GalCivII - Good game, shame about the details

from GalCiv2 Forums
I don't have vast experience of 4X games. Colonisation and Space Empires III, those are about the only ones I played. Colonisation I beat as the English and never went back to it. Good fun though.

Space Empires III though, that game got its hooks into me deep. It's the only reason I look at 4X games. The demo was addictive and the full game amazing. I wasn't one for multiplayer, so it was purely AI fights for me. On hard, in a large galaxy with maximum civs it provided a real challenge for me... oh how I loved SEIII, from the various treaties, to the way you could customise civs, to random AI civs, simple to design ship graphics (I even released a ship style set... number 34 in the official pack I think it was, the Quitchonian Empire), random events... loved it. For some reason I never bought SEIV though, I guess I just liked SEIII too much and couldn't be bothered to learn the changes I'm looking forward to SE5 to see if it recreates the magic, though the new 3D look scares me.

Anyway, I was always intrigued by Galactic Civilisations because of the praise for its AI. I made AIs for the RTS Total Annihilation (not that there was much you could change), and have always been a fan of a strong AI. The multiplayer crowd tends to vastly overrate itself, and I got tired of reading replies to "Improving the AI" topics things like "Play a human". Well, some people just can't be bothered with that, aren't interested, want a more relaxing game etc. So, when Galactic Civilisations II came along, I decided to pick up a copy (I'd been buying up things from my back catalogue, so since I was in a spending mood...)

Anyway, the game has proven addictive. It took a little while to get into, for two reasons:

1. The economic model is rather different to what I'm used to, and there's quite the curve of learning what interacts with what etc.

2. The campaign is rather dull. I have since stopped bothering with it. What Westwood and Blizzard recognised, something Stardock haven't quite grasped, is that without an engaging backstory, without exciting events between missions to draw you into the story, and without characters to care about, there's no reason to play in a crippled version of the game when sandbox/skirmish mode is available. Since the GalCiv2 campaign offers nothing over sandbox, to play it is simply to bore yourself.

Anyway, I dumped the campaign and have been having fun on the Metaverse, after I finally penetrated the truly painful sign-up systems, which, as I recall, required at least two seperate sign ons.

And this is the problem with Galactic Civilisations II, it's a great game let down by countless niggly problems. The metaverse is one such issue, you can create a password with symbols in it, but that won't work in game because it doesn't accept symbols, but you've no way to knowing that.

I find the diplomacy aspect of the game severely lacking. Speaking to another race is useful only to see what tech, planets and ships they have (which in turn means there's little for the intelligence aspect of the game to do), and to trade for tech. Stardock say they want the AI to act like a human, yet the AI can threaten you, or tell you when it's coming to your assistance, yet you can't do the same to it. Space in GC2 feels very lonely because there's not much reason to talk to the other races, and so I personally feel the random Empires of SE3 had more personality because you'd threaten each other, make demands, and work your way up various levels of treaty which would in turn effect trade. There's really no reason to ally in GC2 since it merely helps them go for an alliance victory, and there's zero cost for them failing to honour an alliance in a time of war (or you for that matter), barring the difficulty in regaining that alliance later.

But the element of the game that really irks me is the UI. In the post-mortem, Brad said he'd learned you need to bring in fresh beta testers for each stage of development. He's right, and the fact that they didn't shows, simply because the UI falls apart in so many areas and smells of people getting used to "working around" problems. One glaringly obvious area is the fact you cannot order an upgrade for a stacked ship, or ship in a fleet, but you can upgrade that ship by choosing a mass upgrade from another ship. Also, Brad has talked about a game freed from the CD, but the game fails to provide a lot of valuable information, meaning you are tied to the manual!! There is no way to find out what a starbase module does without researching it and trying to upgrade a starbase (assuming it's the right type), so you need to refer to the manual. There's no way to find out your current logistics value without going to the research screen and adding up numbers from the logistics path. There's no way to find the logistics value of a ship unless you stack it with another ship... it's in the manual, but they've since changed the values!! Don't even get me started on auto-centring on a selected ship, or automatically moving to the next ship. The fact that some commands have tool tips while others mysteriously don't. That hotkeys exist for almost, but not all the main controls. The way it's impossible to see a planets focus without visiting the planet. That the starbase list is hidden as a tab in the ship view. That sometimes the game uses dropdown boxes while other times it uses lists you click through one at a time. That many items aren't sorted in alphabetical order. That you can reverse a sort order by clicking the name, but this isn't documented. That some races racial abilities are hidden while others aren't. That you can overwrite racial abilities, but not restore them. That the custom race's built-in racial abilities aren't customisable in-game (making the whole custom race thing bloody pointless).

