Ryan Clifton Ryan Clifton

The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed)

▼

The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed)

from Stardock Forums
Preface: I play on intelligent and I've played about 10 - 15 games at this level on huge maps.

I've read a number of threads and talked to some other people who play the game and it appears that a lot of people are coming to the same conclusion: There is a tightly defined formula for winning Gal Civ.

This formula is esentially,
1) expand like crazy
2) research straight to dreadnaught
3) build up military to at least par with the next strongest civ
4) sit back and wait for tech or culture victory

Now of course there's trading, starbases, and economy management in there, but that's basically how everyone seems to be playing. To me, this seems one dimensional. The problem is that even though the game has multiple ways to win (tech, culture, etc), having the strongest military is a pre-requisite to all of the victory conditions.

Additionally, if I can get to dreadnaught without suffering too many losses, my winning is a foregone conclusion. This obviously takes much of the excitement out of the game for me.

There are a few things that I think should be done to fix this:

The computer should request less money, perhaps for longer periods of time, when it's trying to be a bully. Asking me for 1100 bc when I only have 100 is stupid. Doing this would keep all civs (not just humans) out of war more often since they are actually able to pay for peace. This way, if I wanted to play as a peaceful economic power, I could just be paying 100 - 200 bc per turn indefinitely to the dregnin to keep them off my back (obviously they would eventually need to detect that I'm becoming a threat and attack.. but just not as quickly as they currently do).

My second item I believe is being addressed, but it's so bad right now I think it deserves more attention. The computer (all of them) is horrible at starbase management. Computer starbases built off of resources are invariably never upgraded and those built on resources often are only 1/3 to 1/2 upgraded. If the computer was better at managing starbases, perhaps the period after acquiring dreadnaught tech wouldn't be quite so easy (the premise is that while I'm building up SBs all over the galaxy and extending my power, the computer is not).

This last one seems trivial, but it does make a big difference. I ALWAYS have at least one survey ship cruising the universe picking up anomalies. I have never seen a computer do this past the first year or two. Presumably they commit their survey ships to battle at their first opportunity. After a few hundred turns, all of those +1% bonuses add up.
3,194 views 97 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
#18 by Avatar Frogboy - 5/20/2003 3:35:25 PM I think much of this boils down to: Ctrl-N is too powerful.I think one solution is not to wimp out Ctrl-N but rather keep how many times a player restarts their game in mind when doing scoring.If you get a great starting position, you can usually win against opponents who aren't cheating.
End of quote


please leave it in. i rarely use it, but i don't want a feature i like removed just because some people abuse it. it would be like removing the no cd feature because you found out someone was pirating galciv: it won't stop the 'go back to menu and restart people', but it will annoy the honest people who wind up with one star in the far corner.
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
A step in the right direction. But it would be better to evaluate the starting position, the score being achievements/start position value.

Otherwise, you will end up giving an advantage to players who simply get lucky, or restart a game instead of using ctrl-N. Much as you or I may dislike it, but some people will go a long way for a good-looking score, and discouraging the milkers is not as easy as you think. :D
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
//On scoring, CTRL-N'ing: I also think it shouldn't be too hard to calculate starting position into the score.
Wonder how this will come out//

IMHO military path and/or +2 speed will be even more effecitve than now. Then you are going a peaceful way, you'll have a number of planets/resources that you can get from this particular respawn, and no more. If you are going military way and/or speed, you are gaining additional planets/resources.

~SDC~
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm confused.. are these posts in the correct thread? What on earth does CNTL-N have to do with the computer not knowing how to build starbases, get anomalies, and ask for more reasonable things when demanding tribute?

Frogboy: I'm a little taken aback by your comment. I understand you have pride in the game, but you have to admit that the starbase code is not very strong. To suggest that my issues would be fixed by not letting people restart the game doesn't make sense. Just for your own knowledge, I never hit CNTL-N unless I'm 150 turns in an realize that there's no possible way to continue (I'm being attacked from multiple sides and my army of defenders just isn't going to cut it).

I would appreciate it if you address the issues rather than suggesting we all cheat (or exploit) in order to win. If I'm wrong, fine, tell me why, but please don't suggest I'm cheating.
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
I use CNTL-N, and a lot. I have terrible luck with starting position. And I'm not just whistling dixie. I started 8 games last night on medium map, (4) tight and scattered (4) density, and in only 1 of those starts did I have another Brad colonizable (PQ 15) world within my reach without building a constructor first. Of those remaining 7 games, by the time I could get a constructor MOVED to allow me to reach out, the AI had grabbed ALL the yellow worlds left.

This isn't an issue of restarting or start position. It's that the original poster always plays a certain setting and in a certain way. The AI strategies vary by galaxy size. He's complaining that the AI always plays that setting the same, and he wants variety. Well, duh. He needs to vary his galaxy size, and then he'll get different games because they will play different.

