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Looked all over for a thread on this game but couldn't find one. If I missed it somehow link me to it and I'll close this. Galactic Civilizations III is a 4x game by Stardock set in space in the year 2242. It is the third installment of an apparently well regarded series although I hadn't played one until now. At its core it is very similar to Sid Meier's Civilization series. You'll claim planets, build improvements on them, construct military, work and exploration ships, research technologies, fight wars and conduct diplomacy. There are several victory conditions you can work toward, such as building a universal alliance, taking over the entire map or other more esoteric ones I haven't gotten around to figuring out yet. Apparently one of the big draws of the game is the customization. You can make your own faction and design your own ships. I haven't gotten too into the tools yet but they seem pretty good. Additionally there is a campaign mode that apparently follows the story of the previous installments, but the main draw is the 'sandbox' mode where you get a randomly generated galaxy to populate and fight over. You have your choice of 8 factions, each with their own back story and perks:  The Terran Alliance, led by DL Bradly. These are the humans of Earth that figured out how to do interstellar travel without clunky star gates and unwisely shared the secret with the rest of the universe. Humans use a good mix of diplomacy and force to get the job done.  The Drengin Empire loves getting their way and equally loves using force to get it. They aren't malicious in the way that a boulder crashing toward your house is not malicious; the difference is academic. They also like to eat people.  The Altarian Resistance are humanoid in their appearance and apparently we share some genetic material somehow. They're somewhat self righteous but prefer diplomacy to war.  The Iridium Corporation is a hyper-capitalistic group that is fairly new to the scene. The corporation and actual government of the civilization are indistinguishable.  The Krynn Syndicate are a dark group of religious zealots, and nobody is quite sure what they are up to.  The Yor Singularity is a race of robots with a mission to destroy all organic life everywhere, and the war ability to potentially do it.  The Iconian Refuge were one of the first intelligent species and still have a love of technology. They created the Yor and are still fighting them.  The Thalan Contingency claims to be from the future and is trying to head off some catastrophe the Terrans are destined to cause. Finally here's a screen shot of a late stage game so you can see what you're getting yourself in to. I've only done one playthrough now but it really scratched the 4x itch that Civ:BNW didn't for me. It had a bit of a learning curve and the tutorial only sort of helped, but anyone familiar with the genre should be able to figure most of it out in a game or two. 
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May 21, 2015 03:56
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Thanks for posting this! I recently downloaded this but haven't installed it or tried the series before. I've been working insane hours all week, but I intend to try it out and post my opinions here this weekend. Thanks for making a thread!
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May 21, 2015 08:17
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AwkwardKnob posted:Thanks for posting this! I recently downloaded this but haven't installed it or tried the series before. I've been working insane hours all week, but I intend to try it out and post my opinions here this weekend. Thanks for making a thread! I was surprised there wasn't already one; I guess I assumed this was a higher profile launch than it is. It's a very well done game and deserves to be checked out by 4x fans looking for something a little different than Civ. It does have one crippling bug right now where if a factions power goes over 5000 it rolls back over to 0, creating cascades of large empires surrendering to smaller ones which in turn surrender to someone else since they have now rolled back over as well. It's getting fixed shortly in the 1.01 patch and is probably something that will only come up on larger maps though.
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May 21, 2015 16:21
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How is the diplomacy so far in Gal Civ 3? I checked it out while it was in early access alpha and one major complaint i had was that the diplomacy wasn't as deep as the one in Gal Civ 2.
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May 21, 2015 16:23
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I always love the idea behind these games but I'm terrible at them. Is this game more intuitive to play than Gal Civ 2? Can you effectively automate a larger empire?
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May 21, 2015 16:26
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I didn't play 2 so I can't compare, but it feels somewhat shallow. You can trade just about anything, including starbases, resources, techs, colonies, etc. You can also bring allies into wars. There doesn't seem to be a ton else though unless I just have missed it; it seems like the 'lets talk about something' option between 'declare war' and 'trade' is usually greyed out.
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May 21, 2015 16:28
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drat Dirty Ape posted:I always love the idea behind these games but I'm terrible at them. Is this game more intuitive to play than Gal Civ 2? Can you effectively automate a larger empire? Large empire management is one of the complaints on the official forums but that's mainly an issue if you are interested in min/maxing everything. Buildings upgrade automatically which helps a lot, and as soon as you take over a colony you can go and set the production queue for all of the building slots. The game badly needs a fleet management panel instead of just a ship management panel. I don't really think it's that bad but if you're trying to play with the production/science/commerce sliders for 100 individual colonies yeah it's going to be tedious.