The list goes on and on. I created a topic over on the SD forums detailing no less than fourty seperate UI problems. Since then I've discovered at good twenty more, but I just can't be bothered to keep interrupting my game to note them down anymore, especially as 1.1, while a good patch especially in the AI areas, just failed to correct almost every UI problem documented (and the inability to upgrade ships in most circumstances is not exactly a low profile issue).

The game is really fun to play, don't get me wrong, though there are some things I think the Space Empires series did better (and some differences in GC I enjoy) I love it, but the whole thing is just lacking that final spit and polish that makes a professional product. Every time I encounter a problem I'm just left wondering, WTF didn't a beta tester spot this? Why wasn't this fixed?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Careful what you post, Quitch - there's a base of rabid fanboys around on these forums and they're bound to bite unless you brainlessly praise the game, even if your points are valid. This is going to cause a lot of hate but I don't care much: Try a game of Civilization 4. The Civ AI may cheat at higher levels, but it makes for a much more cunning opponent than GC offers. Also, it includes in GC sorely lacking things like a foreign relations screen that let's you get a quick overview of relations to all known civilizations and their techologies and ressources.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Strategist - no, what gets people annoyed is when people make a bunch of posts on the same topic.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, I don't find anything objectionable in this. I hope attention stays fixed on issues like the UI and the diplomacy system, because I want to see improvement in those areas.

The ability for the AI to send diplomatic messages, while the player can't, is one of my biggest problems with the game. It's not a diplomacy system - it's a trade system. There's no communication, no negotiation - just trade.

ZOMG the fanbois might yell at me!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Different people look for different things in games.

The Space Empires games always seemed to have features for the sake of features. They rarely added fun to the game, just arbitary complexity.

You have a list of UI things that bother you. You care a lot about it and that is fine for you. The SE games never had any decent computer players to play against and the graphics were terrible. Those are things that matter to me.

I don't have a problem with GalCiv's UI. I can think of improvements. But being different from what you want isn't wrong.

On balance, the SE series (3 and 4 anyway) have always been lacking for me. Different strokes for different folks.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Strategist - no, what gets people annoyed is when people make a bunch of posts on the same topic.


Like known issues that don't get fixed between updates?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think most people have a problem with well written critisism. And most of his complaints are quite fixable as far as I know and based on Stardock's reputation they are almost gurenteed to get fixed over time.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Strategist - no, what gets people annoyed is when people make a bunch of posts on the same topic.


I'm sorry Tandis, but I have to respectfully disagree. While what you refer to is part of it, there are those here that honestly have issues and they are flamed just for mentioning them. Sometimes they are repeating just to jump on the bandwagon and sometimes they honestly don't know if it has been brought up or not. In any case, there are groups in this forum that think Stardock and the GalCiv2 team walk on water and any mention to the contrary is heresy. I tend to take the middle road as you guys are working hard to fix things and not everyone is fair in their criticism but there are issues and people have a right to speak up about them in a respectful and fair way and not be flamed for doing it.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@OP - don't know how many others I speak for, but thanks for being rational in your criticism.

@ Strategist (and a dozen others out there) - I follow a lot of message boards, and I notice that there's always, ALWAYS, this dismissive assumption that people who like and defend a game are fanboys. And you know what? On a lot of those boards, where almost everything is a complaint, I can almost believe it. But here, where almost all the posts are positive, or simply focused on how to play the game, you've got to acknowledge at SOME point that the game does, in fact, satisfy most of its players. IMO, when almost everyone is having a good time, can't we acknowledge that rather than being mindless fanboys these posters have actually thought about what they're saying and actually feel that GalCiv II _is_ a quality product?

