GalCiv II vs. Civ IV

[jafd]

I know there's a bunch of threads on Galactic Civilizations, but I'm looking for specific knowledge on how the game compares to Civilization.

I've played every Civ since the first one, but other than a short week spent mucking about with Ascendancy, I've never played any game like Civ that was set in space.

So, what can I expect out of GC? In what ways is Civ "superior"? Am I likely to spend hours and hours and hours (literally) playing Gal Civ II, the way I am with Civilization IV? Do I even want to?

Sorry to make a new thread to ask what amounts to a silly question, but when it comes down to spending my free time reading forums about Galactic Civilizations or playing a little more Civilization IV... well, you know.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

So, what can I expect out of GC? In what ways is Civ "superior"? Am I likely to spend hours and hours and hours (literally) playing Gal Civ II, the way I am with Civilization IV? Do I even want to?
Better depends on what you're looking for in a strategy game, I guess. Civ4 has more polish and game mechanics are a bit clearer. GalCiv has ship design and interstellar warfare. I like GalCiv2 better; it has hooked me in a way Civ4 didn't.

[Chris Nahr]

GalCiv2 is as good as it gets today for a space 4x game, and holds up well to Civ4 in most areas, but there are still numerous GUI and documentation issues. I'd suggest holding off until a few more patches are released.

[Jab2565]

Yeah Civ 4, does give you more infomation and things are a bit more easier to understand. Galciv2 is more randomize, and I think the ai is more advance in it then in Civ 4.

You can probably learn Civ4 alot quicker then gal civ 2, but both games require alot of time to master them.

[GH33DA]

What happens if you throw Space Rangers 2 in the mix?

[Anders Hallin]

Completely different games, SR2 is your lone ship and perhaps a few allies against the Dominators. You don't control planet production or anything of the sort.

[Chris Woods]

Civ IV has an interesting tech tree; GalCiv II's tech tree is exceedingly boring. Not only is it all organized in lines (after the first two levels, it's one tech after another) but the techs you research are very unexciting. Laser -> Laser II -> Laser III -> Laser IV -> Laser V -> Particle Beam (oohhh) -> Particle Beam II... Further, they are all just incremental improvements. Xeno Labs -> Research Centers... Overall, when I open the Tech Tree in Civ IV I get the feeling I absolutely must research everything available; they all seem so important. When I open the tech tree in GalCiv II I often don't care.

Civ IV's diplomacy is way better. GalCiv II omits, for example, Civ IV's "What can I get for (stuff)?" option in diplomacy, so you are forced to constantly add and remove items from the list until you get a trade both you and the AI are happy with. Trading with the AI in GalCiv II is very tedious and shopping around with a new tech is plain painful.

I believe this has been mentioned by someone else, but in GalCiv II there is really no exploration of any consequence. You go visit all the planets within range and you are basically done exploring. There is very little to actually see as opposed to exploring terrain in Civ IV.

This one is up in the air depending on what you like. In GalCiv II there is little to no colony management. For the most part, you set up the entire development of the colony and it maintains itself. Only on rare occasions will you revisit a colony, usually because terraforming opened up new "zones" or because you want to build a special project. In Civ IV you generally produce the buildings one at a time.

Again, up in the air. In GalCiv II there is often nothing to really do on any given turn and it is common to skip several in a row. The GalCiv equivalent of a "worker" (Constructor) consumes itself after building an "improvement" (Starbase component) so you only interact with each one a single time. Civ IV, on the other hand, has a lot to do on any given turn mostly due to workers and exploration.

Up in the air. There is no concept of "colonization" in GalCiv II as there is in Civ IV. In Civ IV you actually select where you are going to build a city based on your goals, the terrain and what you want the city to be. In GalCiv II colony locations are completely predestined. You merely chose if you are going to build there at all. Further, after roughly 5-10 minutes you will never build another Colony Ship unless you are playing on an exceptionally large galaxy.

Both systems suffer from difficulty assessing the results of combat. Civ IV at least has the odds calculator. I haven't figured out a similar calculator in GalCiv II, or any combat predictive tools really, so early on you spend a lot of time guessing to try to "get a feel" for it.

GalCiv II has ship construction, something Civ IV obviously lacks. The ship construction is enjoyable but pales compared to MoO II's. I haven't yet seen any special devices (ie- teleporters, cloaking devices, etc.) although there could be some buried much deeper in the technology tree. For the most part, unit construction consists of putting on engines, "defences" and "weapons". There isn't much in the way of choices, you essentially have one engine choice, three weapon and defence choices. You more decide the ratios to mount rather then make any tactical considerations.

Also, despite the fleet mechanic, the ships all operate essentially as independent entities. You won't be able to create a "defencive ship", for example, that shoots down enemy missiles and supports the fleet.

Overall, GalCiv II is worth playing if you get a buzz from a new 4X game or from figuring out the mechanics of them, or if you find Civ IV tedious you certainly should try GalCiv II out as it is much "easier to play" from a micromanagement standpoint. (Well, except for diplomacy which is just painful.) Barring that, though, I'd say stick with Civ IV.

Chris Woods

[Mike O'Malley]

So from 7-9, you'd give it a....?

[Chris Woods]

So from 7-9, you'd give it a....?

From 7 to 9 I give it Banana.

Chris Woods

[Brad Wardell]

I think I'd quibble (a lot) with most of what Chris Woods says (particularly with colonization, tech tree, and diplomacy) but we are all entitled to our opinions.

I'm biased, I designed GalCiv but also love Civ 4 so I certainly won't put out any opinion on either.

The main differences most people would probably find are:

1) Civilization is historical. GalCiv is future Sci Fi.

2) Civilization's playing field is a world where you build your cities anywhere you want. GalCiv takes place in space where you colonize particular planets.

3) Civilization's main staging areas are cities. Cities can have any number of improvements built in them by selecting from a list. GalCiv's main staging areas are colonies which have a specific set of tiles to build on.

4) Civilization's tech tree is linear and is designed such that players will typically go through the entire tree in a given game. GalCiv's tree is very vertical and is designed to force players to choose parts of the tree to research and parts not to.

5) Units in Civ are derived from techs. A given tech will give you a given unit. Units in GalCiv II are designed by the player. Components to build a unit come from the tech. Users control both what units look like and what they do in GalCiv II.

6) Civ IV has a "what do you want for this?" option in Diplomacy. GalCiv has a color-coded offer area that changes once you have a deal they will take.

7) Civ IV's diplomacy screen is more streamlined. You trade a tech for a tech (or money). A resource for a resource (or money). In GalCiv II, you can trade anything for anything.

8) Units in Civ IV go up in rank in which the user can control how promotions affect the unit. In GalCiv, units go up in level in which new levels increase the number of HP in a unit automatically.

9) Civ IV allows units to move together as a single stack but they do not fight together (Civ III had armies). GalCiv II has fleets whose sizes are controlled by the player's logistics ability.

10) Civ IV has a Civpedia which contains all the game's info in a single, easy to look up place. GalCiv's information is distributed as the player gets a given tech or wonder. (editorial: Most gamers would probably prefer to have both but if given the choice, hard core gamers would likely prefer the Civpedia and casual gamers would probably prefer the "just in time" mechanism in GalCiv -- I prefer Civ IV's method).

11) Civ IV has a UI that makes it very easy to manage your empire from the map. GalCiv II has a Civ Manager that includes governors to automate and reduce micro management.

12) Civ IV units when moved to a distant place will tell you how many moves it will take for it to get there visually along with the course they will take. GalCiv II has rally points that allow units and cities to send things to a given target. Governors can switch destinations enmasse.

13) Civ IV allows you to zoom out and see the entire world as a beautiful, visually appealing thing. GalCiv II allows you to zoom out and turns the map into a board game UI (units become icons) from which you can run your empire on a large scale.

14) Civ IV allows players to improve the surrounding land in a variety of interesting ways. GalCiv II has starbases that can improve the player's economic, military, or cultural activity for a set radius around the starbase.

