[Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

http://www.galciv.com/

It seems a good challenger for SE IV, isn't it ?

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Gal Civ has no multiplayer

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

And you can only place as one race: Humans.

And I hear there's no tactical combat to speak of...

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Being Human only are 1's and 0's and a couple of bitmaps. Its meaningless since you can still customise the Human race.
As for multiplayer, well this is bad if you only play multiplayer but this is good if you most often player single player.
As for tactical combat...well the whole map IS tactical combat, sorta like the Civ games.

I've got the Beta of GalCiv and I admit I quite like it. But then again I play Civ 3 alot mainly because the AI is somewhat challenging. It almost seems out of place nowdays that you can play a strategy game and lose (well at least get pounded enough to give up).

Askan

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

The AI in Civ 3 is only challenging because it cheats horrendously. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I don't think GalCiv has anything on SE4. It might still be a good game, but it will definitely not top (or equal) SE4.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Your a legend of SE4, I've burnt many a player in my prime, but neither of us can seriously argue that in solo play SE4 is nothing but a "when I choose to win" sorta game. At least in Civ the AI chooses to pound me every now and then.

I got the GalCiv beta and I admit that I quite like it. I've been playing SE4 for almost 2 years and I haven't played solo since my first game or two, but I'm quite sure that like Civ I will give GalCiv a go every now and then.

Askan

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Your a legend of SE4, I've burnt many a player in my prime, but neither of us can seriously argue that in solo play SE4 is nothing but a "when I choose to win" sorta game. At least in Civ the AI chooses to pound me every now and then.

I got the GalCiv beta and I admit that I quite like it. I've been playing SE4 for almost 2 years and I haven't played solo since my first game or two, but I'm quite sure that like Civ I will give GalCiv a go every now and then.

Askan</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Askan, if the Last time you played SEIV solo two years ago, you have no rights to comment about the current state of SEIV AI ! Honestly.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

It is said that GalCiv makes use of the OS multi-threaded mechanism, which means unlike most turn based stragety games, GalCiv AI calculates when the player is thinking. There was a feature of 4x space strategy by Gamespot some time ago, in which the first GalCiv game on OS/2 was stated as the game with the strongest AI. I hope this will be the same in the upcoming Windows sequel.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

IMHO, it just isn't fair to compare the AI in SEIV to that in Gal Civ. In SEIV, an adaptive AI would have to change its ship designs based on mines, satellites, fighters, drones, long range weapons, short range weapons, armor bypassing weapons, shield bypassing weapons, etc. But Gal Civ just has attack strength and defense strength. The difference, in terms of AI complexity, in my opinion, is even greater than that between chess and checkers.

Fortunately, I think Gal Civ may have a few "Civ-like" features that will make up for the extremely simple ship combat. I think the AI may have a better implementation of diplomacy and trade.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Well of course if you make the game feature-barren you can have a strong AI. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif That is what allows very difficult chess programs to be written. But, it is variety and complexity that make 4X games great, not simplicity.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't remember getting blown up by a dozen battlecruisers in my Last game of chess. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Although, I really did enjoy the final scenes of National Lampoon's Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1. I downloaded that off an "abandonware" site the other day when I was getting Master of Orion 1. Man, even without sound, that game is still great. (Playing a DOS game in W2K Server, it's kinda hard to get sound.) You can sit down and play a complete game or two in a single sitting.

But I digress. Space Empires IV is an awesome and addictive multiplayer game. But there are some number of folks out there who may never take the plunge and play the game against other humans. For those folks, they may prefer a game that can be played on their own timetable. In such a case, all the cool features aren't going to matter much if the AI doesn't use them.

We'll just have to wait and see. I'm telling myself that I'm gonna wait for the GameSpot review before buying Gal Civ. But that's a lie. I'm gonna buy every space game that comes out. Oh well... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, but it boils down to essentially the same thing. Chess has no customization. It has relatively few options. You always get the same starting pieces, and there is no ability to change how they function. I never said GalCiv was equal to chess, I was making an analogy to show why it could have good AI. When there is no customization possible and there are relatively few tactical/strategic options, the AI can be programed well. This is why Chess AIs can be very very challenging; there is a lack of advanced features in Chess. This relates to comparing GalCiv to SE4, because GalCiv lacks most of the feaures of SE4. So, it is only logical that better AI can be written for it. It has less depth, and lack of depth is what allows good AI routines. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I personally prefer some depth in the game and mediocre AI to few features and a killer AI. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I am not saying that GalCiv standing on its own has no depth; it will probably have some. But, compared to a game like SE4, it will come up rather lacking (esp. in the combat department).

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

If (Big If) Gal Civ has challenging AI, then this might be an accurate comparison of Gal Civ and SEIV to Chess. In a Gal Civ game, you start out with a King, a Queen, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, 2 Rooks and 8 pawns. You carefully deploy each piece in the beginning game trying to control as much territory as possible. You carefully play out the middle game. Then, you try your best to deploy each piece to produce a result matching your goal of winning. The AI is equivalent to any of the chess programs with which Gary Kasparov is competing.

