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Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Quote:

Saber Cherry said:

These people are wrong. They have experienced problems, but they didn't notice or didn't care. Major problems, though - that's totally subjective. I was mostly even with the other majors in my first GC2 game, but had by far the weakest military... and suddenly found a "Lucky Ranger", then another one 5 turns later, each with stats sufficient to destroy all other empires combined (no enemy ship was strong enough to damage it). I crushed a nearby empire (the strongest in the game) taking not only no losses, but no damage. Due to a random event that happened twice in quick succession, I went from 'struggling' to 'godlike' and the game became boring, as my victory was inevitable

The same happended to me, but I ended with 6 Lucky Ranger ships pwning the galaxy. It seems that the odds of receiving one of those things depends on how much your empire sucks. In my case, I was very weak and short before being annihilated very early in the game. I was given a Lucky Star and secured my home planet, but could not expand as I was missing the "planetary invasian" technology you need to construct troop cariers. So I remained with my lousy planet and got more and more lucky stars.

Of course I can see the flaw in this, but on the other hand I like the fact that the game tries to get you back into game if you had a bad start or if you are a new player.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Hi Sandstig,

With respect to your (2) below, I should have been more clear - I was referring to filtering those already added to a design - in some of the bigger ships, you have to scroll forever to find the one "real" component that you want to replace, such as engines.

With respect (3) below, you are absolutely correct - that was a typo that I forgot to correct. I compare it to MOO2 right above that line, and the last line should have been a reference to Star General, not MOO2.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Tampa_Gamer, thanks for your detailed review of GalCiv 2. It was very helpful.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Thanks Tampa for that awsome review. It would seem that the GalCiv developers paid very close attention to the "tell Aaron what you want" thread here in this forum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

I dunno. GalCiv has flashy graphics and a good AI, but even SEIII had way more depth and control over every aspect. Not to mention ease of handling a large empire. In GalCiv2 it's very difficult to handle anything larger than about 30 planets. In SE, that's miniscule! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

You can never under value a good UI. Trust me on that.

Here is something I read on gamespot about Starforce moderators posting links to illegal downloads of GalCiv II.

Quote:

StarForce site forum moderator posts link to download pirated copy of Stardock's Galactic Civilations II.

In an ironic twist last week, a moderator on the forums for copy protection software StarForce made it easier for people to pirate a game, posting a link directing users to a site from which they could download illegal "warez" copies of Stardock Systems' PC strategy game Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords.

In response to a user's remark that Dread Lords has been experiencing strong sales despite a lack of copy protection (other than a serial number used to download updates), StarForce forum moderator JM posted a link to a Web site and a message saying that several thousand people were downloading the game illegally. He suggested that the game's success was despite the lack of copy protection, and not because of it.

The offending link has since been removed, and yesterday another StarForce forum moderator offered an apology for the situation.

"In the end, on behalf of the whole StarForce I would like to tender our apologies to all people who have been working on creation of the game Galactic Civilizations II," wrote a moderator using the handle "SF shum." The moderator continued, "We have to officially claim that what has happened is just a mistake of our employee that was boosted into 'our planned PR action' by the people who hate StarForce."

The mod also said it would be the last time a staff member would post a link to a site hosting illegal content, and indicated that the site would be revising its rules and policies in order to prevent such an occurrence from happening again in the future.

Stardock Systems expressed its obvious displeasure with the link to pirate its game on the official Dread Lords Web site, but the game's lead designer and Stardock head Brad Wardell took the time to tackle a few questions about the incident and copy protection in general for GameSpot.

GameSpot: There was a public apology made on behalf of StarForce by one of their mods on their forums. Have they contacted you to apologize directly?

Brad Wardell: I did receive today correspondence from Alan Gasanov of StarForce with an apology over the incident. We appreciate that. I don't think there was any sort of malicious intent. I've been in my share of forum "flame wars" over the years and it's easy to make a mistake. Obviously we were pretty unhappy about them linking to a list of warez torrents but we don't plan to pursue the matter.

GS: Why did Stardock opt not to use traditional industry-accepted forms of copy protection?

BW: It's only industry-accepted in the PC game industry--the industry that people are regularly saying is "doomed." Most of our business is in the application software market (the market that no one argues is "doomed"), and such copy protection measures are not used. I don't have to keep my Adobe Photoshop CD in the drive to use it.

