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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
+5

Quibble Revenge

June 24, 2006 10:10:45 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
So I'm using IE now, this better work.

1.2 is heaps of fun, and the game is now stable and feature-packed. However, some irritating things are still present, and I want to know why and if there's a workaround.

1) The stupid game-start dialog shows up every time you load. Why? I don't want to see it. I also don't want to be dragged through the tech screen and the planet screen, but it's the stupid 'we start our quest to the stars today' text that's absurd two years in. PS the 'dead turn' on load is also stupid, but we knew that.

2) The tech-info pane in the research window seems to now list the ships the tech leads to, along with a MASSIVE UNSORTED LIST of tech you need to use it. Two problems here - the core ships are utter crap and I never use them, and the USEFUL information in that pane (bonuses, modules, etc) is buried at the bottom under a zero-formatting list several pages long.

3) The galaxy-seed options are broken. They don't seem to simply affect the frequency or number of stars, planets and habitables, and their relationship is not explained. I've used the same choices, CTRL-Ned a few times, and got totally different galaxy characteristic. Totally different number and arrangement of stars, wide variation in planets, and huge shifts in frequency of habitables. With the same options, the galaxy should change, but should have predicatable characteristics.

In short, who even knows what the options DO. Changing star rate doesn't seem to change the number of stars until you get to the low end, planet rate seems to just control the number of stars with five planets (and even at highest, there are still piles of planets with NONE AT ALL, which isn't what you'd expect) and the habitable option seems to be almost totally random. I've played 'occassional' maps with dozens and 'common' maps with dozens... which really shouldn't happen. Even on a larger map with stars set to max, there are vast, VAST tracts of star-less space.

I'm not a Civ fan, but Civ does the seed options far, far better than GC2. You make your choices, and not only do you understand what they mean and what you're getting, the results are consistent. This is simply not true for the 'close your eyes and hope' system GC2 uses, and it's really my biggest quibble at this point.

PS, this better post or I'll cry. I'm a big fan of GC2, but after coming back to the game for 1.2 I really notice these jarring flaws in an otherwise neat game. Once in it's all fine, and the great work Stardock has done over the last months is great.
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
+5
Reply #1 June 24, 2006 10:11:12 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Phew. Anyway, discuss. If there are any mods that address these concerns, I'd like to hear about them.
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Pnakotus
Excalidan
Join Date 07/2004
0
Reply #2 June 24, 2006 10:32:16 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I have left every galaxy setting on random (except size and tech rate) and have gotten TOTALLY different galaxies. One game I had a large map with about seven stars in it. There was A LOT of open space. Game after that, all six civs in my large galaxy had around 15-20 planets each. Big difference. Maybe you just need a more drastic change? 'Occasional' and 'Common' are only one 'notch' away from one another, and it is a random map generator, so maybe you just got two very similar galaxies? Or you could make/find custom maps.

Start-up text shouldn't say the beginning bit over and over. Perhaps it should be a quarterly report or something?

Maybe the dead turn is stupid. But who really cares. It takes one click to get over it.
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Pnakotus
Selous
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #3 June 24, 2006 10:41:15 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
i agree with all your points ...
1. the first point should be adressed, i cant imagine why it is still their, while not a big thing it takes some polish of the game (and is annoying)
2. i dont look at this stuff anyways, so i dont care but ... on a somewhat related note, in the espionage screens when i am looking at the infomation on another race, the tecks that the other guys have got is listed in a massive incoherent list, listing every single teck .... this should be cleaned up (mebey just list the highest teck of each tree?) ... but i do think that it does need to be cleaned up
3. and to your major point ... mebey they could do something similar to civilization when creating your galaxy? some kind of graphical representation of the galaxy that you are going to get
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #4 June 24, 2006 10:45:53 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well you'd expect that from random, wouldn't you? Although - here's a point - is random totally random (ie, a random number of stars) or a random choice of the other options (ie, 'random' gives 'rare' or 'common' etc stars). Who knows, because they're poorly described. And what is the behaviour of planets? Does the game generate planets according to 'planets' then convert a selection of them to habitable according to 'habitables'? Or is 'planets' just the empty, worthless ones? Why is the most common situation zero planets or five planets?

AHA! Thank you, you have reminded me of another quibble. The custom maps have no thumbnails. This is 1994 stuff here, folks: the only way to know what a map is is to USE it, the REMEMBER. Or perhaps draw yourself a little map. That's absurd: why aren't there thumbnails like on every other map-select dialog in the last decade?

