Gal Civ 3

[Gustaran]

There is nothing wrong with choosing an easy setting but if you constantly choose the easiest settings and then complain about the game as too easy you are equivalent to a 4th grader complaining that the 1st grades he bullies don't put up a fight.

I am with Windsor here: If overpowered custom race creation is possible at all, it means that the race traits themselves are badly balanced - thus it is the responsibility of the developer. In an well balanced game I would expect race creation to allow me to support my chosen playstyle and not end with several "must have traits" which in turn make the created race overpowered.

[Windsor]

By trying to balance for the middle-ground you give flexibility. Users can choose a combi they like without getting the totally useless feeling. They can also choose a challenging combi or an easy one.
If they balance the game towards the most easy setting becoming balanced you get a) one right choice and nothing else.
and b) many people will get frustrated as there is no longer an easy setting which they need to have fun.


There is nothing wrong with choosing an easy setting but if you constantly choose the easiest settings and then complain about the game as too easy you are equivalent to a 4th grader complaining that the 1st grades he bullies don't put up a fight.

But there is an easy setting. It's called "Beginner" and you find it under "Game settings" and does exactly what you expect it to do. If race creation is supposed to be a secondary way of choosing difficulty level it should be marked as such.

I need to stress that unbalanced factions isn't the end of the world for a single-player game. But it's a valid criticism to point out if it's unbalanced and especially if it breaks the game. Race creation being marketed as a central part of the game makes it more relevant.

[Rowain]

I am with Windsor here: If overpowered custom race creation is possible at all, it means that the race traits themselves are badly balanced - thus it is the responsibility of the developer. In an well balanced game I would expect race creation to allow me to support my chosen playstyle and not end with several "must have traits" which in turn make the created race overpowered.

I don't think you have must-have-traits. I'm quite sure you can play and win with other traits/settings.

But there is an easy setting. It's called "Beginner" and you find it under "Game settings" and does exactly what you expect it to do.

I don't say that the traits don't need some rebalancing but you can't have complete equal strong traits if you want to have some diversity. And you need to aim the overall difficulty around the middle ground. The better settings maybe allow you to up the difficulty-level a notch but that is not bad at all. People love to move up the difficulty-ratings. Gives a certain feeling of accomplishment.

But I totally don't get people choosing the easy way and then complain about it being easy.


PS: That is all concerning SP.

[Gustaran]

I don't think you have must-have-traits. I'm quite sure you can play and win with other traits/settings.

Oh, I don't doubt you can win with other traits. I was talking about about "must have traits" in a min/max sense. Because the way it sounds, you have to handicap yourself during custom race creation or the game becomes too easy.
I also disagree with your statement concerning variety vs. balance. Nobody expects 100% balance across the board from a game, but between "slightly better" and "broken" there is a lot of difference.

In addition the statement "managing many planets on huge map is boring" should not be automatically dismissed, just because huge maps inherently feature a lot of planets.
IMHO, it is the mark of a good 4x game that it is as engaging to play with 5 planets as it is with 50, if maps of this size are offered. Given the fact that GC3 has drawn a lot of criticism for the subpar UI, this feedback may very well be valid for some people.

[Rowain]

Oh, I don't doubt you can win with other traits. I was talking about about "must have traits" in a min/max sense. Because the way it sounds, you have to handicap yourself during custom race creation or the game becomes too easy.

As soon you chose a higher difficulty than beginner you handicap yourself. And you do it to get a more interesting game. Using something other than a self-created overpowered trait-combination is not different from that. In SP you get the game you set up and if you choose to create a overpowered race and play it constantly in settings where it really shines then you are not allowed to whine about it being overpowered.

In addition the statement "managing many planets on huge map is boring" should not be automatically dismissed, just because huge maps inherently feature a lot of planets.
IMHO, it is the mark of a good 4x game that it is as engaging to play with 5 planets as it is with 50, if maps of this size are offered.

First I didn't mention that at all so I guess you are trying to move the discussion to a different topic. 2nd playing as a whole might be interesting but still managing the 50 planets is boring. Just ask the players in the big Pitboss (PB18). Managing their multi-city empire is engaging but managing each and every city would still be boring.

Given the fact that GC3 has drawn a lot of criticism for the subpar UI, this feedback may very well be valid for some people.

So far I had no problems with the UI but as I don't about what they really complain I can't judge it.

[Sullla]

I wish I had more time to join in this discussion... Unfortunately, I'll be away traveling for the next two weeks, but I did manage to finish the rest of the GC3 report before going. Here are the links:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Enjoy the read!

[VarisNox]

To chime in about the traits, there are definitely some that are way better than others (synthetic and patriotic specifically), but the majority have their uses. I'm fine if they leave it as is or decide to balance it further myself. Since it's a custom race, I can choose my own "difficulty" by choosing my own combinations. That's half the fun of making a custom race. Otherwise, I can content myself with the default races if needed. Sure, I can understand the desire to play as optimally as possible with the best possible combinations, but that's always the risk of having custom traits or options for races - there's always going to be a "best" combination or two. What quite a few people consider to be the best 4x of all time in Master of Orion 2 (I personally prefer the first one, but I do love 2) had this exact same problem. There were really only a few good trait combinations, and everything else was subpar. Still, balanced traits are a good goal - I would definitely rather everything have their own place and power rather than clear "winners" and "losers", but I'm content for now to police myself if I feel it to be necessary for my enjoyment of the game.

