn't have a picture.
I'd like to be able to sort the components by the most advanced. Like, if I click on the BEAM button, it sorts all the beam weapons from the most powerful down to the least powerful. Or sort by component size or cost or whatever.
I'd really like to see a new category called "Future ship designs", where it shows me what is available in the future. I have a couple of designs that I use in every game, but it seems like I have to redesign it every time because I can't remember what techs I need to get to it. It also would help avoid giving two or more ships the same name by accident. I lost a very good fighter design because I gave a lesser fighter design the same name.
Ship Movement: It would be nice if it would light up the radius of how far a ship can move in the current turn when you click on it, the same way it lights up to show a starbase's influence. As it is, I have to turn on the grid and sit there counting squares. I've lost a number of ships because an enemy was just out of range and I didn't realize it.
Sensor bug: This one is REALLY annoying. Sometimes a unit loses its sensor abilities until I focus it again. It seems to happen VERY frequently to starbases. I build those sensors for a reason you know.....
Also, if I lose a ship or sell/give it away, I still have sensor capabilities for it in the same area, although there is nothing there.
Trading screen: I'd like to be able to minimize the trading screen without losing it, so that I can look at the map during a trade. The reason - when a friend is getting beat by his enemy and begs for help, I'd like to be able to look at the map and see what ships I have near him that I can give to him. Or, if I've beaten an enemy and they know it and they're asking for peace, I'd like to be able to look and see the name of that planet I was just about to take and demand they give it over as a peace condition.
I'd also like to demand tribute with the threat of something bad happening if they don't say yes. Currently it comes across as me asking politely for money and they don't understand that I'm making a demand (maybe this is different if you're evil).
- Related to this... When talking to a minor race, their starships/starbases don't show up on their side. With the Akilians especially, they have a tendency to build influence bases right next to Earth and it drives me nuts. It doesn't show up on the trading screen, so the only way to get rid of it is to attack it. Then we make peace. Then they build another base and we're at war again. Bah! So, I'd like to be able to demand they hand it over, or else.
Starbases: I'd like it show me which modules are currently available for a starbase, instead of just the number. I'm not going to arm a mining base unless it's near an enemy. I end up sending fleets of constructors to upgrade bases, only to find that there is nothing more I want to add to it.
Also, I want to be able to tell a military starbase to attack enemy ships within its zone. All that firepower just sitting there useless. If it can project weaponry into a fleet battle, it should be able to attack on its own.
Announcements: "Major Breakthrough on %planet%. We have a report that %race% has built a %thing%". I hate that. Can I please turn that off?
Audio bug: When reloading a game, it forgets my audio settings and the music is sooooooooo loud.
Ship mouseover: When mousing over a ship, I'd like to see who it belongs to along with its name. The Dread Lords are nearly the same color as the Drengin. The pirates and the Drath are EXACTLY the same color. That's caused me to ignore them more than once and lose ships.
Espionage slider: The espionage slider ought to be on the same tab as the report tab, so I don't have to keep switching back and forth to see whether or not I have advanced intelligence on them yet.
And you not only admit when something is a bug, you call it a "screwup". Other publishers act like you've slapped their sister if you suggest they messed something up. This is the first game I've played that feels like another gamer designed it, rather than a programmer.
These are some things I'd like to see improved or redone:
Fleet combat: I ranted about this in another post. When two fleets go at it, my ships all attack the enemy's weakest ships. When there are two dreadnoughts, three battleships and a number of fighters, I DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR FIGHTERS. I want to kill their dreadnoughts as quickly as possible, rather than waste time with smaller units that I can kill later.
That is just ignorant combat tactics. Ask any navy officer - you go for the carrier, not the frigates escorting it or the fighters protecting it. I'm not going for cheap kills, I'm trying to win. I lost a huge number of massive battle fleets trying to kill pirates because they were wasting their attack turns on fighters and ignoring dreadnoughts.
I understand its turn based and not realtime, but I want at least to be able to pick which enemy ship to concentrate on during my attack. Or at least tell it to go after the most powerful ships first. I would NEVER waste time on a fighter if there's a battleship that needs killing.
Eyes of the Universe: Increased sensor range - very cool. See all ships on the minimap - not cool.
If you're playing a gigantic or huge galaxy with several other races, that'll slow the game down horribly. It's happened to me. Plus, that's just too much advantage to the player, being able to see ships that aren't within sensor range.
Galactic Privateer: I honestly think this one is broken or something. It's supposed to prevent attacks on your freighters. And it does, when pirates or Dread Lords try to attack. But, in the same game where the Dread Lords couldn't attack my freighters, the Korx could. They declared war on me and started blowing up my freighters. What happened to my protection??
Also, although the Dread Lords couldn't attack my shipping, they kept trying anyway. It was like they were obsessed. There must have been two dozen battleships following one freighter along its trade route. Which wouldn't be a problem, EXCEPT that it kept focusing on that freighter because of the attempted attack. I had to turn off "Move camera to attack" because of it and I really like that particular feature.
Planetary build queue: I can't stand this one. The game automatically focuses empty tiles when I'm building and it drives me crazy. I build in a certain order - starport > factory > fleet manager > planetary defense > farm > approval building etc. But the game seems obsessed with a certain order. I save the terraforming etc for last, but it keeps focusing on unusable tiles and I keep having to switch to another and back and forth. Or it keeps focusing on bonus tiles I don't want to use just yet. Drives me friggin nuts. So, no autofocusing empty tiles. Or make it optional, because I'm sure some people like it.