But the same formula for the game, run for battleships and dreadnaughts, will eventually pop up. Those are the base ships. And Dreads give Missiles, a great defense unit in the game. :)

You don't need a defense ship to counter dreads. That's what missiles are for. We just need more missiles earlier to let players kill aggressors, setting the balance of power back to defense. This will change the power balance to run for frigates (then BS, then Dreads), so the military conqueror can overwhelm the weaker. This one change makes it a lot more difficult to take over other worlds, making Culture and Research the preferred paths of play to victory. (Instead of those being the default listed wins after subjecting most of the AIs... ;))
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
I would like to see war being made a bigger deal. Kinda like the way MOO3 was suppost to handle war. Like being made to repay war debts, and stuff like that. Wars should be long and expensive. You should have to REALLY wan't to go into war, not just declare grab a system, and then be friends again. War in Gal Civ now is somthing you just turn on and off like a switch.

Normaly I feel like my english is pretty good, but for some reason I feel like my post does not sound right :notsure:
Reply #33 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, ctrl-n is fun if say.. you want a REALLY bad starting position. I've tried this a few times. Want a challange? Get a nice corner with one habitable system within a few sectors. Wee! LOL

fleabitfox
Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, ctrl-n is fun if say.. you want a REALLY bad starting position. I've tried this a few times. Want a challange? Get a nice corner with one habitable system within a few sectors. Wee! LOL

fleabitfox
Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top
= Good luck getting an incredible ai give you a penny (except a few minors).

They still give a good package of non-military techs for trade goods.
Reply #36 from Stardock Forums Top
= Good luck getting an incredible ai give you a penny (except a few minors).

They still give a good package of non-military techs for trade goods.
Reply #37 from Stardock Forums Top

BTW, i wasn't suggesting that we take out Ctrl-N.

I'm suggesting that it be looked at.

But guys, let's say you have 600 engineering hours available to assign. Just how many more do you want assigned to stuff to deal with the metaverse scoring stuff?

The whole reason we made each game have such variety in galaxy set ups is so that people could have FUN matching themselves against different scenarios.

Sure, you get the game set up so thta you have a really good start with lots of planets near by and if you're really good and the AI gets some bad luck, you're going to win. And? How is this bad? If you want a greater challenge, then hit Ctrl-N until a more challenging galaxy distribution is created.

I would much prefer to spend the limited engineering resources available to add in features, tweak gameplay, enhance the AI, and make the game more fun for the 99% of the players who are not playing the game to crank out the best metaverse score they can get.

Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
I would much prefer to spend the limited engineering resources available to add in features, tweak gameplay, enhance the AI, and make the game more fun for the 99% of the players who are not playing the game to crank out the best metaverse score they can get.
End of quote


Just when I was starting to get a little discouraged, a ray of hope from Frogboy himself. :HOT:

~SDC~
Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top
I believe most of us would agree that tweaking metaverse scoring takes a much lower priority than the impt stuff mentioned above.

In fact, I see it as a huge compliment to the game that many players are harping on the Metaverse rather than the actual game. There is this confidence that the game is already solid and that there is clear evidence that Stardock is committed to improving this game (at an amazing speed). :)
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad, in fact do all you can on the game rather than metaverse score.
I think I can understand your comment on Ctrl-N. The point is that starting position matters too much. However, the initial point is that the game forces you to expand like crazy. I tried to play OCC-like yesterday evening on gigantic-masochistic, just for fun. I mean, I was effectively a minor race. I was trading with the Arceans or the Drengins for 4% of their income, with incoming freighters which would have made it up to 10 or 12%. They declare war. Why? It's pretty lame, as the 2 planets they'll take from me aren't worth 10% of their economy. Thus, I can't play OCC/small perfectionist and have to expand like crazy. Now, OK, I played maso so that was kind of expected. I could try it on lower difficulty levels, but the behaviour remains the same, except I'll have some time to tank a bit and might get more trade flowing before the Dreng's feel like crushing me. But they are still being stupid, as they lose more by attacking me than by staying peaceful. That is why I think trading partners should have much better relations than what they have now. In particular if the income from their planets is less than what they give you by trade, they are not worth attacking (unless dangerous from another point of view).

There is only one valid overall strategy to play the game so far, with interesting variants based on map size (to me there are two map sizes: tiny and the rest - because tiny is the only mpa size where you can start without building a colony ship). The rest is micromanagement.
I'd rather not have the game tweaked towards metaverse scorers but towards more possibilities of winning, like trade+research+alliance with a big guy vs. having to maintain a huge military. Alliances come too late in a game, so you have to have military power in the meantime.

I feel it's strange, too, that population doesn't seem to weight much, if any, in production ability. This lets civs expand like crazy without regards for population growth, and out-produce other players which have bigger population. Thus it favors star expansion, as star expansion depletes population, but favors production. Production can be used to make ships to bully the others and get the econ benefit of their big population for oneself. I wonder whether without the Drengins in the start you have to choose the military path, though...
Reply #41 from Stardock Forums Top
My big complaint about this game is that the AI is way too easy to "read". By that I mean I know exactly how its going to behave given a certain set of behaviors on my part.

