Issues and Suggestions
From an admitted noob :)
from 
GalCiv2 Forums
GalCiv2 Forums
Well, now that I've played several games as differerent races and using different strategies, I've got some things to say. So in no particular order, here we go ...
1) In the Dread Lords campaign, I'll get panicky pleas for help from the other races like "The ward agains the Dread Lords is going badly, is there anything you can do?". Problem is, I know that they haven't been touched at all by the Dread Lords because my territory is between the DL and the race that's complaining that they're losing.
2) During the DL campaign, the other races just sit there unless they've been directly attacked by the DL. So here I am, their "ally", getting pounded and they do nothing to help out. They build up some forces and sit inside their borders, letting me do all the work.
3) Ok, so if I'm meant to be the ones to take on the DL, I need some way of telling my "allies" to go and deal with the Drengin or the Yor and keep them off my back. The "Attack..." option in the diplomacy screen doesn't do anything in the DL campaign, so I have no way of telling the Arceans to go smack around the Drengin if they're not gonna help me with the DL
I mean heck, if I can avoid a two or even three front war by having my "allies" deal with the smaller problems, isn't that the point of having allies?
4) Custom ship designs are great but there needs to be a better way of managing custom designs. When I get to a point in a game where I need a custom ship, I create one. I can't see the ones I've created before if I haven't reached the same tech level. If I created a ship as a different race, I can't see those either. I end up reusing ship names and overwriting my old designs simply because I'm lazy at naming ships.
5) I find I dislike, and end up not using, the macro-economic sliders. The tax rate one is easy enough to deal with but the Military/Social/Research slider idea needs a re-think. Its too easy to work against yourself by perhaps setting the macro-sliders to emphasize one thing and then on a planetary basis change the "focus" to something opposite. Seems to me the best way would just be to have the planetary settings be the controlling mechanism. I'll even go one step further and say that the macro-econ sliders should go away entirely and do it on a planetary basis. I mean, why shouldn't I be able to do taxation on planetary basis as a way of managing morale on that planet? By that same token, the production focus on any given planet should control the allocation of resources entirely. I would say that in place of the single-click focus there should be a slider that defaults to 50%. That way, I can change the planetary production focus as I see fit. Changing the sliders should automatically change the expenditures accordingly, so you can see how it affects your planetary "budget". Negative numbers are allowed, since the bills are paid out of the racial bank account
6) Morale should be shown on a planetary basis with some sort of up/down/neutral trend indicator, so I can see how my decisions are affecting the planetary morale. This way, I can see if I change the tax rate on that planet how it affects my morale trends.
7) Position of items should have an effect on what you can trade it for in the diplomacy screen. For example, the Altarians put an Military starbase in an area that I end up controlling. In fact, after a bit the military starbase is entirely ecompassed in my territory. I try to trade for that starbase andthe Altarians won't do it. My only option is to go to war and destroy it and ruin my diplomatic status with the Altarians at the same time. Had the AI been more reasonable and realized that the starbase is in jeopardy by being in my territory, they should be more accomodating about releasing it.
8) The Research slider should not be tied to the Military or Social production sliders. Its merely a question of whether I fully fund my research facilities or not, which should have no impact on miliary or social. Funding N research centers at Y percent of their capacity costs X billion credits from my bank account. Same with military or social - level of production of that resource costs a certain amount of money.
9) What happened to the United Federation during the Dread Lords campaign? Why can't we use the UFP during it? I mean, it would be awfully nice to have some of the resolutions like arming transports or sharing of starbase bonuses
10) A new set of Governors that can display all available ships. If they are in orbit around a planet, there would be a "select all of ship type X" and then an option to to launch those ships. You could then select select a group of ships by type and give them a destination - not a rally point, just a common destination for those selected ships. This would really help with Constructors. Rally points aren't ideal because those are set on a planetary basis, meaning no matter what ship type is produced it goes to the same location. So if you make a quick Star Fury in the middle of a run of Constructors, the Star Fury will end up on top of the Starbase you were constructing
Well, that's my list for now So far I'm having a good time with the game, so keep it going Stardock!
