So I have been playing both Gal Civ and Stellaris.

I really like some ideas of stellaris too but the ai is so bad that most ideas are implemented poorly. An awakened fallen empire is barely aggressive for example because the ai can't into war. Also because of the dlc model I think,  most mechanics are just their own thing instead of being connected to other mechanics. Factions is an example of this they could interact with basically everything that has been introduced like sectors, leaders, diplomacy, etc all the newer stuff.

The flavour text of stellaris is a lot better than GalCiv's.  Not that it's not enjoyable in GalCiv, but take the event of your emperors birthday (i think) when you've choosen imperial government. Who is this emperor and when you change your government why does he give up his powers? Why can your space government change to any other type of government overnight (after the change timer is down to 0)? The game mechanics of the paradox games give you some context to these processes and can be fun extra obstacles to overcome.

Though the newer paradox games have been 'dumbed down' in my opinion. I liked EU3 better because it always had a bit of randomness and resticts the player a bit more. For example you always know when another empire will except a diplomatic proposal while in EU3 it didn't gave you an exact number but just the likeliness. There was also always a bit of randomness in diplomacy because allies could always choose not to obey their alliance. The restiction that EU3 had was that the player didn't have complete controle over getting casus belli, this meant that the smaller nations always had a chance to survive and that you didn't completely controlled how and when wars would errupt. I think this is the most fun element in stratey games, constantly having to rethink your strategy to a changing situation.

Maybe the need for a victory condition does make a game like GalCiv less focussed on diplomacy by design. There is less need to co exist and bigger emphasis to grow at the expense of others. You have this in Stellaris too but there are far more often networks of alliances that you need to be aware of when you plan ahead. EU3 does this better too in my opinion, a game as a minor country in the HRE is one of the most fun stratey game experiences I've ever had.

There are a lot of features in Stellaris that I like a lot.   Fundamentally, they're pretty different games (real time vs. turn based).  But a few things I really like in Stellaris:

• Battles take place on the main map
• Story driven lore chains.  We actually have the capability in GalCiv but they are difficult to implement.
• I like how star systems are handled even if I don't love star lanes.

I feel like there's still a lot more to do in GalCiv III before moving on.  But I would love to make a game that combines GalCiv + Sins + Stellaris.

Thanks for the shared thoughts guys. The lack of focused "game" to the Paradox titles is a thing I greatly enjoy when that is what I want. But the focus on the game, and the AI being able to play it in GalCiv is a special and rare thing we need to remind ourselves to cherish.

We can *play* this game and it has its unique arc to that- which sometimes spawns off some fun little narratives, but the real focus in on playing out a game. With an ending. I really like this and am happy Stardock sees fit to still make this rare thing in today's PC Gameiverse. It's not simple to design a game, it's terribly simple to design a collection of art, experiences, and challenges that go on and on but... blech.

CivVI comes to mind. It's not a game really. It's just some interactive entertainment. CKII is the same. However I have more respect for CKII because it doesn't try to be a game like CIV does... the designers got it.

Stellaris is probably a pass for me unless I just want a meandering interactive experience with a sort of story experience. Perhaps one day when its packaged cheaper as a whole.

However by that time, GC4 may be out? Woot

Edit: Actually, add Distant Worlds Universe to that combination, and I would be ecstatic. 

Funny timing, I've also been playing a little more Stellaris recently after having taken a long break from it. There are definitely still things I like about the game, especially with its atmospheric music and writing. There's a lot of clever adaptability with its ethics systems too.

However, I'm still frustrated by the way its AI works, or doesn't. I also feel as though the change in direction from 1.0 has taken something away. Originally you could choose what type of FTL travel your civ could use etc. Defaulting everything to hyperlanes feels like a step back somehow even if it was technically the right decision for gameplay.

For a real time game I also find its combat sorely lacking. Part of me wishes I could just take some of the things from Stellaris, GalCiv, Endless Space, Sins and maybe Homeworld too and mash them together to make the ideal space strategy title.

