My list of bugs

from GalCiv2 Forums

Bugs:
B1. I find that ship build completion notifications are not always presented. I find ships that were built but not launched, especially after reloading the game. I have also found planets not building anything for the same reason.

B2. You can crash the game by deleting a ship with "Name1", then immediately creating a ship with "Name1".

B3. When moving a ship from a square with other ships in it, the ship moves away, the selection highlight moves with the ship, but the panel at the bottom of the screen stays on the ships that were left.

B4. I use the "Civ Manager:Colonies" list to examine a planet. I go back to the main display. I select a planet, and examine it. When I press "Done", sometimes I end up back at the "Civ Manager:Colonies" list. This will happen for a while, and then something clears the condition, and proper behavior returns.


Interface Annoyances:
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A1. When naming a ship, you do not know what the existing names are, so you have to remember them.

A2. When creating a ship, it is impossible to compare the design you are creating with the characteristics of existing ships.

A3. It is difficult to find the list of components on an existing design. The only way I have found is to "D" on a ship of that class. But I cannot do that for a design that exists.

A4. Due to the HP gain from experience, it is clearly in your favor to upgrade a ship. However, the process of upgrading ships is a pain. And finding all of the ships of a given model is difficult. Especially if they have been through an upgrade already and their name no longer reflects their class.


A5. When selecting a research technology, I only can see the name of the benefits, and what they apply to. I am forced to remember what the benefits of that upgrade are. Some are obvious, some are not.

A6. It seems to be impossible to upgrade a ship that is sitting in a square with other ships. You cannot give orders (upgrade, sentry, etc) to a ship with other ships in the square.

A7. The planet details screen has a "Done" button on the far right, and a "Back" button on the far left. I find that "Done" was usually what I didn't want to do, and "Back" is. However, most of the other screens have all the buttons on the right, and it took a while for me to train myself on this. This is especially annoying when moving through each colony in turn, and you look at the details, then lose your place in the colony rotation.

A8. It would be nice to have a ship list similar to the "Civ Manager:Colonies" list.



Economic annoyances.
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E1. I cannot build an obsolete, but much cheaper, Factory. This means that new planets, or newly occupied planets, will take much much longer to become useful, or I am forced to buy the latest manufacturing plant, at a much higher cost.

E2. I cannot focus a planet on a particular task without rebalancing my entire economy. I find the global economic settings to be quite restricting in behaviour. Example: I have created a research colony. It is not much good for anything else. And I have created a production colony, with a star port and lots of factories. The two conflict in the global requirements. The restricted number of squares on a planet force this kind of specialization, but the overall economic model interferes heavily with that specialization.

E3. The level of micromanagement can be very annoying. Frequently, I must go through every colony, and make sure everything there is set correctly. This does give the AI an advantage, because they don't get bored by detailed micromanagement. I find that the game wants a high level of micromanagement, but the interface does not make that level easy. This becomes extremely apparent on a gigantic map with lots of planets. Which may not be the "design" model for the game, but by being extreme, it helps make some issues more apparent.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, I notice/agree to all of these except the micromanagement. After MOO3, everything is a cakewalk as far as micromanaging. Also, in GalCiv1, there was a ship list, which is nonexistent in GalCiv2, which madeit much easier to locate ships for any reason.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
B1. have not seen this problem, I always get notified on the right hand side of the screen about every event, if a ship is built, and when the colony is not building anything.

B3 is an annoyance and needs to be corrected.

B4 why do you go back to the main display? just double click on the planets name in the colonies management screen and it will take you to the planet, let you do what you want to do, and return you to the colonies management screen.

A1 all depends on how you name ships...example Fb1-0-3 is a fighter with beam attack of 1, no defense, and can move 3 spaces. Very easy to keep track of.

A2 I always know what I want to design, and why, so I could care less what my previous designs are. Besides, most of my designs are upgrades of previous designs, and that way I KNOW what was on that ship.

A3 every ship lists what components are on them in the ship management screen or in the ship builder.

A4 Everytime I upgrade a ship, the name changes along with the upgrade...so no problem for me.

A6 click on the ships information button, the little I at the top of the interface, and upgrade from there.

A8 ship list is on the right with the planet list button.

E1 discussed to death and will not be changed.

E2 focus your planet by clicking on the research, or social, or military production column in the colonies management screen or on the planet screen. The economic sliders take some time to understand, but with time, I have learned how to specilize a planet, and control my empire with very little micro management. The governors will help with this.

Many of you complaints seem that you have not played the game much, or explored all the options on the interface.

This game has a small amount of micro management compared to many 4x games.


Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
B1 is very annoying indeed. This usually happens after one or two turns with many icons. In the next turn there will only be a few icons no matter how many ships are built.
To avoid this problem when loading a game, make sure you clear all icons before saving.

B3 A simpler and cleaner selection process would be very nice. This is such a basic feature that should be working well. (especially after 4 patches)

A7 That and some other poorly designed windows could use some streamlinig.

The rest i can live with.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
TLHeart:
B4, you misunderstand. First I use the "Civ Manager:Colonies" to examine planets. Later, while in the main display, I double click on a planet to examine it. When I "Done" from that examination, I end up at the "Civ Manager:Colonies" display, not at the main display where I should be.

As with most bugs, they only occur under certain sequences of operation, which you are probably not doing.

As for the shipyard issues, maybe there are ways to get the information I am missing. However, the interface DOES NOT LEAD you to that easily. I have read the manual, and tried many different things. Possibly the issue is you have been playing Galciv too long, and have developed work arounds and methods to do all these things. However, for this game to be successful, placing a huge learning curve in front of the user is not a good idea.

I wrote this list in the hopes that 1. the bugs would eventually get fixed. 2. Some of the simpler interface issues would be addressed. 3. Galciv3 might become a game that I would be willing to play more than a few times. I have played LOTS of 4x games, have casually contributed to opensource 4x games (before the term opensource existed) and work as a software architect. I have some small idea of how to develop good software, and what a good game is.

The underlying economic engine, and some of the other parts of the game, well, they have signs they were designed to make the AI doable. I don't expect much change there. However, the relatively simple bugs and interface changes, that is just SMOP. (Small Matter Of Programming.)
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am assuming that this is with version 1.4x, correct?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
B1. This problem is a real pain to work around and only happens latter in larger games. I can be worked around in the ship/planet list for unlaunched ships and in the colony management screen for idle planets. This is a real pain for those of us who like larger games, and it used to be worse than it is with the latest patches, but I too really wish that they would fix it.

Scincerely,
Scintor