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May 21, 2015 16:44
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:I didn't play 2 so I can't compare, but it feels somewhat shallow. You can trade just about anything, including starbases, resources, techs, colonies, etc. You can also bring allies into wars. There doesn't seem to be a ton else though unless I just have missed it; it seems like the 'lets talk about something' option between 'declare war' and 'trade' is usually greyed out. Problematically for most games, all of these options are locked behind technologies. There are a lot of cool treaties like mutual trade embargos, but... you have to tech diplomacy to get them.
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May 21, 2015 18:23
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I feel like this game is a pretty tedious slog, and that's just on a medium sized map. They have the rock-paper-scissors thing going on with weapons, but it really boils down to "numbers go up". There's a few special equipment items but they don't really feel unique or fun. Planet building is pretty similar. You plug in basic buildings to slots and as your technology goes up they upgrade automatically and produce more of whatever they produce, but it doesn't really feel interesting in any way. On the plus side, the combat cameras are cool, and the ship building is very extensive, so if you want to build elaborate spaceship models this is the place to do it. I never felt like the AI was very engaged in my game and the warlike factions (Drengin and Yor) were furious with me for most of the game but never declared war. It's got some potential, but right now it's a lot of doing nothing between turns.
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May 21, 2015 21:20
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So has the combat progressed at all or is it still the boring rock paper scissors it was before?
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May 21, 2015 21:35
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Still rock/paper/scissors still. I am however enjoying it nonetheless. I think this is one that once they drop a few large patches it will be really good, but now it's just a slightly better version of 2.
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May 21, 2015 21:59
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Stacking up on soldiering, people and tech's still the way to go for me, exact same thing in GalCiv 2. Then roll out with capitals once your economy has grown ridiculous. All these Civ-like games tend to have the same flaw; teching up is just way too good, and there's no real alternative to it, unless you play the diplomacy game and take combat out of the equation.. In which case you're winning like you would by teching, except that you're building influential space stations all over the place. Really wish that combat was more like MoO 2's, still.
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May 21, 2015 22:53
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Man I really want to like this game but it just can't hold my attention at all. It pretty much is as other have said a slightly better Gal Civ2. Just for me there are better space 4x games out there now. Just too many techs that offer only slight % improvements, same old starbase spam and the new Planet management system seems to demand more micromanagement. I hope either through patches or expansions it gets better but right now I wouldn't call it bad just meh.
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May 22, 2015 12:46
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THE BAR posted:Stacking up on soldiering, people and tech's still the way to go for me, exact same thing in GalCiv 2. Then roll out with capitals once your economy has grown ridiculous. How was combat in MoO exactly? I always hear everyone comparing 4x space games to it, but I've never played it. I looked it up briefly one time and learned that it's super old and probably wouldn't hold up for me, but I'm still interested in what made it so good.
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May 22, 2015 13:12
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DarkAvenger211 posted:How was combat in MoO exactly? I always hear everyone comparing 4x space games to it, but I've never played it. I looked it up briefly one time and learned that it's super old and probably wouldn't hold up for me, but I'm still interested in what made it so good. It was turnbased, with your ships having movement points depending on their engines. The fun in it was all the extra stuff you could put on your ships, like hangar bays and tractor beams, all useable in combat to different effects. And if you like any of the GalCivs, you'll like MoO as well; they're not that different mechanically, and I'd say that MoO has aged extremely well. MoO meaning MoO 1 or 2, of course, with 2 being the most relatable. THE BAR fucked around with this message at 13:21 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 13:19
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DarkAvenger211 posted:How was combat in MoO exactly? I always hear everyone comparing 4x space games to it, but I've never played it. I looked it up briefly one time and learned that it's super old and probably wouldn't hold up for me, but I'm still interested in what made it so good. MoO1's combat was a lot simpler, and I'm sad that every space 4x copies its sequel instead of the original, which has its own good points. Moo1's planetary management is better in my opinion, for example.
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May 22, 2015 13:29
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Panzeh posted:MoO1's combat was a lot simpler, and I'm sad that every space 4x copies its sequel instead of the original, which has its own good points. Moo1's planetary management is better in my opinion, for example. I still play MOO1 in DosBox as my go to quick 4x space game. It's held up pretty well, in my opinion.
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May 22, 2015 21:43
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axelord posted:Just for me there are better space 4x games out there now.
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May 22, 2015 22:12
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I was a big fan of Gal Civ II and I was looking forward to this but it sounds like it's basically the same stuff with a new can of paint which is a real shame as II had plenty of cool ideas and AI but had quite a few issues that could've been easily solved in a sequel. I'll probably pick it up when the price falls and it goes on sale.
