RNG producing broken start clusters

from GalCiv4 Forums

I've had multiple clusters generate with pretty bad setups, the most recent in 77b was that there was something like 4 Durantium, which pretty much wrecks any kind of civ building since everything is hinged on this one resource.  Could there be a solution to hard locks like this, perhaps instead of specific resources what if you made an omni-gel type resource "Hard Materials" that other materials could be converted into, so at least you weren't completely locked. This goes back to the game design patterns of using binary hard lockouts vs flexible graduated barriers, allowing people to execute a plan even if it's  very costly with the empire goal of reducing those costs over time.  This would help with that whole RNG thing that produces wildly inconsistent results that breaks games more often than not.

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Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I have seen this problem also, and I have things set to Abundant. I'm currently playing the Terran Alliance, several clusters, 11-12 opponents (not sure which), Normal difficulty.  I've explored about 80% of my starting cluster and have 5 Durantium.  Three in one cluster, the rest spread out as singles.  And no Promethium so far at all.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

agreed, resources are greatly needed but very few, far between, and inconsistent. i think a good easy fix for this would just be to have a lot more resource stars, but have those resource star systems have a lot more habitable planets. maybe even have planet types kinda match what resource stars systems they're in. for example, a star system that has durantium could have a much higher chance of having a planet with a durantium cloud.

Reply #4 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Galactic Bazaar FTW. Everything is available for a price in this game. It's just a question of what you want to spend your money on.

I won't start my first game of 0.77b until this weekend but I have generally found strategic resources to be quite abundant. I even wonder if they should be a little harder to discover. Right now all you need is to get your probe anywhere in the vicinity and build a starbase in range. Would it be more fun to have to scan an anomaly and discover that it is a duratanium source?

In general, I encourage the developers to incentivize meaningful accomplishments in the mid-game so that we feel like we're really doing something even when we're not warmongers. 

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Reply #5 from GalCiv4 Forums Top


I've had multiple clusters generate with pretty bad setups, the most recent in 77b was that there was something like 4 Durantium, which pretty much wrecks any kind of civ building since everything is hinged on this one resource.  Could there be a solution to hard locks like this, perhaps instead of specific resources what if you made an omni-gel type resource "Hard Materials" that other materials could be converted into, so at least you weren't completely locked. This goes back to the game design patterns of using binary hard lockouts vs flexible graduated barriers, allowing people to execute a plan even if it's  very costly with the empire goal of reducing those costs over time.  This would help with that whole RNG thing that produces wildly inconsistent results that breaks games more often than not.

 

What galaxy settings are you using?  It's really important for the devs to have usable feedback.  They have a design philosophy about the rarity of resources, but they need context to assess your feedback.  It will help them to judge whether or not the default setting (or whatever setting you're using) is working as intended.

Reply #6 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Galaxy all on max, game on fastest, easiest level, Altarians.  After almost 300 turns i've solved most of my durantium by discovering the little resource missions returns a durantium every go, so now it's about scaling ship builders so i can send out tonnes of those :)  but with that evolution i am now lacking other resources and so far i'm enjoying the process, but i have modded the game for double sized hulls and 4 moves for the special engine to mitigate the glacial pace.  I'm guessing this game is meant to be several thousand turns, which is what I've been after for years.

Reply #7 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Jeff, reply 4

I won't start my first game of 0.77b until this weekend


i think it's greatly improved, it's the first version where nothing has boxed me in, some proc gen stuff is still a bit whiffy but i'm enjoying it and haven't rage quit yet :P

I still hate the tech tree randomization, that feels like a user hostile inclusion, like loot boxes for tech trees lolwut, let me plan my empire in an empire planning game you crazy randomizers, but i think they may have fixed the tree jumping problem - although that might be because i suspected it was broken i stopped trading tech, i think it finds the watermark of an internal tech dependency tree when it provides the next group to choose from, so if you trade a later tech which would skip like 8 techs in that tree (or acyclic graph or whatever you want to call it) then it'll never show those 8 techs.  Tech trading was always a big thing for me in GalCiv3 but I'm a bit wary of it in this game so i've stopped using it, thankfully there was no need for tech trading anyway because i chose Altarians, and the problem hasn't arisen.

Reply #8 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I'm playing Onyx Hive now. Their thing is that they are literally addicted to promethion and I found my first source around year five. (Duritanium and antimatter are nearly ubiquitous this game.) It has been a challenge because they barely grow without it. I'm okay with this. It's otherwise a good start so I think I will probably win by playing the economic game until I can overwhelm in science. Unless I hit an unexpected problem, I expect that this will be the first game I play to the end. I've been able to establish positive diplomatic relations so I'm not worried about that messy war stuff. The time for that will come later in the Beta.