15) Civ IV has borders that grow out from cities based on the citie's combined cultural inventory. GalCiv II has spheres of influence that are generated by planets but can be extended and magnified by star bases.

16) Civ IV borders are treated as legal territory of the player. GalCiv II's sphere of influence bring in tourism revenue but are not considered territory of the player.

17) Civ IV's combat includes ground units, flying units, and naval units which have different behaviors along with artillery units which allow for combined arms attacks. GalCiv II's combat includes 3 types of weapons and 3 types of defense which enable players to build units that are adapted to fight a particular enemy.

18) Civ IV's graphics take place on land and allow players to zoom in on cities to see more detail. The units themselves are relatively low detail. GalCiv II's graphics take place in space which has no graphical detail at all but ships are extremely detailed and have no upper limit on polygon count.

19) Civ IV has the best multiplayer system ever seen in a TBS game (in my opinion). GalCiv II has no head to head multiplayer but includes a Metaverse (see the Qt3 Shoot club Empire thread) for indirect competition. The that would have gone into multiplayer was instead spent creating a more single player enhancements (more dialog, more news, sophisticated event engine, etc.).

20) Civ IV includes a fantastic in-game map editor. GalCiv II includes a campaign.

21) Civ IV is extremely moddable. GalCiv II is extremely moddable.

22) Civ IV has very good AI (best of the Civ series IMO). GalCiv II has very good AI (in my opinion of course).

23) Civ IV gets regular updates that address both bugs and add new usability features. GalCiv II will be getting regular updates that address both bugs and add new usability features.

24) Civ IV has Leonard Nimoy doing voice overs. GalCiv II does not have Leonard Nimoy doing voice overs.

25) Civ IV has an interactive tutorial. GalCiv II includes a series of video tutorials.

26) Civ IV was designed by a guy with an unusual name (Soren). GalCiv II was designed by a game with a really boring name (Brad).

27) Civ IV has a civics system that has various pros and cons to how your civilization is run. GalCiv II has an ethics system that has various pros and cons on how your Civ is run.

Which one would you like better?

I think a lot of that is answered by a much more straight forward question:

Do you prefer to build a historical civilization -- one that exists in the real world or one that is based in a sci-fi universe?

On a lot of forums, GalCiv II has been described as Alpha Centauri in space.

I don't think the comparison is quite that analogous but I think most people, a lot of it boils down to either wanting to be Emperor of the Roman Empire or leader of the Federation.

[SorenJohnson]

28) Civ4 has 100% more references to Al Gore

[Backov]

GalCiv2 is a good game, but I agree with everything Chris Woods said. I also agree that it does have a lot of UI issues, I was having a ton of weird UI bugs last night, and then a CTD. A few patches will probably fix it right up.

That said, I generally prefer space 4X games, so I'll be playing this a while.

[SorenJohnson]

The big difference from a designer's point-of-view is that "every tile matters" in a Civ game (which is why workers/improvements/roads/pillaging/culture/borders is such a big part of the game) wheras that is not typically the case of a space 4x game - they tend to be more high-level. (MoO even went with nodes for a map...) I think everything else kind of flows out from that difference...

[Brad Wardell]

The big difference from a designer's point-of-view is that "every tile matters" in a Civ game (which is why workers/improvements/roads/pillaging/culture/borders is such a big part of the game) wheras that is not typically the case of a space 4x game - they tend to be more high-level. (MoO even went with nodes for a map...) I think everything else kind of flows out from that difference...

That's a good point.

In a space game, I prefer big maps. In a Civ game, I prefer smaller maps.

29) In Civ IV, if you start near a wheat resource, you go "Yes!!!". In GalCiv II, if you start near a class 15 planet you go "Yes!!!"

30) GalCiv II has more Monty Python references.

[Charles]

Soren vs Brad!

Defend your game against the other at all cost! Convince the consumer how much more you should get their dollar!

FIGHT!

[MikeJ]

Overall, when I open the Tech Tree in Civ IV I get the feeling I absolutely must research everything available; they all seem so important.

That's the one thing I like about the tech tree in GC2. There's a lot of depth-first type stuff that corresponds to different game strategies. For a space game, different species having vastly different technological strengths (at least in theory) seems like a good fit.


I believe this has been mentioned by someone else, but in GalCiv II there is really no exploration of any consequence. You go visit all the planets within range and you are basically done exploring. There is very little to actually see as opposed to exploring terrain in Civ IV.


Well, you do get the anomalies and resources. I'd like to see that part explored more. Like say sometimes when you visit an anomaly, it says 'this is going to take more time to explore, give us a couple of weeks', then if you decide to hold station, you might get a much better reward. Or, they say 'we think we are on to something big here, give us another 5 weeks', with important rewards like new tech etc. That way, people migh end up actually fighting over an anomaly.

Adding some galactic terrain with effects on combat would be nice as well.

In GalCiv II colony locations are completely predestined. You merely chose if you are going to build there at all. Further, after roughly 5-10 minutes you will never build another Colony Ship unless you are playing on an exceptionally large galaxy.

I miss how in the original MoO, you had to research to be able to colonize a lot of systems. It would be neat to spread out the land grab a bit by adding planets with specific hazards preventing colonization ('radiated', 'hostile microbiology'), or that seriously reduce quality. Once you research techs for dealing with these, these planets now open up to you.

GalCiv II has ship construction, something Civ IV obviously lacks. The ship construction is enjoyable but pales compared to MoO II's. I haven't yet seen any special devices (ie- teleporters, cloaking devices, etc.) although there could be some buried much deeper in the technology tree.

I'm not sure that the ship design comes off worse compared to MoO2. In MoO2, there were a lot of options that seemed really cool when you start out but usually didn't matter all that much. The visuals were very unappealing, with almost no difference between your options. The way the weapons and defences stack and the tradeoffs makes for interesting enough tradeoffs, and designing the look of the ships is great. I agree that it's really lacking specials though. There's not as much opportunity for nice tactical specials like in MoO2, but I'd love to have a component series that gives the ship more hitpoints, or fleet support type components, or ones that let the defender attack first, for instance. If range were more limited in GC2, that would be another tough tradeoff.

While I think Civ4 is a much more polished game, I think there's a lot of nice potential for improvement in GalCiv2. Plus, the space theme really works better for me.

[fuzzyslug]

Soren vs Brad!

Defend your game against the other at all cost! Convince the consumer how much more you should get their dollar!

FIGHT!

I don't think there's any need. Both games are well worth your money.

I would, however, love to hear you guys critique each other games. With the understanding that this could never happen with anything other than kid gloves, maybe you two could just talk about what you like. It'd certainly be interesting to hear you guys talk about all the why's involved and how they played out in two very different settings.

[Shadarr]

Adding some galactic terrain with effects on combat would be nice as well.

...

I miss how in the original MoO, you had to research to be able to colonize a lot of systems. It would be neat to spread out the land grab a bit by adding planets with specific hazards preventing colonization ('radiated', 'hostile microbiology'), or that seriously reduce quality. Once you research techs for dealing with these, these planets now open up to you.

...

The way the weapons and defences stack and the tradeoffs makes for interesting enough tradeoffs, and designing the look of the ships is great. I agree that it's really lacking specials though. There's not as much opportunity for nice tactical specials like in MoO2, but I'd love to have a component series that gives the ship more hitpoints, or fleet support type components, or ones that let the defender attack first, for instance.

It sounds to me like the game you want GC2 to be, is Space Empires IV.

[Chris Woods]

I think I'd quibble (a lot) with most of what Chris Woods says (particularly with colonization, tech tree, and diplomacy) but we are all entitled to our opinions.

I would be interested to hear your counter points, irrespective of if you worked on the game at all.

Chris Woods

[JMR]

What's groovy about GC2 is the potential of modders to make something cool.

I spotted this over at OO.

http://www.galciv2.com/media/Status13.jpg

Just imagine a Birth of the Federation (mod) that doesn't suck.

[Brad Wardell]

I wouldn't want to hijack this thread on that since the user wanted to know the difference between the two games.