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May 23, 2015 12:31
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Rascyc posted:Got any positive recommendations to share? I really like Distant World but it's very spergy, there are a lot of options available to play it like you want. It would be my current favorite.
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May 23, 2015 20:57
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Bought this around Christmas last year when it was on sale, didn't pay much attention to it in Early Access but was eager for the full release. Never played the first two. Now it's out and it's boring, boring, boring. Definitely wait for it to come up very cheap if you absolutely have to get it. I don't even have anything in particular to gripe about with it, it's just dull. Seconding Distant Worlds for space 4xing.
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May 23, 2015 23:39
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Distant Worlds is, with the expansions, basically the best space 4X ever made.
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May 24, 2015 00:55
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After I hosed around for half an hour with the missing texture, I realize this game does not like my computer I generally have, what I would consider a good PC. But if I end my turn and want to do something in my browser the game hardlocks my PC and I have to reboot. I am not sure how it manages to do this but christ. Also it's not a very good game. Camera for battles are awful. Interface is bad with barely any usefull information presented on first glance. Approval system is weird until you figure it out through other means at which point it becomes too mundane. Don't buy.
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May 24, 2015 01:19
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If you want to see really lovely camera action, set battlecam to Free and try and watch anything.Michaellaneous posted:Don't buy.
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May 24, 2015 09:44
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Just like with StarDrive 2, I got incredibly bored and had to fight dozing off while playing. The ship building can be fun, but the rest of the game is a drag.
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May 24, 2015 10:32
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Whooo! There’s a thread! TBH I wouldn’t recommended it for what it is - I'd grab GalCiv2 if your interest, but GalCiv3 is a little lump of potential and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it. Espionage and terror stars are much anticipated, also those frogs that gently caress like jackrabbits. I’ve had this since it hit early access and mucked about a bit during the first iterations, but otherwise left it alone. Finished my first immense game going for a cultural victory yesterday, except 12 hours in everyone declared war on each other so I did a headlong sprint towards a tech victory and won easily, AI was only on normal though. Last night started mucking around with game files, with mixed results. I managed to somehow give my custom race two class fifty home worlds by accident - after loving around with it for a bit I figure that fifty is the highest you can get a world class, when I went to create them I added an extra didget, TBH I have NFI how I got the second world occupied on start, but both also pumped out 250% culture so I decided to crank up the AI and run with it. After discovering most of the cultures, the AI must have sat down together in a conference, looked at my two perfect worlds pumping out more credits than I knew what to do with, said “that’s bullshit”, and so the next Council vote was for redistribution of wealth. It passed, so I left the UP, and within one turn and all the major races, including the loving Altarians, decided to declare war– even those way outside range of my solar system. I started researching military and managed to get ahead technologically. Held them off pretty well at first, so during a down period I devoted a few turns to creating a large hull that was basically all sensors. It launched… and I see hundreds of craft inbound for my two little rocks. I wish I had a screenshot, but after holding down Alt and hovering over F4 whilst considering reversing my bullshit lead out the starting blocks, I figured I may as well see how things go. Utterly brutal. They ran a train on me, the handful of worlds I colonised early on were lost quickly, but those and others within my giant cultural ring (due to massive file fuckery) flipped and then were lost almost instantly from invasion, flipped, and were invaded again. And over and over and over. This slowed things down, but not forever. Eventually I was overrun by the Terrans, but not before breaking the backs of the Yor (who in their weakness, got invaded by the Dregnin, who in turn had everyone declare war on them) and got to witness a little drama unfold as a minor race spat in the face of the Krynn who went about losing most of their military (I was giving the minor races technologies in exchange for credits and not getting on the “rape rougey” bandwagon”) All this I got to watch with Saruons Eye - a Titan hull covered in sensors with two pissy little laser beams. Good times. The moral of the story; if the AI notices you have a class fifty world and 0 military, you’re going to have a bad time. Rougey fucked around with this message at 04:57 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 04:50
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Redistribution of wealth sounds like a knife in the back to good governance. What are the other kinds of stuff the UN makes votes for?
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May 25, 2015 17:59
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If you want to know a pro-tip for scouting take a cargo ship and put nothing but sensors on it then rush it- you will see about 24 hexes out. Honestly the fact that the stacking of so many things didn't get caught in playtesting is absurd, but then people like making 4x games without taking the time to put a design in the oven.
