New chap's impressions

from GalCiv2 Forums
I always try to give my impressions of a game so that if the developers do read the forums they just might get some feed back.

Disclaimer: This is MY opinion only. I'm not interested in how much of a fanboi you are or how much this game sucks. I am trying to give a frank post on MY impressions. Thess are based off my first few days. Which means i have Not by any strech of the imagination discovered or know everything about the game. Now that that unpleasantness is over lets get started.

I like the interface and while there is a learning curve to remembering where everthing is and exactly where i can do x. It is for the most part intuitive and provides massive amounts of info on various aspects of your empire. The ships models are nice and the customability is great.

The stars and planets also look great. The actual blow up of the planet and tiles are bland not ugly.

The ethical choices are limited in imagination. For example good - leave pre-industrial peoples alone (Very star trek) neutral - gather them up and move them to free up land. Evil - inslave them. What about an option to educate them and welcome them into the galatic community in a generation or two? Point is the ethical choices lack imagination and got repetative just after two games.

The map is so small so as to make speed and range techs less valuable. 18x18 isn't large enough. What the maps need is more SPACE keep the same numer of systems and anomilies and resources but make the maps 36x36 or 72x72. Make it feel Like the galaxy is a large place. I am really disapointed at how quickly you can reach a point where the whole map is in range. This lack of scale is a killer for me. I quickly see myself putting this game on the self and not revisiting it because of the small map. I understand the need for limiting the number of elements on the maps to speed the game but i'm not asking for anything more that more empty space!!! Whats a major disapointment for me is that you can't even MOD a larger map. And it appears that I can't mod the speed and range of ships to give the illussion of a larger map. This could be a game breaker for me.

Techs come way too fast for me even on very slow BUT its moddable and thats what I have done making them 6 times more expensive. The principle behind this is to create era's in the game. Right now by the time you actually build a ship its obsolete. What i want is the feeling that my tech advancements actually are major. With them happening so quickly they feel insignificant. The fact I can mod this has at least provided me with some hope.

All in all the game looks great and has some nice dynamics to it but is a major disapointment in that the devs have no concept of delayed gratification everything in this game is Instant gratification based. Small maps huge ranges in proportion to the maps super fast speeds in relationship to the map super fast tech advancement. its like this game was designed for a crack addict.

The whole concept of different map sizes and tech advancement rates are so people can choose the type of game they want. Right now the game has varrious versions of FAST and small. There is no slow and LARGE option. And the danger to catoring to the instant gratification crowd is that the game lacks legs. I think there is a reason why i've only just found this game and only because I play Europa Universalis by paradox and they do some kind of third party support for this game. The reason I see is that because everything happens so fast and then people lose intrest except a small core of players. Once people have moved on with games you no longer get word of mouth advertising.

This game has so much going for it that it is a MAJOR disapointment that I am looking elsewhere now for a game that is similar but will give me a sense of a large galaxy.
9,406 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And it appears that I can't mod the speed and range of ships to give the illussion of a larger map.


You can, and a number of people have. Just give all races a negative range ability 'bonus' to drastically reduce starting ranges, and adjust the bonuses granted by life support techs/modules as you like.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am a touch confused on your post. You can pick map sizes from tiny to gigantic in sandbox mode. All you have to do is pick a gigantic map and set the planet/star settings down to a low frequency. Getting twelve or fifteen planets for your race on a gig map is pretty sparse and will feel like a very large map.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am a touch confused on your post. You can pick map sizes from tiny to gigantic in sandbox mode. All you have to do is pick a gigantic map and set the planet/star settings down to a low frequency. Getting twelve or fifteen planets for your race on a gig map is pretty sparse and will feel like a very large map.


He gets it. His thing is that for him, even a gigantic map is way too small.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have to agree on the tech. The game feels way less epic when you can descover 4 techs in the time it takes to build a "new" ship. I am scared that Sins of a Solar Empire will also feel less epic because it seems like I can research so fast..

One thing I like with Sins of a Solar Empire is how long it takes to phase jump to a distant star. It litterally takes like 10 minutes. In a real time game, 10 minutes is a long time. That aspect alone makes the game feel epic. I can understand where the poster is comming from...

The only truly epic game I can remember playing is the first Empire Earth. That game had 14 eras and it took litteraly thousands of resources just to go from the stone age to the copper age. Usually, because of the aggressive AI, you were forced to build lots of cave men warriors and funny "siege engines" that were basically cavemen lugging along big logs with them to slam into buildings. That game truly made me feel like I was in the stone age. Finally after maybe 30 minutes I could actually get to the copper age. I can't imagine how long a game of Empire Earth would take going from the first age to the 14th age...
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Really, the only thing I agree with you here on is that research happens too fast.

That said, you are totally free to your opinion.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am a touch confused on your post. You can pick map sizes from tiny to gigantic in sandbox mode. All you have to do is pick a gigantic map and set the planet/star settings down to a low frequency. Getting twelve or fifteen planets for your race on a gig map is pretty sparse and will feel like a very large map.