Re Civ IV - I would have a hard time critiqueing it because I like the game so much and even in areas I would like changed, the design choices were the logical path to take.

Nearly every design decision will have a negative consequence for some percentage of the user base.

Chris, for example, doesn't like the tech tree because to him, having Laser I, Laser II, etc. is redundant. I think he prefers games where you eventually do research the whole (or most) of the tree.

On the other hand, people like me, want to force players to have to make tough choices -- to know that they can't research all the techs.

To do that means either a bigger tech tree or a tech tree where the technologies are much more expensive. If you go the former route, some users will feel as Chris does and find it "boring". If you take the latter route, the pacing will seem too slow and inflexible.

Similarly with diplomacy. GalCiv II lets you trade anything for anything. It's just a matter of cost. But to ensure there's still skill involved in this aspect, we intentionally did NOT have a "what will you give me for this?" Civ IV has a much more straight forward path. You can't give a race a bunch of tech in exchange for him declaring war on those damn Russians. And many techs and items are redded out so they're not even an option. But that system makes it logical to have a button that says "What do I need to get this?" that will fill in the necessary items.

To illustrate the point, since you can trade anything for anything in GalCiv, what exactly woudl a "what do I need to get this do?" There's an infinite number of combinations. And even if that wasn't an issue, it would take away much of the skill involved in trading. Or put another way, in GalCiv, there is ALWAYS a way to get what you want in trade. There is almost never a scenario where you can't get what you want from the other race, it's just a matter of what you're willing to sacrifce. "Oh, you want Warp drive? Sure, give us Mars." That's why a "What do I need for this?" feature isn't as straight forward a feature as one might expect.

But some people will prefer one way and some the other.

I think Civ's way works well for Civ, particularly in a multiplayer environment. And I think GalCiv's way works well for GalCiv.

[Chris Woods]

I don't know, I think to imply that Civ IV's tech tree means you'll research all of it is either disengenious or shows a serious lack of experience with Civ IV. Most high level strategies for Emperor and above play specifically involve not researching (or trading for) well over half the tech tree. In fact, a Deity level strategy that's showing some success involved researching The Internet, one of the most high level wonders in the game, as fast as possible and skipping well over half the entire tree to get it.

Civ IV's tech tree is really well designed because of the multiple paths to any given destination. You really don't need over half of it and you really do make tough choices as to what to get next.

My main beef with GalCiv is the tree is, literally, boring. Laser II is an incremental improvement over Laser I. Research Centers is an incremental improvement over Xeno Labs. Every single branch of tech, essentially, is just slight improvements over the previous branch. There is little to no tactical depth to research save "how far do you want to go", but due to the economy model that is mostly predestined. You can research better labs, but you can't use them without Trade and Economic improvements because of the high cost needed to staff them at levels better then the previous tier. There is interdependency, but it's hidden in the economic model.

Speaking of the Economic model, why does industrial funding conflict with research funding? The buildings are completely separate. Why don't I have separate "Research" and "Industry" bars in money management rather then a system where if my plants are running at higher capacity it's somehow magically degenerating the efficiency of my research efforts. I understand the crossover between Military and Social production as they use the same base building (Factories), but why overlap it with research?

I can potentially get the same effect by upping "empire funding", but I have four bars (the "total spent" bar and the % bars) instead of three (Industry spent, industry balance Social/Military, and Research) It makes balancing my economy ugly. I have to jump through hoops that I shouldn't to get the levels I'm after.

This is the same issue I have with Diplomacy. Why am I, the player, forced to implement a binary search algorithm to trade? Why couldn't you have "What techs would you give me for X"/"How much money would you give me for X"/"How much influence would you give me for X"? In Civ IV I do real diplomacy. I say "Hey, let's end this war. What's it going to take?" In GalCiv II I go "Peace for Lasers? No. Peace for Lasers and 100 bc? No....."

Chris Woods

[Glycerine]

I don't know, I think to imply that Civ IV's tech tree means you'll research all of it is either disengenious or shows a serious lack of experience with Civ IV. Most high level strategies for Emperor and above play specifically involve not researching (or trading for) well over half the tech tree. In fact, a Deity level strategy that's showing some success involved researching The Internet, one of the most high level wonders in the game, as fast as possible and skipping well over half the entire tree to get it.

Most, but not all. A buddy of mine ONLY plays on Emperor and Diety, researches the entire tech tree, and still manages to win just about every single game he plays. This guy started his first game of the original Civ on Emperor, didn't even bother trying any of the lower difficulty settings. He's never looked back since. Yep, he's just that damn good.

Glycerine

[wildpokerman]

What's groovy about GC2 is the potential of modders to make something cool.

I spotted this over at OO.

http://www.galciv2.com/media/Status13.jpg

Just imagine a Birth of the Federation (mod) that doesn't suck.


That would be the bomb. Especially if it was a total conversion with star wars sounding techs, pre-made ships for each race that looked like star trek ships and also the components so you could make ships that look like star wars ships. Rename the planets and you've got yourself a space game.

Please make a Star Wars mod too.

Man I love it when fans rip off licensed properties.

[Nick Walter]

I think you are right about the tech tree stuff, but I don't think the diplomacy complaint has any merit Chris. It's very easy to play around with potential trades in GalCiv II, as the color coding allows instant visual recognition of whether the AI will value the trade.

One thing I love love love about the GalCiv II trade system is to throw a few techs on the table with the AI then ask them for money. I can adjust the slider while watching the color of the deal change so that I can extort every last credit from the poor A/I.

[Sarkus]

My main beef with GalCiv is the tree is, literally, boring. Laser II is an incremental improvement over Laser I.

Those increments can have a huge impact. Laser II is smaller than Laser I, which can make all the difference in a ship design, for example.

Most of the comparisons between the tech trees in Civ4 and GC2 are unfair because the two games have completely different concepts of time. Turns in Civ4 represent anthing from 1 year on up and techs can take 100's of years to develop. In that context, tech jumps should be more dramatic. The downside is that you have late game weirdness like the fact that my aircraft carrier can't even travel the length of my continent, let alone circumvent the planet, in one year of time.

In GC2, however, each turn is one week. How much progress do you expect to make in a month of research? I'd say if you can make Laser II as a smaller version of Laser I, that's pretty realistic. The alternative would be a tech tree with fewer advances and longer development time. Would you rather incrementally improve Laser tech in 4-6 week jumps or wait 35 weeks for a better weapon? Either way, you get to the same place and the smaller increases allow much more flexibility in your research strategy.

Speaking of the Economic model, why does industrial funding conflict with research funding? The buildings are completely separate. Why don't I have separate "Research" and "Industry" bars in money management rather then a system where if my plants are running at higher capacity it's somehow magically degenerating the efficiency of my research efforts. I understand the crossover between Military and Social production as they use the same base building (Factories), but why overlap it with research?

I look at it this way: You are deciding how to spend your money and your facilities limit how much you can spend. Don't think of factories and research centers as anything other than government run operations that you are deciding how to fund. If you have 1000bc after paying for maintenance, etc., you need to decide how much you want in cash and how much will go for military, social, and research projects. That's what the "Spending (Industrial Capacity)" slider determines. Then you have to decide how the Mil-Soc-Res money is spent. That's what the "Spending Distribution" sliders determine. You could seperate research out earlier, but what's the point? You still only have so much to spend.

This is the same issue I have with Diplomacy. Why am I, the player, forced to implement a binary search algorithm to trade? Why couldn't you have "What techs would you give me for X"/"How much money would you give me for X"/"How much influence would you give me for X"? In Civ IV I do real diplomacy. I say "Hey, let's end this war. What's it going to take?" In GalCiv II I go "Peace for Lasers? No. Peace for Lasers and 100 bc? No....."

Chris Woods

This I totally agree with. CivIV set a new bar with this and there are plenty of other games (I can think of a baseball sim, for one) that have this as well. Maybe it's something they can add.

[MikeJ]

I look at it this way: You are deciding how to spend your money and your facilities limit how much you can spend. (...) You could seperate research out earlier, but what's the point? You still only have so much to spend.


