First Impressions from a longtime MoOII Player.
from 
GalCiv2 Forums
GalCiv2 Forums
My exams finally finished, and I wanted to treat myself with something. Not trusting myself to purchase DA during an academic term, and I have a co-op term next semester, I figured that now would be a good time to see if Galciv was really as great as everyone says.
WOW. Were they right.
I got it yesterday and set up a game. I didn't want to read the manual (who does?) so I just set up a game. I made it HUUGE so that I would have plenty of space and time to figure things out and I made the AIs idiots, so they didn't steamroll me before I could figure anything out. In retrospect, that was a mistake. First, because the HUUGE setting with common planets had so many planets later that it became simply unwieldy for the first play through. Second, the AIs were REALLY stupid, which is sad, because AI is supposed to be one of the strongest points of the game and I never got to see it. I'll set them a lot higher next time
So I created a custom race with the Super Hiver ability and a bunch of research bonuses. I called it The Culture (which was another mistake, because "The The Culture" occurred far too many times ). So I pressed the start button and waited for a bit. I got started (I had some idea of what to do, because I played the demo a while ago) and realized that I was in the butt end of the galaxy. Good thing I had that range bonus, or this game could have gone sour D:
I have to say now that I LOVE MoOII, and when MoOIII proved to be a piece of garbage, I was heartbroken. Since then, I've been looking for another Space 4x game, and I really think I've found it here.
I really liked how simple the tech tree is. It's straightforward, but the progression makes sense. Unlike the utterly confusing and random tech tree from MoOIII. I REALLY liked the ship designer. It was easy and simple to use, and it was very very flexible. Heck, that alone was almost worth the price of admission =D However, I would have liked to have seen some components that did more than just add to the attack/defence. Something a little oddball like from MoOII such as "evade 30% of shots fired" or something. But it's still a great time designing things =D
Anyways, I'll go over the major events of the game. The Korx, the Torians and the Yor all get PreCursor rangers. They all beat the crap out of each other with them then the Korx surrender to the Yor. Then, a plague breaks out. I get the cure in 5 turns then recover in another 5, but for some reason the other races aren't searching for the cure. I turned off tech trading, so all I see is their populations plummeting. Oh well. I'm racing down the tech tree thanks to the 3 research resources I acquired in addition to the bonuses. I start colonizing typically inhospitable planets and start noticing that my culture is completely overwhelming everyone elses. Well, I figure since I'm called The Culture, I had may as well go for cultural victory. I start building influence bases everywhere. There was a brief spat with the Yor, which then expanded with the Torians and the Iconians (which was kinda neat how they all ganged up on me =D) which really just gave me an excuse to build some of the designs I made. I finally got the 75% required and was counting down the weeks until I got the Jagged Knife event. I lost half of my empire. Ouch. I imagine on harder difficulty settings, that would devastating. Fortunately, I could just quickly build some transports and invade the last three planets
Final thoughts:
+ Fantastic Diplomacy
+ Awesome events
- No crazy ship parts
++ Interesting combat system (Guns/Armor, Beam/Shields, Missile/PD)
++ Amazing shipbuilding
+ Simple, yet very deep, planet management (unlike the convoluted mess of MoOIII)
++ AI has some brains, even on the lowest setting
+++ Events that will ROCK the galaxy
+ Resources make for more points in space to defend, requiring more strategy.
++ Starbases add a lot to the game while still being simple to use.
- Not the easiest interface to learn(But I got it all by the end without the manual )
+ Very nice management options like the Governors that make switching production queues a breeze
+ Interesting economy system (trade routes, asteroids, etc)
+ Great graphics (although I had to turn some of it down when I use my laptop
)
+++ For the devs actually paying attention to the forum, and even posting.
Anyways, that was my first impressions, which should be taken with a grain of salt, since it was my FIRST impression =D
(PS: Does anyone know how to edit the dictionary with Firefox's autospellcheker? Because I accidentally added a few misspelled words and it's bugging me )
WOW. Were they right.
I got it yesterday and set up a game. I didn't want to read the manual (who does?) so I just set up a game. I made it HUUGE so that I would have plenty of space and time to figure things out and I made the AIs idiots, so they didn't steamroll me before I could figure anything out. In retrospect, that was a mistake. First, because the HUUGE setting with common planets had so many planets later that it became simply unwieldy for the first play through. Second, the AIs were REALLY stupid, which is sad, because AI is supposed to be one of the strongest points of the game and I never got to see it. I'll set them a lot higher next time
So I created a custom race with the Super Hiver ability and a bunch of research bonuses. I called it The Culture (which was another mistake, because "The The Culture" occurred far too many times
). So I pressed the start button and waited for a bit. I got started (I had some idea of what to do, because I played the demo a while ago) and realized that I was in the butt end of the galaxy. Good thing I had that range bonus, or this game could have gone sour D: I have to say now that I LOVE MoOII, and when MoOIII proved to be a piece of garbage, I was heartbroken. Since then, I've been looking for another Space 4x game, and I really think I've found it here.
I really liked how simple the tech tree is. It's straightforward, but the progression makes sense. Unlike the utterly confusing and random tech tree from MoOIII. I REALLY liked the ship designer. It was easy and simple to use, and it was very very flexible. Heck, that alone was almost worth the price of admission =D However, I would have liked to have seen some components that did more than just add to the attack/defence. Something a little oddball like from MoOII such as "evade 30% of shots fired" or something. But it's still a great time designing things =D
Anyways, I'll go over the major events of the game. The Korx, the Torians and the Yor all get PreCursor rangers. They all beat the crap out of each other with them then the Korx surrender to the Yor. Then, a plague breaks out. I get the cure in 5 turns then recover in another 5, but for some reason the other races aren't searching for the cure. I turned off tech trading, so all I see is their populations plummeting. Oh well. I'm racing down the tech tree thanks to the 3 research resources I acquired in addition to the bonuses. I start colonizing typically inhospitable planets and start noticing that my culture is completely overwhelming everyone elses. Well, I figure since I'm called The Culture, I had may as well go for cultural victory. I start building influence bases everywhere. There was a brief spat with the Yor, which then expanded with the Torians and the Iconians (which was kinda neat how they all ganged up on me =D) which really just gave me an excuse to build some of the designs I made. I finally got the 75% required and was counting down the weeks until I got the Jagged Knife event. I lost half of my empire. Ouch. I imagine on harder difficulty settings, that would devastating. Fortunately, I could just quickly build some transports and invade the last three planets
Final thoughts:
+ Fantastic Diplomacy
+ Awesome events
- No crazy ship parts
++ Interesting combat system (Guns/Armor, Beam/Shields, Missile/PD)
++ Amazing shipbuilding
+ Simple, yet very deep, planet management (unlike the convoluted mess of MoOIII)
++ AI has some brains, even on the lowest setting
+++ Events that will ROCK the galaxy
+ Resources make for more points in space to defend, requiring more strategy.
++ Starbases add a lot to the game while still being simple to use.
- Not the easiest interface to learn(But I got it all by the end without the manual
)+ Very nice management options like the Governors that make switching production queues a breeze
+ Interesting economy system (trade routes, asteroids, etc)
+ Great graphics (although I had to turn some of it down when I use my laptop
)+++ For the devs actually paying attention to the forum, and even posting.
Anyways, that was my first impressions, which should be taken with a grain of salt, since it was my FIRST impression =D
(PS: Does anyone know how to edit the dictionary with Firefox's autospellcheker? Because I accidentally added a few misspelled words and it's bugging me
)
It feels like the game could be in points a bit too simple, leaving down hardcore strategy gamers, but then again that's what mods are for and I already mentioned expansions...