Is this still present in Galciv 2?

Tony,

I do not own Galciv I but I do have Galciv II.

It sounds to me the ground combat is different. Each side has a soldiering level. On the planetary assault screen you will see both sides, how many troops each has, and fluctuating numbers. The numbers will continue until you begin your assault hitting the attack button once. The fluctuating numbers then stop and show the advantage.

These numbers are random in nature but do reflect soldiering skill as well bonuses for the type of assault you are trying to accomplish, it will also reflect any defensive bonus a planet may have. You get a bonus if you use things like mini soldiers and such, but there is monetary and planetary draw backs depending on which type of attack you decide to do.

Do you have to continually mash the space bar? No.

The screen is fairly simple. One push of the button decides the outcome, while adding the variables.

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.

I personally like the randomness... ...if I lose, i just reload the game and try again until I win... ...NOT!
I think it must be some randomness, but currently the numbers fluctuate too much...

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.

There is no way to disable it that I know of, but there is an inherent randomness to warfare in real life as well.

When you plan an assault in real life, the best you can hope for is an overall idea of how you will do statistically - the actual RESULTS of that combat often are quite different from what is predicted.

The simple truth is that in real combat, there are many factors that cannot be accurately predicted - and the longer a time period over which that battle lasts magnifies this effect even further. The amount of time it would take to invade an entire world involving billions of troops would indeed ensure battle results that would greatly vary from any "predictions".

I guess if you just really hate this feature even though it is very realistic, you could just save before every ground invasion and repeat the battle whenever you felt the results were "unrealistic" (or not what you hoped for)...there have been MANY generals who wished they could have done this in REAL life all through history - believe me! LOL

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.

I have to say that I do not agree.

The variables that would be involved in space warfare are astronomical. To simply put it, I believe a ship should have the potential to miss its target completely. How better to show this than by allowing the ship a possible roll of 0?

I agree that luck does play a part in the game, but not as big a part as some might think. Luck plays a role in real life as well, in just about everything we do. How we set ourselves up in the game, and in life, contributes greatly to our success and failures as well.

For instance. Winning the lottery in real life is luck. If you do not play, you cannot win. Therefore, if you want to win, you have to play, setting yourself up for possible luck.

My opinion of course.

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.

Luck is obviously realistic, but it needs to be minimized in strategy games.

To the post who said "Generals wish they could save/reload' --- please note that generals had some control over their forces. there is just randomness in galciv 2 to decide if you have a 5 to 1 or a 24 to 2 advantage.

Absurd.

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.

If you look at historical naval combat of the modern age, a destroyer will never engage a battleship alone and win. Yet in galciv, this is possible, which is crap

"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.

edit

come to think of it, nowdays a destroyer could kill a battleship,,, xept there arn't any battleships to kill (well, some museum pieces mebe)! And there won't be untill the technology to protect them is sound enough to make the investment worthwile. Perhaps there is a lesson in that for galciv players?

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 might point out that your post is the first complaint of this nature i have seen.

You might wan't to consider that there are thousands of people who have been playing this game extensively for quite some time who do not think it is a mistake, and i am one of them.

However you certainly are entitled to put forward an opinion, and if enough people agree then mebe things will change, so lets find out...

How many people agree with Tonedude?

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.

@OP

The ground combat is absolutely the worst part of GC2/DA still and if your brother did not like it in GC1, I honestly can say that he will also be dissapointed with GC2. It is basicly pressing Space Bar and looking how the numbers go down, I found the MoO3 land combat more intriquing. Not to mention the horrible ground combat gfx, some dont mind them, but otherwisly good looking game with 3D graphics having post 1980 graphics on ground combat catches your eye.

Now everything else has been improved on GC2 compared to GC1, but the land combat lacks behind.

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.

in regards to the complaint as to Ground invasion graphics, it must be noted that this was a feature that the designers really did not seem to care about. The entire set up of the game seems to suggest that they were primarily concerned with the evolution of space combat and viewed the invasions as necessary but not worth any frills. E.g. there is no way to improve things like ground weapons, vehicles, etc.

To voice in on the debate over luck in the game: I cast my vote in with Quixen. The luck can be irritating, but it really provides challenge, and the realism of having to adapt stratedgy to accomodate for an upset. it is important to note that this is coming from someone who quickly gets irritated playing Risk, because there is little you can do overall to account for luck. In GalcivII, you have the option to customize your ships, tweak this and that, and generally set yourself up for victory, but you always need to watch for the unknown. Rather than seem assinine, I find this factor to add depth and replayablitity.

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.

I disagree. As would the crew of HMS Hood, I believe. Luck is important, and sometimes is crucial. Have you heard the theory that Napoleon's hemorrhoids were acting up, so he didn't get on his horse for a clearer view of the battlefield at Waterloo, which cost him the battle and the empire? Luck can be very important.

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

There is a Luck ability in the game. Is it used here?
Now, if only Napoleon had satellite imaging back then...

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!....

If the could do some work on the ground battles and have the ground battles be like those in Empire earth or even Microsofts age of empires the this game would have the best of both worlds; but doing so of course would increase teh time to finish a game by a quantium leap