But that's clearly not what's happening. In one of the campaign games, they give you 30k to start. After a little while, I was spending something like 5x my income each turn, not counting things that I outright purchased.

You really are trading off between making full use of your capacity to (productively) spend in each area. I like the mechanic, because it forces some decisions, but it can be a little hard to explain. Maybe you could say that your government has a limited capacity to administer projects in very different areas. If you want to make the most possible use of all the infrastructure in a certain area, you have to focus.

[Sarkus]

But that's clearly not what's happening. In one of the campaign games, they give you 30k to start. After a little while, I was spending something like 5x my income each turn, not counting things that I outright purchased.

You really are trading off between making full use of your capacity to (productively) spend in each area. I like the mechanic, because it forces some decisions, but it can be a little hard to explain. Maybe you could say that your government has a limited capacity to administer projects in very different areas. If you want to make the most possible use of all the infrastructure in a certain area, you have to focus.

True, but that's a function of building up too much infrastructure for what your economy can handle. You also have to stop thinking in Civ terms, where each city is it's own economic engine. That's not really how GC2 works.

Here's a real world type of example. Let's say the US has $1 billion to spend. They have three potential projects - build tanks (military), build a new base (social), or research better armor (research). Let's assume they have enough factories to build $1b in tanks, enough workers to spend $1b on the base, and enough scientists to spend $1b on research. Having that capacity doesn't change the fact that they only have $1b to spend. They now have to decided how to split that $1 b between the projects. That's how GC2 works. However, as long as you have money in the bank, GC2 lets you over spend your income. So, to use our example, the US could spend $1b on each project, maximizing their output potential, as long as they had $2b in the bank to cover it. That's what is happening in your 5x income case above.

Keep in mind that it is possible to maximize all your potential and still make money in GC2. You just have to have a large population base to tax (the main source of income) and/or other income generators like trade income, etc.

[Nick Walter]

True, but that's a function of building up too much infrastructure for what your economy can handle. You also have to stop thinking in Civ terms, where each city is it's own economic engine. That's not really how GC2 works.

Here's a real world type of example. Let's say the US has $1 billion to spend. They have three potential projects - build tanks (military), build a new base (social), or research better armor (research). Let's assume they have enough factories to build $1b in tanks, enough workers to spend $1b on the base, and enough scientists to spend $1b on research. Having that capacity doesn't change the fact that they only have $1b to spend. They now have to decided how to split that $1 b between the projects. That's how GC2 works. However, as long as you have money in the bank, GC2 lets you over spend your income. So, to use our example, the US could spend $1b on each project, maximizing their output potential, as long as they had $2b in the bank to cover it. That's what is happening in your 5x income case above.

Keep in mind that it is possible to maximize all your potential and still make money in GC2. You just have to have a large population base to tax (the main source of income) and/or other income generators like trade income, etc.

Umm, I don't think that's how it works. From my limited playing around with the system, it seems it is only possible to maximize one area at the expense of other areas. If I have a planet with a capacity of X tech points a turn, then I can only get X points if I put 0% effort into military and social projects. I can't overspend to get X tech points and have military and social projects going ahead at some level also.

[Chris Woods]

My point is why tie industry and research in this model?

Why not separate them. Instead of 100 bc "total", 30% social, 30% Military, 40% research, why can't I set "60 bc industry, 40bc research"?

When I max out the "total" bar, then set my Mil/Soc/Res bar to 33/33/33 am I getting full use out of my labs? Can you answer that with confidence without going into the game and doing all the math yourself and checking against the engine?

And about Laser II, I'm not saying it's unimportant -- I'm saying it's boring. Laser II. Laser III. Laser IV. Whoo...hooo...

And Why can't I figure out what Laser IV is without researching it then going into the ship builder to see if I even wanted it?

Chris Woods

[MikeJ]

True, but that's a function of building up too much infrastructure for what your economy can handle. You also have to stop thinking in Civ terms, where each city is it's own economic engine. That's not really how GC2 works.

Oh, spending 5x my income was exactly what I intended. My treasury was like a meteor plummeting to zero, but since I started with 30,000bc, it took a long time for that to happen. By the time I got there, my population had grown by a huge factor and my economy was almost balanced. Actually, I never did fall below a couple thousand.


Keep in mind that it is possible to maximize all your potential and still make money in GC2. You just have to have a large population base to tax (the main source of income) and/or other income generators like trade income, etc.

Well, what we are getting at is it's not possible to use all your potential in the 3 areas at the same time. If you want to use 100% of your research potential, you must have social and military at 0%. It doesn't matter how much you want to spend, if you have that research slider at 33%, you are only spending 33% of what you could be. To get the most out of your research labs, your starport must be gathering cobwebs, or be driven solely by purchasing :)

[Shadarr]

I think you are right about the tech tree stuff, but I don't think the diplomacy complaint has any merit Chris. It's very easy to play around with potential trades in GalCiv II, as the color coding allows instant visual recognition of whether the AI will value the trade.
I disagree. Having played a ton of games with the GC2 model, the diplomacy in Civ IV was like a revelation. It actually felt like you were dealing with another player, who had actual wants, rather than just min/maxing a spreadsheet points system whose values you can't see.

It's not like GC2 is broken, it just does things the old way. Diplomacy that doesn't suck was a major feature of Civ IV.

[Nick Walter]

I disagree. Having played a ton of games with the GC2 model, the diplomacy in Civ IV was like a revelation. It actually felt like you were dealing with another player, who had actual wants, rather than just min/maxing a spreadsheet points system whose values you can't see.

It's not like GC2 is broken, it just does things the old way. Diplomacy that doesn't suck was a major feature of Civ IV.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think the diplomacy in GalCiv II is better than Civ 4 but we might value different aspects more.

[Damien Neil]

And about Laser II, I'm not saying it's unimportant -- I'm saying it's boring. Laser II. Laser III. Laser IV. Whoo...hooo...

This is one thing I loved about SMAC: It had flavor. Laser III? Who cares? But Singularity Mechanics, Self-Aware Machines, Neural Grafting, Applied Gravitonics...the names are evocative. The little quotes associated with each tech were also perfect.

"What goes up . . . better doggone well stay up!"
-- Morgan Gravitonics, Company Slogan

"Optical computers, genetic catalogs, nanorepair modules--forget all of that. It's when you see a megaton of steel suspended over your head by a thread the thickness of a human hair that you really find God in technology."
-- Anonymous Metagenics Dockworker, MorganLink 3DVision Live Interview

[Old Man Gravy]

Disinterested observer, here. Haven't played either game. Just thinking about the tech trees as described in this thread.

Civ4: Let's see, I can choose between researching The Calendar, Steam Engines, Stirrups, the Dewey decimal system, or Basic Racoon-Skin Hat Manufacturing

Galciv2: (just based on what's in this thread)Let's see, I can research LASERS, PLASMA, or technology to assist in my SPACE COLONIZATION


Which tech tree was it that was supposed to be boring again?

edit: Damien posted while I was typing... totally agree on SMAC's tech tree. It's terrific.

[Anders Hallin]

Yeah, but the thing about that is that no one understands that kind of tech tree. (SMAC's, that is)

[BobJustBob]

It doesn't get much better than discovering Monopole Magnets.

[RepoMan]

Yeah, but the thing about that is that no one understands that kind of tech tree.
Wrong! Some of us sure as hell did :-)

Less accessible? Sure. But to those of us who were reading Ringworld books before puberty, it was like manna from heaven. Er, it was like vegan Soylent Green, oxymoronic though that may be :-D

Couldn't agree more that researching techs that were obsolete centuries ago just doesn't do it for me. That's why I've never played a Civ game. Maybe I'll get over it sooner or later but I haven't yet. I sure wish Soren and co. would remake SMAC one of these days....

[TheRock]

Yea, I get tired of researching the same old stuff in Civ over and over...I play the game for a few weeks and then move on and then back to it occasionally. Sci-fi techs...luv em.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Sci-fi techs...luv em.

