Serious Gameplay Bug

How could this go unnoticed?

from GalCiv2 Forums
[Edit: I've been informed that the developers know about this. Please don't over-react, I am now aware of it. Skip to the PS if you want to.] I am going to try my best to explain this one, but it involves numbers and is a bit complicated. The problem lies with Industrial Capacity and Spending Distribution. If you're already lost, go find out what those are before you read any more.

Here is the problem: The Spending Distribution artificially divides the effect of the industrial capacity! If you have Industrial Capacity set to 100%, and you have your Spending levels at: Social100% and Research100%, then your effective Industrial Capacity is actually only 50%! The game does not do what it is supposed to. It should be using 100% of your income to power your Factories and Labs, splitting it down the middle. Instead, it goes to each planet, and only decides to fill labs 50% and fill factories 50%! This is HUGE. It means that if you have, say 2 factories and 2 labs on one planet, and plenty of income to fill them up, you will never be able to unless you set your Spending level to either Social100% or Research100%.

Now, there is a strange occurence (actually helpful) when you set your spending levels to 33%/33%/33%. What happens here, is that, since both Hammers and Shields come from the same place, it "allows" them to each fill up to the set percentage. In this case, your labs would be 33% filled and your factories would be 66% filled (33% for Social and Military workers).

What Gal Civ should be doing: Gal Civ should allow you to evenly disperse your resources as the Spending Distribution slider says you can. This way, if you have a lot of labs, and only a few factories, it doesn't arbitrarily force you to ALWAYS be producing more beakers than hammers, per se. If you set it to 50/50, it should be producing half of one thing and half the other, without any cap on how full your labs or factories can be. Of course, is is assuming you are able to produc 50/50. If not, then it can adjust itself accordingly, to reconcile itself with how you have the Industrial Capacity set. If I have my Capacity set to 100%, then it means I should be spending 100%, not 50%. Resource management is extremely confusing and the game handles your resources very inefficiently. One last example: If I have my Spending sliders set to Research50% and Social50% and I have 24 units of lab research and 24 units of factory resources on one planet, I can only get 12 from each, regardless of how much money I have. If I want to get all 24 of each, the only solution is to build more labs, and waste more planet real estate! That cannot possibly be intended design, right?

=$= Big J Money =$=

PS -- I don't get any bonuses for my +30% Social ability, but I do from my +30% military. My +20% Research ability seems to average itself out with whatever the planet's personal +X% Research Bonus is, giving me a lower bonus. Also, I am having to pay for all my military bonuses.
6,336 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Must EVERY user suggestion be wrapped as a "bug report". You don't agree with their economic system. That's your right. But it's not a bug.

I don't like how in Civ I'm trapped between building a tank or building a library. But that's not a bug in that game either.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't know about any other user suggestions. This is my first post, and it is something I noticed immediately when trying to manage my empire. I can not fill up my factories no matter what I do (unless I set labs to 100%, for example) even though I have plenty of money to do so. I don't suggest they do anything, but fix the bug! If a developer were to come in here and explain that it is an intentional design of the game, I'd actually feel MUCH better, because it means the AI can't do it either. I may not agree it's a good one, but that's neither here nor there. Also, this is actually a very legitimate gameplay concern whereas your anecdote is purely based on personal preference. I don't know if you have a chip on your shoulder or what, but this isnt' a complaint, it's a bug-report. It got posted in the wrong thread somehow.

Edit: And now it's in the correct thread? Moved?

Anyway, I'll give one final example to make sure the impact is understood, because it's one of those things I would have never noticed had I not been in the right place at the right time. If you want to produce 100 research points, you need to have at least 100bc and 100 spots in factories, etc. You also need to have your Industrial Capacity set to 100%, and your Spending Distribution set to Research100%. Fine; understandable. Now, let's say you want to have 50 Research points and 50 Social points instead. You'd think all you need are 50 factory slots and 50 lab slots, right? No, you need to have 100 factory slots and 100 lab slots to get just 50 of each at 50/50 Spending levels with 100bc. Again, if this is intentional game design (ie. you lose efficiency when you don't specialize), then I will play the game as it was created to be played. I just don't buy that this isn't a bug.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
its "intentional"
its like this because they simply took the eco system from gal civ 1 without thinking too much ...