Autofocus ships with move points: GAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it STOP focusing on ships with movement points! I'm trying to watch a war or trying to manage an armada of fleets or WHATEVER and it will not stop yanking the camera around to a ship I'm not ready to deal with yet. I don't want it on sentry or guard. I'll get to that ship when I'm ready. LEAVE ME ALONE SO I CAN PLAY THE GAME!
Stacked ships: I consider this to be a bug. You stack 3 ships on top of 3 other ships. One of those ships is still focused. When you select another ship somewhere and tell it to move, the focused ship you just stacked thinks you're giving it an order and it moves, totally screwing up what I was trying to do. Once I select another ship, CLEARLY that's the ship I'm giving orders to, not the one I just finished with. Please fix that.
Also, I'd like to be able to A) disband a fleet sitting in a stack of ships/fleets and
see the ships that are in that fleet and their abilities, just as if that fleet/ship was not in a stack. Sometimes I move in reinforcements into a stack with a fleet that just got shredded, only to have to move it back out because I can't disband the current fleet.Shipyard: I have several suggestions for the shipyard.
I'd like to be able to see what components a ship has by selecting it in the shipyard. The only way to do that now is to build the thing and launch it. Not the best way to see what weapons a new dreadnought or battleship has.
When upgrading a ship, I'd like for it not to lose the components I added. That it keeps the jewelry is fine, but that's not what I'm upgrading. I have to work around this by building a ship, launching it then WRITING DOWN what it has. Bleah...... Maybe add a new button specifically to clear out existing modules without removing jewelry. It would be nice if I could pick a core ship for upgrade too. I like some of the designs, if not the weaponry.
I'd like for it to show me my current bonuses alongside the default ship abilities. Like, if all of my ships have improved sensor range or speed over the default, I'd like to see that. That way I don't add engines, sensors, life support and other stuff I don't need currently.
Bug - Doom Ray: The doom ray doesn't have a picture.
I'd like to be able to sort the components by the most advanced. Like, if I click on the BEAM button, it sorts all the beam weapons from the most powerful down to the least powerful. Or sort by component size or cost or whatever.
I'd really like to see a new category called "Future ship designs", where it shows me what is available in the future. I have a couple of designs that I use in every game, but it seems like I have to redesign it every time because I can't remember what techs I need to get to it. It also would help avoid giving two or more ships the same name by accident. I lost a very good fighter design because I gave a lesser fighter design the same name.
Ship Movement: It would be nice if it would light up the radius of how far a ship can move in the current turn when you click on it, the same way it lights up to show a starbase's influence. As it is, I have to turn on the grid and sit there counting squares. I've lost a number of ships because an enemy was just out of range and I didn't realize it.
Sensor bug: This one is REALLY annoying. Sometimes a unit loses its sensor abilities until I focus it again. It seems to happen VERY frequently to starbases. I build those sensors for a reason you know.....
Also, if I lose a ship or sell/give it away, I still have sensor capabilities for it in the same area, although there is nothing there.
Trading screen: I'd like to be able to minimize the trading screen without losing it, so that I can look at the map during a trade. The reason - when a friend is getting beat by his enemy and begs for help, I'd like to be able to look at the map and see what ships I have near him that I can give to him. Or, if I've beaten an enemy and they know it and they're asking for peace, I'd like to be able to look and see the name of that planet I was just about to take and demand they give it over as a peace condition.
I'd also like to demand tribute with the threat of something bad happening if they don't say yes. Currently it comes across as me asking politely for money and they don't understand that I'm making a demand (maybe this is different if you're evil).
- Related to this... When talking to a minor race, their starships/starbases don't show up on their side. With the Akilians especially, they have a tendency to build influence bases right next to Earth and it drives me nuts. It doesn't show up on the trading screen, so the only way to get rid of it is to attack it. Then we make peace. Then they build another base and we're at war again. Bah! So, I'd like to be able to demand they hand it over, or else.
Starbases: I'd like it show me which modules are currently available for a starbase, instead of just the number. I'm not going to arm a mining base unless it's near an enemy. I end up sending fleets of constructors to upgrade bases, only to find that there is nothing more I want to add to it.
Also, I want to be able to tell a military starbase to attack enemy ships within its zone. All that firepower just sitting there useless. If it can project weaponry into a fleet battle, it should be able to attack on its own.
Announcements: "Major Breakthrough on %planet%. We have a report that %race% has built a %thing%". I hate that. Can I please turn that off?
Audio bug: When reloading a game, it forgets my audio settings and the music is sooooooooo loud.
Ship mouseover: When mousing over a ship, I'd like to see who it belongs to along with its name. The Dread Lords are nearly the same color as the Drengin. The pirates and the Drath are EXACTLY the same color. That's caused me to ignore them more than once and lose ships.
Espionage slider: The espionage slider ought to be on the same tab as the report tab, so I don't have to keep switching back and forth to see whether or not I have advanced intelligence on them yet.
- more time to see the numbers come up. That seems kinda farcical. And if we're going to have the bombardment attacks, can we see buildings blow up or waves come crashing in? 
, it would probably take alot of trial and error to get a good system for that up so meh