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Published on May 6, 2008 By Frogboy

Far be it for me to invite scorn and ridicule on our hard work in the form of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor but let's face it, GalCiv has long since stopped being any sort of traditional "product".  We love working on it. If I didn't work at Stardock, I'd be modding it in my spare time.  But I do work at Stardock so that means I still get to mod it in my spare time but I have the source code.

That said, in this post can you list the 5 things you would want changed or fixed about Twilight of the Arnor first.  Not things that you eventually want changed or modified or whatever but 5 things that you would want done as soon as possible.

I'll then read through your lists and put together a summary and start working on them at night after working on The Political Machine during the day.

Don't feel bad for me, the GalCiv team wanted to go right on to making a GalCiv III but I'm integrating them into the fantasy strategy game team instead.  So I deserve some scorn and ridicule.

-Brad

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Comments
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May 6th 2008, at 12:54 PM

1) Make an it optional how many crystals it will take to get an ascension victory. I have actually started playing with Ascension victory off, for fear that my game will end too soon. Allow us to choose between 1000, 2000 and 5000.

2) I happen to love events, even the mega ones, allthough some of them are quite tough. Another thing I would like to see is a setting that would allow me to increase the number of events in a game. This could be ranging from none (no events in the game at all) over default (random as now) to many (events galore).

3) Fix the MCC

4) One thing has been annoying me for a long time, and is also quite high on my list. Sometimes I accidentally press space (maybe because I get too eager) and that's it for that unit for that turn. I would like that spacebar only removed the unit from the "Next unit queue" but didn't actually set it's movement points to zero, so that I would be able to revisit that ship and give it orders. In some situations that is crucial, as that accidental spacebar press can mean that I didn't get to attack a certain transport or whatever. You get the idea

There you have it, Brad. Only 4 thing wrong with your game Not too shabby. I hope you can use them. I tried to put only stuff that (I think) can be done with minimal coding, and thus could be implemented quickly

Morten

May 6th 2008, at 12:56 PM

1. The new-found aggressiveness of the AI in regards to espionage needs to be tweaked a little.

2. Please fix the dialog boxes when being asked if you would like to build a starbase over a resource, they seem to appear more than once asking you to accept or decline (if the prompt to build starbase over resource option is ticked).

3. Apparently there's a tech missing for the Korx (the first economy one) if I recall correctly from what I read on the forums.

4. Please update some of the more common graphical elements in the game (starports for one). I would also love to see the Starbases reskinned like the ships were.

5. Please PLEASE update the nebula graphic. It feels kinda low-res compared to all the updated graphics in the game. A nice new higher-resolution nebula graphic would go down well (think Sins' backgrounds! hehe)

May 6th 2008, at 1:08 PM
Top 1: Good job on the AI in TA Brad. But, I still want an even better AI. I want an AI that can beat me on equal terms (Tough difficulty). A couple of things that need improvements:
- Tech trading. In my current game (on Painful) the AI players value Basic Laser/Missile/Railgun techs extremely high, I got some really nice deals (mis)using them.
- AI declares war too quickly, but while actually at war, the AI by far isn't aggressive enough. A proper war declaration starts with an invasion.
- AI needs to amass more transports and use them in groups. Don't put single transports into fleets with combat ships. Instead create two fleets: One even bigger combat fleet and one transport fleet, both moving simultaneously.
An idea how to improve this for both the AI and the human player is to have two logistic types: (unarmed!) Transports use transport logistics slots and other ships use normal logistics slots. Both can be in the same fleet.

Top 2: Make mousewheel zoom speed configurable and add an option to zoom like in Sins. I found the zooming navigation in Sins to be extremely useful

Top 3: Graphs and timeline. Make interval configurable in graph on main screen. In long games, the history of the first few years is so uninteresting. I'd like to for example only display the last few weeks/months/years. Similar to the timeline in the civ manager.
To make it extremely powerful just add a time ruler with two sliders, one for beginning, one for the end of the timeframe. Dragging in-between the sliders moves the interval.