Which doesn't mean that Quitch should be dismissed, he's got (to him) legitimate concerns. From my perspective, one time through the game (at the easy level for me at least, no challenge, but it lets me "push all the buttons" in a stress-free environment) taught me everything I wanted to know. I can't even remember where it is, but I'm pretty sure the logistics value, for example, is somewhere - the ship specs in the shipyard maybe? Same for a lot of the other points, I either felt they were intuitive or, again, apparent after a single quick, easy game. *shrug* Clearly he wants documentation, I've never expected (which is good, because I don't feel I've ever received, at least since Master of Magic) comprehensive docs.

Anyhoo, my (long-winded) point is that not everyone who disagrees with a poster who criticizes is a fanboy, and the more the ratio of con vs. pro favors the "pro" posters, the more (I think) you should consider that, in fact, the majority finds this game to actually be a quality product.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
#1 user interface annoyance for me -- having all my ships named "(Newtrade) New Design"! When I click "Save" I would like the cursor to implant itself in the box so I can start typing and I would like it to automatically overwrite "New Design" so I don't have to hit the delete key. Same goes for saved games.

without an engaging backstory, without exciting events between missions to draw you into the story, and without characters to care about, there's no reason to play in a crippled version of the game when sandbox/skirmish mode is available.

I haven't played the new campaign, but this definitely wasn't true in GCI. Heck, just the experience of being at war from turn 1 taught me so much about using military force in the early game. Then there was the scenario where all the resources were in the center, setting up a big battle over starbases, and the one where you allied with the Altarians, which taught me the usefulness of permanent trade partners. Throwing the sandbox for a loop is fun in itself without a lot of blah blah.

There's no way to find out your current logistics value without going to the research screen and adding up numbers from the logistics path.

F6, Stats and Graphs tab?

it includes in GC sorely lacking things like a foreign relations screen that let's you get a quick overview of relations to all known civilizations and their techologies and ressources.

F5 has a lot of that stuff. One UI thing they got right is that you can just right-arrow and talk to each civ in turn instead of clicking forward and back (I really want to be able to double-click a civ to talk to it, though.) That lets you see what you really want to know, what technologies they have that you don't.

You know what's bugging me currently, how the computer complains and complains if you try to trade it Laser III and Laser V, but if you trade it Laser V, you can immediately afterwards trade it Laser III for more techs and cash.

I just think for a game like this with an audience of perfectionists you want to make these things better and not have the Drengin greet people every game with "We like bathe in the blood of our enemies" and other typos. Like Basic Factory has a typo in the description, did the beta testers not read that far?
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is the Alpha and Omega, so I don't care who says what. I've never had a game crash on me 4 times in 2 hours. I have up to date drivers and a fairly robust system, having had no trouble with anything other game. Since applying the "patch" the game stumbles at some points and inevitably crashes. I find this unexceptable for a finished game. So I'm going to uninstall this game and maybe I'll check it out again in the fall when 1.5 is out. Summer's here and there are more important things than wasting my life on this. When I get bored, I'll play Madden or maybe CivIV. The rest of you should consider how much shit your going through just to play this thing. Later.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But of course most people aren't going through any shit at all, and many people haven't even had it crash on them once...


I'd agree with most of what Quitch has to say, but there are a couple of points I disagree with:

1. The campaigns are not the same as the sandbox mode. They play completely differently for the most part, especially the Dread Lord missions. I guess there's the DLs on parade thing, but I haven't tried that yet.

2. Alliances are not pointless. If somebody declares war on you, it's nice to have someone else declare war in your defense. One thing I would like added in is that the AI takes account of your allies' military before it attacks you, because it doesn't seem to at the moment.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with the criticisms of the user interface. It would really enhance the game for me if it were cleaner and more intuitive. I don't care much about the occasional typos. But the process required for upgrading starships in a fleet is a pain! Why don't stacked ships have exactly the same options as ships out by themselves? And when I split a ship from a fleet, the graphics always seem to indicate the wrong ships will get the orders. I have to click again and again to get the ship that I want to give orders to. I find that very frustrating.