Even when they are laser, new laser and even newer laser? Or shield, big shield and stronger shield?

Troy

[Shadarr]

I like more branching in my tech trees. So sure, you can research Laser II and Laser III, but that shouldn't lead to photon torpedos or whatever. To get to a whole new type of weapon, you should have to sink considerable time and money into pure research. Maybe it's just my misplaced sense of realism, but I don't like anything that implies reasearching a better laser will somehow magically get you something other than a better laser. Maybe what I'm looking for is a separation of science and technology. Technology gets you smaller, more efficient engines. Science gets you warp drives.

[TheRock]

LOL...well, those do sound a bit redundant...was thinking more about the SMAC techs and some older games. I bought Galciv 2 but haven't started a game yet...will check out the redundancy tonight!

[Damien Neil]

Here's another great one:

I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine, just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams, the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness: dark, rigid, cold, alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen.

Commissioner Pravin Lal
"Man and Machine"

My greatest complaint about GalCiv, I think, is how generic the setting feels. It's Star Trek without the Prime Directive, Star Wars without the Han and the droids.

SMAC, in contrast, tossed quotes like the above at me as I marched up the tech tree. There was a story in there, about humans creating technology and being in turn shaped by it, and about a war between competing ideologies. The faction leaders were archetypes, not caricatures.

In fact, I think SMAC might be the best example I've ever seen of writing story into a strategy game without getting in the way of the strategy. I'm certain that any minute now someone is going to say that they completely ignored all the flavor text--the fact that you could do that if you wanted without compromising the gameplay was part of the genius of it.

[Quaro]

Tech: Bioenhancement Center:



We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of the world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

[Drastic]

All of which leads to the question: why is no one knuckling down to make SMAC 2?

[Dirt]

How much more different is GalCiv 2 from GalCiv 1?

[Shadarr]

SMAC is still my favourite 4X game. However, I worry that if anyone made SMAC2 they would screw it up. That would make me sad.

[mtkafka]

Both great games. Get em both. Now all we need is a fantasy 4x... Master of Magic II!! I want a little roleplaying in my 4x games! Not AoW or Warlords or HoMM... Fantasy Civ kay?

etc

[Equisilus]

As an aside: CivFanatics (http://www.civfanatics.com/) announced the release of GalCiv2 on their front page yesterday. It's so sweet when we all get along.

[Jab2565]

god I want to play another Smac game.

One suggestion about the galciv2 tech tree I would like ,are research bonuses for researching similar techs, so if I continue to move up the missile tree, then each tech should have a lower time, since your working on nothing but missiles. But once you switch to another tech line, then the bonus goes away until you go up that tree a few techs.

The more I play Galciv2, the more I miss exploring the land and really creating an empire in Civ4, then I'll miss the unit creation and customizing planet squares.

[Thrag]

Even when they are laser, new laser and even newer laser? Or shield, big shield and stronger shield?

Troy

What's wrong with incremental techs? Sure, the names are boring, but the mechanic works. I'd say that more creative names would do better to set the mood (something like "gigwatt solid state laser weapons" instead "laser III") but the game doesn't suffer much for it.

[Thrag]

SMAC is still my favourite 4X game. However, I worry that if anyone made SMAC2 they would screw it up. That would make me sad.

SMAC is one of the all time best. I've still got the box for SMAC (I was a beta tester, we all got signed boxes and shirts) and I never save game boxes, even for other games I've tested. It's only flaw may have been a little too much of everything. A SMAC II that streamlined the mechanics and interface a little would be awesome. Unless the owners of the IP sell it to some second rate company instead of Firaxis or BHG doing a SMAC II I wouldn't worry.

[Quitch]

So, uh, since we've tossed it into the mix, how does SMAC compare to GalCiv 2 and Civ IV?

[TheRock]

SMAC is like Civ and if you like Civ SMAC is fun...I don't like Civ all that much and so I didn't like SMAC all that much....I do like Civ 4 a lot more than any other civ or smac.

[Case]

Soren vs Brad!

Defend your game against the other at all cost! Convince the consumer how much more you should get their dollar!

FIGHT!

Bzzt. Wrong answer.

Correct answer: get both.

(Problem: finding enough time to play both.)

;-)

[fuzzyslug]

What's wrong with incremental techs? Sure, the names are boring, but the mechanic works. I'd say that more creative names would do better to set the mood (something like "gigwatt solid state laser weapons" instead "laser III") but the game doesn't suffer much for it.

I with you Thrag. I can't speak for Brad, but as a GUI designer this makes perfect sense. You can bitch about its lack of creativity but most folks instantly get that Laser II is better than Laser I. This is extremely helpful when you are presenting something as cognitively complex as a branching research tree. "I know what that branch does and I can make informed choices about it."

The most important thing about the naming is that it help tear down one of the big barriers Sci-fi games always have: nobody knows what the hell a Gagiditwhoopeedoodad is. Civ 4 doesn't have to deal with this issue, at least not as directly.

[jeffd]

fuzzy: I think the best compromise would be to have two names. The Gigawatt LazerBazerBoBazer 5000 and then beneath that in parenthesis something like (Laser III)

JD

[Backov]

The problem with Laser 1-5 in GalCiv2 is pretty simple.. The only difference is size.

MOO2 solved this in a much better way. You research mass drivers, then you go up the tree researching better weapons. But wait, 5 tech levels later, the mass drivers are on their 5th generation or whatever and you can now fit 12 of them where you could fit one. It's actually useful now! Or at least it's debateable.

Also, I'd say the tech screen just plain sucks rocks. The zooming issue is one thing, but WTF is a "Hyperion Shipyard"? I'll never know, until I research the tech and try to build one. Having a civ game without a Civilopedia is pretty lame. Those improvements and such should be outlined.

Also, there's a ton of stupid usability issues that were outlined in the UI thread, but the one that's annoying me lately is that when I upgrade a starbase, I don't know where it is... I just get a popup, and I have to decide by type, not by location (since I don't know it.)

The same thing happens in the early colonization phase. I'll get a popup on a planet with the good/neutral/evil choices.. Something like, say, +20% production is the evil choice. I might take that. But what if it's a class 5 planet? What if I intended it to be my research center for whatever reason? I have no information to make this decision.

Anyway, good game, I'm very much enjoying it, but UI wise it still needs work.

[fuzzyslug]

fuzzy: I think the best compromise would be to have two names. The Gigawatt LazerBazerBoBazer 5000 and then beneath that in parenthesis something like (Laser III)

JD

Isn't everything XML? Just change the names, if you like. The Bizambopamrahrahrah should be the most powerful, though, obviously.

[Damien Neil]

I don't really mind the I-V bit. It's the "lasers" that's bland. GalCiv has Warp Drive IV, Hardened Hull Design, and Extreme Entertainment. SMAC has Pre-Sentient Algorithms, Nanominiaturization, and Supertensile Solids.

I don't want to beat up on GalCiv for not being something that it isn't trying to be and comparing it to SMAC is just unfair, since SMAC was indescribably better at this than anyone else, but GalCiv's technology just feels relentlessly generic to me. It doesn't have a style of its own.

[Quaro]

I've always thought it'd be cool to have some random elements in the tech tree, so you wouldn't know exactly what you had to research to get certain things. Maybe with a few deadends and whatnot. Then you could trade your knowledge of the tree with others. Or with other humans, lie, and have them researching deadends.

[Shadarr]

They kind of had that in SMAC, but the thing is that it only works the first time. After you play a couple times you learn the tech tree, and then nobody would ever research the dead ends. It would only work if the tech tree was randomly generated, but I don't think that's really possible.

One thing I think might be fun is if you made the times completely unknown. So you could build more labs and spend more money on research, and overall it would research faster, but you wouldn't know at the start how long it will take. And maybe put in the randomness from SMAC, so you also don't know exactly what you're going to get. That way you can't plan based on having upgraded shields in five turns or whatever.

