Re: Galactic Civilizations II impressions
Warning - long post, but I figured I would share my impressions as well.
I precede my impressions with a short disclaimer that this is my favorite genre. I pretty much buy every major space-themed 4x strategy game that comes out on the market and started my foray into this genre with Stars and MOO I. I also try a fair amount of shareware and open-source clones available and have even bought several shelves full of DirectX, C++ and general game programming books in periodic attempts to cobble my own game together (obviously without much luck). My current hard drive load-out of Ascendancy, Star General, MOO II, Imperium Galactica II, Starships Unlimited, Space Empires IV, MOO 3, Free Orion and Space Empires V (beta), provides me ample material with which to compare to GalCiv II. Note - I did purchase GalCiv I and played several games for about a year after it’s release, but alas it did not make the cut for those games loaded on my current computer (built in 2004) - it just did not give me that "one more turn" enjoyment factor.
INSTALLING/SETUP - The two CDs installed without a hitch. It has no copyright protection, other than a serial number to be entered during install and again upon launch. Stardock also has a unique software update system which, when launched, allows the player to view various components of GalCiv II (as well as other software bought from Stardock) such as main executable, graphics files, tutorials, documentation, etc. and allows the user to download/update each component individually depending on the connection type, etc. I immediately saw that there was an update to the main executable, several tutorial files and a nice bonus pack available, so I allowed the software to download and install all of them before starting my first game. I should also note that I bought the collector's edition from EB, so I received an additional serial number to tell the Stardock software to unlock an additional file with "collector's edition" content to download. The collector's edition also came with a nice large color fold-out of the entire stock tech tree (the real reason why I bought the collector's edition).
TUTORIALS - Although I could probably write a small doctorial on 4x strategy games over the past decade, I decided to try a few tutorial videos anyway (since they are only a few minutes long) before starting a new game. I must say I was very impressed with how the tutorial system works. Each tutorial is a movie with someone showing you (pictorially) and explaining (verbally) how to accomplish a given task using the standard interface and any shortcut/helpful things to know regarding this task. Since they are broken up into short segments (e.g. "setting up a game," "What to do on Turn 1," and "Conducting Diplomacy") I found them very useful. They can be viewed in full and windowed screen mode and can be viewed even while you are in the middle of game (in case you forget how to do something and want to make sure you don't accidentally send a declaration of war). Each movie file is a .bik file with an associated .xml file which not only allows Stardock to update tutorials as they add features or content, but also allows modders to easily drop in the their own tutorials to tell users how to use new features created or changed by their mod.
GAME SETUP - The game setup screens are very intuitive, with the options broken into 4 main screens (Galaxy/Game Setup, Pick Your Civilization, Customize Your Civilization and Choose Opponents). Since all the defaults are setup already, you could conceivably "quick start" a fairly average/normal game as the default race - Humans, with a matter of 4 clicks of the "Next" button - very quick indeed. Of course, most players will want to customize their games and there are a variety of options on each screen for that purpose. The "Galaxy/Game Setup" screen allows the player to pick (via one-click sliders) the galaxy size, insert a custom map or scenario, modify what types of victory conditions are allowed, control the frequency of habitable planets, star density, the number of stars, anomalies (equivalent to Civilization's goodie huts) and planets in the galaxy, and (my personal favorite) the rate of tech research. The "Pick Your Civilization" screen displays portraits of all the game's races and a summary of the currently selected race, allowing the player to quickly view potential races without opening up a myriad of pop-up windows or secondary screens which require further clicking (and thus time) to close. The "Customize Your Civilization" screen allows the player to modify any of the default races chosen by changing their race name, portrait, leader name, political party, homeworld name, emblem, abilities, ship style/color and even their standard interface color. The "Choose Opponents" screen allows the player to choose which and how many opponents the game will contain, their individual AI levels, the starting relations between that race and the player and the overall game difficulty (if you don't want to individually set the AIs). In a recently released patch, the ability to randomize some of these elements has also been added - a nice addition for those of us who want to be surprised as to who and what level each of the opponents will be. Overall, the setup interface is well-designed and I quickly chose the game parameters I wanted (avoiding my desire to choose the "huge" galaxy option) and then chose "humans" as my race. No serious glitches were found with this aspect of the game. The only negative point I can see is that I don't know how easily this portion of the game can be modded by players (e.g. adding your own races, shipsets, galaxy types to the game), although perhaps this will be done via the "scenario" selection button.
