Hamp's GalCiv II Report

Looking great!

Published on November 19, 2005 By John Hamp In Galactic Civilizations II

General Views
--------------------

The game is definitely better than GalCiv I and that is saying a lot. There is a lot more to the game this time than there was last time. A lot more to do and a lot more ways to enjoy what you're doing.

There are some playability problems that needs to be addressed which I'll discuss below.

(1) The pacing is off. It takes too long to get into the game.
(2) Stuff, in general, is too diluted. You give us too much stuff piecemeal.

- Earth has 15 tiles. Why? Give us back 10 tiles and have the improvements do more.
- Fewer techs. There's a ton of farming techs. Is that really necessary? Is anyone going to get to those techs, especially when you make us wade so deeply in there.
- Fewer techs deuce: It takes too long to get to the stuff we care about.

Want to improve your planet? I have to go through Xeno Industrial Theory to Xeno Economics to Planetary Improvements JUST to get a crack at techs that let you actually put things on your planets. Move that stuff up to the beginning. Othrewise we'll just get into our regular strategy.

(3) Colony ships are too slow. They got 2 moves in GalCiv 1 and that was when multiple planets were in a single spot on the map.

(4) Some of the screens need a lot of help. It's not clear what is what. This is particularly true on the new planet screen. I'm sure to you guys it makes sense but to a new player it's not intuitive.

More to come...

Comments

Frogboy

on Nov 20, 2005

Okay with regards to these:

#1 We are working on this.

#2 We've put Earth back to 10 tiles internally and started beefing up the imps. We have added a "Capital City" to your starting world which pumps out a LOT more "stuff" to help get things along and make capital worlds more interesting.

#3 We've revamped the tech tree heavily. This will be in the next beta. Few techs do nothing at all and we've purged a lot of redundant techs.

#4 Planetary Improvements are now an initial tech.

#5 Colony ships now start with a base 2 move. Impulse Drive will give all your units a +1. There is also a trade good which will give them another +1 and a Galactic Achievemnet that gives them all another +1. So you could have ships that start with +4 to their moves without doing anything.

#6 The planet screen and research screen will be getting some polish later on but that won't be until after BETA 5.

Evil Roy

on Nov 21, 2005

good report mr hamp

Popup Target

on Nov 21, 2005

Frogboy, sounds like you're cutting both Gravity Accelerators and the Hyperion Shipyard down to +1 speed each, is that true? Not complaining, though I will admit that as a first reaction, I don't like it.

Publius of NV

on Nov 21, 2005

If you're cutting home planets back to 10 tiles, I hope you're making it easier to manage morale . I've had to build 3 zero-gravity stadiums to keep my morale up, and with 10 tiles that's a big problem.

Evil Roy

on Nov 22, 2005

the reason i liked veteran hamp's report is because it nailed the tile question - i'd been asking myself the same thing - on the fertile planets i don't get the sense of strategy, of having to choose, of desperately seeking soil enhancement...

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!