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May 25, 2015 18:20
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I really like this game, but it hard crashes way too often. So far, the game reliably crashes if you try to look at a world with more than 30 unique structures on it (this is hard to do without cheating, but if you're playing Yor or another race with a big homeworld, it's entirely possible). The game reliably crashes if you order too many starbase upgrades on one starbase in one turn. I really like that you can send a cloud of constructors (or two box laden titans) to make a maxed out starbase in one turn, but doing so with a military starbase late game will cause a crash. I'm not sure why, but lately it's been crashing between turns anywhere between turn 10 and turn 50, and it seems to be reliable for that save, so I have to start a new game, without knowing if this will happen again. Actually, I was loving around on beginner difficulty without any issues, and the between turn crashes have started now that I've cranked up the AI, so presumably they're doing something that causes a crash. I also randomly lose sfx, which isn't a huge deal, but is still kind of weird.Scalding Coffee posted:Redistribution of wealth sounds like a knife in the back to good governance. What are the other kinds of stuff the UN makes votes for? So far the only thing that's really pissed me off is that, in one particularly good game, I, as chairman of the UP, decided that I didn't want anybody else expanding before I was ready to do so, so I proposed and passed a "Members won't colonize planets" act. Never did get the repeal vote to be an option, so I had to leave in order to colonize after that. bobtheconqueror fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 18:32
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Panzeh posted:If you want to know a pro-tip for scouting take a cargo ship and put nothing but sensors on it then rush it- you will see about 24 hexes out. Working as intended.
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May 25, 2015 18:46
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Also is it just me or are GC2 and 3 pretty much the same without anything new?
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May 25, 2015 18:51
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Scalding Coffee posted:It was the same thing in Gal Civ 2. Kamikaze troop transports with all the engines you can fit, zooming across the galaxy from behind the lines. Having those same transports use the planet busting options that permanently harm the planet if they actually succeeded in taking it, unless you have a tiny army that exists to weaken the defenders. Abusing the first combat round to whittle down superior ships. Also the planet development is kinda.. easy? It's super easy to make massive research/production planets and the AI puts little pressure on you.
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May 25, 2015 19:08
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Already have over 80 hours into the game, purchased a week ago today, wonderful game, really really fun to play on the harder difficulty levels, makes you think every strategy, every plot out. Only downside is that its x64 which limits the users that have the older computers, but I can see why they did it, playing on one of the immense worlds with 24 custom factions can be challenging enough on a x64-bit architecture, let alone a x32. This game is very ram intensive, meaning if you want to play a huge or immense world you better have at least 8GB to 16GB of ram. The latter being the better of course as when you get further and further into the game the more you have to hold in memory. Other than that I love the game, and still would give it a 5/5 for anyone interested in trying it, especially if you like building empires, blowing up ships, stealing stations, or using massive doomsday beam weapons on your enemies, just make sure your computer is x64 before you purchase it, otherwise you will end up kicking yourself.
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May 25, 2015 19:56
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Michaellaneous posted:Also is it just me or are GC2 and 3 pretty much the same without anything new?
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May 25, 2015 20:14
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Mister Adequate posted:Distant Worlds is, with the expansions, basically the best space 4X ever made. One billion times this !!! 
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May 25, 2015 23:29
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Panzeh posted:If you want to know a pro-tip for scouting take a cargo ship and put nothing but sensors on it then rush it- you will see about 24 hexes out. I’m not sure if the AI takes your sensor range into account when deciding whether or not to kick your poo poo in, it might just be dumb luck but I’ve found having an Eye of Sauron revealing the entire map makes everyone dreadfully disinclined to declare war, even when you’re culture loving their capitals.
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May 26, 2015 00:55
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Michaellaneous posted:Also is it just me or are GC2 and 3 pretty much the same without anything new? There's the civ5 social policy/ideology trees + civ5 style strat resources now too!
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May 26, 2015 10:00
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If I were a modding man I think instead of buildings making the same building better when adjacent, i'd make them work better with a different building. There's already so many things toward hyperspecialization in planet development, and the AI doesn't understand how important it is so you outpace it every time.
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May 26, 2015 12:37
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Darkrenown posted:There's the civ5 social policy/ideology trees + civ5 style strat resources now too! Oh wow yeah that is..."amazing". 
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May 26, 2015 15:55
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Panzeh posted:If I were a modding man I think instead of buildings making the same building better when adjacent, i'd make them work better with a different building. There's already so many things toward hyperspecialization in planet development, and the AI doesn't understand how important it is so you outpace it every time. Ya, I have noticed that every time I have invaded a world. It does kind of take the fun away when your enemy does not have the means to put up a proper fight. I would love it if they had enabled them to specialize. It would make the game so far more challenging.
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May 27, 2015 00:37
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