Galactic Civilizations 3 Community Interview with SpaceSector Part 1

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I've edited your post.

Hmm.

No new information at all.  If you have kept up with all the previous interviews there is no point in reading this.

Not that there is anything wrong with this.  It is good to get the news out that a new version is in the works.  The more people that know the better.

There will be technology to make uninhabitable planets habitable, I like that. I remember an event from a GC2 game where about 20 or so class zero planets were turned to class 6.

Ship combat will not be in the Alpha. Also 

"Galactic Civilizations isn’t about fighting long tactical battles."

Can we put the begging for tactical combat to rest now? Please.

"Our focus is in making the single-player game great and then adding multiplayer on top of that."

Excellent.

"Different resources exist on the map and are used for a variety of purposes, primarily the pursuit of optimum efficiency in creating ex-Drengin (or Terrans, or whomever)."

I don't really understand. What are ex-Drengin?

"Right now we’re putting 110% of our effort into making the base game awesome."

Good, too many companies focus on DLC before the game is even finished. I expecially hate day one DLC.

"No. A huge majority of our fans enjoy playing on Steam and having it hooked up through Steam allows us to easily take advantage of Steam’s features (achievements, multiplayer, etc.). We tried providing a Steam and non-Steam version of Fallen Enchantress and hardly anyone used the non-Steam version." 

That should kill hopes of a non-Steam version.

"But we are excited by the addition of the new culture system, map hexes, multiplayer, the new battle system, and interstellar terrain as well as the long list of refinements to every aspect of the game."

Can't wait to hear more about the culture system and interstellar terrain.

Sorry about that, I'll keep that in mind from now on.

Unfortunately, it won't. The trolls will argue that Stardock meant that we're getting *short* tactical battles rather than *no* tactical battles. Stardock persists in feeding the trolls with hopes that there will be tactical battles, and drives otherwise reasonable people to avoid the forums to avoid the trolls.

I'll wait to see the alpha before complaining too much about the simultaneous turn bit. If the single player works pretty much how GC2 did, it will be fine. If it doesn't, I'm going to be pissed.

The full answer doesn't leave much for interpretation. 

"We have a new combat system that we are planning for after the alpha. But we don’t want to mislead people – Galactic Civilizations isn’t about fighting long tactical battles. You are controlling a civilization that spans the galaxy and your focus is on producing and placing your fleets, not in giving every order in a battle. We want to keep players engaged at the empire level and fighting for planets and systems, not in ship to ship combat."

But yeah, I expect some people to ask for tactical combat to be patched in after the game releases.

This should put your fears to rest.

"We fully expect the majority of our players to play Galactic Civilizations III single-player. Our focus is in making the single-player game great and then adding multiplayer on top of that."

Dead Drengin.

Frogboy already killed them:

Can we move all further discussion on this to the thread created by Island Dog? Having two threads dedicated to this interview can be confusing.

No responses are needed. Just go to the other thread.

This was, unfortunately, exceptionally underwhelming which is a bit of a shame. Given that the alpha is only a short hop away I'm not sure why they're being so evasive regarding some answers; are they holding back on detail in order to push up the value on the pre-order?

That was my one real grievance. Dhe question specifically pointing out that the Founders edition is rather expensive without an indication of the dlc/expansions we can expect our concerns are treated to an off-hand comment not answering the question?

I was not impressed.

Edit: Ah, I thought that both threads were in the same subforum, apologies.

I have to agree with this. Weirder still, Frogboy already provided an answer some time ago:

Oh, well that's good news. Although, that does make their non-answer rather odd. It's hardly changed...

Likewise. Some sort of complicated, more expensive habitat domes or something like that, containing certain mini-modules to keep morale high. Remember Space Colony game, where we could install smaller modules under the domes? Of course, no real micromanagement, just the idea.

I don't like concept of DLC itself, I like old add-ons and expansions, but if it's free content, something from graphics departments, if artists really have nothing to do up to release - then why not?

I will say, for the record that there will be at least 2 expansions to GalCiv 3 plus lots of dlc.  But what they'll be will largely depend on what players want. 

Crusader Kings 2 alike - where you could customize your game even more you can customize your AR-15? Sold!

Oh, wait...

The problem is 'most' people LOVE DLC. They love it so much that for Call of Duty Black Ops 2, they made MORE MONEY ON DLC than they did selling the actual game. You can reference Activisions' Q4 earnings call concerning this.

It's really really hard to argue against numbers like that if you're trying to go with 'DLC' or 'old school expansions'.

The thing with DLC is that on an AAA game, not all the teams are working at the same time in development. Instead of idling a team or laying people off, you can put them to work on DLC while the main team works on something else. The content in question is usually small enough that they can sell it relatively cheap, but it's got a high profit margin since it's relatively easy to make.

Full expansions don't work well for a game like Call of Duty anyway, since the goal isn't to change mechanics between versions. DLC is great to just add content like maps. For strategy games expansions tend to make more sense because the life of the game is so much longer.

Brad said that there will be both Dlc and expansions, and the Dlc's will be old school. I know what an expansion does, but what did the Dlc's do for the game. Compare what it would do for Twilight of the Arnor as a comparison.

Well we don't have a lot of history since Stardock hasn't really gone on the DLC train much. The only game we can really reference is Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. Which in and of itself is 'werid' since it's more like a 'stand alone expansion' to Fallen Enchantress, than a separate game.

Haven't played Fallen Echantress. Brad said that the DLC are not expansions never seen a DLC just wondering how they would change the game. Can't pretend how they would've changed Galactic civilizations, Then can you describe it to me seeing it is not an expansion. Expansions and patches I can visualize.

Looking at other games in the strategy genre, the general rule is that DLC adds content to the existing game. Things like races, leaders, scenario maps, new ship parts, and such.

Expansions add or change game systems. Things like espionage that change how the game plays. They also tend to contain things that could be sold as DLC.

That is pretty much exactly how the divide worked in Civ V (some maps and Civs as DLC, others came in the expansions along with espionage, religion, and a beefed up trade system). I expect it to be similar here. Some games use the term "DLC" for both types just for simplicity, but it seems Stardock is keeping the terms separate.

Thanks that helps for me to visualize!

But we are not most people! Few are the few, the proud, The Stardock fans, we show our interest in purchasing games Brad and his team are making, and he, as capitcalist, should make games for us, not most people.

Yeah, sure, in modern days people are ready to pay 25% of costs of full-fledge expansion for meaningless things like assault bra for your wizard team mate. I wonder why Apple haven't sued anyone on that? I thought it's their MO - to sell fertilizer for narcisses.