GAMEPLAY - Before heading off into a review of the various subscreens, it is important to review the overall gameplay of GalCiv II. The best comparison on gameplay (and hence the source of its name) is to the Civilization series - not other games of this genre (such as the MOO or Space Empires series) due to its lack of depth in certain key areas. The game board consist of a 2-D galaxy divided into a square grid consisting of "sectors" (ranging from a "small" galaxy of 3x3 sectors to a "huge" galaxy 16x16 sectors). Each sector contains a further 15x15 grid of "parsecs" each of which can contain either a star of planet or other space object. This approach is similar to that taken by Stars!, Star General or Imperium Galactica II - there are no "warp points" or "jump points" separating parts of the galaxy as found in other games. The limiting factor for travel is then the "range" of your ships in relation to one of your colonized planets. Each star has a number of planets in orbit around it, with each planet being classified from 0 to 26+ based on its potential habitability and a race's tech level. A welcome switch from GalCiv I is that each planet is located in a separate parsec (square) - thus allowing different races to control parts of the same star system. Unfortunately, each race is treated the same in this regard, which is a departure from other games of this genre which have a deeper approach to this aspect of the game (e.g. specific types of planets and habitability preferences for each race). Each race starts with one planet. Each planet produces "military shields" (used to build ships) "social shields" (used to build facilities and other planet-based projects) and "research beakers" (pooled empire-wide for current research project). In addition to the above production, each planet (1) either adds or subtracts to the empire-wide revenue pool of credits (based on its individual revenues/expenses) and (2) project "influence" into the galaxy (based on the size of your population) which controls the civilization's ever-changing border with other civilizations. Your ships are moved each turn (which represents 1 week) on the galaxy map based on the number of parsecs they can move (research dependent). Research is conducted on an empire-wide basis one project at a time. Diplomacy and trade routes are conducted/set-up as you encounter each race. Space Combat is conducted by moving your ships into the same parsec as an enemy ship and resolved automatically. Ground Combat is conducted by transferring XX of your population to a transport and moving those transports to the same parsec as an enemy planet and is resolved automatically. Victory is achieved by (1) total domination by your civilization, (2) diplomatic victory (total domination by your alliance of civilizations), (3) successfully research an ultimate technology, or (4) achieving a certain level of influence throughout the galaxy.
THE FIRST TURN - The first turn opens with an introduction message from your GNN (galactic news network) robotic news service explaining the status of your empire in the galaxy. Note - this report also periodically comes back to you either once a year (or, at your option, quarterly) to provide you with a comparison as to how your race sizes up in various areas (military power, economic power, influence, etc.) against the other races known to you at that time - which is a nice touch because we often forget to check those handy little charts present in almost all these games now. Anyway, after the GNN message - you are brought to the research screen (discussed in more detail below) to pick your first research project. After you pick a research project, you are brought to the colony management screen (discussed in more detail below) to pick your first facility to add to your homeworld (you already have a colony - providing basic starting money and production points, and a starport - providing the ability to build and launch starships). Note, the game also provides you the GNN report, research screen review and homeworld colony management review each time you load and start your game as a way to get you quickly re-oriented to you game, which I think is a good idea because often you forget where you are when you left off a few nights ago. You also start with a survey ship and colony ship so I quickly headed these in opposite directions to find my first colony.
GALAXY VIEW - This is the "main view" and where the player will spend the bulk of their time moving ships and checking on the status of their planets. This view is not only graphically stunning (planets spin, moons orbit and you can zoom in all the way to see each ship in full 3-D gently bobbing and flashing lights), but extremely functional. As you zoom out, the graphic are slowly replaced by icons which you give a great overall view of the galaxy. In addition, as you scroll around in the normal view, I really like the fact that icons are superimposed on each planet to indicate ownership, population happiness, any specials present (such as an economic or research capital), whether a starport is present and color indicated icons to tell the player whether the ship/facility queues are empty or full. This provides some of the most-need information to the player (am I maxing my build queues?) without them ever needing to dive into a bunch of pop-up menus and wasting time. The mini-map is what you would expect, with several adjoining filter buttons for various types of information. There is also a nice big "Find" button to find the next ship with moves remaining. My overall impression is that a lot of time went into putting the information (such as build queues) and the buttons that the player would use most often in easy to find places. This concept is absolutely critical on the main galaxy view screen because the player will spend all their time here. If a game forces the player to dive into subscreens for even basic queue information each turn (such as MOO3 anyone?) it can it can turn 20 quick turns in an hour into a slow drudgery of only 5 turns an hour. The two drawbacks that I noticed on this screen are: (1) bumping the edge of the screen to scroll your view (even turned up to 100% speed) is incredibly slow and only scrolls horizontally and vertically (not diagonally), and (2) the fog of war is a bit difficult to decipher between (A) what you have not explored and (B) what you have explored but is not currently covered by sensors. At the time I write this, the developers have promised to address the scrolling issue (apparently most of their testers scrolled by "picking up the screen" with the left mouse button instead of using edge scrolling which is why they did not pick up on this issue). This is an example of why it is always a good idea to let some last-minute testers into a beta test and tell them to play the game without using hotkeys and shortcuts and to review all mouseover help text to ensure newbies won't have problems with what has probably become second-nature to most testers.
