Initial thoughts

from Stardock Forums

I just played through my first game of GalCiv III Alpha. Despite the "This will not be fun" warning at the beginning, I found it very enjoyable. Obviously pared down and simplified, but it ran smoothly and there were no obvious game-breaking bugs. So here are my thoughts on what could be improved. Again, this is after my first game and there are no tutorials or tips in the game yet, so I apologize if I list something that is in the game, but I couldn't find it:

 

1) I don't like the way the single button on the bottom right hand guides me through my turn. In a game like this, I want more control over exactly what I am addressing and in what order. I'd much rather have a list of things that need to be addressed that I can view and deal with in the order I choose. Maybe I want to do some scouting with my ships and see what kinds of weapons my enemies are using before I choose my next tech, etc. There are some workarounds, but it felt clumsy to do anything but address the issues in the order the button brought them up. I'd much prefer collapsible menus from which I can view all of the issues at once and choose which to address. The botton also was part of the only real bug I encountered: it took me to a fleet that was without orders, but had no movement points left. I couldn't do anything with the fleet, but also could not get the button to switch to another unit or to end the turn. I can't remember exactly how I ended up resolving it, but I finally got the game to recognize that I didn't need to do anything more with that unit. The bug itself was a minor one of the kind that often slips into a finished game, but because the button won't let me end my turn until everything has been dealt with, if I hadn't been able to resolve the issue I would not have been able to continue that game.

2) Need an alert when ships are done. Simple and straightforward, I'm hoping this is already in the game, just didn't make it into alpha.

3) I don't like the UI for research. Because it is just a list it is hard to think about the tech in terms of what you've already researched and what your research is leading toward. I really like to be able to see the actual tree it helps to visualize the progression aspect of research. The UI for this in FE works very well. If you don't want people looking way down the tree to pick what the research now, then make a tree that only shows those tech that can currently be researched, or those and the techs they lead to.

 

I hope these are helpful to you as you try to make GalCiv III as good as possible.

12,890 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I agree on the techtree. More I look at it, less I really like it.

Your suggestion is excellent, GC2 had in my view excellent techtree so I would like to see something in that spirit implemented here.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Others are also commenting about adding check boxes to the options so by default there would not be the micro but one could increase micro if they wanted.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

As a streamer its getting hard to play over and over with only 2 types of planet events since i was really looking forward to showing that off because that was one of the funniest things. Also want to see if ship battles are fun to watch now

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

After playing some more, I'll expand a little.

 

Using the sidebar instead of the bottom-right botton worked well in the early game, but once I had more than a half-dozen or so planets, this became cumbersome. I think a filter on the sidebar that makes it show only those planets/ships/etc. that need action would do the trick nicely without drastic changes to the ui. I still think there needs to be a way to end your turn while planets or units are idle.

 

I still would like to see the tech display overhauled, but at the very least we need to be able to see past research.

Also, when I have multiple ships on the same space (but not in the same fleet) I don't seem to be able to select one of them from the bottom-left display and move it. I have to cycle to it using the bottom-right button, which is a bit clunky.

If one of your ships enters the same space as another while following a longer path, it auto combines the ships into a fleet. Please add a dialogue for creating fleets unless one ship has it's path ending on another ship which has no movement orders.

Will the specialization techs eventually have more than 3 options? With three it just feels like a weird way to present a normal tree, but if there were lots of options (5-8 would be good I think) for 3 slots that would make those techs much more interesting.

 

Finally, has anyone found a way to add some challenge to Alpha? In this state the AI is basically non-existant. It expands, but doesn't defend its planets. It never builds planetary defenses (maybe just never researched the tech in any of my games) and when it rarely build combat ships they just sit outside the planet on which they were built waiting for me to blow them up. Also, the planets it builds are a mess. I always take them without destroying any improvements, but then end up blowing up half the stuff anyway in order for the planet to be at all effective.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The only way to add challenge now is to go multi against a person.