OT: Galatcic Civilizations (GalCiv)

[dominion]

Last time I've heard, the demo is not coming out until mid-April.

[raynor]

The #1 problem for me in MOO3 is the lack of options once you go into the 3D combat screen. It requires the battle to go until finished or 10 minutes--whichever comes first. If you have two unarmed ships (or perhaps so lightly armed that neither will ever die), then it will always take 10 minutes. So, if you have three or four such combats, you have to get up and go get a cup of coffee every time there is a ship combat.

Because of this rather significant flaw, I never even got to the point where I found out that the game has no AI. Even if they release a patch for the AI next month, I'm still not going to reinstall the game.

I'm playing Gal Civ now. It has some interesting features. But I'm still struggling through the interface in my first game. The AI is pretty tough. I've got it set to 'Cakewalk', and I'm trying to just press rush through the turns so that I can see what cool technologies I get. But even at the absolutely easiest level of difficulty, I'm gonna lose if I don't at least do *something*.

[solops]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Well I have played my third game thus far. I must admit, it is not much to look at for star system details. (Moo3 still hold the top award here for galaxy map) but SEIV hold the best layout for star systems.

I am having a good time with it, although there are still some rough edges on the interface. Gameplay is great. And, I don't care for the graphics. Everything is BIG. they need a zoom in/out of the main map and I haven't found one. This will be a really fun game as long as the AI is a challenge.

[1FSTCAT]

My review of Galciv:

I've played through it now, twice, and tend to agree with what's been said, so far.

The combat is EXACTLY like the "Civilization" series. Your units have attack and defense values, and hit points.

I don't feel this lends itself well to a large research model, where you're researching "Shields", and "Phasors", just to get an increase in attack points, or a new unit that features said upgrade. They might as well have just had "levels" of research in Attack, Defense, communication, etc. (Level 1, level 2) It would have simplified things, I think..

The diplomacy is very good. Trading and communication is easy and thorough. No one else has mentioned it, but there is NO multiplayer capability.

A couple of gripes about diplomacy : NO SURRENDER. All I can do is quit. I would like to have had a scoreboard, or something, similar to Civilization. It would make the single player games, ultimately more interesting.

I don't like how you can only attack star systems, and not planets. You also can't GLASS a planet/system, like you can in SEIV. You can only capture it.

My overall score would be "Average". It's not great, IMHO, but it's a lot more playable then MOO 3.

--Ed

[Malfunction]

Sounds interesting, but I don't like the having defense and attck values instead of unique atrributes for armor, shields, weapons and such. I think I'll just break down and get the Gold SE IV instead (I have the classic).

And yes, MOO 3 goes down in my book as well as a POS.

[Aloofi]

Well, it looks like SE4 still the ruling king of 4Xs.
The thing from GalCiv that got my attention was those political parties.

[Atrocities]

I think it is really safe to say that SEIV is a true 4x game. Sure it has some areas for improvement, but overall, SEIV is the game that all other 4x games strive to be.

How Aaron nailed this only proves how well he understood 4x gaming.

With inventive improvements to INTEL, Diplomacy, and Politics, SE V should really be the game that defines the 4x market for years to come. Just like SE IV has become.

Too bad more hard core 4x fans have not yet discovered this game. Believe me when I say that I have been spreading the word.

[SlapBone]

Originally posted by Atrocities:

Too bad more hard core 4x fans have not yet discovered this game. Believe me when I say that I have been spreading the word.

My copy of SEIV Gold came in the day after I received GalCiv so I have really not had time to distinguish between the 2. My take so far:

SEIV- all of the features and flexibility I was hoping for in this game. I like the race editor a lot.

Galciv- Has a lot of things that I have enjoyed about games in the past (SMAC). The game is not easy however.

[raynor]

The game manual recommends playing your first Gal Civ game in a small galaxy. But I'm playing in a large galaxy, and my first game is taking quite a long time. Since I haven't even finished my first game, I don't want to give a lot of specifics. But at this point, I rate the game a little lower than MOO3.

[Atrocities]

What I have found is that I run out of money fast producing Colony ships and only have about 3 or 4 colonies. I then spend the next 200 turns getting out of debt and not researching squat as I have no funds.

Around turn 200 +/- 20 or so, The enemy AI starts to take over my planets. This has been this way for all the games I have played. I have read a lot about the strategy of the game, but still find that I am lacking in ability to adiquitely get my empire off and running.

Then there are the people who cheat and post their empires to the Metauniverse. Come on guys, altering the game via a Hex editor (How you do this is beyond me) or by the use of a trainer, go cheat o matic, is cheating, and eventually the folks at GalCiv will root you out.

But I am tempted to use something just to make it past the first 200 or so turns without getting wiped out.

Great game, not as indepth or detailed as SE IV, but it has a lot of really nice aspects and some nice cut scenes. Excellent, thus far, AI, Diplomacy, Research, and such.

I agree, we really need to be able to zoom the sector map in and out, as well as having the game NOT display all of the star systems locations. They should be hidden from view until discovered much the way that BOTF did it.

Excellent game though, complete dipartcher from SE IV in a good way.