RESEARCH - Research in GalCiv II is almost identical to GalCiv I. All research points generated empire-wide are pooled into one project at a time. The research screen is straight-forward with a scroll list of available projects and estimated completion times, a summary and rotating picture of the currently selected project and a depiction of the portion of the tech chart that your currently selected item is located (but the tree can be opened up and scrolled around to view). Although this is a nice feature, one of the problems with providing this in-game tech tree is I doubt this will lend itself to extensive tech mods do the inability to display a modified tech tree. Furthermore, I could not find in my brief peruse of the files, the ability to create new techs, which is a severe limitation to potential mods. The tech tree has been streamlined from the original version and is extremely linear. While this will probably broaden its appeal to the mass market, the 4x grognards are probably not going to be pleased as it is much more simplistic. Due to its linear nature, it also does not reward players who pour a lot of time into one particular area (e.g. I can still access and research beam weapons level 12 - 20, by merely trading someone for beam weapons level 11).
COLONY MANAGEMENT - In GalCiv I you could essentially build every building once on every planet, leaving the order in which you build as the only strategic decision to make. I am very glad to see that GalCiv II has taken an approach more in line with the Space Empires and Imperium Galactica II in that the player now has a grid of 6x12 squares (superimposed on an atlas of each planet) on which to build facilities and projects. However, not all of these squares are initially open for building, the number open depends on the habitability class of the planet and certain terraforming technologies that can be researched. So the player now has the strategic decision of specializing the planet (e.g. building multiple factories or research centers) or making a more generalized planet, knowing that all facilities cannot be built on each planet. The main colony management screen shows the grid of the planet, its current output of shields/beakers, provides basic information about food/population/influence, etc. and allows you to place items and move them around in the build queue. Unfortunately, I think the colony management screen is probably the worst designed of all the interfaces (note - but in a game in which the interface gets an "A+" that simply means this screen comes in with a grade of "B"). The reason I am not fond of this screen stems from a design motto picked up somewhere long ago "put the information the player needs to make a decision on the same screen they have to make that same decision." To properly determine a planet's various bonuses, etc. the interface forces you to pull up separate "details" and "summary" screens in addition to the primary one, and even then it is not exactly clear whether the bonuses are already factored into the output that you see on the main screen.
DIPLOMACY/INTELLIGENCE - This aspect has not changed too much from GalCiv I and is actually one of my favorite parts of the game. The first pop-up when you hit the diplomacy key contains a nice portrait of each other race encountered so far in the game and under each portrait is the current relations meter with that race (ranging from red, yellow to green) and also an indication of what you are spending on espionage/intel on that race. This is a fantastic tool because in one click - it quickly gives you a good idea of where you stand in the galaxy in terms of relations. Further diplomacy is conducted by clicking one of the races, at which point a full diplomacy screen opens up (with the interface color of that particular race) with an extremely gorgeous animated head of the race you are talking to (which changes based on their mood), with that race's theme music playing the background. Otherwise, the screen is very similar to diplomacy in the Civilization series and Total War series, where each player's tradable items (credits, influence, trade goods, planets, techs, ships, and agreements to attack, etc.) are listed in a column and you simply add/delete what you want to trade to form a "deal package." The text of the deal package changes as you add items, turning green or red depending on whether the other race is agreeable to the deal or not. In addition, by clicking on the portrait, you can replace it with a comparison graph of your races or show a summary of the factors which determined why they currently hate/love you. One other aspect that is done well is the abstract trading model. You build freighters and send them to a friendly race’s planet, whereupon successfully reaching it the freighter follows the same path back and forth automatically bringing in credits each turn. This also provides a strategic target for opponents since the freighter can be destroyed. The negative points with respect to this area, is that the game completely minimizes the intelligence/espionage aspects - into a sliding credit expenditure in which more credits equals additional information available to you for that race. Another negative that has recently surfaced (but which Stardock has agreed to fix) is the frequency at which AIs trade their techs (something MOO 3 had a problem with as well). 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.
