Making GalCiv Fun Again

from GalCiv3 Forums

Simply put: It's my opinion that the current state of the game is "not fun".

To start:  Random placement of usable tiles and capitals (significant because of the adjacency system), random number and placement of tiles with Arable Land (exacerbates the problems of the adjacency system), and random access to resources (significant because of the construction requirements of one-per-galaxy wonders).

I've made a tentative effort to make the game fun again:

https://www.nexusmods.com/galacticcivilizations3/mods/143

I'm playing a test game, and results are good so far:  Much of the RNG-screw and associated micromanagement has been alleviated, and the game is better for it.

But obviously I'm not using all abilities, techs, etc - I'm interested in suggestions concerning how other improvements should be adjusted due to the removal of the adjacency system.

For example, the Bureaucrats line of improvements seem to provide only adjacency bonuses. What should be added to these buildings to replace the removed bonuses?  Which other improvements provide only adjacency bonuses, and what should be added to them?

Are there any improvements that become strictly inferior to alternatives with the removal of adjacency bonuses, and how should they be adjusted to remain interesting choices?

Aeroponic Farm: Is +3 food production enough to make the Aeroponics ability at least somewhat interesting? Should the effect be increased to +4 food production to compete with some of the stronger abilities?

Modding tips would also be welcome.  There don't seem to be many modding resources for the game, and making the mod has been a "so how does this work?" sort of affair.

12,387 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

To me the adjacency system is like an embedded Tetris game.  You try to visual how everything best fits together.  I don't think I like GC as much without it.

Is that the meat of your mod?

 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting DMF, reply 1

To me the adjacency system is like an embedded Tetris game.  You try to visual how everything best fits together.  I don't think I like GC as much without it.

Is that the meat of your mod?

I'd be more inclined to like the adjacency system if usable tiles on a planet weren't random - if the player could select a number of tiles equal to the planet class, preferably only having to select the next tile used when building an improvement (rather than all at once during colonization).

But I can't mod that.

Or if when determining initial usable tiles, the game always selected tiles with the greatest adjacency.

Again, I can't mod that.

I don't enjoy having single tiles with no adjacency scattered across the planet map, and I don't enjoy having my colony capital plunked down on one of those tiles.

The system is "great luck, build a mega planet!" or "crap luck, you get a crapsack world!"

Sometimes terraforming and micromanaging placement of improvements (with far future terraforming improvements taken into account) can salvage a crapsack world, but that's a pain in the a** (and requires meta-knowledge concerning which tiles will be able to be terraformed by each future improvement).

And it would seem a significant number of players consider planet management a pain since Stardock is gutting the surrender mechanic so players don't have to manage additional worlds when a civ surrenders to them.

So my inclination is to remove the adjacency system since Stardock isn't fixing it, and to restore farming. This has so far resulted in a much better game, but it's still an experiment at this point.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm ok with random tiles generally, but yeah, it would be nice to decide where your own capital is. Optional maybe?

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yeah, being able to decide where the capitol is built would make sense, and would require more thought that just working with wherever it lands. I'd love to have that as an option.

 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Meh, making the best of what you do get is the whole game. Getting a map with good resources close to your starting location, a planet with a good layout and a resource AND one of the useful artifacts, a nebula with three Elerium, having no access to Antimatter except via the market and trades etc, those are what help make each game different, and memorable and challenging. How do you exploit your strengths and compensate for what you are missing? Being able to build everything, whenever you need, because all the resources are available and 'balanced'? Not my idea of 'fun' or a challenge. It would be like playing a race with every ability enabled.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting colinm1305, reply 5

Being able to build everything, whenever you need, because all the resources are available and 'balanced'? Not my idea of 'fun' or a challenge.

Very much agree. One of the most memorable games I ever played was decades ago in GC for OS/2, where I started off in a corner of the map, had to fight my way out into the rest of the galaxy, and then catch up with the other civs that had had time to expand.  Not the same type of resources back then, but the challenge was similar to what you're talking about.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I actually created a mod to make the capitals buildable - you delete your random capital and rebuild in 1 turn.  It should definitely be non-random in vanilla.

Randomized maps are just necessary to the genre, but random building location definitely is not.