We simply applied the PC application software model of IP protection to our games--release the game with no CD-based copy protection and include a unique serial number that they need to use in order to obtain updates.

What we do is take feedback from our customers and release free updates to our games. Since we have a database of every serial number that's been issued, we can control who has access to those updates. By releasing frequent, convenient, free updates, we reward people for buying the game.

GS: Have you had any positive or negative experience using programs like StarForce in your games?

BW: I don't really have any experience with StarForce. I have read about people having problems with such things but I suspect those problems have been exaggerated.

What other publishers do to protect their intellectual property is up to them. I simply don't [think] CD-based protection is particularly effective. Any copy protection system, in my opinion, should be focused on trying to increase sales--not stop piracy. The two aren't the same. Most people who pirate a software product would never have purchased it. It's pointless to waste time on those people. The people to focus on are the ones who might have bought your product or service but chose not to because it was easier to pirate it.

Most serious PC gamers have had cases where they've lost a CD or damaged it. They resent not being able to play the game because on top of the game using gigabytes of disk space...it's also treating their CD-ROM drive as an expensive dongle key.

As a result, the question is, how many legitimate gamers choose not to buy a game that has CD protection because they're on the fence and know that sooner or later, they'll probably lose that CD? For us, that's the underlying question--do we gain more sales from gamers who were on the fence but decided to buy the game because they didn't have to worry about losing/damaging a CD than we lost through piracy?

GS: Will this change your approach to copy protection in the future?

BW: Not at all. As I type this, EBGames has released their top-selling PC games from last week. Galactic Civilizations II was number one. So if piracy is such a menace, it's not apparently affecting us to the degree that some say it should.
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By Brendan Sinclair
Posted Mar 13, 2006 4:58 pm PT

All I can say is that if that ever happened here, I would bet that the offending moderator would be in deep trouble.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Good to see more people seeing the big, gaping hole in copy protection.

(Aside from the fact that any system can be cracked by certain fourteen-year olds in a matter of weeks.)

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Good to see you up tonight Narf. You really should post a picture of yourself on the Wiki page. Ears and all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Brad Wardell: "By releasing frequent, convenient, free updates, we reward people for buying the game."

In other words, Stardock's key-based system requires that the initial product release include numerous bugs and/or missing features. In fact, if they're really on the ball, they can release with deliberate bugs and pre-scheduled patches to "reward" their buyers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Sure...

Every game has bugs on release nowadays. But to be honest, GalCiv2 didn't have any that were showstoppers, more annoyances.

Not to mention the fact that needing a CD key to download the patch means nothing at all. All that has to happen is someone with a valid CD key downloads the patch then distributes to whoever wants it. The CD key is only required for the original download, not to install or anything.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

When microsoft starts to charge for "updates" the rest of the industry will follow suite. Where the big MS leads, all others fall. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Hey...There's always linux.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Linux? Huh? I'm keeping my copy of Win98 around, just in case. Linux is great in theory (the theory that trying hard == winning) but terrible in practice. Windows does not come with a compiler, and Linux does. So Linux is better? ...no. It just means that you have to compile everything before you can use it in Linux. I tried to install the latest NVidia drivers for Linux in January, on an absolutely mainstream Dell system... and had to hack the driver files to get them to work. Or rather, my research advisor did, and I had no idea what he was doing. And this was Red Hat Enterprise 8.1, not some random distro.

I'm glad that Linux is around for the same reason I'm glad Canada is around. Maybe someday it will be useful, but until then, it's a great place to hide during a global thermonuclear war.

(just kidding, R13, I always go to Canada to buy blank optical media at a steep discount http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Maybe you should try a better distribution like Debian or Ubuntu. Redhat is pretty shoddy in general. Not good to judge all of Linux on Redhat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Ubuntu will almost certainly have good drivers raring to go for you, without any compilation or hacking.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Lots of excellent posts here. (And some subexcellent ones as well.)

I think Saber Cherry did a nice breakdown on what may constitute a bug (major, minor, gameplay, balance, functionality), and with that in mind, my subjective bug-rating would give GC2 at its current manifestation (1.0X.1) a bug-less rating of A- or B+. I haven't seen a lot to bug me, and have so far luckily been unplagued by lucky rangers.