SHIP DESIGN/BUILDING - This is another area where GalCiv II has departed from its predecessor (in the original you simply built or bought standard ship units similar to the Civilization series). However, you can now build custom ships in a very "lego" like manner, starting with a 3-D hull and adding struts, wings and other building components (referred to as "jewelry" and which do not take up space) to the hull, in addition to the "real" components (such as engines, sensors and weapons) which do take up space. You can view your ship from any angle/zoom level and the graphic are very good. Strictly from a shipbuilding standpoint, I think this is one of the most fantastic ship building engines I have seen in this genre. Sadly, however, it really does not mean much in terms of gameplay (discussed in more detail under the space combat section below). There are few minor annoyances: (1) Stardock needs to insert a "copy" command so you can modify default ships without having to start from scratch, and (2) they need to insert a "filter" command so you can view either only the jewelry or the real components in the component list -which can get quite long. I have also encountered some crashes and freeze-ups while using this portion of the game, so I think they have some work to do here.
SPACE COMBAT - I knew from the start that this would be my least favorite portion of the game. You see, my "perfect" engine for this portion of the game would be a pausable, 3-D rendering of combat (ala Homeworld II). I like to control my ships in combat because I think that is where a large part of the "fun" factor in these games is. As I mentioned above under the "Gameplay" section, unfortunately GalCiv II resolves space combat automatically based purely on attack - defense numbers. Sure, you now have the option of viewing the results via a 3-D combat viewer (ala the unreleased Stars: Supernova style), but you are just a bystander. The engine does not model tactical considerations such as weapon ranges, ship speed, initiative, ordnance, supplies, etc.). Experienced ships do get more hitpoints, which is a start. One aspect of space combat that I do like that is new to GalCiv II is the use of three types of weapon categories (beam, guns and missiles) and three specific defenses for each of those categories shields, armor and point-defense) which is similar to the approach taken with Starships Unlimited (although they had many more categories). This approach is a welcome change from GalCiv I and certainly makes for a more interesting game between races that use different types of weapons, etc. - but in the end I look forward to a GalCiv III that perhaps introduces controllable tactical combat.
GROUND COMBAT - I also knew from the start that this would be a "least favorite portion" of the game based on past experience with GalCiv I. I am a big fan of Star General and MOO 3 probably solely for their treatment of the ground combat model. I think those two games modeled creation and control of units at the division/corps/army level is just about right and the fact that those "units" could be upgraded and gain experience lent itself to immerse the player in more of the RPG atmosphere by raising those units to the same "level" of ships (which also gain experience and can be upgraded). Anyway, GalCiv II ground invasions is similar to the MOO II model in that you build transport ships and then send them to the enemy planet (albeit, in GalCiv, after loading them with population). You are then given options as to how to conduct ground combat (with varying degrees of cost/collateral damage). That's it. No audio of your ground forces during the resolution phase (ala MOO III) and certainly no 2-D representation of your forces battling it out ([edit] ala Star General).
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - With a game that is committed to the single-player experience only (there is no multiplayer capability other than a "metaverse" in which you add your single-player scores to your team's aggregate to compete against other teams), this is a key area which must not only pass muster but must surpass all others out there - and it certainly does at that. While following the Stardock forums for the last few months before release, I was continually amazed at the detail and pain with which the developers, and primarily Brad Wardell, took to make sure the AI did not slouch and that it continually looked for ways in which it could use the tools available to it (e.g. processing time) to analyze and continually re-analyze its position and make decisions based on that analysis. From what I have experienced and from what I have read, I think this is by far the most advanced AI for this type of game out there right now. Another very important aspect for many of us, is that we want to know at which difficulty level the AI is given "cheats." To that end, Stardock has put in the manual the exact level at which the AI starts to get bonus points as well as the levels at which it has 100% of the AI strategies turned on (i.e. is the “smartest” and is not otherwise dumbed down). The only sad part is, unlike other games in this genre (like the Space Empires series), this is one aspect of the game which is not moddable. It would have been nice to be able to tweak AI empires and play them against each other. I think the fact that the AIs are not moddable will also severely limit the modding effort in that modders will have to be careful not to shy too far away from the core mechanics of the game, so that you don't "break" the AI.
