Positive feedback - favourite features

from Stardock Forums
To help cheer up the Galciv team I wanted to list what I really like about the game.

- diplomancy. I love the breath of the trading system. So many lovely options are available. Trading for influence just before a UP issue. Trading for ships when someone declares war against you. Offering bribes to raise relations. Putting together an alliance against a superior empire. All possible and all fun to try.

- research. The research now feels huge and specific. I can get different feelings from a game depending on what I focus on. Go for those military techs and superior ships early or go for those starbaase upgrades, or go for those planet upgrades, or go for those trade upgrades, or go for the moral upgrades.

- Scope. I love being able to play either a tiny or small galaxy for a quick 1-2 hour game, or a huge or gigantic galaxy for a 1-2 week game. Both games giving totally different experiences but being fun to play is very unique.

- Random Planet events. I love the random planet events when you colonise planets. They really add to the feel of the game.

- Morality. This is a lovely addition that I hope to see grow more in future updates. While we all enjoy playing evil dictators it's nice to have some gameplay effects associated with that. Hands up how many people always effectively play evil in other 4x games! Now we have to consider the consequences.

- elections. Another nice touch. Keeping your people happy now means something. This is another area which I look forward to seeing expand in future releases. Losing the game due to 3 consequtive election defeats would be a nice addition. How many power hunger dictators have collasped due to not keeping their own people happy (despite conquering their enemies)?

Keep up the great work and I look forward to the official release,

Paul.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with one thing: the research tree is good. But the technologies are presented only upon completetion. And if you trade technology from aliens, you have no idea what the heck it will give you. It's possible to get that info but it's very user-unfriendly

Another big downer is that there's no way to tell what factors are effecting colonies. You know that when you build stuff you get bonuses, but once you built something, there's no way to tell how all those bonuses add up. And when you get random events during planet colonization, the only event that has clear effect is the "worms - planet quality".

Diplomacy isn't so great either. Aliens ask too much for their stuff. I dunno why they even have "influence" as trade commodity. It's too expensive to buy and too cheap to sell. I have a +145% Diplomacy rating and when I try to trade Influence, 1000 of my points buy 12 of theirs, no more. It's a joke, right?
If I use money, 694 credits buy 100 Influence points? Why would I spend insane money on a 1% increase in my total influence?
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Master Lame,
I have bought influence with tech before to give me a small majority. Very useful when the vote turned out to be who should own a new planet in a small (rare) galaxy. That increased my power by 33% for 2 little techs. Very nice!
I do agree that the balance is a bit loaded against you at times. I assume this is scaled with the AI intelligence level?

Paul.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
ok, I played around with diplomacy some more and here's what I found:

When selling stuff to aliens for money, player can enter number of months. The game doesn't check that input for negative number. You can make the stupid bastards pay you for 4294967286 months! Using this trick, I was able to buy out entire civilizations out of existence!

Hell I don't even need to use the negative number bug. I can simply enter "pay 100 for 4444444 months" and then buy out all the alien planets. Since they cease to exist the next turn, I pay only 100!

When I offer aliens an attack treaty, the dialog text reads: "Hello, friend. Our civilization would like to give you Attack Alexians." That doesn't sound right.

You still didn't fix the "give peace treaty as a gift" bug.

How come the color of Drengin and Yor Collective planets is the same on the minimap if those planets are defended?

How come the game crashes every time I try to load a game from Options menu in game? as opposed to start-up options screen.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Then I played with diplomacy some more and came up with the best strategy ever:

1) Make all your planets build Transports
2) Load entire population of each planet into transport
3) Go to Diplomacy screen, offer aliens all the planets with 0 pop and a loaded transport. Take whatever you can in exchange for the planets. Buy out all the useful ships of theirs. Add some of their planets.
4) After transaction is complete, simply move all your loaded transports back into their respective planets. You lose the transport in the process but there's no fighting.
5) That made the aliens angry, but you simply repeat step 1 and ask for peace treaty, they'll buy it, stupid bastards.

