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Author Topic: Galactic Civilizations III - Released  (Read 14270 times)

Stuebi

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #60 on: May 18, 2015, 02:54:45 pm »

Buddy of mine got it a while ago and couldnt play it for a while because of some weird font bug or something. So I held off. Turns out that was a good idea.

I read around a bit and watched some YT-stuff, and it seems the game lacks a couple patches (Content and fixing). The AI has serious issues actually taking Technology into account when it comes to war, and will either try to "bully" you with it's fleet of paper-rockflingers, or declare wars that it cant possibly win. Might not sound like much, but for people that like to focus heavily on Tech and spend a lot of time in the designer (The Designer's fantastic btw, the couple hours I played on buddys account where almost exclusively spent just dicking around in it), late game is practically non existent. Most AI's will either smash their head against your superior Tech way too early, or dont Tech fast enough themselves to be any kind of threat.

The AI doesnt need to be awesome for me to enjoy it, mind you. But currently, it looks like it can barely put up a decent fight against people who allready know the series. Not really worth laying down 50 bucks, at least for me. I'll hold of for a month or two until those patches start to hit.
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Aklyon

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #61 on: May 18, 2015, 03:03:31 pm »

I watched a friend play it a bit yesterday, and the altarians (with their many, many energy weapons/defenses only tiny craft fleets) declared war on everyone at least once, 3 wars at a time. This eventually got the drengin of all things to surrender to him from the other side of the galaxy while they never even showed up near us except to blow up a starbase.

Pretty sure they were the least aggresive in galciv2 as far as I remember, so that was reaallllly weird.

Edit: he didn't have any sort of font problem.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2015, 03:06:07 pm by Aklyon »
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Retropunch

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #62 on: May 19, 2015, 10:53:38 am »

Urghhh. So I just had a good 4 hours play of it and I am not impressed to say the least. Make no mistake, this really is a mess.

1. I'd almost be fine with this being an exact 64bit clone of GalCiv2 (except at their laughably high asking price) but they've managed to cut out LOADS of features and as loads of people have said before, these holes are exactly DLC shaped. Espionage, which is pretty a key part of 4x games has already been shunted into a DLC. I literally could not believe how much of a copy-paste this was, and how much they managed to rip out even though it was copy-paste.

2. The graphics are woefully bad/inconsistent. This would be fine in an indie game, but they're asking AAA price.

3. The AI is insane. I'm guessing it just didn't work out - I know they tried, but it just comes across as useless.

4. So much turn skipping. This was always a GalCiv problem, but this is more extreme. I've clicked through about 20 turns before anything has happened, and even then it was just moving a ship or two to a starbase.

TL.DR: DO NOT BUY - stick with GalCiv2. The only thing this does is take stuff away from it. I literally couldn't tell you what they've added other than a couple of slightly more advanced tech options and choosing a few global modifiers every 100 turns.
 
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

pondicherry

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #63 on: May 19, 2015, 01:19:23 pm »


I feel the same :/
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Culise

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #64 on: May 19, 2015, 01:28:18 pm »

I bought it for half-off, and while I've been enjoying it, I do find myself occasionally wondering if I still didn't pay too much.  I can't imagine what people who paid full price must feel, so I'll definitely nth waiting for a while.  I expect you'll eventually be able to buy it for cheaper with the DLC/patch work packaged in as well: espionage was already mentioned, but their attempts at a planetary combat redesign were apparently introduced in beta 0.6 and almost immediately pulled due to being terrible (which contributed to the lackluster feel of planetary invasions right now), and the designer mode's "role" selection (capital, escort, assault, etc.) is apparently a half-baked remnant from their efforts to improve space combat.  Getting governments back would be lovely, and is likely another planned future feature; right now, all government techs do is give you a few new modifiers like, say, +10% production, which is all sorts of dull when compared to previous versions (especially when it's been a core feature since, I think, OS/2).  I do like the shipyards, though, as well as individual planet balancing for production/economy/research sliders.  Even the latter has its own issues, though; even on its own, but especially when combined with adjacency bonuses, it tends to reward extensive specialization and punish generalization.  That, however, is largely a game design question. 

Oh, also, it vaguely irritates me that the Arceans, Torians, and even the Drath are MIA.  I'm aware of story reasons for the first two, but I'm not sure that's a reason to exclude them even in sandbox mode.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2015, 01:34:23 pm by Culise »
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umiman

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #65 on: May 19, 2015, 03:23:56 pm »

Yeah I agree. I like the game but I think it's probably worth about $15.

BurnedToast

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #66 on: May 19, 2015, 07:03:52 pm »

Ugh. I always hated that in GCII. The AI will go to war with you over border violations but completely ignores your borders. I know AI programming is hard and all...but you could at least try to pretend that they don't function with completely different rules than the player.