Top 4: Ships on guard mode should stay on guard until destroyed or manually canceled.

Top 5: /scorn

Top 6: /ridicule
May 6th 2008, at 1:15 PM
I just have one thing I'd like changed right away. The planetary assault screen. I might be flamed, but I think I liked the older version better than the TA one. The new one doesn't really do anything for me. I'm sorry, and don't mean to offend, but the new screen is boring. There is very little going on to see other than the colored bar graphs. I liked seeing the little soldiers and war machines duking it out. I kinda miss that.
May 6th 2008, at 1:29 PM
1. Decouple the research and production sliders (or have it as an option) so that we can run labs and factories at 100% at the same time, as we logically should be able to. All-X finally becomes redundant!

That's my only *major* complaint.
May 6th 2008, at 1:29 PM
The only thing I want (and am sure all other wide screen monitor users also want) is for the videos to be scaled correctly.

This includes the start-up video, the animated diplomacy picture and anything else you know you have a video for, e.g. tutorials.

Thanks for continuing the support!
May 6th 2008, at 1:41 PM
I just have one thing I'd like changed right away. The planetary assault screen. I might be flamed, but I think I liked the older version better than the TA one. The new one doesn't really do anything for me. I'm sorry, and don't mean to offend, but the new screen is boring. There is very little going on to see other than the colored bar graphs. I liked seeing the little soldiers and war machines duking it out. I kinda miss that.


The only thing I don't really like about the new screen is the pew pew sound effect that plays way too often. I probably should mod the sound to use a different one.

May 6th 2008, at 1:45 PM
1. Patch all the holes in the tech trees. For example, the Yor and the Korath have no way to improve resource starbases or economic starbases. I have already mentioned this in a couple of places, but it is so annoying to play one of these races and find juicy economic and military resources nearby but have to wait until the AI researches up the xeno factory line, if they ever bother to. It makes me not want to play these races. I have heard people say the Thalan are missing an important starbase tech too. For every key element of the game, every civ should be able to utilize it to some degree without tech trading.

2. The spying overhaul would be great because it is not a fun part of the game right now. Using spies to collect information costs way too much money since most computer civs horde them defensively.

Those are really the only two things that are coming to mind now, great expansion btw!
May 6th 2008, at 2:06 PM
1. Make the game less focused on adjusting sliders and more on planning strategic decisions. In it's current form, the sliders on Research, Military, and Social should just be on the main screen as I end up going into them almost every turn. And de-coupling the sliders from each other seems to make a lot of sense. I had messing around with sliders that don't adjust like I want!

2. Can we get some sort of intelligent social AI to be enabled/disabled? Maybe the same as what the AI uses? Picking individual buildings to be built and gueueing them is pretty decent, but when you're playing the game on a gigantic map, it gets really tedious really fast!

3. Simplify Constructors to function more like space miners or allow them to be stacked. Constructor upgrades are a pain now as they require too much micromanagement in their current form.

4. Improve the diplomacy screen to shade out options the AI won't even agree to (again, like Civilization). That'd save a lot of tedious clicking.

5. I was going to mention revising espionage, but it sounds like that's already scheduled to be improved. How so, by the way?

Good lists from everyone above! I really like Gal Civ and am encouraged by your continued requests for feedback.
May 6th 2008, at 2:09 PM
I only have for the moment one wish. That is Printable Tech trees for each race. I play with tech trading off so that i can keep the flavor of the indivual races.I love what you have done .Thanks for another great game!
May 6th 2008, at 2:21 PM
Only Five? Ok, reporting as ordered - Captain Bactarian.

1 & Foremost) Enhanced Espionage, as hinted about elsewhere.

