Newbie thoughts on Galciv (long)
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I'll make it clear at the start that I actually really enjoy this game, and I admire what the stardock team are doing to support it. That said, I also want to provide feedback on what really needs to be fixed. I've looked around and so hopefully I'm not repeating the same points as everyone else.
My biggest annoyance is planetary invasions- why do you have to wipe out every last citizen? The whole influence thing shows that the populace can be flipped to another allegiance, nobody is that loyal. If around half the population fought back (dependednt on approval) but with greater advantage modifiers, this would fix the bizarre situation where ordinary civilians don't consider surrender. The remaining half would actually get conquered and become part of the invading civ. To balance this, make the planet nonproductive for a few weeks after conquest, in order to prevent invading civs gaining too much momentum. Refer to it as 'cultural readjustment' or something.
The AI has a few quirks that feel like bugs- tech trading should not mean that all civs use the same weapons. Although a smart AI can see that they will get better weapons that way, there is no advantage in having top level energy weapons if everyone else does too. Especially considering how slowly ships are designed, it's all too easy to counter AI fleets, without adjusting my own designs.
AI never seems to trade planets either, regardless of what you offer. I realise the abuses possible, but it would be nice to be able to swap once in a while.
AI should build less starbases (they get quite ridiculous sometimes), but make the ones they do have much better. Rather than 5 econ starbases without modules, make one good one. It's better for the AI, the game performance, ship movement etc.
On that note, mining starbases are too powerful, especially given that their position is more or less random. An option to turn off or weaken resources would be cool.
Someone mentioned a diminishing returns effect when multiple improvements of the same type are built on a planet. E.G second NLC gives 80% of the bonus of the first, the third one gives 70% etc. This makes focussed planets less effective, helping the AI who don't build like that. It also means that economic/industrial dominance is harder to reach.
If the human player becomes dominant, weaker AI should look for someone to side with. Stronger AI might band together. This should help avoid the 'midgame effect' when the player becomes dominant and everything ceases to be a challenge. Being confronted by a coalition of enemies would help. They shouldn't resort to force alone either- influence, trade sanctions, all good weapons.
"The galaxy is not a tidy place". Why is it so empty then? Where are the permanent wormholes (perhaps with a module that lets ships negotiate them), asteroid fields that make missiles harder to use in, anomalous energy fields to disrupt energy weaps and thick gas clouds that slow mass drivers and make them less damaging. I'm just kicking ideas about here, but I think that different environments could make exploration and combined fleet tactics more interesting
UP is awful. Look to alpha centauri for a good system- you could bribe people or be bribed in order to fudge the result. As it is... for example, the motion comes up to limit evil races trade routes (I am good). I have no idea what the other races will vote for, nor can I affect them, so there is no tactical voting, no compromise. Letting the player vote last, and therefore seeing everyone elses vote so you could vote more effectively, would help. I realise that the much hyped AI is not supposed to distinguish between player and other AIs, but the game is suffering for it in this case.
More motions, let us choose which to vote on, maybe even more than one motion per year. The motions specifically penalising one player are stupid. A better motion would be giving all civs 500 credits say. Tactical voting comes into play based on whether you need the money as much as everyone else does.
Keep the ethical dilemmas coming, even after the player chooses an alignment. Here's the kicker though- if they stray from their alignment too far, they lose some of the bonuses they gained. A slight rebalancing of the alignments would then be necessary, sort out those NLCs (I reccomend placing them later in the tech tree, after the best conventional research facility).
Combat viewer- why do the ships bob and twitch like that? I'd rather see small ships zooming about and large ships trudging straight forward.
Negotiations- if actual conversation with aliens is not on the cards, then make 'surrender, attack...' clearer (I hesitate to use them since I'm not sure who is attacking who).
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I think that's all for now. Thanks very much for creating this game.
My biggest annoyance is planetary invasions- why do you have to wipe out every last citizen? The whole influence thing shows that the populace can be flipped to another allegiance, nobody is that loyal. If around half the population fought back (dependednt on approval) but with greater advantage modifiers, this would fix the bizarre situation where ordinary civilians don't consider surrender. The remaining half would actually get conquered and become part of the invading civ. To balance this, make the planet nonproductive for a few weeks after conquest, in order to prevent invading civs gaining too much momentum. Refer to it as 'cultural readjustment' or something.
The AI has a few quirks that feel like bugs- tech trading should not mean that all civs use the same weapons. Although a smart AI can see that they will get better weapons that way, there is no advantage in having top level energy weapons if everyone else does too. Especially considering how slowly ships are designed, it's all too easy to counter AI fleets, without adjusting my own designs.
AI never seems to trade planets either, regardless of what you offer. I realise the abuses possible, but it would be nice to be able to swap once in a while.
AI should build less starbases (they get quite ridiculous sometimes), but make the ones they do have much better. Rather than 5 econ starbases without modules, make one good one. It's better for the AI, the game performance, ship movement etc.
On that note, mining starbases are too powerful, especially given that their position is more or less random. An option to turn off or weaken resources would be cool.
Someone mentioned a diminishing returns effect when multiple improvements of the same type are built on a planet. E.G second NLC gives 80% of the bonus of the first, the third one gives 70% etc. This makes focussed planets less effective, helping the AI who don't build like that. It also means that economic/industrial dominance is harder to reach.
If the human player becomes dominant, weaker AI should look for someone to side with. Stronger AI might band together. This should help avoid the 'midgame effect' when the player becomes dominant and everything ceases to be a challenge. Being confronted by a coalition of enemies would help. They shouldn't resort to force alone either- influence, trade sanctions, all good weapons.
"The galaxy is not a tidy place". Why is it so empty then? Where are the permanent wormholes (perhaps with a module that lets ships negotiate them), asteroid fields that make missiles harder to use in, anomalous energy fields to disrupt energy weaps and thick gas clouds that slow mass drivers and make them less damaging. I'm just kicking ideas about here, but I think that different environments could make exploration and combined fleet tactics more interesting
UP is awful. Look to alpha centauri for a good system- you could bribe people or be bribed in order to fudge the result. As it is... for example, the motion comes up to limit evil races trade routes (I am good). I have no idea what the other races will vote for, nor can I affect them, so there is no tactical voting, no compromise. Letting the player vote last, and therefore seeing everyone elses vote so you could vote more effectively, would help. I realise that the much hyped AI is not supposed to distinguish between player and other AIs, but the game is suffering for it in this case.
More motions, let us choose which to vote on, maybe even more than one motion per year. The motions specifically penalising one player are stupid. A better motion would be giving all civs 500 credits say. Tactical voting comes into play based on whether you need the money as much as everyone else does.
Keep the ethical dilemmas coming, even after the player chooses an alignment. Here's the kicker though- if they stray from their alignment too far, they lose some of the bonuses they gained. A slight rebalancing of the alignments would then be necessary, sort out those NLCs (I reccomend placing them later in the tech tree, after the best conventional research facility).
Combat viewer- why do the ships bob and twitch like that? I'd rather see small ships zooming about and large ships trudging straight forward.
Negotiations- if actual conversation with aliens is not on the cards, then make 'surrender, attack...' clearer (I hesitate to use them since I'm not sure who is attacking who).
--------------
I think that's all for now. Thanks very much for creating this game.
