Okay, my friends and I have just completed a 3 day gamefest including several games of Gal Civ 3 Multiplayer (2 or 3 humans), Insane abundant maps with 22-24 races total, mercenaries and all DLC included. For reference we played on a Linksys WRT 1900 ACS gigabit network, 3xPCs were all beasts, fast intel i7 chips, 32 GB RAM each and different (but recent) ATI or Nvidia 8GB graphic cards. Here is the consolidated feedback.
First of all, Good job on 1.7 patch- much improved stability and AI behavior - although still some way to go - and generally a better overall experience than last Sep which is when we last played together.
The BUGS or areas for improvement.
* We need a play across LAN mode (ala Civ 4 /5). Too many host / peer timeouts cause game crashes at present (which is why we don't try and play over the internet when we are not together). This wouldn't happen with a LAN mode or maybe a UK/European server as things were noticeably smoother when most of USA was asleep during UK mornings.
* Ideology events. We need more pse. Always a fun read but on insane / abundant maps you quickly run out. Then something weird happens - you either get nothing or you get Precursor Ideology events for normal planets. At least until they too run out. This should be an easy fix as it is just text after all - maybe ask fans to suggest some for you too approve!
* Shipyard / starbase auto resetting - This is really annoying on large maps -research a new tech that upgrades your constructors and all your shipyards reset to basic constructor. Weirdly this also causes constructors already en-route to stack in the Starbase and not complete the upgrades they were ordered for. Confirmed by reloading game and not researching the 'constructor' tech. Constructors en-route completed the auto upgrades successfully.
* Starbase auto filter - the auto update is a great time saver (except when the above bug kicks in), but it would be nice to filter which upgrade trees it follows. Eg. I have my culture starbase in my border system, it it a provocation and at risk. I am happy with the economic bonuses it provides the nearest system and my fleet / scout sensors give me all the sensor range I want. I just want it to concentrate on building up its defences and ignore the other upgrades (i.e. need to be able to switch these trees off)
* Starbase Defensive fighters. Once starbases are equipped with Interceptor / assault fighters, they crash the game >50-75% of the time when attacked by an AI player.
* Battle crashes. During the AI turn, if one player is getting attacked by an AI whilst the other is being spoken to / threatened then often results in cash (peer timed out error) appearing on the host machine.
* Battle priority - the AI is too easy to spoof. Asingle ship / small fleet sent out as a lone duck attracts all alien fleets in the area. i.e. one that can't reach it heads towards it only to fall short and this continues until one actually destroys it. Also, you can delay AI fleets by sacrificing ships in this way as AI player only attacks once. This could be easily resolved by AI attacking multiple times per turn (as long as it has the moves left) and moving the fleet that has the best chance to attack / destroy my ships first.
* Survey ship priority - similar to above. AI (or your ships on auto explore) all chase the same relic / anomaly rather than going after one each. On a insane / abundant it makes you cry watching opportunities wasted like this.
* Survey ship symbol. This is an ongoing and really annoying bug. Player designed (or upgraded) Survey vessels lose the 'beam' icon in front of their ship. Makes it impossible to distinguish between you scout and survey vessels which is frustrating. Surely it isn't too difficult to add a rule that survey sensors on board = survey symbol on map?
* Survey ship Precursor anomaly avoidance. Given these are usually much better than normal anomalies (and the new battle calculator shows you can predict success) then surely Survey ships should go for these once they have a reasonable chance of success - but they never do. Regardless of whether or not they have been upgraded or are part of a survey fleet with enough escorts to do the job.
* Survey Fleets. One of the best early game tactics is to add 1-2 escorts to your survey fleet to allow it to explore pirate protected anomalies - this can prove a real force multiplier in early game when your ships are usually inferior to teh ones found in this way. This would be a good tactic to program in AI player logic.
* Governors in general are still really bad - and don't get me started on the way AI develops planets - it really is sad to see the laydown of the planets when you capture them - great bonuses ignored (e.g. +2 bonus from Precursor nanites and adjacent tile given +3 to manufacturing - but covered in research buildings. We play on Incredible / godlike so it is less of an issue but still frustrating.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Daren