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
zakdog your talking nonsense
the fact that you have trouble playing the game should tell you something? addware? spyware? viruses? every pc has trouble with these, heck i had to reinstall my computer because it refused to install a game a while ago.
the latest patch added and fixed many things and i havent noticed anything that looked like a bug.
this atitude of i uninstall the game and come back in fall could prove fatal because some communitys die off in a couple of months time, (look at the movies) that community has died of in only 2-3 months.
anyway, the fact some companys release alot of patches is a LIKEBLE thing for me!!!! why you ask? this simply mean they are still working on the game and are not only intrested in making money and profit!

they say i got a 'feel' for people caracters and my feel is telling me your spoiled! only because you got some troubles you just dispose of a not realy cheap game. I buy every game myself with money i earn so that means even if the game crashes now and then, i wont dispose it just because of a single event
rethink it and maybe when you check this post you realize i'm right and you reinstall the game
greetz
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
rest of you should consider how much shit your going through just to play this thing. Later.


Some of us aren't having any problems with the game crashing.

I don't think most people have a problem with well written critisism.


Exactly. Where OP's get flamed is when they come across antagonistic, or when mistaken about something and include a statement like the first one I quoted from Zakdog.

As far as the OP's comments... many of them I can agree with, or at least understand why certain things might be a problem.

1) I can understand the economic learning curve. I found a couple settings that work for me and rarely deviate from them because after numerous games I still don't have a "warm and fuzzy" feeling about messing with the sliders too much.

2) The campaign is dull. Not that it isn't challenging, I just didn't find it very engaging and had to force myself to finish it.

3) Diplomacy. I'll agree that the diplomacy options are very limited. I've my own posts lamenting the fact that the AI can complain about an ISB near their border, but I can't do the same. There's no flexibility within diplomacy in GC2. I still like the game, but except for when I need to adjust espionage spending (another lacking area that I hear will be addressed with 1.2), or really need some cash, or a "missing" tech, I ignore the diplomacy screen altogether.

4) Hotkeys. One of my complaints is they've updated hotkeys (adding in several), yet have never provided an updated listing of what they are.

5) He has a few UI issues I don't agree with; ie: The starbase list isn't hidden...it's with the other lists. Though I do have to agree that it's a major screw up that you have to delete a file to restore racial defaults if you've played one of the races.

The OP has some valid criticisims, even if I don't agree with them all.


Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"but the whole thing is just lacking that final spit and polish that makes a professional product. Every time I encounter a problem I'm just left wondering, WTF didn't a beta tester spot this? Why wasn't this fixed?"

Unfortunately, I have the same impression.


Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not nonsense. 1.0 played flawlessly. 1.1 crashes, simple as that. My computer is clean also, everything up to date, virus checks etc......No, this is still a beta version that's not finished.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Careful what you post, Quitch - there's a base of rabid fanboys around on these forums and they're bound to bite unless you brainlessly praise the game, even if your points are valid.


You're talking nonsense, strategist. The only reason your posts aren't liked is because in about every post you make you mention Civ IV. That's fanboyism.


The rest of you should consider how much shit your going through just to play this thing. Later.


And that's a troll.

-----------

Valid criticism, like Quitch made, is quite welcom here and no one would flame him for doing so.

But if someone comes on this forum, insults the devs, and apparently hasn't even read the message that has said he should update his drivers... well, you can't expect people to be nice to those.

But if someone makes a valid critic, we'll discuss it, state our own oppinions and be very civil in doing that.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Indeed, Quitch has many good points; But fortunately (for the most part; I agree with the Economy being a little grey) they're mostly minor annoyances, not game-breakers. The main problem for me is also the UI. It's pretty rather than functional which is always a shame. Still, it beats the heck out of Moo3, and for that I can forgive it.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@ Zakdog

If you're really having problems, the way to deal with it is not to throw your toys out of the pram and strut off in a huff. Post in the bug reports forum, or contact the devs directly. If it's a problem with your machine, maybe they can point you in the right direction to fix it. If it's a problem with the game, they'll need your help to get it fixed in the next patch.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Zakdog...

Then how come everyone isn't having the problems you are? The game(v1.1) DOES NOT crash on me. It's seems very stable. I have had a couple of crashes but that was only after sitting there and playing the game for like 14 hours straight. And one time even longer! Like 22 hours straight, lol. Although most of my gaming sessions are not nearly that long so, I can really say it DOES NOT crash on me. Have you tried posting your debug.err file?

Sorry about going off-topic, guess I have a problem when I see seomone else unable to enjoy the game due to stability problems when I know the game is stable. As far as on-topic...

