GalCiv: That extra month of development

from Stardock Forums
I've read on-line that some people are disappointed that we delayed the release of GalCiv by a month so that we could coordinate with our friends at Infogrames with the release of MOO3.

But that extra month made a big difference. Not in terms of bug squashing (though it did let us fix some "cheese" tactics reported by beta testers in diplomacy).

But in terms of overall game fun. Let me be specific:

Normally the last month of development is a frenzy of people working 18 hour days. Anyone who's every made a commercial game can tell you that. The game gets finished and put out the door and usually not heavily play tested for "fun". It goes through QA but that's meant to fix serious bugs.

But with that extra month, our last month was spent playing the game all day. Making a little tweak here. A bit of extra text there. Another event here. And so on. The art guys used the extra month to thrown in a few extra "mini cut scenes". And I was able to spend that extra month playing the game and adjust the AI difficulties, add more intelligence and actually PENALIZE the AI in money/resources at "bright" intelligence and below since that extra month allowed for a lot more observation of strategy pattern matching.

So we'd play the game and see something and think "Hmm, the AI should have accepted that deal." or "Hmm, the AI should have noticed I was beefing up my star bases with culture and weapons" and so on.

So the net result is that the game you buy at the store will be a lot more mature and polished and played out.

So the real winners from that extra month were you guys. The difference between beta 5 and the final RC is very significant from a fun point of view.

And over the coming months, we hope to keep providing you with additional reasons to keep playing the game. ;)
1,046 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! I'd really like this thing to be in my CD drive right now...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaagh.......

Ok, back to homework. :notsure:
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Here's an example of a feature that was put in during that extra month:

In strategy games, you tend to save games and continue them later. But many of us tend to just start over because we've lost interest in that previous game.

So we decided to put in this:
http://draginol.stardock.com/temp/sofar.jpg

You get this immediately after loading a saved game. It gives you a summary of what is going on in that game. It's a throw away feature but just an example of one of the little things from that extra month.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
There's no game I want to be playing more than GalCiv. This is bad because I won't play games until I play the one I want to. And I just got on my term break for the week. It's going to be a long week. >< Yes, I would've liked to have it now.

"So we'd play the game and see something and think "Hmm, the AI should have accepted that deal." or "Hmm, the AI should have noticed I was beefing up my star bases with culture and weapons" and so on."

THAT is what's important in a game. That is what I want. A game where when the AI should do something, it does it. I can wait for that. Really. I'm not chewing my arm off, seriously. *shifty eyes*
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Who came up with that? Are we allowed to tip game developers? Wow, I've always wanted one of those. Though that was mostly because I'd save, play, the game would crash and I wouldn't remember where I was when I had last saved. (not this game)
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,

You've hit the nail on the head with that summary feature. The number of saved games I have never finished is at least 3to1 to games I've finished.

I am really looking forward to seeing the changes between Beta 5C and the final game :)
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Great, maybe I'd have preferred it to be one month earlier and have a patch for the new features ... And from what I've read surely Infogrames should have released GalCiv as planned and given the extra month to MOO3 ! LOL

I'd really like the kind of dedication the team have, the "save summary" is a very good idea - save names I use, such as "LAST" or "2155" , don't tell me much about what was happening ! :p
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
"Who came up with that? Are we allowed to tip game developers?"

I don't remember who came up with it. I don't think it was me. :)

As for tipping the developers...go proselytize to everyone you know about the wonders of Gal Civ! :)

(Link to definition of proselytize)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=proselytize&r=3
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Ah, wonderful naive developers... anyone coming to this site must, as part of one's ritual to become a citizen, tell everyone one knows everything one knows about the game, GalCiv. Even people who don't play games. They kinda looked at me funny. :D
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Will there be a difficulty level where the AI is playing its best under the exact same rules as the player?

Just curious.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes. "Intelligent".
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I have to say, frogboy, that the summary system is the most brilliant and original "simple" idea that I've ever heard for a 4X game. I just wish I'd thought of it first :)

If you guys have similarly good ideas for the complex parts of the game, this is going to be a huge success. I hope so, since I just returned MOO3 leaving my desire for 4X games still unfulfilled. :)
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
"You get this immediately after loading a saved game. It gives you a summary of what is going on in that game."

This is a very nice feature! Can I get such a report without loading a saved game?
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
It seems like it's a yearly report too, no?
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
(Delmar II)'This is a very nice feature! Can I get such a report without loading a saved game? '

(Dearmad)'It seems like it's a yearly report too, no? '

The yearly reports are different from that report, but some of them do cover that information in more detail than the general 'so far' report.