For planet management, managing large numbers of cities/planets/whatever where you have to order things properly to get optimal output will ALWAYS be tedious (at least in my opinion). It will always get to a point where you just start not caring, either because your empire is fine without the new addition at some planet count and really doesn't need the minor increase another planet would bring, or because you have so much to do in order to stand up a starting colony due to new technologies that it just gets annoying to be prompted after a build queue clears. Master of Orion 2 has this problem so badly - even with few planets. Civ games also can get to this point, Gal Civ games, any 4x with a build queue system really. The only 4x games that don't get quite as tedious are ones like the original Master of Orion, which has my favorite solution of abstracting everything to the highest level, and assigning those high level sliders resources. The best way to avoid the tedium creep is to play on standard sized maps or at least not overly large ones, so you get the enjoyment of the colony rush, the build up, and the progression onwards without getting too extreme.

I do really enjoy the discussion though and seeing everyone's thoughts on the matter, since these two points are usually big kickers for most 4x type games, both in the past and recent releases.

I wish I had more time to join in this discussion... Unfortunately, I'll be away traveling for the next two weeks, but I did manage to finish the rest of the GC3 report before going. Here are the links:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Enjoy the read!

Good report Sullla! I enjoyed the colonization game you played to snatch some planets away. I also agree that Benevolent and Malevolent are far superior to pragmatic. Pragmatic only gets minor bonuses to trade and the starbase construction stuff - otherwise it's all about avoiding war in some manner or increasing defenses. Not very enticing when you compare the trees. I will pick and choose choices on the planet decision tree if the bonus is just disgustingly good rather than pursue my ideology tree, but that doesn't usually come up. Example, class 18 ghost world [+50% research] with an event on malevolent to increase research by 100% vs nothing of note. For a 10 ideology point cost, I'm totally picking that option! Most times though, the benefits are just not worth changing ideology choices and just moving forward towards an ideology point.

As for military starbases, they indeed give bonuses to your ships or penalties to enemy ships in their radius. They also can use heavier weapons emplacements for defense. I've used them for 3 main purposes - base defense, staging attack base, travel base. For defense bases, I will put one in the path of expected enemy attack if I'm about to go to war with the AI - I usually have a defense fleet guarding my planet clusters, and these bases have helped a few times to reduce casualties and increase my win chances on larger fleets. For attack bases, I usually send a 4-set of constructors with my fleets and plop them in the center of enemy territory. That gives me an absolute advantage area where I can pick off enemy fleets at will. If I do it inside a star system, I even get a bonus vs planet defenders. Finally, the weirder one is the travel bases. In the engineering tech line, there's a starbase improvement that allows you to build module that increases the moves available to fleets that are in the starbase's borders. These are basically where I have my shipyard rally points or defense fleets stationed at, since it lets me react quickly to any border or reinforce faster than normal.

The thing about military star bases, is that they're the type I scrap the most. They offer the most limited benefits to an area, and I usually stand them up in addition to other things as a temporary measure for future plans. Unlike mining/archeology/culture/economy bases, they don't provide a constant tangible benefit. Seriously though, when your fighting early game Drengin missile boats on Godlike (3 small ships have 150 missiles, oh god it hurts) sometimes the bonuses are nice. Definitely the least useful though as far as the overall empire.

Yes, surrender is dumb. I don't understand what triggers it or why it exists, but it's very annoying when it happens, and almost seems like a last minute thing.

Hopefully, you're enjoying your vacation!

[Hail]

notes from version 1.03:
* the AI is horrendous.
* the UI is aweful.
* MM gets out of hand really fast.
* the game suffers from "too much stuff" syndrome.
* personally disliked and questionable mechanics (surrender, tourism, etc.).
* poor balance (the omnipotent elerium based psionic beam comes to mind) (*).
* I detest that entites that require resources I do not have enough atm, disappear from build queues.

(*) notice the blue spike a little off from the beginning:

[Commodore]

For planet management, managing large numbers of cities/planets/whatever where you have to order things properly to get optimal output will ALWAYS be tedious (at least in my opinion). It will always get to a point where you just start not caring, either because your empire is fine without the new addition at some planet count and really doesn't need the minor increase another planet would bring, or because you have so much to do in order to stand up a starting colony due to new technologies that it just gets annoying to be prompted after a build queue clears. Master of Orion 2 has this problem so badly - even with few planets. Civ games also can get to this point, Gal Civ games, any 4x with a build queue system really. The only 4x games that don't get quite as tedious are ones like the original Master of Orion, which has my favorite solution of abstracting everything to the highest level, and assigning those high level sliders resources. The best way to avoid the tedium creep is to play on standard sized maps or at least not overly large ones, so you get the enjoyment of the colony rush, the build up, and the progression onwards without getting too extreme.

I do really enjoy the discussion though and seeing everyone's thoughts on the matter, since these two points are usually big kickers for most 4x type games, both in the past and recent releases.

This is a good articulation of what I was trying to write up in my post-game thoughts after playing through my first single-player game (of Civ4) in quite some time. Interestingly enough, as grating as it is to people in the know who can see the artificial breaks, this scale/tedium thing is probably a good reason why Civ5 is so incredibly successful.

[Sullla]

I wrote up a full report about my Thalans game that I did on Livestream a couple weeks ago. I'm still enjoying GC3 despite the bugs, poor balancing, and terrible interface. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much interest at Realms Beyond, judging by how dead this forum has been, and everyone at the official forums is either playing gigantic maps, or modding the game heavily, or both.

Does anyone know if there's any other place online people are playing GC3? It doesn't seem to be very popular from what I can tell.