GalCiv2: Nov14 - Nov19

Best GC2 Week...Ever?

from JoeUser Forums

With the other developers making comments on the game design and code explanations, I'm going to use this time to give a synopsis of GalCiv2's progress in a Visual Segment I'd like to call "Best GalCiv2 Week Ever!", where I pick the top 5 images that best show how Galactic Civilizations 2 is progressed this week.


#5 - This ship is a test of the "Component" system we've worked up for creating Custom Ships in GalCiv2.  Here we have a fighter Hull Equipped with Phaser Weapons in the front, Engines in the back, and Stinger Missles Mark IV on the underside.


#4 - A (Quick) Concept Sketch for a Drengin Fighter Hull, this image shows how far I have to go on my ship concept art.  What's with the "Hershey Kiss" thing on the Tail-Fin?!  Time for this fool to pick up some books on industrial design  ;)

#3 - All of the races from the original GalCiv will be back and better than ever!  Here we have a Work In Progress of the Arcean Leader, one of the key players in the "Dreadlords" campaign.


#2 - Another race that makes a reappearance in the game is the 'Drath', a mythical race that was imprisoned by Draginol to make room for his creation, the Altarians.  I've gone back to the drawing board with their design, trying to make them look more spiritualistic, and less like cavemen.

And now, for the #1 GalCiv2 image from this week...


#1 - While under-whelming at first appearance, this innocent scribble paves the path to a fun little game play feature that will prove useful throughout the game. But first, A little intro...

One of the major additions to GalCIv2 is an advanced Planetary Management model, where players will have a number of usable spaces on a planetary grid, of which they can fill with any number of social improvements.  Let say the player has landed on a new world with a Class value of 10.  In the original GalCiv, this would mean the planet will fill with unhappy citizens and only crank out a percentage of what a Class 15 planet would. In GC2, the Class value indicates the number of CURRENT usable slots to place planetary improvements (ex. A Class 10 could hold 10 planetary improvements).  

However, using Soil Enhancement, most planets can be Terraformed to a higher class of planet.  This only works on grid slots that have upgradeable terrain (ex. A swampy region could be upgraded to Grassland, where a deep ocean is stuck as a deep ocean) meaning the maximum possible Planet Class is also set from the moment the terrain is generated.  A Class 10 planet with 5 swampy regions, 2 desert regions, and 5 deep ocean regions could be terraformed to a Class 17 planet, for instance.  This makes initially unusable spaces useful to players that plan correctly.

This is all well and good, but we didn't want to spell out for the user "This is a Class 12 planet but it can be upgraded to a class 19", but we also didn't want to be too cryptic "This is a class 12 and you'll just have to wait and see if it have upgradeable spaces".  What we came up with was a new tool at the players disposal...a Planetary Scanner.  This would give them some information about the planet, but only pieces, based on the type of Scanning Mode you use.

At first, players would only have the "Atmospheric" scan, that displays the Planet Surface in normal mode but is partially obscured by the cloud cover, and the "Thermal" mode, that only shows you the land vs. ocean readout.  Then, as you get new technology, you can actually work up you sensors, until midway though the game most players will get the "Environmental" Scan mode, that let's them see everything right away, making planet scanning easier once the initial colony rush is done.

Later in the game, Once players start to build up espionage power against other races, they'll be able to use the scanner to view the planetary surfaces of enemy worlds and get a clear view of what's being built on what planets.  This way better preparation can be made for planets with strong defenses, ect.

While not COMPLETELY fleshed out, the use of a Planetary Scanner would help the player both in the beginning stages of the game, as well as in the later stages.  When colonizing, you may want to pick up that Class 6 planet if it can be upgraded to a class 20.  And when you're spying on your neighbors, you may want to know that they're building up their military capabilities behind you back.  And we believe this would be a fun, unique, and interactive way to display this info to the player.
43,856 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
You guys don't get many comments for these blogs on Galciv2, but I just wanted to let you know that there is at least one person who finds them very interesting. Please keep them up. I thoroughly enjoy Galciv, and will be renewing my subscription to TotalGaming.net to get the beta and eventually the game. Keep up the good work.
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks Guys! Even though the Alpha won't be released for a few months, we still want to start getting player feedback ASAP. I mean, we may be making the game, but you'll be the ones playing it

If we ever bring up a game mechanic that you think will detract from the enjoyment of the game, please feel free to call us out on it. Or, if you have a way to make a new feature of idea better, just chime in! We'll be writing these journals every friday through the games release, so you'll have many opportunities to make your voices heard!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ts allow them to be overcome, thus adding further colonisation later in the game?

Paul.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
r>
Or as a methane planet would it only be useful for an outpost and maybe underground mining.

