OT, galactic civ II

[Daynarr]

Galciv II AI:

[Agrajag]

Daynarr said:
Galciv II AI:

Reminds me of Deadlock2: Shrine Wars.
Besides being a wonderful spaceish* TBS, it had 7 races, and each had pre-recorded custom messages that fit the race, and some of them were pretty funny.
The Cyth for example, a scary, slightly Darth Vaderish race have a message that goes <in a slow and deep voice>"Use your deep voice to intimidate them, and speak very slowly"</in a slow and deep voice>, the insectoid ChCh-T have a "Praise" the goes something like this: "Your colony blossoms! You must be as happy as a devoured drone!".

*-It doesn't take place in space environments, but rather on different types of planets, on dominions-like maps.
You should give it a go, its a pretty old game (98 IIRC), but its very fun. I'm sure you can get a demo somewhere, and the real game somewhere else.

[Saber Cherry]

Anyone reading this thread may wish to look at the GC2 thread in the Space Empires forum as well. Opinions vary, with mine seeming the most negative, for some reason. I think the next patch (+demo) is scheduled for the end of the month.

[Ironhawk]

Oooo, I'd definitely like to see a demo.

As for MP, the only problem you all list is the time it takes to build/research things. If thats the only problem then stardock should just drop all the production and research costs by like 1/2 or 1/4 or something for MP play.

That said: I thought that Stardock said they were not pursuing any MP development. Saying that SP was where thier market was so they were just going to do that.

[Gandalf Parker]

Their initial basis was the artificial intelligence of adversaries. For many years they have been the number #1 game mentioned in any AI paper as far as game AI. At that time it was available for OS/2 only since Windows didnt have multi-tasking then. Now they are moving into the other OS's, marketing the game, etc etc. But since AI was the starting point (which is mostly a solo-play thing) then I think MultiPlay is probably the last thing to be figured into the GalCiv game. Thats the reverse of many other games which start with the MP, then later on try to add AI onto it.

[cjx]

In my opinion the game is pretty awful. If you're a Dom2 fan I think you'll be left with a bad taste in your mouth. I can deal with the terrible interface (hey, I play Dom2 don't I?), I can even deal with the poor (and in some cases wrong)documentation, but what I find unacceptable is that there are showstopping AI flaws (tech buy/sell cheese, planet stealing during allied wars) in a game with no multiplayer. Make no mention of the multitude of bugs. Yes, they are fixing them and yes everyone seems to be publishing unfinished games, but that's no excuse to release a game with the volume of problems they had.

Reading threads on their messageboards I found the tone of the vocal developer to be very condescending and sometimes downright insulting to the players who questioned/complained about some "features". Some of the baloney responses that the devs fabricate really seem to indicate that they don't even know how to fix the problems so they try and pretend they are game features.

The depth of strategies in GalCiv2 boils down to which overpowered strat do you want to cheese the computer with. If you're satisfied bumbling around in the dark and never trying to understand the game you're playing and never actually formulating a strategy, GalCiv2 is for you. If you've played and liked Dom2 (MoO2) you'll be disappointed.

Just my opinion. I really wanted to like the game. I really wanted to like MoO3 too... Turn based strategy that's worthwhile? CiV4 and Dom2 are great games. MoO2, CiV3, Advance Wars. I like TBS and 4x, but I regret purchasing GalCiv2.

cjx

[NTJedi]

thanks cjx.... I did some more browsing on their forums and you're right... definitely a reason to wait for multiplayer.

[RonD]

I think "pretty awful" is harsh. (I'm not saying you shouldn't think that or express your thoughts here, by the way - I'm just disagreeing with you)

cjx said:
The depth of strategies in GalCiv2 boils down to which overpowered strat do you want to cheese the computer with. If you're satisfied bumbling around in the dark and never trying to understand the game you're playing and never actually formulating a strategy, GalCiv2 is for you. If you've played and liked Dom2 (MoO2) you'll be disappointed.

Winning SP by applying cheeze strats most certainly applies to dom2 (see SC's recent post advocating summoning all the blood uniques - we all know full well that the AI can't handle that). As for Moo2, the AI's "intelligence" consisted entirely of giving the computer overwhelming resource advantages.

Sure I'd love MP galciv2 (if they could implement it so that the game actually moved along at a decent pace). But for SP, comparing gc2 to dom2, it is a lot easier to have fun by choosing to not use cheeze strats in gc2. Even the civ4 forums are full of ideas on ways to make victory all but certain on most of the difficulty levels. Maybe that makes me a "bumbler", but I really cannot think of any SP TBS games (discounting chess, etc) that cannot be beat by exploiting AI weaknesses.

Yes, I prefer MP TBS games for that reason (but very very few other than dom2 implement MP in a way that fits my schedule). So I won't knock gc2 just because it has not fully overcome that inherent weakness of SP strategy games.

Finally, while you may or may not like Brad Wardell and his style, I find it refreshing that he is putting himself right out front - not just in the stardock forums, either. He regularly answers questions in places like OO and QT3 as well.