He gets it. His thing is that for him, even a gigantic map is way too small.



Thats exactly right. The 18x18 map is tiny and making systems sparce doesn't fix the issue of life support techs quickly allowing you to cover the galaxy.

i've noticed also that games don't last very long in terms of number of game years. Which i directly attribute to rage not being an issue high speed and very fast tech advancement.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Really, the only thing I agree with you here on is that research happens too fast.

That said, you are totally free to your opinion.


Wow so you don't agree with anything else in my post? You must hate this game then.

I like the interface and while there is a learning curve to remembering where everthing is and exactly where i can do x. It is for the most part intuitive and provides massive amounts of info on various aspects of your empire. The ships models are nice and the customability is great.

The stars and planets also look great. The actual blow up of the planet and tiles are bland not ugly.


So whats wrong with the interface? You don't think its provides intuitive use? You don't think it provides a lot of information?

You don't think the ship models are great?

Why do you think the planets and stars are not great looking?

So the blow up of the planets wit hthe tiles are not bland to you, do you like them or are they ugly to you?

i somehow don't think you read my post fully.

I felt I was very fair. I praised things where they worked and pointed out flaws as i saw them. This post had very little to say negativly there is only two things that I felt where a disapointment 1 was the planet blow ups with the tiles, they planets and buildings where bland not bad or ugly. It just wasn't exciety to see them, not compared to the star and planets on the map.

The only other issue was something that is all tide to one thing the scope of the game. The game does not take an epic scope. A 72x72 map with the same range and speeds would work but in a 18x18 map they don't, FOR ME. The problem is that I don't have the option to make it larger. THe tech issue is modable and was easily fixed.

When I asked in the mods forum the one person that responded said i couldn't reduce the speeds directly but luckly kryo has mentioned that this was not true.


Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game doesn't feel too small or too fast to me. I prefer it that the game lets me make "big" decisions frequently, like influence or military, research or production, friend or enemy. Slowing down the colonization phase by forcing me to research life support and build stepping stone starbases doesn't seem to involve big decisions. I'd rather interact with the AI players soon, than fight against restrictive game rules for the first hours of the game. GC2 is already the opposite of instant gratification (compared to say Starcraft, where a game lasts about 15 minutes), I really wouldn't want it any longer.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Which is what size and tech option as suppost to do. Give you the option to play the game at the speed you desire. I am not advocating that you shouldn't have the game you desire. I am advocating an option to get the game I desire. And I see no incapatability with giving YOU the option and providing ME and others who feel the same the option to play Games with eras of technology and a feeling of great distances in the galaxy. I don't see why you would care that i want options to provide a larger map and research times?

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No disrespect intended, but I tried to stay away from this thread because the OP struck me as interested in a scrap of some sort despite language apparently claiming otherwise. Perhaps this is nonsense because I have "issues" with the term "fanboi," not least being my tendency to be a grammar nanny and to question gender terminology.

But I have to half-agree in a general, very vague way about the question of galactic scales. I've always used my utmost powers of suspending disbelief when it comes to the game time calendar. Whatever else you might have to say about the map scales and a game that really "feels galactic," there is no reasonable way to claim that the in-game calendar makes any narrative or "realistic" sense.



p.s. I hadn't caught the last remark from the OP when I was posting. I agree that there is a serious categorical difference between how many turns something takes to achieve and how the game describes those turns (days, weeks, years, etc.).
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would have to agree with you GW on the calendar bit. If you pretend 1 week=1 year the scale almost makes sense!
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The map is so small so as to make speed and range techs less valuable. 18x18 isn't large enough. What the maps need is more SPACE keep the same numer of systems and anomilies and resources but make the maps 36x36 or 72x72. Make it feel Like the galaxy is a large place. I am really disapointed at how quickly you can reach a point where the whole map is in range.


Are you playing DL or DA? If you are in DL then switching to DA will help for you then, as the engine sizes have had a overhaul and 60 or 70 pc a week ships are no more.

If you are already on DA, well......
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I find it amusing that the poster suggests they enjoy giving developers feedback, but decide to stick the message in the forums rather than send an e-mail, or PM.

Even if I suspend disbelief and assume that this is intended soley for the devs, it seems unreasonable to expect no criticism. I do love it when people who apparently don't want to know other people's opinions, think everyone else wants to know theirs.

Its also pretty hilarious that everyone who starts one of these threads think they represent the average gamer, and that the developers must be catering to some mythical "crowd" that doesn't include them.

Well hey, at least this one didn't include an obvious line like: "... if you really want to appeal to people and get lots of sales, you'll do X, Y, and Z..."

All in all, the post left me unsure whether it was serious or not, but a later post where he calls Misaniovent a hater for having a different opinion was a dead giveaway.

I'll give this one a "D" for trolling, but a "B" for effort.