Quoting Dearmad, reply 3

The lack of focused "game" to the Paradox titles is a thing I greatly enjoy when that is what I want. But the focus on the game, and the AI being able to play it in GalCiv is a special and rare thing we need to remind ourselves to cherish.

I agree GalCiv is it's own unique thing and it should keep all the parts that make it fun and unique. That being said I think that if there was a bit more nuance in how diplomacy and conflict is handeled, it could create a lot more interesting dynamics. Usually once you're at war with another empire it's the first and last conflict you'll fight with them in Gal Civ. Because of this there rarely is a reason to sue for peace, this is also one of the reasons why minor races function as just a thing to conquer. What if conquering entire star systems without having them rebelling and rejoin their faction or create their own was only possible until the late mid game. Not by a hard cap, you could be free to try. Perhaps then the Drengin would rely on raiding other empires during wars to get population to fill their slave pits and improve their production. 

There could also be cooprative or competitive quests like in Catan or some quests in Endless Legend/Space 2 for example. In Catan with the seafarers expansion you have the pirate which attacks every player when a certain number has been rolled a specific amount of times. This forces everyone to cooperate if only briefly because they will all suffer if they don't. This can create interesting dynamics if you can have the ai hold a grudge when a specific empire doesn't do their part for example. The end game crises in stellaris could be an example of this too but there is no diplomatical framework to make this really interesting. Also the ai can't properly fight and therefore doesn't respond properly it loses a lot of meaning. I really appreciate that Brad and Stardock still place that much importance on good ai because multiplayer is not really an option for games that can span so many hours.

 

I think ultimately, GalCiv provides a better "chess match" for players, while Stellaris provides a better "Role play experience". 

The diplomacy system in Stellaris alone, whether it's meaningful or not, is far more robust and provides a lot of storytelling opportunities, then you have the end game content, fallen empires, etc.

IF Stellaris had had a ship editor akin to GC3, I probably would have favored Stellaris over GC3 originally... but since aesthetic ship design is my niche, GC3 captured my heart.

In a future GC title I'd really want a new map style... to allow for both on-main-screen battles and for choke points. I think the closest solution I've come to... is differentiating space tiles as "In System" and "Deep space". In system is obviously tiles around a star (or multiple stars) in a certain radius (and it should be a little random, not perfect spheres IMO) and use tactical engine speeds and are the tactical battle zones. Ships fight here, and can be stacks (just like now) but smaller stacks in general perhaps, and when a battle occurs you have a viewer window in one of your UI corners that is showing some nice animations in addition to the main screen (Dunno maybe works?). Alternate method is to copy Endless Legends tactical battles.

Deep space uses different engines, you can't fight on those tiles at all, and in general is much much slower than regular space to move through.

I think the result is that you have bubbles of star systems that act as strategic choke points, but they can still be maneuvered around strategically (but very slowly) and they provide a zone where tactical battles occur on the screen.

Additionally... tiles surrounding a planet would be "orbit" and a lot of ship stats penalized when fighting there unless they are very maneuverable and have thrusters.

Anywho... I look forward to StarDocks next venture into GC... but I kind of hope they just let GC3 end and get to work. LET US IMPORT OUR SHIPS THOUGH   

@Belgian: I agree with just about everything you said. Careful structural additions that the AI CAN PLAY WITH TOO are my cup of tea in this game, and the deepening mechanics you bring up would be very cool and fun, imo.

@Gauntlet:

Chokepoints via lanes or anything will hurt the AI more than you realize. It basically funnels all of the player skills into one place and when that happens the human wins. As it is now the AI in GC3 still gets a few stabs in at my back planets by sneaking around a fleet during wars. I, frankly, LOVE this part of the game. The open space model is awesome and I do not want choke points beyond the initial difficulty of range reach that we already have. Plus I just hate that style of play- it happens in CIV VI all the time and it is so AI killing- even though civ vi has no ai really...

the natural chokepoint of direct lines to save time on trips is enough for me in gc3. anyone is free to sneak around but that adds a cool risk that I enjoy already all the time.