OVERALL GRAPHICS/INTERFACE - Overall, the graphics are very well done. As mentioned above, the galaxy view shows beautiful planets with different atmospheres spinning, moon orbiting, etc. and zoomed all the way in shows your 3-D ships bobbing and stunning. The combat viewer is gorgeous (being able to see your designed ships battling it out in 3-D is cool, if nothing else - but I would still prefer tactical control and 2-D over no control and 3-D!). Overall, the interface is simply outstanding in all but a few cases (like the colony management screen) it delivered all the information I wanted on the screen on which I had to make a decision in an efficient and easy to understand manner, with a minimal number of view-interfering pop-up windows. It is definitely one of the best interfaces for this genre out there and I hope a lot of developers pay close attention to the thought put into each of these screens. Based on developer interviews, it appears that their secret weapon for creating this interface was Stardock's own retail interface tool called DesktopX (which is downloadable for free to the home user or $75 for the professional version). Apparently, this is a drag-n-drop windows skinning tool that converts the GUI components into an .xml file. The game engine then parses that .xml information into what it needs for the specific screen depth/resolution it is displaying the game in. Apparently, this tool allowed the development team to continually re-adjust and improve the interface throughout the beta process (and even now as they develop patches) with only a few hours time since they did not have to spend time worrying about the effects of each screen resolution. The development team also mentioned that they will be trying to market this tool to other game developers as an inexpensive library tool to use with other games which should prove to be a fantastic tool for small developers on a budget that don’t want to spend all their time fighting the GUI.
OVERALL SOUND - Overall, I would say the sound was average. The music was OK but did not especially grab me (after the first few minutes I turned it down to 40%) - but I did like the use of the different racial themes that played while you were engaging in diplomatic negotiations with a particular race. The sound was OK as well, didn't really grab me, but I really didn't see any area that was particularly lacking for sound effects, except the interface in a few places (where a gratifying "click" would probably have been nice).
MODDING EXTENDABILITY - As a caveat, Stardock has stated that they do plan to release information on the modding aspects of the game. However, as of the time I write this, none have surfaced so I am basing my observations on the file formats found in the various directories on the hard drive. For comparison purposes, I tend to compare the extendibility or "moddability" of game against the Space Empires series, which to me sets the bar for this genre in terms of opening up its files to modders. In this regard, GalCiv II is certainly more "open" than its predecessor. Most data files are in an .xml format, most graphics is a .png, .x or Desktop X format. However, most of these moddable files appear to be only "eye candy" files (graphics, sound, etc.) or pure data files and do not change the underlying mechanics of the game. Perhaps Stardock will release tools which do allow us to change ground combat mechanics (additional forms of invasion?), create new weapons, new races, new shipsets, change mechanics such as population growth rate, etc. but at this point it does not appear that you can easily change much other eye candy and add some techs/facilities. This is strange in light of Stardock's claims of mod-friendliness and the fact that new tutorials (developed by modders for their mods) can be easily added to the game. Perhaps this area is best left to the phrase "lets wait and see" when the documentation comes out and people begin experimenting.
DEVELOPMENT TEAM COMMUNICATION/SUPPORT - Another area where I think the development team has really shown bright is its interaction with the community. Lets face it, those of us that love this genre are not your average bunch of mainstream gamers. The fact that Brad Wardell and others have actually been out in the "trenches" on various forums (including their own) answering questions, listening to suggestions, etc. is truly the mark of a development team that cares about their fans is committed to developing a "living" product (via updates, additional content) and deserves my dollars. Another aspect that greatly appealed to me was their open-beta concept for those that pre-ordered the game on-line. What a fantastic way to award loyal fans (but preserve your sales figures) by allowing them to help you finalize and test the product. At the same time, they could respond to feature requests before the final release and make everyone a part of the development process.
SUMMARY – I think this game is definitely worth buying for those that like this genre. My own view is that it is more of a “beer and pretzel” level type game, but certainly has value for when you want a game you can finish within a week or introduce your child, nephew or niece to space strategy games. While I think it’s simplistic research model, lack of tactical space/ground combat, lack of multi-player and limited modding extendibility will hurt it’s longevity, I do think it pushes the genre forward in respect of how to do proper interfaces, development team interaction, tutorials, beta/copyright policies, diplomacy and trade models and graphics.
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No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
-General George S. Patton
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