After this many RTS game from Stardock that have weak AI, I'm guessing it's just a trait of their (probably Brad's) coding.

Frogboy spent countless hours on the Elemental AI....and it's still mediocre in the latest FE:LH version. Heh.  ::)
Man, I remember when Stardock got praises for having good AI in their games... what happened?

The real question is why people thought it was good in the first place. GalCiv2 got massive praise for it's AI, but it was always terrible and I never understood why people thought it was amazing.

Has galciv3 at least gotten rid of the pants-on-head retarded economy slider thing (factory/lab split)?
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Aklyon

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #67 on: May 19, 2015, 08:28:49 pm »

The economy slider was turned into a triangle.
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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #68 on: May 19, 2015, 09:24:50 pm »

The economy slider was turned into a triangle.

It's a new dimension in game design.
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nenjin

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #69 on: May 19, 2015, 09:28:33 pm »

Stardock, leading in innovative game design.

I too was never really impressed with GalCiv 2's AI. It was telling once you started kicking the snot out of it how well designed it actually was.
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Rolan7

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #70 on: May 19, 2015, 10:55:01 pm »

Back in the OS/2 versions the AI was amazing compared to similar games like Civilizations 1 (and 2, I guess?).  It didn't cheat, at all, the highest difficulty was on equal footing with the player.  And yet it was widely considered challenging enough for experienced human players. 

Wardell also loved to talk about what the AI was actually doing in various situations, a trend which I guess continued into the Windows versions.  Even though the AI started cheating (at least on harder difficulties), I think the dev diaries conveyed Wardell's pride in the design, and showed some of the complexity of what the AI was doing.  Even if the AI was no longer as competitive...  I didn't play much of Galciv 1 Windows, and I'm not especially skilled at TBS (I just like them) so I don't actually know how bad the AI fell.  Maybe it didn't have to cheat in the OS/2 versions because, frankly, far less people played back then.  Though also those versions were much simpler mechanically, so easier for an AI to understand.  No culture or shipbuilding mechanics for one thing (well, there was an optional shipbuilding DLC actually heh).  It really was basically Civilizations 1 except with hardcoded city-sites called stars.  And a MoO-style invasion mechanic.  Did always have the technological victory, though.  And I think the 2nd OS/2 one had multiple planets per star.  Sigh...

Sorry for the rambly rant, I'm sleepy and distracted.  Basically PTW.  Not buying this until I at least play Fallen Enchantress, I think I'll like that one.  I still enjoy Demigod heh, only MOBA I've played.  Such cool character designs.
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Retropunch

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #71 on: May 20, 2015, 04:06:26 am »

I really, really enjoyed GalCiv2 (with all the expansions) and still feel it's one of the best 4x games ever.

I got this at half off and feel thoroughly ripped off, if I had got it at full price I would have exploded. I just cannot get my head around how it's possible to mess up such a direct clone. Sure, if they'd tried new things I would have forgiven them a lot, but this is just GalCiv2 minus all the goodies.

Does anyone know if it's easily moddable? That *could* save it. Possibly.
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Majestic7

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #72 on: May 20, 2015, 04:21:52 am »

I've never been a fan of GalCiv, they've always felt... bland, somehow. The best thing about GalCiv are those events you get when colonizing and so forth, other 4X should steal them. After testing the third GC, it is just more of the same, with some additional bugs and questionable design choices.

Star Ruler 2 and StarDrive 2 provide more fun 4X experiences at half the price. Then there is Distant Stars, which costs absurd amount of money, but is the best 4X out there at the moment.
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Retropunch

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #73 on: May 20, 2015, 04:27:31 am »

I've never been a fan of GalCiv, they've always felt... bland, somehow. The best thing about GalCiv are those events you get when colonizing and so forth, other 4X should steal them. After testing the third GC, it is just more of the same, with some additional bugs and questionable design choices.

Star Ruler 2 and StarDrive 2 provide more fun 4X experiences at half the price. Then there is Distant Stars, which costs absurd amount of money, but is the best 4X out there at the moment.

I've not had a proper go with SR2 or SD2, which do you think is best? GalCiv3 was going to be my new 4x, but I guess that's off the table...

Distant Stars is phenomenal, but it just gets a bit overwhelming. I don't like getting to the point where you *have* to let it auto-manage everything as you can't possibly cope yourself.

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Majestic7

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Re: Galactic Civilizations III - Released
« Reply #74 on: May 20, 2015, 04:40:34 am »

Hmh, SD2 is more of the same, in a good way. So if you want to play Master of Orion II again, in a nutshell, StarDrive is your pick. If you want actually innovation in game mechanics such as diplomacy, SR2 might be better. So they are both good, just in different ways. Wish they'd marry and have a lovechild, then add those events from GalCiv on top.
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