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Some broad statements first. GC2 is a great game. One of the best strategy games ever made. But I believe there is still massive room for improvement. It has won numerous awards and rave reviews, but in terms of sales it's no Halo 3, or even Sins of A Solar Empire. Not only do I want it's successor to be a better game, I also want it to get the sales it deserves.
With this in mind I have been doing some in-depth analysis of where the series needs to go.I had hoped to get this into one topic, but it has proved too long, and I believe some degree of focus will help discussion. So here is part one, an introduction and
It's easy to dismiss the games selective appeal on the nature of the beast and say that a space TBS can never be that successful, but I believe this is a poor excuse. The Civilization series continues to do well, despite it's game play values being very similar. On another note, EVE online is one of the most successful MMOs ever made, despite the fact it's gameplay is mostly based on spread sheets and plays like a second job you have to pay for.
While Civilization's success is based primarily on the legacy it has built (something I believe galciv will come to emulate), what both of these games do is sell the idea of the position in which they put the player far better than GalCiv does.
The problem is largely one of production values and art direction. There is nothing in GalCiv that I want to take a screenshot of and put on my desktop. There is nothing that I would want to watch a video of on gametrailers.com and nothing that would make a great banner like all those you see for EVE. This is not to say that the game should be designed to sell well instead of play well, but it demonstrates that GC2 just doesn't immerse you in it's world or make you care about what's going on like it should.
The first problem is the fleet battles. This is the one part of the game that should really stun, but it's hardly return of the jedi, and that's exactly what the game should be aiming for.
The first thing is the sense of scale. The ships – even the huge ones – just don't feel huge. Part of this I believe, is simply due to the way they move. I would describe their movement as reminiscent of a child holding a toy ship in his hands and waving it through the air in front of him. They shouldn't be able to turn on the spot like they do. The larger ships need a much larger turning circle – capital ships should be slow, inevitable presences while the chaos of battle swirls around them.
The second is art direction. I would argue that most of the components are too “busy” - being able to see small details – individual wires and lights gives the impression that the rest of the ship is not particularly big in comparison. For example, an imperial star destroyer
in comparison to a terran colony ship
You'll notice that the star destroyer has areas of very low detail and flat consistent surfaces punctuated by some areas of very high detail. The colony ship however, is more uniformlydetailed, and this gives it less sense of scale. Additionally of course, the colony ship just looks like it's made out of plastic rather than metal. This is more due to technology – the absence of modern technologies like normal and specular mapping, which I imagine will be a given by the time the next game rolls round.
Next, look at this AI designed ship. It's pretty butt ugly. I'd say it looks like a toy, but most toy companies usually come up with something better than that.
The problems with this are manifold. The first is the colour (the thalans are a particularly poignant example for this). There is nothing wrong with green ships – klingon warbirds for example. But these colours need to be darker or at least more metallic.
The next is the weapons. This is mainly an ai design problem – the ai should never scale weapons this large – it makes the rest of the ship look tiny in comparison. The projectile effects also need to be smaller in comparison to the ships. And of course the backwards facing weapon is unforgivable.
The next point is simply the range of ship sizes – there needs to simply be a larger difference between each class of ship to make the huge ships feel huge. This is also true for carrying capacity – usually by the time I add a support module, I usually only have space on a large ship for one more weapon than on a medium ship. Carrying capacities (in terms of modules per ship) need to be approximately doubling with each generation. Come to think of it, I've no idea why the size of modules changes with hull size – this just seems pointless and confusing.
Lastly, a further problem is weapon components themselves. I am torn on the issue of whether or not ships should be able to shoot through themselves as they can. It would look a lot cooler to see turrets tracking enemy ships, that's for sure. But moving in this direction means that ship layout becomes a gameplay issue insead of purely aesthetic. I am unsure of whether or not this is a good or bad thing, but it needs to be discussed in detail. One solution would be to give each weapon two turrets on either side of the ship (this is what eve online does), so that only one fires at a time, but the enemy is always in sight of one of them.
The next problem with fleet battles is that there is simply not that much going on.
First, in a visual sense, the vast majority of battles are between two groups of ships in open space. This is boring.
More battles need to be fought around planets because this is cool, especially we if we can get some gorgeous planet textures in the background. Back before TA, I used to keep all my ships garrisoned at planets and I got loads of these. However, since then the orbital fleet manager has seemingly disappeared from the tech trees (at least, definitely for the arceans), so fighting at home is now a disadvantage, which is ridiculous. I would start with the premise that fleets are automatically formed when a planet is attacked, and that no improvements are necessary.
Furthermore, fighting at home should have further benefits. I want to see mine fields, I want to see planet mounted canons shooting down capital ships, etc. Finally, I would change the (currently useless) planetary defense improvements to provide a bonus to defending ships, in the same manner as military starbases.
The next kind of battle we need to see more of is starbase battles. Remember that awesome episode of deep space nine? The first improvement I would make to the system is to make starbases automatically form fleets with defending ships, and not contribute to their logistics score, making it always an advantage to have a starbase on your side. Military starbases should have as much combat staying power as the most heavily fitted out huge ships. They should be fortresses that even the most powerful fleets fear to assault.
Even in open space, there needs to be more going on. If the battle is near a planet, I should be able to see it in the distance. The same goes for asteroid fields and other galactic features. There should be floating debris of destroyed ships, occasional asteroids etc.
As much as I want fleet battles to be cooler, I am highly against the idea of the player acting as an admiral, as if this was a total war game. I love the total war series, but the same principles would not work in Gal Civ. I played a game with tactical space combat (Imperium Galactica 2) and it was naff – all you did was select everything and tell them to attack the weakest ship - ie, what the game already does for you. The difference between a space naval battle and an ocean naval battle (or any other kind of historical battle) is that (assuming no weapon ranges are introduced) in space, everyone can shoot anyone anyway.
What there is potential for, however is strategic (not tactical) fleet combat. By this I mean, telling your ships to aim for different ship systems (weapons, engines, or damage), deciding whether or not to deploy limited use modules, and timing the best moment to use them, or overclocking weapons systems to gain increased fire-power at the expense of manoeuvrability, or risking damage.
Of course, for these tactical decisions to exist, more systems need to exist. I know I'm not the first to suggest that some ships could be given Carrier modules, that allow a certain number of tiny ships to keep place with the fleet without needing engines or contributing to logistics. These ships would be able to out manoeuvre the slow, heavy guns of larger ships. Thus an element of strategy is introduced where medium ships are needed to beat fighters, large ships to beat medium ships, and fighters/carriers to beat large ships. Alternatively, instead of fighters, modules could be added to launch small, unmanned and undesigned drones (ala the opening battle of revenge of the sith), which might be simpler for the player than building and carrying extra ships.
Regardless, being able to zoom down to the size of a fighter flying zooming round a capital ship would give fleet battles a sense of scale and drama they currently lack.
The next parts of this discussion will deal with the interface, economy, and general gameplay.