Paul.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Solitair:

An interesting point. I don't know if we're going to deal with that sort of situation (If its a class 10 or below to start off with every improvement has a dome over it) or if were going to actually have different types of atosphere the player will have to deal with. My initial concern is that it'll add realism, but it'll just make it more of a Pain to start a colony on dumpier planets, but we'll chat about it in an upcoming meeting and see if it'd ba a fun addition to the colonization portion of gameplay.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
that same planet to be say a 5 for them?
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't think we're going to differenciate the worth of a planet based on the race. Mostly with the player being able to play as the different races this time around, I think this sort of complexity will just make things more complicated then they need to be (ex. What happens if youre at war with the Water Race, you invade their planet and suddenly you have a worthless colony on your hands)

Also, switching between races meens the player would have to re-learn what's a good planet, and whats a bad planet.

Of course, we always want to include things if theyd add a fun new mechanic to the game...any ideas how we could get around these road blocks and make planetary variations enjoyable to the gamer rather than tedius?
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
e.

I'm assuming this won't happen in GC II, but maybe in GC III...
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
different research tree, completey different ships, if your race even needs ships at all, would be great fun.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Here's a suggestion I would have, different terrains can have different buildings built upon them, with the right techological improvement. That water world that's 75% water is useless now but with the invention of off-shore mining I can now create mines and be able to harvest the resources on that world. Or underwater-sea colonization so I can build more inhabitable regions. Perhaps there can even be bonuses for certain buildings upon a terrains so then we can decide, ok I have this mountain terrain that's teriffic for mining, but I would like more space for population, and weigh in the different decisions there. That way you can decide the strategic value of a world and decide based upon your tech level whether its worth colinization now, or leave it alone Also you could have the ability to have special worlds, like a technological world that's full of resources that aids labs, and another world that's a pre-cursor mining colony which gives huge bonuses. Plus it can really take into the randomness of the world generation, rather than having random events driving bonuses you can now have worlds that are full of "specials" that drive it.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm with elmo3, being able to have different requirements for different races would probably make the interest level last a lot longer.
I'm sure it would also add quite a lot of deveopment time too, though....
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm with elmo3, being able to have different requirements for different races would probably make the interest level last a lot longer.

But could also bit tricky to correctly implement for the AI. And don't forget that it must be fun for the player. They shouldn't spend too much time trying to figure if the planet is suitable, or what they can expect from production. And they shouldn't spend too much time trying to figure the most efficient way to use a planet

BTW, does anyone here remember Ascendancy? I haven't like the way they have handled planetary improvements: Planets have colored squares on it (the bigger the planet, the more square there were). The color of square have some effects about the output of a planet depending on the improvement built on it..The following FAQ http://dlh.net/cheats/pc/english/ascendancy/faq.html shows how calculation are made. And it is scarry. I hope we won't experience a such thing with GalCiv 2
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
One of the things I hated about Master of Orion 3 was the overly complex way planets were handled. They used a similar zoning system complete with race-based planet desirability and I have to say it didn't add anything. Zoning might be cool, especially if it's easy to figure out what the best thing to build is on each kind of zone and if terraforming is easy to do.

Race-based desirability isn't such a cool feature though - at least I've never seen it implemented well in any of the games I've seen it in. It usually just ends up either leaving the player with a fragmented populace that's not happy on any planet or requires so much automation to rearrange colonists that it limits the fun and control you actually have. I'd rather it be easy to play and have the difficulty/realism added through the AI than actually being built into the game design. EDIT: Hmm, what I said doesn't really make much sense. But I hope it helps anyway.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
d it was Stars!, though it was not as good though.

paul.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ection on many of the design decisions to offer something different?
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
want to make. If you want to play a game where the planets are that complex, get Space Empires V.

Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
I tend to side with the Idea that simple = fun. When trying to make a game for a mass audience, you have to take into account the amount of "learning commitment" the average player will withstand before they start to find the game boring.

It's one thing to get players to learn how to create a colony ship, land on a suitable planet, and properly build it into a thriving world. The learning process compounds as you have variations of planet quality based on race, different items to build to get a inhabitable planet up to a habital level, and different ways to invade worlds that don't match your desired environment type.

If the player is FORCED to over-think these aspects of colonization and invasion, some of the key game mechanics becomes a chore and the average gamer will start to get overwhelmed.

In the end, think of planets as a way to maximize Ship Creation, since the climax of the game revolves around battling other races (wether you're on the defensive or the offensive). Once time required for planetary management outweighs time required for ship-based game mechanics, the game's Fun Factor would dry up.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
.stardockcentral.net/images/smiles/smile.gif" border=0 ALIGN="absmiddle">

I plan to get both GC II and SE V. There is no such thing as too many 4X games!
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
anet (if you terraform all bad squares, etc). Makes it easier to decide if a planet is worth colonising.

paul.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Maybe add a max planet quality number as well as a planet quality number. This would be the planet quality that you could achieve with your current technology on a particular planet (if you terraform all bad squares, etc). Makes it easier to decide if a planet is worth colonising

If I understand correctly, as soon as a new terraforming technology appears, we need to review all planets to see if this new tech has some effect about previously discarded planets that could now reach a correct maximum planet quality. Sound nice.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In fact, if your planet list could be sorted by max quality (filtered by uninhabited plaents) then you could always keep an eye on those planets taht you have not colonised but could be useful is you get some terraforming techs.

Paul.