[BobJustBob]

They kind of had that in SMAC, but the thing is that it only works the first time. After you play a couple times you learn the tech tree, and then nobody would ever research the dead ends. It would only work if the tech tree was randomly generated, but I don't think that's really possible.

One thing I think might be fun is if you made the times completely unknown. So you could build more labs and spend more money on research, and overall it would research faster, but you wouldn't know at the start how long it will take. And maybe put in the randomness from SMAC, so you also don't know exactly what you're going to get. That way you can't plan based on having upgraded shields in five turns or whatever.

Didn't MOO3 have something like that?

[Thrag]

Didn't MOO3 have something like that?

DO NOT SPEAK THE NAME OF THE DECEIVER!

[jeffd]

Backov let me echo that. Ideally there should be an in-game galcivpedia and the UI should link to it from the tech screen so I can see exactly what the benefits of that new building / ship component / etc are.

[Brad Wardell]

I don't really mind the I-V bit. It's the "lasers" that's bland. GalCiv has Warp Drive IV, Hardened Hull Design, and Extreme Entertainment. SMAC has Pre-Sentient Algorithms, Nanominiaturization, and Supertensile Solids.

I don't want to beat up on GalCiv for not being something that it isn't trying to be and comparing it to SMAC is just unfair, since SMAC was indescribably better at this than anyone else, but GalCiv's technology just feels relentlessly generic to me. It doesn't have a style of its own.

That was intentional however because a lot of people were turned off by the very "techie" names in SMAC. You liked it and lots of other people liked it too but I think it kept it from being as accessible as it could have been.

We went out of our way to come up with tech names that were very straight forward.

[JMR]

^^^
I'm with Brad on this one, I'm glad they went with the generic route for techs.

[Marcin]

Also, there's a ton of stupid usability issues that were outlined in the UI thread, but the one that's annoying me lately is that when I upgrade a starbase, I don't know where it is... I just get a popup, and I have to decide by type, not by location (since I don't know it.).

Look on the minimap. It'll scroll to where the base/planet is.

[jafd]

Thanks for the responses. I feel that my question has been answered. Go right ahead and take this thread wherever you want.

[Sarkus]

Well, what we are getting at is it's not possible to use all your potential in the 3 areas at the same time. If you want to use 100% of your research potential, you must have social and military at 0%. It doesn't matter how much you want to spend, if you have that research slider at 33%, you are only spending 33% of what you could be. To get the most out of your research labs, your starport must be gathering cobwebs, or be driven solely by purchasing :)

I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it, but this is explained in the manual. Read the section starting on page 24. The sliders don't represent your potential, they represent how much money is going to each area.

If your Industrial spending is set at 100% it means you are spending enough money to pay for everything to run a full capacity.

[Chris Woods]

That is not what is happening.

go into the game and pick the Torians. They have no Military Production Bonus, no Social Production Bonus (not that it matters, as Social Production Bonus don't work anyhow) and no Research Bonus. Their government type is Federalist, also conveying no bonus.

Check out your homeworld. Your colony station produces 24 bp/24 rp and there are no other structures producing bp/rp.

Go to the economy and max out your spending. It will be around 16 cred/turn (should that be 48?)

Check your colony. I produce 8 mil, 7 soc and 9 research.

Go back to your economy and set it to 25% mil, 25% soc, 50% research. Double check to see you are at 100% spending.

Check your planet. 6 Military, 6 Social, 13 Research is what I see.

You can not access the full potential of your research division without setting your production division to 0. On a planet with literally nothing but production, some of those factories just don't do anything because another planet half a parsec away is researching tech.

Chris Woods

[Sarkus]

That is not what is happening.

You can not access the full potential of your research division without setting your production division to 0. On a planet with literally nothing but production, some of those factories just don't do anything because another planet half a parsec away is researching tech.

Chris Woods

You are absolutely right. The manual is not as clear as it should be, but I think I've figured it out. First, though, and I'm not sure why, but the colony base only doesn't seem to work right. You are correct in that it only maxes at 16 bc despite the base having a factory value of 24. However, if you build a factory, the total then seems to mostly work (not exactly, though, and I'm not sure why). The research does work right. If you build one factory and one research and set the planet to produce a ship (otherwise military won't show up on the economy screen) you can duplicate my results that follow.

Here's how I think it's actually working: the production capacity of the factories is the base - if you have one factory and the colony HQ you have 34 capacity total that cost 34 bc/turn to run at full (100% slider). That's then spread among military, social, and research projects in the ratio set by the Mil-Soc-Res sliders, with the Research limited by the research capacity of the colony. If you have a lab and HQ that's 29 capacity. If the percentage spent on research works out to more than 29 bc, that excess ends up in your treasury.

So, it is true that you can't ever max out all of them at the same time.

[Jason Lutes]

When I max out the "total" bar, then set my Mil/Soc/Res bar to 33/33/33 am I getting full use out of my labs? Can you answer that with confidence without going into the game and doing all the math yourself and checking against the engine?
I hated this part of GalCiv I, and was pretty disappointed to see it implemented again in the sequel, but this time around Brad did include an option that mitigates it somewhat. You can set one of three areas as a priority on a per-colony basis, using three buttons at the top of the colony management screen, in the Military/Social/Research boxes. It's not a perfect solution, but it's workable and makes me feel like I have a bit more of a grasp on my empire's inner functions.

The thing that really bugs me, though, is that population has zero effect on any of those capacities. That runs against most 4x precedents that I can think of, and is counter-intuitive and unrealistic to boot.

[Warren]

The same thing happens in the early colonization phase. I'll get a popup on a planet with the good/neutral/evil choices.. Something like, say, +20% production is the evil choice. I might take that. But what if it's a class 5 planet? What if I intended it to be my research center for whatever reason? I have no information to make this decision.

I *think* that when those kinds of events happen the name of the planet is somewhere on the screen ... perhaps in the title bar area of the pop-up for it?

[SpoofyChop]

Hey! I'm totally going to buy Galciv 2 tonight over the internets.

But I noticed that there is a "Coupon Code" section in the checkout and it would be really really awesome if "somebody" happened to know a coupon code that I could use that might give me a sort of "QT3 Discount."

Also, I would like to mention that I think that Brad Wardell is really, really, really a top notch fellow.

:D

[Backov]

I *think* that when those kinds of events happen the name of the planet is somewhere on the screen ... perhaps in the title bar area of the pop-up for it?

Yep, but that's not enough info. During the early stages of the game, I have 4 or 5 colony ships on the go at once at least, and I don't remember which one was a class 8 and which one was a class 19.

[Brad Wardell]

On the details part of the screen, anything that happened to the planet is displayed.

The summary page on the planet screen will tell you exactly what you have on the planet and what it's contributing.

The social production bonus issue was a really tough one because we found out about it late in development and all the planet costs and such had been set. We SHOULD have simply removed the option to have a social production bonus.

But we've addressed it for this week's update.

[RepoMan]

But we've addressed it for this week's update.
What did you do?

[Jab2565]

All this talk about Civ 4 v Galciv2 , got me into playing civ 4 again. And suprising, I'm doing well on noble . I actually won my first war against greece.

Here are some things I noticed about the 2 after spending around 10 hours playing both.

Civ 4 graphics : map looks great, units themselves are low quality.
galciv2_____: map is empty(outer space and all) units are detailed.

Civ4 combat: Revolves around finding the counter to your enemy's units, or upgrading your own units to win.
Galciv2: Create whatever units you want, to either match, over power ,or counter the enemy.

Civ4 has leonard nimoy.
In order to counter leonard nimoy, I suggest Stardock should hire Mark Hamil to do random voice work for the game, or to really start things, get Patrick Stewart. I predict this will cause a trekkie attack as they will argue which version of star trek is better by buying the specific game, Thereby increasing game sales, thus saving pc gaming for another year.

Now " I'm going to take my sandwich into the study." (American Dad)

[Backov]

A true comparison:

I started playing Civ4 again recently after hitting bugs in GalCiv, and I can't make it stick. The reason? In GalCiv, conquering is a valid option, and not a huge problem. In Civ4, it's a huge pain in the ass. When does a war with spearmen and archers take 1000 years to win?