After a many cycles there should be noone left.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Paul,

I have to echo your comments about the game. While there may still be a few wrinkles to iron out (it is still a beta) it is certainly shaping up to be a great game.

Congrats to the GC developers.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
The game is where its supposed to be in terms of development.......it is on its way to being a classic......Up til now Brad's game plan has worked to perfection........He saved the diplomacy elements until last because that is when they should be designed.

There are some things they just wont work on until everything else is fleshed out in the other elements because they add too much complexity to the bug fixing process. I made that mistake earlier, but I am beginning to see the train of thought here.

I am not easy to please because I am a hardcore longtime gamer(I have a couple thousand games games at least), but this game has the elements right now to be a good game and a good seller and it isn't even done yet!

Keep it up Brad, you're right on target.......
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm sorry I thought this thread was titled POSITIVE FEEDBACK not Moan about diplomacy. Should'nt they be put on a seperate thread with it's own title so anyone who has something to add regarding diplomacy etc. can.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
master lame, do you ever have anything nice to say? most of your posts are borderline insulting.

maybe when moo 3 finally emerges from the vapor you can go play that. didn't you say it will 'kick galciv's ass'?

just finished 4b on a small galaxy. it's very fun. is it perfect? nope. but i also was able to gather what they fixed and didn't fix in the last couple of days from the post and didn't run to screens and see if every dweeb tactic in the world would still work.

this game is shaping up to be a real classic.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Improvements I've noticed on the OS/2 version:

- The tech tree is much wider and more interesting. The OS/2 game usually turned into a race to Avatar tech. There are other methods in this game.

- Diplomacy. The method of trading is much more flexible and more powerful than in the OS/2 game.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
The diplomacy is very nice. I look forward to playing the role of peace maker.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I think most of you do a good job of providing positive feedback. But who will do the negative feedback? Somebody gotta do it, and I decided to take that responsibility.

I have pointed out bugs and weak points in the game and they need to be fixed, not ignored.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
no you just troll. you critize without giving specifics. i've yet to see even one constructive post by you. you're like a morale leech. start your own thread instead of jumping in this one. the devs need to know what things in the game are working well too.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I have been specific enough in this thread. When I first came here, I tried to give positive feedback, but the devs took on a defensive side and rejected all my suggestions. And once the devs made their opinion clear, the rest of you also joined their side and started inventing reasons that aren't even logical, or don't even address the arguments I was making.
I don't like starting new threads, I consider it a waste of forum space. That's just a weird personality trait of mine.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
A word to everyone that feels "obliged" to respond to Master Lame,

Have you ever given any thought that he is deliberately trying to bait you? Maybe the best policy is to ignore the barbs, taunts, etc., while taking care of what few bugs, true issues, or good points he raises. I figure he chose that nickname for a REASON!!!
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
These starbases really change the game. I was wondering for the first couple of games how to boost my planet's production. Now I know that I can do it with a starbase. Question: Does it provide any social/military production advantage to build more than one starbase in a sector?
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
and I also want to know:
if a star base is built in an empty sector, is there any point in building non-military and non-resource modules?
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
jmgarth asked: "Does it provide any social/military production advantage to build more than one starbase in a sector? "

It used to a few builds ago but it changed. When someone raised the quesion of why it changed Cari said it was not supposed to be cumulative.

Master Lame asked: "If a star base is built in an empty sector, is there any point in building non-military and non-resource modules? "

The trade upgrades work in any sector where a mini-freighter travels and the influence upgrades affect adjacent sectors (at least, they did the last time I checked).
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
'the influence upgrades affect adjacent sectors (at least, they did the last time I checked).'

I don't think the influence upgrades do directly affect adjacent sectors, but the spillover from high influence may make it useful even without much else in the sector.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Influence magnifications will affect neary by sectors.