Implementing a report would be far superior to the current 'lol the game thinks you just started the game' situation.

Frankly, the dead turn does nothing and is very exploitable. Lacking a reason for it to exist... why is it there? I despise the 'just accept it' attitude of modern gamers. Either the dead turn is there for a reason - in which case I'm going to keep hating it until someone tells me what that reason is - or it isn't, and it's just a stupid, annoying 'feature' that should be removed since it achieves nothing.
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #5 June 24, 2006 10:47:26 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
A preview would be great - even a general one, like the continent shapes in Civ. Something showing the vague shape of the stars, the spread of planets/habitables and artefacts and start locations. At least then there would be feedback for your choices.
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Pnakotus
Marcathonas
Join Date 01/2006
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Reply #6 June 24, 2006 10:52:09 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
1. Mods can only do so much, but I do hope that for 1.21 they will include the option to disable the tech popup, I will. As for the starting dialogue, second I find it I'll change it and post a mod.

2. Why the hell did they put that in? People who know how to play the game don't use core techs. I suppose it was whined about for a very long time, but it needs to be optional again.

3. I've not noticed this.
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #7 June 24, 2006 10:59:02 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Marcathonas, if you start a new game in 1.2, at the start (with few techs) you'll have a huge list of techs for core designs in the tech pane. You should have a look - it's terrible, and worse than the older versions where they just listed what ships it lead to but not the additional techs.
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Pnakotus
Excalidan
Join Date 07/2004
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Reply #8 June 24, 2006 11:04:44 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well if it makes you feel better, it's not a feature, Cari has addressed the extra turn as a bug. I doubt it's a high prioty on their list, wouldn't you want them working on other issues, such as the ones you brought up?

And you have a good point- is random TOTALLY random or random settings?
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #9 June 24, 2006 11:07:20 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Oh sure, but I've been away and probably missed the 'crap the dead turn is a bug' announcement. So long as it IS a bug, and they fix it eventually, I'm happy.

The map seeding is a more serious problem - I've been experimenting, and setting everything to high results in absolute chaos every time you CTRL-N, with totally different galaxies emerging each time. You'd THINK they'd all have heaps of stars, habitables all over the show and every star with five planets, but you'd be wrong.
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #10 June 24, 2006 11:08:54 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
GHETTO EDIT - the tech problem is specifically with engines, apparently. Weapons don't seem to have the long list, but 'impulse drive' has a list of ships designs (including user ones) with a list of techs required after it. It's two pages long on 1280x1024.
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Pnakotus
danielost
Join Date 07/2003
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Reply #11 June 25, 2006 10:35:05 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
is there some way to get rid of the numbers on the ships i think master of orion had it too at some point but they got rid of the numbers and what i mean is fighter 14111000
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Pnakotus
Excalidan
Join Date 07/2004
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Reply #12 June 25, 2006 1:35:58 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
You could rename them all, but without the numbers you couldn't tell them apart... which you need to do when gifting to the AI, etc.
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Pnakotus
Prolet
Join Date 06/2006
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Reply #13 June 25, 2006 2:12:08 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Just as a minor addition to 1., perhaps they should fix the "Most Powerful Civs" list on the quarterly report. Right now it only gives rankings based on Military rating, and not the Overall rating.
Yes, this could be intentional, and it's totally not a big deal. But, it is slightly disheartening to see yourself at the bottom of a very long list every time you load simply because your fleet isn't a bloated mess of outdated vessels like everyone else's.

Of course, I'd rather not see the list at all, but Pnakotus already covered that.
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #14 June 25, 2006 7:06:55 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Prolet, you should be proud to be on the bottom of that list - you don't have thousands of worthless scouts cluttering up the place!

I'm not sure why the startup options seem so poor now, as they never really bothered me when the game came out. However, now I want to be able to use the seed options to actually define the type of game I'll be playing, and this is impossible without using a bloody cheat to reseed the map a few times. For instance, want to play a map with spread-out stars, each with two planets, both habitable? TOO BAD. Want to play a more natural, stars-everywhere map with planets being quite common but habitables evenly spread? TOO BAD. I can't even work out the settings to have zero or very few 0-class planets, which should be what 'planets-rare' does, but it doesn't. Still 0-class everywhere.
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