**But having said all that- I like your terrain idea about "orbit" and gravity wells though. That's sorta cool- coastal ships versus deep water sort of. Unlike Deep Space I would WANT the deep space battles to continue to be possible in GC3! Would make smaller ships supreme in orbit with their thrusters and maneuverability while the big guns are the masters of deep space combat. Yeah, the more i think about that the more I like it! Hope Brad is listening. Imagine fights near black holes too! YEAH your idea is exciting!!!** Any reason to have a place for smaller fighter craft AND larger ships is aces in my book.

That was a good read. I feel mixed with starlane but it make chokepoint and strategic defense possible. Maybe we could meet it halfway where you are allow to travel freely but going down starlane make you go faster?  Anyway, have you play Endless Space series? I think it can use to compare with GC series. I like ES on how beautiful it is but good lord, does the game limited your choice because the developer disallow you to go out of their idea. You can create your own custom race like in GC but it is pretty limited because you only allow to use what were in the game. ES is pretty but I come back to GC most of the times because it feel more sandbox.

Exactly! From the first time I 'modded a Civ style game (I believe that was Civ II), I've learned that the AIs are never really able to play well by the new rules. And that's why I don't like modding these games: even when I'm sure there's clearly a bug or inbalance, I have to assume that the AIs were carefully taught to use these rules, including all the flaws. Changing anything has the very real potential to break the AIs' ability to beat you, and that would take the fun out of the game.

The GalCiv 3 AIs may be much better at working with an adjusted rule set than any other 4X game I know, but also the game mechanics are more complex than any 4X game I know - I don't really understand half of them yet. Maybe the best way to improve the game would be to streamline the game mechanics and remove complexity whereever it doesn't really add to the fun of playing the game. IMHO. E.g. I repeatedly heard that synthetics are overpowered; but my impression is that carbon based races simply have to deal with too much complexity just to feed themselves and keep people happy. Remove the complexity of feeding people and growing pop, and reduce the effort of keeping everyone happy, then synthetics won't be so overpowered anymore. Or remove the concept of taxes for robots: they don't care about wages, why should they pay taxes? They should need to resort to other methods of earning cash.

I think in the next GalCiv we'll probably have things set up where the map is much...much.....much bigger but comes already conntected with hypergates to various clusters and the hypergates are 10X faster than normal space by default (instead of 2X).

This way, we can have our cake and eat it too.

I don't mind having slow travel in big galaxies, what I do mind is that many game mechanics break down when the galaxy and number of planets increases: too high research speed, too high tourism income (because it's tied linearly to ZoI), bad scaling effects for citizens - nobody will want to place one on a single planet - , lack of administrators for starbases and colonization. These are just the worst offenders.

As for administrator scaling the solution is easy: remove them! Coloization is already limited by pop (just remove the +pop on colonization effects), starbases should only offer the max of all effects from in overlapping areas instead of the sum, and for survey ships I never understood the need for limitation in the first place.

For the other things, they must be scaled relative to the available space and planets (divided by number of players). Otherwise the large galaxy scaling breaks down.

Space is just BIG.   Space shouldn't have choke points, unless it is related to a space anomaly, a hypergate, or something.  My issue with slow travel is only if it makes the game drag on and on.  A bigger issue I see in Galciv3 is clear if you play a tiny map with all the settings set to max (particularly black holes).  It's hard to get around.  There were hexes on the edge which I simply could not reach, because they were blocked off by a Bazaar, next to a black hole, or something.   Actually space should be 3D, and we should be thinking and strategizing in 3D, except that the implementation of that is hard, on multiple levels.

Of course, that leads to the ultimate issue I have, with this or anything:  implementation.  As Thomas Edison said, invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  All kinds of startup companies and products pop up out there with well over the 1% inspiration.  What makes-or-breaks them is in the 99% perspiration.   And the phenomenon I see is that Galciv takes hours (even days) on end to play.  How are you going to QA and beta test that?  It's a significant investment.  If the game was over in half an hour, it's not too hard to find players with hundreds of games under their belt.