Thanks for the reply, but is there any way to disable the Advantage roll you described in the game?

Maybe a mod could disble it?

Anyone know of any such option/mod, or is my brother SOL?

Regards,

Tony.

Not that I am aware of, I honestly do not know.

Just curious. What is the problem with clicking the button once for the roll? Is it because of the "Luck" factor?

If that is the case, the computer does the same thing during the fleet/ship battles. You just don't see it. Each attack and defense is rolled, bonuses are given to each side, the difference is the damage inflicted unless the defense beats the attack. The only difference between that and the planet battle is that you get to push the "attack" button once.

I guess I am just not seeing the point your brother is trying to make.


Not one that I am aware of.

Luck is a big part of this game - in my opinion, too much!

With regard to ship combat, i made a comment once before... "All strategy players are requested to leave the building, casino galciv is now open for business".

I said that because their is no limiting factor with regard to luck in combat. without even mentioning defence Your ship can roll a '0' in combat each round which is crap, there should be a limit to how much luck can affect combat - such as a 'bottom line' whereby your ship can roll an attack value of no less than 20% with a forced incrimental increase each round. So if your ship is as unlucky as possible then on the first round it will roll 20%, the second round 50%, the third round, 90% and then reset to 20% again.

Having said all the above, in practice i find the game seems to work quite brilliantly, I don't really see pathetically weak AI ships beating my dreadnaughts even though it could potentially happen because luck has no limits but it is deffinately a game worth buying!

Ground combat is insignificant, remember this, it is not a ground combat game, it is a space combat game, that is where all the developers efforts have gone. I would not like to imagine having a lesser space combat game because the developers diverted more recources into ground combat.

The argument you are using would apply in reality to ship sieze, manouverability and speed. If your target is a huge slow dreadnought then the potential to miss is astranomically less than if your targeting a tiny fighter. None of this is considered in game so your argument is irrelevant in my opinion.

Ship size and speed are both relevant in the game. Just not in combat. A couple things you did forget is the distance between the ships and technology. Hitting a barn a few feet away is pretty easy with a rock, but impossible from 2 kilometers away, unless of course you had a 120 mm cannon, but move the barn another 50 kilometers and your cannon is useless, and that barn isn't even moving!

Also, you have the chance to roll a 0 on an attack, so in my opinion, tech, size, speed, maneuverability, crew experience and distance is considered in that way.



What makes you think they are slow? Dreadnoughts in my games are much faster than fighters. I would assume that they are not as maneuverable however and that would be their downfall, not speed.

"Historical" naval combat of the "modern" age?

I understand the point you are trying to make but I do not agree with it.

A billion dollar battleship can be taken out by an F-14 Tomcat costing around 15 million dollars, using a missile that costs in the neighborhood of $200,000. Using your reasoning, this should not be the case.

The battleship is larger, has a higher attack and defense yet the Tomcat is superior due to missile technology and speed/maneuverability. In the games I play, normally my destroyers are technologically superior to the opposing Battleships. Very rarely do my opponents best me technologically for this reason. If they do, I use numbers to overwhelm them.

It is not just about the biggest and baddest out there, it is about logistics and the ability to form a complete fighting force.

Sometimes it isn't even about technology, the Bismark was the largest most sophisticated battleship built for Germany and was still destroyed by an outdated Biplane using an outdated torpedo.

Thanks for the replies,

To clarify, it is not the clicking of the mouse that irritates my brother, but the mechanics of the luck factor in the advantage roll being displayed for all to see. He is quite anal, and will keep reloading if he gets a bad roll. It's a compulsion of his, and it would have been better to completely hide it from him (or any player for that matter), considering any luck rolls in the space battles are hidden.

He told me he was thoroughly enjoying the first Galciv, until this aspect of ground invasions started to irritate him to the point that he stopped playing, due to the excessive compulsion to reload to roll again if he got crud luck. He is a militant player and likes the offensive approach, more than the diplomatic.

This really *should* have been hidden from view, and as it stands I don't think he will want to play Galciv2 knowing the same design mistake has been made twice.

Hide it! Hide it! Hide it!

I'll let him know, but he won't be pleased though....

Thanks anyway people,

Regards,

Tony.

I bet that the advantage part is hardcoded (not moddable). However, you can get around it in Dark Avatar by playing as Super Annihilator and just use Spore Ships to conquer worlds. It skips ground combat entirely.

Thanks for the suggestion Lonewolf0912, I'll let my brother know that.

He did say when he first started playing it (because of me pestering him) and was enjoying it that 'this is the best scifi strategy game since Birth of the Federation'

Thanks for your time people,

Regards,

Tony.

Well, it's in combat that it should be relevant. Size isn't really relevant anywhere, since the values produced are so bizarre that I wonder how they did come to be. Speed is important for movement, and we know how weill it is implemented in the game.



We're not talking about throwing rocks at ships, are we? It is also not about range, since not even that is represented in the game. Evasive maneuvers and range are hardly related.



Not really. What's the average on an attack roll? Does that take into account any of those factors you mentioned? The average doesn't change when those conditions change.



The game doesn't really try to represent speed in an accurate way. They had to nerf engines and all...
As for maneuverability, I think that was the whole point. Combat speed if you will.



Well, except for interceptors, you can say the same thing about carriers or any other vessel class. Carriers are still around though, as are cruisers. Battleships were made obsolete basically because they're not really effective anymore, not in modern warfare. Smaller, cheaper, faster and more maneuverable units with carrier support have made them obsolete.



With some missile defense, the F-14 would be made useless though.



Back to the topic, the fluctuation of the odds is exagerated. As for being a feature the devs didn't seem to care much about, starbases have their problems too; even space battles aren't all that detailed either.

that depends: because now days a destroyer can carry cruse *nukes* and could most certainly take out a battleship.

Ah the hood - very good example of bad design not bad luck. The hood was infact larger than the bismark although i do not know if it had a larger weapons capacity?



If your going to quote somone, it might pay to read their edit!....