2) Alternate 'Victory' (or scoring effects) conditions... such as;
- Economic Mogul (999,999,999,999 or less_constant_by choice BCs - Done!),
- Trade_Goods exclusivity (all of 'hem, yours and kept),
- Demographic Boom (rearch the approximate or fixed Trillions_variable pop-cap Mark, sort of),
- Eternity Limits (something like, a loop to heaven via combinations of other regular real default Victories),
- Beyond Technology (Crunching the numbers to obtain a minimal or pre-deterministic number of active & available beakers - this can also be applied to other areas, productivity, total ships HiP, etc)

3) Editors - Superlatively coded to provide MULTIPLE other editing powers. Namely, a races_customs_opponents_modded-total-conversion(s) dedicated asset.

4) An external ShipYard to create & fiddle with components and hulls as we see fit & when we just want to without consequences to current gameplay - but available later on for re-distribution of an indirect ship style.

5) Hexa_Triangular grid on planet surfaces with a supplemental three-level layer of 'buildinds' and tiles (Atmospheric, Underground, Orbital) as presented in this link;
Optimal Hexagon Tiles

--- please, just another simple one...

6) True 3D space conditions & maps.

Big wishes, i know. It may even feel beyond the scope and intentions set forward by the initial request, but i really needed to get those off my chest since the "opportunity" was here - only, i guess.

Can't think of anything else more important, right now.
May 6th 2008, at 2:23 PM
1. Fix the MCC
2. Fix the MCC
3. Fix the MCC
4. Put BattleStations 1 in the Thalan tech tree
5. I've not check this myself, but if the Yor and Korath have no way to improve resource exctraction starbases, that needs to be fixed.
May 6th 2008, at 2:23 PM
I just have one thing I'd like changed right away. The planetary assault screen. I might be flamed, but I think I liked the older version better than the TA one. The new one doesn't really do anything for me. I'm sorry, and don't mean to offend, but the new screen is boring. There is very little going on to see other than the colored bar graphs. I liked seeing the little soldiers and war machines duking it out. I kinda miss that.


I have to agree on this point. The new screen reminds me of an electronic version of Stratego, and just annoys me.

1. Maintenance costs for Thalan technologies. While their tech and industrial buildings are very powerful, I don't see why the maintenance cost should be higher than the building's output. I can live with the amounts being equal, but in reality, any building that costs more to run than it produces is a failure. I haven't researched past the level I buildings, so maybe it's different at the higher levels.

2. Sometimes, when upgrading star bases with a fleet of constructors, the upgrade doesn't "take", and I have to back my fleet up and redo the upgrade. This has been an issue at least since DA, as far as I can tell.

3. For being one of the older races in the galaxy, the Arceans seem woefully underpowered. They should be called the Arcanes, as they seem to be the "old skool" race. I'd like to see them made more competitive compared to the other races.

4. AI ship designer. I actually like this feature, but I think the balance between power and defense is a little skewed. The AI seems to design for maximum power and minimum defense. A nice thought, but so far I believe my ships have been more vulnerable than necessary as a result.

5. This is a question rather than a suggestion, but why aren't Ascension starbases upgradeable, even with some kind of defenses? Or are they?

May 6th 2008, at 2:38 PM
One thing only:

I wish there would be a module for ships to repair starbases!

That is the only thing I could think of right now, the others made great suggestions already Do all of it, hehe.
May 6th 2008, at 2:39 PM
But, and....

1a) Optional drop of the research Robots by giving a cascading to the right side blue Icon as a warning we can or not click on.

2a) Calibration of movie screens as a non-relative to desktop size option - effectively giving me a small popup window were (example) the colonize world ship going through clouds is a true 640x384 rather than loosing blurring at my 1280x1024 giga scale intrusive the interface. Does that make sense, English wise? Sorry, i just can't do better than that.

3a) Fix the Yor_neutral.bik for its terribly annoying white frame #231.

4a) No files found matching mask - eliminated from my & yours debug.err file(s).

5a) Change Interface colors options - Priority ONE: yellowy_eggy_orangy like default text.

Done, cross my heart - if not, i'll use some other threads, maybe.
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