i totally agree with you that it should not be the way it is

but changing it now will take a lot of balancing in production and research costs, so probably this change will be done in the next big patch or maybe the expansion, at least not any time soon

anyway, its good that more users complain about it, so maybe it will be changed sooner
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As long as they're aware, and the game is balanced around it, I am not concerned. I just hope they are really, really sure the AI doesn't have loop-holes around it. Thanks for actually addressing me, rather than just complaining about my post like the other guy. Sometimes people become too easily defensive over things, I think.

I will add, too, that if they are going for a Gal Civ III, they might consider changing it, since, as a new player (not new to TBS or board gaming, or table top) it caused me a lot of bewilderment. It's not intuitive. 50% research spending might mean 25%. But when you combine Military plus Social, things work out correctly! Since this was my first post..... GREAT game, for sure.

PS -- Don't forget my original PS. It listed a few issues that might or might not actually be genuine bugs.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I might misunderstand You, good sir, but I recon this is not a bug but as much as a misunderstanding.
Top slider is the tax rate.
Second slider is the spend/save ratio.
The remaining sliders are for distribution of the funds you are spending.

This might not be apparent at first, but there You have it.
In SimAnt (oooold game) they had a similar setting with distribution,
but rather then using sliders, they had a “knob” that You could drag around in a triangle. This was much more intuitive.

Or I could just be wrong…..


Rygel XVI - Dominar to over 600 billion (more or less) loyal subjects.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looks to me like you are playing an old version. The non-functional social production bonus was fixed a couple of patches ago and all of the bonus costs will be overhauled in the next patch anyway, as far as I remember.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@Rygel
No, I understand what is going on and what the problem is.

@Todd
Thanks. Yeah, I'm stuck with dialup for the next few days, so I can't get online and download the latest. I did look through the changelogs before I posted. I must have missed the one about the Soc bonus. Good to know I'm not making things up.

=$=
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Rygel is correct. The spending bar reflects how many of your people you're putting to work, and the division bars indicate how many of those people are working in each field.

This is how it works in real life. Think about why something would be that way before you call it a bug.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not a bug.
Not series.
The only seires thing is people like you bug me.

Just cause you dont understand something doesnt make it bug.
If you have so much economy then you can use that to buy stuff (upgrades). And i bet to get this amazing economy you A) have high economy rate B) lots of markets. Solution a) put those skill points somehwere else.... B) build more factories / labs.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well thats very helpful Heroine.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do wish people would be nice on forums....
I agree this is a big fault in the game mechanics which needs to be addressed.
In case anyone doesn't get what Big Money is saying, I'll try and illustrate it differently:

You have one planet, and on this planet you have:
Your capital,which provides 24 technology points, and 24 manufacturing points

So, therefore logics suggests that every turn, finances willing, if you have your INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY set to 100%, then you should be able to produce 24 technology points and 24 manufacturing points, a total of 48 (100%!) "INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY" points per turn.

Not so....
if SPENDING DISTRIBUTION is set to:
50% social, and 50% research - then you produce 12 technology points and 12 manufacturing points (total of 24 points produced, a mere 50% of your "INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY" ! )


33% military,33% social, and 34% research - 14 military, 7 social, and 8 research points ( a total of 21 factory (military and social) points, and 8 research points, 29 in total (around about 57% "INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY" ! )

So with the same building, and potential output, you get an inconsistent amount of capacity used.
It just doesn't make sense that to use your research facilities to full capacity, your factories have to be empty and not producing anything.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems clear to me...
Basically I think research should have it's own slider, 0% to 100%, to allow the player to decide how much of the available research capacity he wants to fund and use. This would work like an "INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY" slider purely for research alone.
Social and Military should have an "INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY" slider for manufacturing points, and social and military should share a slider, as they are distributing the same thing i.e. manufacturing points.So, you have a 0% - 100% slider with social at one end and military at the other, allowing you to decide how to split your manufacturing points between the two.
So you'd still still have 3 sliders : a "RESEARCH CAPACITY" slider, a "MANUFACTURING CAPACITY" slider, and a "MANUFACTURING DISTRIBUTION" slider.
PHEW!