The lack of a useful military option in Civ4 just makes me not want to play it. I know that I'm just doing it wrong, but hell, it's a huge pain.

[Jab2565]

Agree with you there, it took me the better part of the afternoon to win, because the ai had 2 archers and 2 maceman defending. There was no way I could have won if I didn't spend 20 turns researching engineering so I could get catapults built.

[Brad Wardell]

What did you do?

We made the social production ability work as documented (we didn't take it out).

[Raife]

Civ4 has leonard nimoy.
In order to counter leonard nimoy, I suggest Stardock should hire Mark Hamil to do random voice work for the game, or to really start things, get Patrick Stewart. I predict this will cause a trekkie attack as they will argue which version of star trek is better by buying the specific game, Thereby increasing game sales, thus saving the pc industry for another year.

GalCiv II has Kristin Hatcher for the tutorials, so the obvious answer would be a grudge match between Hatcher and Nimoy. Fight!

Also, the Wardell system in my current game has five Class 0 planets, which I thought that was fitting. Take that, self-aggrandizement!

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

The thing that really bugs me, though, is that population has zero effect on any of those capacities. That runs against most 4x precedents that I can think of, and is counter-intuitive and unrealistic to boot.
It may be less intuitive, but I feel that tying construction, food and research capability to production infrastructure rather than population is more realistic than tying it to population. In MOO2, it always seemed slightly silly to me to take three million farmers and two million construction workers and tell them to go research advanced physics.

[Jason Lutes]

It may be less intuitive, but I feel that tying construction, food and research capability to production infrastructure rather than population is more realistic than tying it to population. In MOO2, it always seemed slightly silly to me to take three million farmers and two million construction workers and tell them to go research advanced physics. That's a fair point...

[Nick Walter]

It may be less intuitive, but I feel that tying construction, food and research capability to production infrastructure rather than population is more realistic than tying it to population. In MOO2, it always seemed slightly silly to me to take three million farmers and two million construction workers and tell them to go research advanced physics.

It makes more sense than the GalCiv2 system to me. In MOO2 population was the scarce resource that was devoted to different tasks. In GalCiv2 money is the scarce resource that can be (very oddly) turned into the same amount of output based purely on the buildings present, regardless of the amount of people actually working. Plus somehow the buildings limit each other and they can't all be on at full capacity at the same time which is really bizarre. I can only imagine that all the productivity is accomplished by robots and the amount of money being sent it determines what tasks the robots work on?

The MOO2 system is a little odd. The GalCiv2 system doesn't make any sense at all. It's a functional system once a person learns to deal with it but it suffers in comparison to MOO2.

[Chris Woods]

Another result of the Production system I've been bumping up against:

Social production money is spent regardless of if you are actually building a social project. Specifically, if you are funding Social Production then your factories are all working even if they have nothing to do. This is unlike Military Production, which isn't spent if you aren't building a ship.

This becomes really important if you specialize or if you're assimilating a new planet. If you have a planet that makes 100 prod but is idle (being an industry planet, it finished it's social infrastructure fast) and another planet that makes 10 prod and is building labs then you are spending 110 bc to get 10 production. The "high production" planet causes a premium to be placed on all "low production" planets in the empire.

So, to try to avoid literally pissing money away you should probably either:

A- Don't specialize. This is what I'm leaning to, as the game essentially penalizes you for specialization.

B- Specialize, but Micromanage like mad. Set Social bars low to minimize your "pissing it away" value and focus on social production on the planets doing any at all. The trouble here is the "focus" button never makes a tangible difference in my experience. (I had a research planet doing 244 research at 40% funding. When I focused on Research, I did like 250. I think focus just diverts local money to that field, but by nature of the fact the planet is specialized in research there is no military and very, very little social money on that planet. As such, "focusing" makes trivial results. It's only valuable if you planet isn't specialized.)

C- Buy, Buy, Buy. This is probably the way to go, as it allows us to completely circumvent the system. Make high population money planets, and buy all your ships and buildings. Set Research to 100%. Under this model, we minimize the loss associated with the "Winnebago affect". This balance is hard to strike, but once figured out I think it offers the best overall strategy as it allows us to disregard 66% of the games model.

Chris Woods

[Nick Walter]

I'm going to experiment more with the buy model in my next game. I stumbled into it on my first game but since then I've been trying to do the economics more in the way they were obviously intended to be used. Now I'm thinking it's time to throw out that idea and just game the system for maximum effect.

In my first game, where I thought pop was important, I built up pop massively everywhere. Morale was a serious problem and my government never won elections, but I had tons of cash. Since I was just buying things everywhere with my massive cash, I had my mil/soc production sliders at 0 basically and was teching fast. Sales of the tech to neighbors were insuring goodwill and even more money.

Of course, that was all at a beginner difficult level. Not sure I can pull it off with more aggressive neighbors. I'll try it tonite and see how it goes.

[MikeJ]

If you have a planet that makes 100 prod but is idle (being an industry planet, it finished it's social infrastructure fast) and another planet that makes 10 prod and is building labs then you are spending 110 bc to get 10 production. The "high production" planet causes a premium to be placed on all "low production" planets in the empire.


One way to stem the pain of this a bit is to focus the high production planet on military and build something useful. These planets have a high social production, so it does make a significant difference when you divert some of that to ship building. The diverted social production is less efficient, and you don't divert all of it, but it's better than pissing it away.

Another thing is to build wonders and trade goods. Many are useful.

The trouble I've been noticing is that sometimes my manufacturing capital is just too good. I mean, it's handy to build a huge ship in 3 or 4 turns, but it means you can't efficiently use that planet for building constructors and smaller ships.

Probably the best situation is to have your manufacturing capital not have TOO many factories. That way you aren't blowing so much on social and you have room for some specials.


C- Buy, Buy, Buy. This is probably the way to go, as it allows us to completely circumvent the system. Make high population money planets, and buy all your ships and buildings. Set Research to 100%. Under this model, we minimize the loss associated with the "Winnebago affect". This balance is hard to strike, but once figured out I think it offers the best overall strategy as it allows us to disregard 66% of the games model.


But buying is SOOO expensive. If a planet is putting out 250bc a turn, replacing that production with purchases would cost around 2200bc a turn. Even if I'm wasting 100 production because I'm just putting out a constructor every turn, it's still more than I could make from that planet as a money planet. Buying buildings is even worse. Buildings beyond the first tier start to get insanely expensive.

I think the best bet is not to be TOO specialized. If you have too few factories on your regular planets, you can't upgrade in a timely manner. But you want to focus somewhat, because the capital buildings effectively give you free tiles.

[talsworthy]

Going back to one of Brads comments


13) Civ IV allows you to zoom out and see the entire world as a beautiful, visually appealing thing. GalCiv II allows you to zoom out and turns the map into a board game UI (units become icons) from which you can run your empire on a large scale.


I really do think that this has been implemented very well - would love a similar type of option in Civ IV - Civ IV's is not as easy to manage from a global perspective IMHO.

Tals

[jeffr]

Social production money is spent regardless of if you are actually building a social project.

If you have a planet that makes 100 prod but is idle and another planet that makes 10 prod and is building labs then you are spending 110 bc to get 10 production.Chris Woods

Damn, is this true? I thought the 100 bc that were not being used on the 100 prod planet that is idle would be sent to the treasury. The 100bc planet is not doing anything, so why should they suck up 100bc?

[Jab2565]

That really sucks, also is there a way to deposit people either from colony ships or transports back to planets ?

[Backov]

It did say something like that somewhere.

One thing I just thought of though, after reading the manual again.. Production is 1:1 - so 1BC spent equals 1 point of production..

But what does it mean when you have a precursor workshop (+400%) with a factory on it? Does that just mean the factory is 4x its previous capacity to spend money, or do you actually get a real bonus? Because if there's no real bonus, then you'll still be limited by credits on large planets.