This is not to say that this game would not be substantially different if I were King of Stardock; those differences would include a substantial change to combat, starting with some radical changes to the way initiative functions (attacker = vast advantage), increased transparancy, more interwoven tech tree, and methods of treating usable space on planets. However, I am a pure end-user, I know nothing about computers or programming. To me, this is a fine product; to my untrained eye, this is a piece of software that runs flawlessly on my poor little laptop since the day I downloaded it, it has a lovely windowed mode which I cherish, it launches in a jiffy and alt-tabs like a charm. For what it is worth, I would recommend purchasing this game over CivIV -- but then again, almost anything is better than a kick in the shins, even if the kick in the shins is *theoretically* very entertaining.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Quote:

Saber Cherry said:
(just kidding, R13, I always go to Canada to buy blank optical media at a steep discount http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

No wonder, you're money is worth more here! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Though that may change in the near future.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

No multiplayer = Frenchmen isn't interested! =P
Same thing happend with B&W 2, awesome game, but no multiplayer so its compleatly useless to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif oh well

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

Having been an avid Space Empires player since III (though not such an avid poster...) I thought I'd weigh in here real quick. GalCiv2 has been my life blood here for weeks. I really really like it. That being said, it's winding down for me... it might be a game that I can pick up in a few months and have just as much fun with - only time will tell. But right now I've tried different and custom races, bigger maps, smaller maps, and I'm kinda sick of it. I already feel like I figured it all out... meanwhile Space Empires 4 remains as playable as when I first borrowed it.

Here's a few things that I REALLY like about the game:
-diplomacy (aside from the tech-trading frenzy aforementioned)
-trade goods (wow!! diplomatic translators are a MUST for tech trading -- go $2000 in the hole if you have to rush them!! same for galactic showcase)
-graphics
-music (amazing!! arceans in the diplomacy screen especially! i turned off bach for this...)
-eye candy on ships + hardpoints
-map interface (i love being able to zoom out and see more strategic icons).
-other races offering tribue to you if you're doing well. this drove me nuts in civ games -- powerful civilizations demand tribute when you suck and offer none when you rock their sox... and you couldnt punish them for it sometimes due to intricate alliance dependencies. you can successfully request tribue as well. I can't stress how much I appreciate this.
-interface is beautiful and helpful. exception: see below.

Things I don't like:
-i already feel like I've discovered all there is to discover. moo3 lasted longer than this. I'm talking discoverability factor only... putting all its flaws aside, I insisted on getting far enough into moo3 to take out the new orions and also find the antaran X's!
-inability to improve planet quality (no, terraforming doesn't count cuz there are only so many squares you can terraform... I want the whole damn planet!)
-awkward interface when selecting ships. For example, I have yet to figure out how to upgrade a ship in the same sector as another ship without moving it to its own sector. When ships are clustered (note I said clustered, not fleeted) in the same sector, the available information on individual ships decreases drastically. If i'm overlooking something please correct me... I couldn't stomach the tutorial and I figure after weeks of playing and not figuring it out, if it's doable there are some intuitive design issues...

Let me just elaborate on a couple things I noticed in the posts:

Quote:

Sandstig said:
Good post Tampa_Gamer, but there are three points you mentioned which I think may need some clarification.

1) Diplomacy/Intelligence - "The AI currently does not treat any techs as strategically important and will trade all of them away the same turn they are finished. This quickly forces games into a race of who can meet the highest number of races quicker so that you can get that many more trades for each tech you put on the market."
- I've had many experiences wherein even allied races wouldn't trade me some of their weapon technologies when I'd offer them a lot of my own weapon techs and some cash to go with it so this could have a lot to do with the difficulty setting used and your own diplomacy skills.

No one will trade you weapons for _anything_ if your military is ranked #1 and you're offering the trade. And i mean _anything_ -- I tried to stack the trade with all my cash, all my planets, all my starbases, all my trade goods, all my influence, and all my pet monkeys!! Their reply hints at that ("my advisors insist that I not trade weapons to the most supreme force blah blah"). However comma another race might initiate a trade with weapons in exchange for something from you. This appears to be an oversight and may be corrected soon. This is the only time you will be able to acquire a weapons tech diplomatically as the most powerful military force. Incidentally, if you decline that trade to check out the techs and make sure it's a fair one, the same race will not accept the trade when you initiate it after doing your homework. Sucks, dont it? I liked how Civ4 showed you the beaker value... then you could accept it right away if it was a good deal.

