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Observations on the latest Beta and a bug report

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Observations on the latest Beta and a bug report

from GalCiv2 Forums
Good Afternoon,

I was playing the latest beta last night (Human, GS:Immense,9 opponents, normal difficulty) and I wish to report one bug and some observations on the game in general:

My ecomony was operating at an increasingly negative amount (I'll detail that in a second) - In order to try and get back to a positive balance I set production to zero and turn after turn, I watched the deficit increase.

That's not the bug. If the following is not a bug, then I find it to be very odd:

I had creative as one of my picks under abilities, the ability kicked in three times during my session when all production and research was set to zero. In under thirty turns I picked up Alliances, Interstellar Governments, and the one with Republic in the title (I'm at work).

Please confirm if that is a bug.

Now, back to observations, I saw someone else write a post about this - Where is all the money going? I found it challenging, but a little daunting to be running a continuing deficit. I was 5k in the red at one point. In my ability selections, I picked Economics on Master and choose Federalist for my government, so I was expecting an economy to come together sooner in the game.

Eventually I was able to sell my way back to the black and to research enough tech that I am much better off than before, but I still had turns where my Economy performed poorly. Has the Economic system been tweaked to be more brutal? It feels more brutal and I actually like it.

Last observation - The Thalans are in my game. In the first fifteen turns, they cranked out several wonders. Is that normal? Are alien races enabled to simply plop out race specific wonders?

Other than that - Thanks, again, for a great game.

Sincerely,

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10,903 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My solution is to exterminate them and take the resources once they're gone.

And then I try to remember to shut minors off for my next game.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Phaedyme,

Please don't misunderstand me - I actually do enjoy having the minors on hand in a game. Now that we have a new ecomony system in place, I find them more valuable for being someone I can sell and exchange tech with during the early game. I also enjoy the tiny bit of B-5 flavoring they add to my games.

I just find it unbalanced that a minor can crank out constructors and gobble up resources at the far edge of a huge map. I often observe them building influence star bases and this has the side effect of increasing their range.

Technically, just what does a minor need influence for anyway?

Heck, I think they need a nerf. Since they are minors, I think they should be forced to research a separate tech branch for building constructors (something the majors can't trade or grant them). I'd like to see them unable to gobble up resources until at least mid-game.

On the other hand, I think the minors could be more useful diplomatically.
Has anyone considered granting the minors the ability to indirectly influence a UP vote?

Specifically, what if they were enabled or motivated to offer their influence to a major one turn before a UP vote in exchange for whatever the minor found useful or wanted?

The major power that offered the most to the minor in question would receive all the influence points offered by the minor government. The major could turn down the minor's offer, but then the player would probably win the UP vote.

I'm pretty sure that currently, their influence is just of value to a player.
Now the above idea also raises the possibility of the player being outbid by another major power. A war of bids if you will.

I think the idea would just add another layer to an overall game.

So now, instead of a minor just building an influence star base for the heck of it, the reason for having that base would be justified. Also, in theory, a new source of influence points would give all the major powers another reason to just not strike down a minor arbitrarily.

What do you think?

Cheers,

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Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heck, I think they need a nerf. Since they are minors, I think they should be forced to research a separate tech branch for building constructors (something the majors can't trade or grant them). I'd like to see them unable to gobble up resources until at least mid-game.
End of quote


Making all the base modules/hulls require at least HyperDrive could slow them down in this regard. Maybe even move the Constructor module into the new Interstellar Construction tech. At least, that's what I've done in my own personal mod to slow the Minors down in this regard.

Even still, the minors should either A.) actually project influence and be subject to culture flips, thus, justifying the building of Influence bases (I hate not having a peaceful method of dealing with a minor in my influence), or have their AI modified to NOT build those damn things.
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The minors are an exploit imo.

Their behavior and trading is downright weird. They need some serious tweaking. They should be flippable as they once were. After all, in a real universe they would be the most likely to succumb to culture. They should have penalties applied that would apply to real minor civs but still allowed to expand somewhat.

They are currently trading whores for everyone and cannon fodder for agressive players.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They are currently trading whores for everyone and cannon fodder for agressive players.
End of quote


This point inspire me and I think the race ethic should also affect the outcome of the tech-trading. For instance, an aggressive and devil race must pay more to get weapon technologies while a "peaceful race" should feel much harder to extort neighbours just using its fleet.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What the minors should be able to do is grab a limited number of planets, like the ones in their own solar systems. It would give them something to do other then stealing resources and building influence starbases. It would also reduce the absurd amount of cash they seem to have on hand all the time too.