In SEIV, you start out with a King, seven queens and eight pawns. But they are really cool looking queens and pawns because you can customize how they look. When you pick them up, they talk to you in the language of your choosing. You can move the pawns, 1, 2, 3 or 4 spaces and sometimes attack forward instead of diagonally. That is what is happening on your side. On the other side, they just have the standard pieces--which although they can be any color you want, are just the standard chess pieces that move in just the standard chess way. But the AI has no opening book and does a 0-ply search looking for moves.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ March 15, 2003, 18:14: Message edited by: raynor ]

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

See... with SE4, the pieces are often different. In GalCiv, it looks like they will be about the same (just very minor variations of 2 or 3 traits with new tech levels). So, comparing SE4 to Chess is not a very good basis of comparison (at least, less so than comparing GalCiv to Chess, which isn't that great to begin with http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Not that I want to switch this thread off the Gal Civ topic or anything... Okay, let me phrase the question so that Gal Civ is in the question:

Instead of spending $50 on Gal Civ, should I download and try out Proportions Mod, Full Quadrant Mod, P&N or Adamant Mod? (And, why?) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Well, you certainly should get Proportions Mod, P&N and Adamant Mod. Don't bother with the Full Quadrant Mod. Get Fyron's Quadrant Mod Deluxe instead, plus the standard Version for maps to use in the other three mods.

Its 4 games for the price of zero!

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

No. You don't understand. I wanted you to give me a rough number of hours of playability of each of the mods. Unless stated otherwise, all figures will assumed to be in hundreds of hours. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I think I've downloaded all of them. But I'm scared. I didn't sleep for three months straight when I bought SEIV in January of 2001.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

That is much harder... it all depends on how much you like them, but on average, I expect that they will be similar to getting SE4 all over again (entirely new games), with the advantage of knowing the interface.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Adamant mod will give you no playability in SP right now, because the AIs are not modded yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif If you can find humans to play it with, then go for it. Just keep in mind that I have not gotten to Weapons yet, so everyone uses the same weapons.

FQM can be used with nearly any other mod, so it can easily extend the playing time of any other mod. Just play some games with FQM Deluxe: it makes the maps much richer and more varied, and overall gives (IMHO) a better experience than using the standard quadrant/system schema.

Proportions games take many many turns, so that mod has a lot of numbers of hours.

P&N as a Pirate or Nomad takes a while too, so that can easily be many many hours too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I agree. To those who don't Try:

Hard AI, no neutral empires, many computer opponents, Max AI advantage, and check all computer vs human. I have tried this repeatedly, in many different sizes of galaxys, and have never managed to win. (Oh, I also use the TDM AI's)

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That is not a result of good AI, it is a result of stacking lots of bad AIs against you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

LOL! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Well, the developer of GalCiv declares that their strong AI is due to the multi-threaded mechanism. I remember there is an option to set a total ship number uplimit in order to reduce end-game AI calculation time. So calculation is very time-consuming for the computer. But using multi-threaded mechanism, the GalCiv probably won't have such kind of issue, because the computer thinks while the player is still making his arrangement!

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So? They could just as easily make a deep, feature-rich game and use a multi-threaded AI mechanism. Instead, they chose utter simplicity. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

[quote]Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

Quote:

So? They could just as easily make a deep, feature-rich game and use a multi-threaded AI mechanism. Instead, they chose utter simplicity. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You are mistaken. Gal Civ is a much more complex game than SEIV and has many more features. To top it all off, it has a rock solid AI. As a single player game, it will easily be a better game than SEIV.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Just attack and defense value of ships for combat resolution? Sounds very complex to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

What features does it have that SE4 doesn't? Besides multi-threaded AI (which does nothing for the complexity of a game).

[ March 17, 2003, 04:32: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

The socio-economic and diplomacy models are more complex. The planetary infrastructure is more complex. In effect, Gal Civ makes SEIV look like a game that is just about moving about fancy looking ships. SEIV really is a pretty simple game when you get down to it. Given that the author of SEIV didn't have to consider politics, social forces, planetary infrastructure, etc, it really is disappointing that he couldn't come up with at least a checker-like AI. Still, the Eliza-like intelligence simulation does well enough when you give it a bonus that is about 2000% of the bonus in any other equivalent space conquest game.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

If you can only interact with the AI, complex diplomatic models do not mean much. It all boils down to "do we like you or not". SE4 actually has a complex diplomatic model; the AI just does not work with half of it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

So basically, GalCiv has a lot of needlessly complex information and models. There is often beauty in simplicity. From what you have said, it sounds like GalCiv will be a micromanagment hell. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif That level of detail for each and every planet looks like too much for a 4X game. You are not developing a planet, but an inter-galactic empire. The focus should not be on planetary infrastructure and the socio-economic forces of each planet, but more on a galactic scale.

SE4 could use a little more complexity in planetary infrastructure and such, but not too much.

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Why don't we just wait and see? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As one who had just started to use FQM, I guess the question would be asked which mods can't use FQM?

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

Ewkk, there are no fleets in GalCiv! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: [Other games] Galactic civilizations released March 26th.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That depends on which FQM you are talking about, really. Maps generated with FQM Standard can be used with all non-quadrant mods except for Devnull Mod. But, Devnull has an earlier Version of FQM Standard built into it, so this is not too much of a loss. Proportions can be a bad mod to use a FQM map in because of the asteroid fields. Remote mining the large number of asteroids gives you a lot of resources that you are not supposed to have in Proportions, and takes away many special Proportions aspects. The maps will indeed work, but it could be problematic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

FQM Deluxe has to be manually combined with other mods to work with them, as per the instructions in it's help folder (or on the FQM web site). It should work fine with nearly any mod out there (other than mods that make extensive changes to planetsizes.txt and secttypes.txt, but most mods don't do that).