Quote:

PrinzMegaherz said:
The same happended to me, but I ended with 6 Lucky Ranger ships pwning the galaxy. It seems that the odds of receiving one of those things depends on how much your empire sucks. In my case, I was very weak and short before being annihilated very early in the game. I was given a Lucky Star and secured my home planet, but could not expand as I was missing the "planetary invasian" technology you need to construct troop cariers. So I remained with my lousy planet and got more and more lucky stars.

Try flagging the "lucky" attribute at race creation (only takes 1 point) -- and yes they are overpowered if you get them and the AI is set to a level too low to compensate. However, I can think of a few games where I could have taken a couple out with my fleets of medium ships, for these reasons:
1. lucky rangers are horribly inequipped to defend against beam weapons. For this reason I research beams almost exclusively every game, and chafe/ecm/PD and armor as defenses. Lucky rangers have awesome missiles and missile defenses, awesome guns and gun defenses, but no beam weapons. And no deflectors, shields, or pick-a-beam-defense *at all*.
2. Also keep in mind they are very slow. Until warp drives they get only 2 speed!! and with warp drives, only 3! my medium class fleets had 4 or 8 until warp drives, then 5 or 9.
3. Bear in mind, you can put two engines on a ship and make it much more mobile... with a not-so-bad penalty to fighting ability if you research weapons and defenses and miniaturization to decrease their size. Use that to your advantage. Remember: whoever loses initiative in a war is bound to lose. Outmaneuver and conquer.
4. My advanced transports could carry 3000 troops and move even faster than my fastest medium class... 5 of those with a good fleet of medium attack ships and you can blow right past the lucky rangers and sack their homeworld. Hurt them bad enough and they'll offer peace. Don't forget to protect your planets, though, in case the ranger charges straight to them... which brings up another point I forgot to mention earlier:

If you're using the game's defender "core design", you might as well retire the second war breaks out. Those things have poor defense and poor weaponry. I tech straight to laser 5 and medium hulls and make a defender design with that. I can't stand how you can't upgrade a "core design". What's worse, the game does not upgrade it when you get better weaponry. I delete core designs every single game. It still makes me shudder that during my first games, I had constructors going around with 4 movement under the core design, while in my recent games I've added engines (which there was always ample room for) with little added construction cost and a lot of added speed. Why does the game not clue in to new technology and take advantage of it? Enough of that rant. I spent too much time on it already.

Don't think you have the production to handle lucky rangers? build some economic starbases and heavily upgrade the production boosters... those things are insanely valuable. Took me a couple games being pwned by the Drengin to realize that... Racial boosts to military production are also extremely useful.

Reality check: if you're behind already and find yourself fighting these things off, you're probably done for. This possibility is not far from reality. I found a lucky ranger while I was only weeks away from a cultural victory, controlling about 80% of the galaxy, and my enemies just lost their ships faster as a result. In fact, I can't think of a time that I found one when I *wasn't* doing well.

Hope this helps!

Edits: cosmetic.

Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions

GalCiv 2 demo out in 30 hours

The demo will be out 30 hours from now, and I hate to say this... but I'd still recommend holding off. I can't give a good estimate because it looks like Brad got addicted to Oblivion, but the final 1.1 patch is still officially scheduled for the end of the month. I don't know whether they plan to keep the demo and the full version at the same patch number, though. I can assure you that the version on which the demo is based does not give ..."spoiled and picky" people a good impression.

The game still has some pretty major problems (IMO. Obviously there are those who disagree) but it's still getting better fast, and it's not going anywhere, so ultimately everyone who has not tried it yet would be happier waiting a bit longer (even those who would enjoy it in the present state). I guarantee it. Furthermore, even when complete, the game will need some heavy modding, and there is one feature (starbase HP) that cannot be modded yet, which prevents any modding of anything directly comparable to starbase HP (e.g., ship HP and weapon damage) without breaking the game.

EDIT: Sorry, jumped the gun. I thought it was out.