And god damn, I hope they fix the fleet/stack management UI. It sucks rocks. Going to go post in the UI thread now. :)

[Chris Woods]

One thing I just thought of though, after reading the manual again.. Production is 1:1 - so 1BC spent equals 1 point of production..

Yeah, but my problem is that you spend 1BC for 1Prod even if you don't do squat with that one prod. Your planets request money to run the factories to do jack-fucking-squat, so if you look at it in terms of BC -> production_that_does_anything it's far worse then 1:1

Chris Woods

[Backov]

Except that I seem to recall reading somewhere that an idle factory consumes no money.

[Chris Woods]

Except that I seem to recall reading somewhere that an idle factory consumes no money.

Go into the game and pick Torians. They're great for this sort of crap.

Go to you income screen, set tax to 0%, industry spending to 100%, the Military bar to 0%, the Social bar to 100%, and the Research bar to 0%. You should see on your ledger 0 BC in income and 25 BC in expenses - 24 from social and 1 from colony maintenance. (Remember, we never started a social project on our colony.)

Hit turn. You will lose 25 BC. It is not refunded in any way, and you are most certainly not building anything at all.

You definitely pay for unused social production.

Chris Woods

[Chris Nahr]

I recall that Brad himself confirmed that a while back. Unused social production costs money to make the game more "plannable" -- to avoid wild swings of net income/loss each turn due to factories starting or ending production.

[Warren]

That really sucks, also is there a way to deposit people either from colony ships or transports back to planets ?

I think you just plop the ship back on the planet. It will go into orbit and everyone will deboard.

If you try to re-launch it you can't launch it empty, but you can launch it minimally loaded with one person/troop.

[Backov]

That's another bug, IMO. You can't launch an empty transport. Why not? I want to create it at a low pop, high production planet and then load it on one of my farm planets. I can launch it with some tiny number, but not 0. bug.

[fuzzyslug]

That's another bug, IMO. You can't launch an empty transport. Why not? I want to create it at a low pop, high production planet and then load it on one of my farm planets. I can launch it with some tiny number, but not 0. bug.

You would need a pilot, wouldn't you?

:)

[Chris Woods]

That's another bug, IMO. You can't launch an empty transport. Why not? I want to create it at a low pop, high production planet and then load it on one of my farm planets. I can launch it with some tiny number, but not 0. bug.

Along these lines, why are 1,000 troops = 1,000,000,000 people? I don't have the game handy, but it's some really huge value of population and I'm fairly sure it's one billion.

Chris Woods

[Raife]

I think you just plop the ship back on the planet. It will go into orbit and everyone will deboard.

If you try to re-launch it you can't launch it empty, but you can launch it minimally loaded with one person/troop.

I've run into that problem when there are no planets left and I've still got Colony Ships. What I usually do is is stick them in orbit around an underpopulated planet, which does unload everyone, then I'll delete the design. It asks you if you want to scrap the ships, too, and you won't lose anyone that way.

It is a strange mechanic, though. You should be able to either scrap or upgrade ships in orbit without launching them first.

[Backov]

Along these lines, why are 1,000 troops = 1,000,000,000 people? I don't have the game handy, but it's some really huge value of population and I'm fairly sure it's one billion.

Chris Woods

Yep, you're invading worlds with multiple BILLIONS of troops. :) Pure silliness really, but hey - apparently in the future everyone's a soldier. I just hate the fact that I can depopulate my 10billion population production world with 2 transports.

[Chris Woods]

So my hyper good aligned race is sending mommies and kiddies off to war?

Chris Woods

[Drastic]

It is very egalitarian.

Alternately, you can look at as sifting a billion citizens for one thousand troops. Very, very harsh Basic Training.

[Chris Woods]

Fun. This also means that the first class of missile launcher takes up the same amount of space as 750 million people.

That's thing is huge.

Chris Woods

[Shadarr]

That is pretty big. If you assume the passengers are in stasis tubes 2mx1mx1m, that's 1.5 billion cubic meters. Of course, you could pack more people in if you had one big freezer chamber and stacked them like cord wood.

[Backov]

Now add mass and volume for weapons, armor, tanks, ammunition, missiles and whatever those big sand crawler things are.

The Stinger I is basically the size of the Seattle Superdome.

[Chris Nahr]

So my hyper good aligned race is sending mommies and kiddies off to war?

It's like Starship Troopers... if you want the privilege to pay taxes, you get shipped off to fight Drengin!

[Brad Wardell]

Eventually I'd like to make it so that you literally build up legions of troops to send off. I wish there was a way to put that into the social spending area because that way, players who have all the social stuff built have a reason to keep spending social stuff and not feeling like it's wasted.

Then players put their created legions of troops onto transports to go fight other troops. So the population of the planet would merely provide X number of militia units to go aside any dedicated legions you've created when defending a planet.

[Marcus]

So Gamespot put out a review of Gal Civ 2, 9.0 out of 10.

The last PC game to sore that high was a 9.4 for Civ IV back in October.

[CustodianV131]

Eventually I'd like to make it so that you literally build up legions of troops to send off. I wish there was a way to put that into the social spending area because that way, players who have all the social stuff built have a reason to keep spending social stuff and not feeling like it's wasted.

Then players put their created legions of troops onto transports to go fight other troops. So the population of the planet would merely provide X number of militia units to go aside any dedicated legions you've created when defending a planet.


That would solve a few problems in one go. Would also enjoy having to train (build) the troops instead of just drafting them from the population. Still no worries here yet, hope to do my first invasions tonight. So still being a happy GCII Newbie :D

[Jab2565]

It would be really awesome if you could customize said troops. Perhaps in the sense that 1 tank has the strength of 100 troops, laser marine =10 regular troops etc. So invasions can be fought with quality as well as quantity.

[jeffr]

I recall that Brad himself confirmed that a while back. Unused social production costs money to make the game more "plannable" -- to avoid wild swings of net income/loss each turn due to factories starting or ending production.

But that just forces you to micromanage the social production of every colony so as not to waste money. You have to keep remembering to turn off social production at a colony after it completes production of it's social project.

I must be missing something here, because that's really bad. It should really work like the military production and not consume money unless it is actually producing something.

[Nick Walter]

The social production thing is a serious nuisance. The solution is to keep the social spending slider at 0 unless most colonies are building something. So after I research stock exchanges or somesuch, I'll turn the social slider up for a few turns and let the high output planets build their upgrades. Once ~50% of the planets are again out of social projects I'll put the slider back down to 0 and finish the projects everywhere else with the buy button.

[jeffr]

I was thinking of setting Social Production to 0% and leaving it there. If a colony has to build a social project, and you don't want to buy it, go to that colony and set its Social Production to 100%, then set it back to 0% when the project finishes.

I think I read somewhere that there is a penalty (in terms of money lost) for having colonies focus on a specific spending area. I'm not sure if this is true, though, as I also read that they wanted to encourage planet specialization.

One way or another, there is a fundamental problem here.

[Chris Woods]

My experience with focused production is that it is inefficient. You lose more "research" and "Military" points then you gain "social" points but my ledger shows it costs the same in monies.

All in all, the Soc/Mil/Res thing is really just not good. It's contrary to logic, creates silly gameplay situations, punishes the player for not micromanaging like a daemon, and means that high research/production worlds have a strange effect on low research/production worlds by diluting the amount of production that occurred there. The only plus it has is that it is much easier for an AI to be better at it then a player, so I suppose you might favor it if you wanted to inflate your AI's capabilities.

Chris Woods

[Veinless]

My experience with focused production is that it is inefficient. You lose more "research" and "Military" points then you gain "social" points but my ledger shows it costs the same in monies.

Agreed. Unfortunately, the alternative means losing more BC. So, I am forced into an annoying micromanagement position. Social Project X? Make sure to emphasise Social Production. End of Social Project X? Remember to shut off the emphasis. Repeat over and over for each planet/colony.

This and the frustrating ship selection on the galmap. I keep expecting standard Windows behaviour. If I click on a ship, deselect whatever other ship I had clicked on before, unless I am holding ctrl.

Please please please be fixed. Please.