FEATURE REQUEST: Good documentation

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from GalCiv2 Forums
Unfortunately, the manual, being nice and all, does not contain a lot of information, which I personally need to enjoy the game. I am talking about all those calculations that the game performs. Can SD supply us with exact formulas how the following things are calculated:

Military/Social/Research production, including all bonuses from all sources, like civilization bonuses, tile bonuses moons, government bonuses, starbases and so on. When the results are rounded down, how exactly the values are added...

Ship and fleet combat calculation. All details. What happens when you have multiple weapons/multiple shields/multiple stabases with different bonuses. Which ship is targeted in the fleet, and so on. EXACT formulas, not "the most dangerous but easiest to destroy" type of thing

Income. All sources, with all modifiers.

Moral (approval??) bonus calculations. Again, all details all formulas.

Troop battles. What are those advantage factors, how are they applied, how civ bonuses applied, what is the distribution of that random number that we see flashing before the battle, how the battle is performed. EXACT formulas, please.

Influence radius calculations, your influence calculation for opponent 's planet, tourism calculations and so on. The list can go on, but I think I covered the main ones (please add in the thread if I missed something)

Again, I am not talking about phrases like "the higher is the total influence the larger is tourism income". NO! What formulas are used, what values should be taken into this formulas, where in the interface these values can be found.

Basically I want a design document, so that if for whatever reason I want, I could reproduce exactly all the results that game gives. I can not stress how important this to me. I play the game in order to understand how to optimise the things withing rules set by the game. BUT I HAVE TO KNOW THOSE RULES! I do not see any fun just randomly try this or that thing. No, I want to be able to develop an intelligent strategy even before the game starts.

The problem is complicated by the amount of bugs we currently have in this game... So I want to know how the game is supposed to work.

I you agree with me please sign this petition. If you are from StarDock, please comment.
7,559 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I would also like to see this VERY much!

I would also like to see more information inside the game. Moving the mouse on any number should bring a pop-up that lists all effects. Everything should work like morale currently does.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
BUT I HAVE TO KNOW THOSE RULES! I do not see any fun just randomly try this or that thing. No, I want to be able to develop an intelligent strategy even before the game starts.


I don't mind if SD provides such a document . . . but isn't the point of playing a civ game to simulate a real civ? Learning as you go and stuff? I'd never open it.

If you have all the answers already . . . the game is more accounting than fun. At least for me it is.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I have no issue with SD provide such info but what fun is it then? You will *learn* these things the more you play. Same goes for any other game. Heck, when I started playing Civ 4 I didn't know what was going on despite having played every previous version going back to 1. Took me about 2-3 games before I kinda figured everything out.

Same here with GalCiv 2. Having played GalCiv 1 really only prepared me for the basic concepts of a space 4x game. Took me about 2 games and I think I've got most of the basics down enough I'm playing on Challenging now.

So play the game a few times. Even just play out a few starts but don't finish. Reload the starting save and try something different. Figuring out how the game works and getting a good strategy is half the fun!
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Lol, that's the one thing we'll most likely never get. The GalCiv I manual was out of date pretty quickly and the GalCiv II manual was horribly out of date even before the game came out.
The reason for this is that the game is tweaked constantly and as such, a document like the one you ask for would only be valid for about a week or two until the next patch.
Besides, such detailed formulas usually aren't what devs provide, they usually are put together by the gamers themselves after playing for a while (see Civ, MoO, ...).
But of course I don't oppose getting such a document... I just don't see it happening.

Now, tool tips are different because they can obtain the necessary data real time from within the game and therefore automatically change with the patches. I'd like that. But, please, not like the morale one, because that one is very broken right now.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
don't mind if SD provides such a document . . . but isn't the point of playing a civ game to simulate a real civ? Learning as you go and stuff? I'd never open it.

Where did you get that idea, that the goal is to simulate real civ? Do we have civs in space? No. This is a GAME and the goal of the game is to be interesting. You need some resemblance to RL so that you can find the rules logical, but it by no mean means that you do not know the rules of the game.
Think of it as the game of chess. What fun would you have if you did not know the rules? The fun of this kind of game is to develop strategies, not trying to understand the exact set of rule. The game is called STRATEGY game, not puzzle game.
Lol, that's the one thing we'll most likely never get. The GalCiv I manual was out of date pretty quickly and the GalCiv II manual was horribly out of date even before the game came out.
The reason for this is that the game is tweaked constantly and as such, a document like the one you ask for would only be valid for about a week or two until the next patch.


I disagree with you here. Typically the changes are done to the numerical values, like it was done in the first patch with farms. The formulas, however, are very rarely changed.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
BUT I HAVE TO KNOW THOSE RULES! I do not see any fun just randomly try this or that thing. No, I want to be able to develop an intelligent strategy even before the game starts.


I agree that the rules could be far more detailed. On the other hand, I see no reason to use such terse language when asking for it. Stardock has gone to considerable lengths to be civil with its customer base. I think the least we can do is reciprocate and observe the same decorum when making suggestions or requests.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On the other hand, I see no reason to use such terse language when asking for it. Stardock has gone to considerable lengths to be civil with its customer base.

I did not mean to be in any way impolite. My direct statements is just a result of my frustration, and just venting out my emotions. I see a great potential for this game. But the absence of good documentation spoils the gameplay for me.

If the discussion board ethics assumes the direct language being impolite, then I apologies. All I wanted to do is to stress the importance of this problem for me, by using such language.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
From another side, I do expect good documentation for this kind of game if I paid 40$ for it. I personally can not say that the existing documentation is sufficient for this game, and the purpose of this thread is just to stress the importance of the good documentation. I, for example, would prefer that they work on documentation rather than improve slider functionality, or other interface things. The interface I can get around, the absence of documentation I can not.

Stardock did make one very good thing already, since I started the thread: the WIKI site. With the help of community they should be able to produce documentation faster.