I hope this has made some things clearer to some people, maybe the game is supposed to be like this, but I don't think so. If I'm wrong, I'd love to be enlightened and I'm sure in time the developers will sort this out, along with the other bugs and inconsistencies within the game.
I fully expect to be flamed to death by this rant, so here's my parting shot;
It's only a game, it's not real, and I have just expressed an opinion, NOT INSULTED YOUR WIFE
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Must EVERY user suggestion be wrapped as a "bug report". You don't agree with their economic system. That's your right. But it's not a bug.


The game may be behaving as intended, but the discriptions are wrong (ie buggy). If you have something that allows you to operate at 100% industrial capacity, then that means that you are using ALL your industrial capacity. Having social at 50% and research at 50% means that you are not using it all - thus there is a bug.

Now, I'm not advocating that the game mechanic is changed, but the scale used on that slider is WRONG. It doesnt allow one to go to 100% industrial capacity, unless one forgoes research spending on another slider.

My impression is that whoever designed the user interfaces either doesnt understand what a percentage is (did they prehaps study art without any math background?), or realy doesnt care about acuracy in this game.
Other problem %'s in game are the bonuses one gets for things like sensor range and speed are displayed with % signs in stat pages, but are just not.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's not a bug - it's how the system is designed to work.

I think it's kinda confusing until you get your head around it, and can perfectly understand why some people don't like the mechanics, but it's working the way it's intended to.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Herione, there is no reason to be a forum jerk, just because you haven't understood my post. What I find ironic is how you have convinced yourself I don't understand GalCiv II, when the reality is that you yourself haven't examined enough to understand it. Please, before you make such an omniscient comment, educate yourself. None of what I posted was incorrect. I understand the economic system perfectly. Also, you obviously didn't read the most important part of my post. That is the part where I said that, as long as it's an intentional design, I have no problems with it. There was absolutely no reason to jump on me. I wasn't complaining. You do not contribute to the community one ounce if you post in someone else's thread simply to tell them how much you do not like them. I wish this thread would be locked, it already reached its climax a long time ago when I said I understood the situation, and was willing to work around it. I'm not going to post any more to try and convince people who disagree, because I've already posted it very eloquently above. If you cannot glean it from the above information, you aren't worth debating with, because you were not blessed with logic comprension or patience; whichever. That is not an insult. I have a lot of good friends I won't play Magic The Gathering with, for example, because they argue about rules they cannot understand and feel cheated, untill I can contact Wizards to prove myself correct. It's not worth the headache.

You guys are right, it's not a bug. It's a flaw, and a flaw that I've already forgiven. Please lock this thread, it's going nowhere.

=$=
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i think that the majority of the trouble with this issue is that the controlls are empire wide. rather than based on each planet.

people are making the case that its a bug based in the view of one planets production, when the sliders are controlling the whole empire, compound that with the fact that while the mechanics of the game would suggest one thing (IE moneys example) the implimentation is in reality a different way (IE cayotes explination).

its working fine as it is, and no the AI dont get an advantage, they are playing out of the same rule book. but i think its clear that this debate can be best explaned as that we are all reading the wrong rule book to START with. only after playing for a while and mulling over this issue that we write our OWN rule book.

in any case its clear that the system isnt explaned enough to begin with. its as simple as looking at a glass half full or half empty.

is the system a bug because its not working as we assume it SHOULD be working? or is it actualy right and the 'bug' is in the fact that the system isnt explaned fully as it should have been by the 'rule book' to begin with?

there is alot of math i could list to show what i mean, and ill list it if asked. but it tends to make peoples eyes glaze over. but i believe that the system works and isnt cheating but its set up in such a way as too leave alot of questions unanswered for people whoes eyes DONT glaze over when the numbers start to crunch