I'll just say that yeah, some fixing/additions to it and making it a little cleaner more untuitive would be nice. The thing with having trouble upgrading a ship that's in a fleet has come up a lot from what I've seen. I, as well as many others I'm sure, hope that gets fixed. I have a feeling it will but I am perhaps a little surprised it wasn't fixed up for 1.1. Oh well, as they say, patience is a virtue.

Cheers
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
*SMACKES EVERYONE*

Ok, back to business. Auto-focus on next ship – must….be… removed….


-Brian
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I totally agree with the UI issues. Hopefully, Frogboy will be addressing this in 1.2.
I also would like better documentation (who wouldn't?) in the form of a pdf or so. Hidden bonuses, economic explanations, etc.

As for the campagain, I don't play campagains period. Sandbox mode holds all the appeal for me. The last great video game campagain I played was Starcraft (and Brood War). And if Hollywood can't seem to put out good movies these days, we really can't expect programmers to come up something that great.

I would also like to see improvements to the diplomacy functions, expanded espoinage capacity, and the thing where it doesn't calculate the correct build time fixed.

But ultimately, I can ignore all these issues, because Galciv is fun for me to play.

#13, I agree with you. I think it more than likely that a lot of these unresolved crash issues might be the results of a program (malware or not) running in background. I know McAfree antivirus wouldn't even let me use Outlook, so I can imagine what antivirus software run amock might do to a game.

As for flamming, this is an internet forum. Like all internet forums, it has trolls, fanboys, and assholes. All you can do is ignore them. Bitching only encourages them.

And Strategist, whether or not you mean to, you come across as a troll and a jerk.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the original poster has some good points. But ultimately, this is a very good game. And I'm actually optimistic bugs will be smoothed out.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think a lot of the stability vs. instability has to do with playstyle.

For example, I was one of the people for whom early 1.0 versions ran quite slow even on a decent computer. Turned out to be a combination of settings (10 races, largest galaxies, etc) and my love of sensor ships. It all came to a head the one time I had the Hyper-sensor event happen right after I completed the Eyes of the Universe. The game wouldn't even finish a single turn before crashing. After talking to Frogboy in IRC, I zipped up the saved game, debug output, and smart exception report, and mailed it to him. Two hours later, he mailed me back an update that fixed the problem by limiting sensor range, and a day or two later, that fix went out as part of a regular update. People who didn't play the same way I did didn't know why sensor range had to be capped at 15, since they hadn't seen the problem.

After that, GC2 was rock solid for me until the 1.1 Beta. Now, I'm beating on some other weak point of the game, as I'm getting the out of memory error message during autosaves every 4 or 5 weeks, there about. I'm glad to know Stardock is aware of the problem and is working on it.

As for the "fanboy" issue, I've come to Stardock's defense in some threads, but I really try not to flame anyone, especially someone who describes what they see as a flaw in the game using constructive criticism. I may agree, disagree, or just decide to move on. I'm sure that there are people that are generally down on Stardock that are just as calm and rational about their opinion. That said, there are extremists in both directions, but I don't think that they're the majority in either camp.

GC2 isn't perfect, but it's a very enjoyable game to me. Yes, there are some UI issues, game play bugs, AI quirks, and at least one CDT issue. Still, if I weren't hammering the memory fragmentation issue so hard due to my playstyle, I'd still be playing dozens of hours a week. Even the one UI issue that drove me to rant the one time I ran up against it hard is barely noticable to me most of the time.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@ Strategist (and a dozen others out there) - I follow a lot of message boards, and I notice that there's always, ALWAYS, this dismissive assumption that people who like and defend a game are fanboys. And you know what? On a lot of those boards, where almost everything is a complaint, I can almost believe it. But here, where almost all the posts are positive, or simply focused on how to play the game, you've got to acknowledge at SOME point that the game does, in fact, satisfy most of its players. IMO, when almost everyone is having a good time, can't we acknowledge that rather than being mindless fanboys these posters have actually thought about what they're saying and actually feel that GalCiv II _is_ a quality product?


The game is a bliss to the vast majority of the players - that is a fact and for that, Stardock should be commended. Unfortunately, not all of us are as easy to satisfy. There are a lot of [lesser] problems with the game but for me it is enough to ruin the fun. When I find the AI has yet again built an embassy on a +300% research square, for example, or when I find the AI will pay more for my techs if I sell them one at a time, it becomes clear to me that the game is unfinished and perhaps a bit too overestimated.