1) In the Dread Lords campaign, I'll get panicky pleas for help from the other races like "The ward agains the Dread Lords is going badly, is there anything you can do?". Problem is, I know that they haven't been touched at all by the Dread Lords because my territory is between the DL and the race that's complaining that they're losing.
2) During the DL campaign, the other races just sit there unless they've been directly attacked by the DL. So here I am, their "ally", getting pounded and they do nothing to help out. They build up some forces and sit inside their borders, letting me do all the work.
3) Ok, so if I'm meant to be the ones to take on the DL, I need some way of telling my "allies" to go and deal with the Drengin or the Yor and keep them off my back. The "Attack..." option in the diplomacy screen doesn't do anything in the DL campaign, so I have no way of telling the Arceans to go smack around the Drengin if they're not gonna help me with the DL
I mean heck, if I can avoid a two or even three front war by having my "allies" deal with the smaller problems, isn't that the point of having allies?4) Custom ship designs are great but there needs to be a better way of managing custom designs. When I get to a point in a game where I need a custom ship, I create one. I can't see the ones I've created before if I haven't reached the same tech level. If I created a ship as a different race, I can't see those either. I end up reusing ship names and overwriting my old designs simply because I'm lazy at naming ships.
5) I find I dislike, and end up not using, the macro-economic sliders. The tax rate one is easy enough to deal with but the Military/Social/Research slider idea needs a re-think. Its too easy to work against yourself by perhaps setting the macro-sliders to emphasize one thing and then on a planetary basis change the "focus" to something opposite. Seems to me the best way would just be to have the planetary settings be the controlling mechanism. I'll even go one step further and say that the macro-econ sliders should go away entirely and do it on a planetary basis. I mean, why shouldn't I be able to do taxation on planetary basis as a way of managing morale on that planet? By that same token, the production focus on any given planet should control the allocation of resources entirely. I would say that in place of the single-click focus there should be a slider that defaults to 50%. That way, I can change the planetary production focus as I see fit. Changing the sliders should automatically change the expenditures accordingly, so you can see how it affects your planetary "budget". Negative numbers are allowed, since the bills are paid out of the racial bank account
6) Morale should be shown on a planetary basis with some sort of up/down/neutral trend indicator, so I can see how my decisions are affecting the planetary morale. This way, I can see if I change the tax rate on that planet how it affects my morale trends.
7) Position of items should have an effect on what you can trade it for in the diplomacy screen. For example, the Altarians put an Military starbase in an area that I end up controlling. In fact, after a bit the military starbase is entirely ecompassed in my territory. I try to trade for that starbase andthe Altarians won't do it. My only option is to go to war and destroy it and ruin my diplomatic status with the Altarians at the same time. Had the AI been more reasonable and realized that the starbase is in jeopardy by being in my territory, they should be more accomodating about releasing it.
8) The Research slider should not be tied to the Military or Social production sliders. Its merely a question of whether I fully fund my research facilities or not, which should have no impact on miliary or social. Funding N research centers at Y percent of their capacity costs X billion credits from my bank account. Same with military or social - level of production of that resource costs a certain amount of money.
9) What happened to the United Federation during the Dread Lords campaign? Why can't we use the UFP during it? I mean, it would be awfully nice to have some of the resolutions like arming transports or sharing of starbase bonuses
10) A new set of Governors that can display all available ships. If they are in orbit around a planet, there would be a "select all of ship type X" and then an option to to launch those ships. You could then select select a group of ships by type and give them a destination - not a rally point, just a common destination for those selected ships. This would really help with Constructors. Rally points aren't ideal because those are set on a planetary basis, meaning no matter what ship type is produced it goes to the same location. So if you make a quick Star Fury in the middle of a run of Constructors, the Star Fury will end up on top of the Starbase you were constructing
Well, that's my list for now
So far I'm having a good time with the game, so keep it going Stardock!
That led to me acutally understanding the economic system in GalCivII. I find it to be one of the more innovative that I have seen.