I can lull one race into a war/peace scenario by merely parking ships in their territory. I remember sniping several acrean worlds from this tactic.

I can get many non-combat techs and they seem to follow a set amount of techs they will give yup (usually 2 to 4 depending)

I know that unless a negative event hits, they will not initiate a war unprovoked. I can read it like a book.
Reply #42 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,

If the metaverse becomes too much of a pain to manage, would suggest Stardock remove the scoring aspect of it but leave the game records (version, morality, galaxy size, difficulty, victory type) for our reference.

I'm sure the community would continue to support the other aspects of the metaverse (improving AI, AI-player simulation) by submitting our games even without the motivation of competiting.

If you can spare some engineering hours, grant us an "ironman" feature in the game and let the community host our own tournaments (such as the GOTM that dirkdirk/ellestar started).
Reply #43 from Stardock Forums Top
//I feel it's strange, too, that population doesn't seem to weight much, if any, in production ability.//
It is, but 2 planets with population 20 gives same production as one planet with population ~2500 (if PQ are equal).

~SDC~
Reply #44 from Stardock Forums Top
I read from the gamespot interview that the game is supposed to be able to download not only updates to the AI, but you're supposed to be able to download an AI that is supposed to resemble the tactics of the player that submitted it, in a sense allowing you to challenge the strategy employed by the player submitting the game. I'm not sure what happened between the interview and release, but I was rather disappointed when I didn't see this feature in play
End of quote


It doesn't happen yet, but that was/is the eventual plan. It seems to be that part of the problem is that the GalCiv updates are happening much faster than the infrastructure updates, much for the reason that Brad mentioned a few posts up.

The information needed is already part of the Metaverse score uploads, and according to some of the changelogs/history files has been used to manually update the AI before. The code to automate it, and the stuff that goes along with it like selecting your opponent, just isn't there yet.

~SDC~
Reply #45 from Stardock Forums Top
#42 by Citizen RayChua - 5/21/2003 4:47:38 AM Brad,If the metaverse becomes too much of a pain to manage, would suggest Stardock remove the scoring aspect of it but leave the game records (version, morality, galaxy size, difficulty, victory type) for our reference.

You can also play the Galciv Game of the Month, if you want to compare your skills against other players ;p

http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&ID=59314#61694
Reply #46 from Stardock Forums Top
Dikdirk,

I'm certainly planning to join your GOTM once I'm done with my own mission of getting experience with smaller maps and simultaneously reaching the 20 wins mark (for that sexy blue medal) :D
Reply #47 from Stardock Forums Top
Hours I'd like to see the StarDock team spend improving the Metaverse: 0. Why 0? Because no matter what they do with it, 90% of the people here will hate it. It will just be a different 90% then we have now. I've never seen a scoring system implemented anywhere that didn't lead to a diehard group of compulsive bitchers spending the rest of their lives screaming "It's unfair!!!" to anyone who they could force to listen. They'll hijack every forum thread possible, they'll start five new threads a day that say the same thing as the other four, and they'll never, ever, ever get tired of doing it.

At this point I'd almost welcome the deletion of the Metaverse if that meant I'd never have to see another post of someone talking about it.

Suggestions to 'improve' any scoring system always seem to boil down to "make this change so my playing style will get me a #1 ranking". Our poor biology, it's so confused. It doesn't understand that being ranked #1 in a computer game doesn't lead to enhanced mating opportunities. *comforts confused strands of DNA everywhere*
Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top
//I feel it's strange, too, that population doesn't seem to weight much, if any, in production ability.//It is, but 2 planets with population 20 gives same production as one planet with population ~2500 (if PQ are equal).

Thanks for the figures. That's what I call "not much" indeed.
Reply #49 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with the original post; there seems to be one way to win the game if you're playing at large-plus map sizes. I don't care about the metaverse, like most casual users I've never used it. But I do care that my games are starting to look disturbingly similar (and I've only had time to play eight games).

The ctrl-N issue won't change that at all; what will change it is some way of doing diplomacy so you can pay for peace if you choose to do a non-military option. The current system for buying peace is basically a non-starter; pay 1000 bc, then pay again a few turns later. You're always better off using that 1000 bc to shore up your defenses, as the AI will continuously attack weaker opponents. Yes, its easy to make a strong enough military that you can defend successfully, but it becomes monotonous.

How about a diplomacy option where you give an AI tribute to maintain peace; if they attack the tribute ends. Let the AI be smart enough to recognize that often they're better off taking in tribute (and probably trade) income than going to war.

Maybe make it possible (but very expensive) to build up one planet to a very high PQ so you don't have to do the rush-like-crazy expansion in every game.

Or like someone said, put in some extremely high defense/almost no offense ships, and let the AI recognize that these make conquest very difficult.

Its a great game, but after playing it less than ten times it feels like every game goes through the same sequence(like a type of chess where say the Ruy Lopez opening is the only non-suicidal opening); and I suspect the reason is the emphasis the AI puts on military strength.