A Few Quick Observations

from GalCiv4 Forums

Just a few observations from my first few hours of Supernova. 

Sectors - Seems like needless micromanagement, are they really needed? I've already got more than enough to do in one sector, does it really add that much to the gameplay to have to do the same thing in multiple sectors? It's like trying to play two or three games at once

Citizens - The idea of having pops on your planet is fine, but it feels like you guys have them in the game without really knowing what you want to do with them. If you look at another game on the market that I won't mention, they use a job system, and each pop fills those jobs. You guys just have a random pop type generated with some stats. Are they total RNG? Maybe make them generic with no stats, and then based on what types of buildings I have, let me assign a pop to the building to get a bonus. Also, why do I need to add one to every construction ship I build? You could treat the space stations like buildings on a planet and let me add a citizen to it for a bonus, but I don't understand why I should need to do this for each one I build. Space stations are kind of important to have to rely on a citizen

Trading - I see the lopsided trade requests have made a return. Yes, you can tweak them, but my god 90% of those trades make no sense whatsoever

Music - One thing that bugged me in GalCiv III and now in Supernova as well is the music. A good soundtrack can go a long way to get me immersed into a game, and a few of the other space-themed games out there have some pretty epic ones. Yours, not so much. Having the music change for each menu really bugs the shit out of me for some reason, so I usually find myself turning off the music and just listen to other space game soundtracks.

Monthly Income - Numbers don't add up with the information that is given. Is there somewhere else I can see my income/expenses, or is this it? These numbers make zero sense

Those are just a few 'gripes', but honestly, so far, so good. You're off to a good start, and I hope you guys continue to listen to the community

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Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top


Just a few observations from my first few hours of Supernova. 

Sectors - Seems like needless micromanagement, are they really needed? I've already got more than enough to do in one sector, does it really add that much to the gameplay to have to do the same thing in multiple sectors? It's like trying to play two or three games at once

Citizens - The idea of having pops on your planet is fine, but it feels like you guys have them in the game without really knowing what you want to do with them. If you look at another game on the market that I won't mention, they use a job system, and each pop fills those jobs. You guys just have a random pop type generated with some stats. Are they total RNG? Maybe make them generic with no stats, and then based on what types of buildings I have, let me assign a pop to the building to get a bonus. Also, why do I need to add one to every construction ship I build? You could treat the space stations like buildings on a planet and let me add a citizen to it for a bonus, but I don't understand why I should need to do this for each one I build. Space stations are kind of important to have to rely on a citizen

Trading - I see the lopsided trade requests have made a return. Yes, you can tweak them, but my god 90% of those trades make no sense whatsoever

Music - One thing that bugged me in GalCiv III and now in Supernova as well is the music. A good soundtrack can go a long way to get me immersed into a game, and a few of the other space-themed games out there have some pretty epic ones. Yours, not so much. Having the music change for each menu really bugs the shit out of me for some reason, so I usually find myself turning off the music and just listen to other space game soundtracks.

Those are just a few 'gripes', but honestly, so far, so good. You're off to a good start, and I hope you guys continue to listen to the community

You can play in a single sector too if you want.  But, multiple sectors allows those who want truly huge maps to avoid dealing with giant areas of blankness like we had in GC2/GC3.  In effect, GC2/GC3 had "sectors" in the sense that stars were grouped together in clusters. 

Citizens are similar to the same thing in Civ.  It could be argued that:

 

The individual stats are just excessive noise.

The original concept, which is now on the table to be changed in this early access, is that citizens spawned as generalist and players might want to specify a job for them based on their stats.  However, in practice, this isn't proving to be as meaningful as intended because the stats are so piddly.

For for instance, that citizen's diligence is 6 which means he provides a 6% buff to manufacturing.

With regards to music, which particular menu/screen does the switch particularly bug you?

 

Thanks!!

Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top


Monthly Income - Numbers don't add up with the information that is given. Is there somewhere else I can see my income/expenses, or is this it? These numbers make zero sense

While the numbers could be clearer, the way they are supposed to be read is you are getting +90 from a treaty, +278.22 from your civ income, and +25.22 from trade routes, added together gives 393.04. Taxes being at 33% means you get from that about 130.03. Now subtract the expenses -14.80 which results in 115.23 income.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

It's definitely not clear enough. To the point I'd call it a bug.

 

We need another row:

Monthly Income:

where you take the Revenue, subtract the expenses.  Which is where you get 4.  

Reply #4 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Wait, now I think I understand it a bit more...so taxes are what I'm paying?

No way the way things are listed out to me would it make me think that the taxes are something that I have to pay. Taxes here are listed in the same color as everything else, so I thought taxes were something that I collected from my colonies/citizen, not something I had to pay. 

So with that bit of information, the numbers still don't quite add up. If you're taxing my total income of 393 by 33%, you get the 130, but why does that become my total left over instead of what I'm paying? Shouldn't my new income be 263 instead of 130? By that reasoning, I'm paying a 66% tax instead of the 33%. 

Either way, they might want to list those things differently. The taxes shouldn't be included in the 'revenue', and should be listed below as a deduction. I wouldn't have just those expenses listed at the bottom, I would change that section to 'deductions' and have the taxes listed there, and instead of just showing the percentage, put the raw number in there too. Then you get clear-cut numbers that make sense like the following:

REVENUE/INCOME
GDP                             278
Trade Route Income      25
Treaty Revenue              90

TOTAL                          393

EXPENSES/DEDUCTIONS
Colony Maintenance       7
Starbase Maintenance     7
Taxes 33%                    130

TOTAL                          144

MONTHLY INCOME
Revenue                       393
Deductions                 -144

TOTAL                           249

Reply #5 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

In regards to the music, I'd rather just have continuous music playing instead of each menu screen having its own separate music background. You only hear the songs for a few seconds each as you click through the menu's, and they're also quite underwhelming. Space-themed games tend to lend themselves to some pretty epic soundtracks, but yours just doesn't feel epic at all.

Reply #6 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting UnclePuffy, reply 4

Wait, now I think I understand it a bit more...so taxes are what I'm paying?

No way the way things are listed out to me would it make me think that the taxes are something that I have to pay. Taxes here are listed in the same color as everything else, so I thought taxes were something that I collected from my colonies/citizen, not something I had to pay. 

The taxes are your income as the ruler of your civilization.  The other income numbers are the income for your civilization, which get taxed, with the taxes going to you to pay for your government's expenses.

Reply #7 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

@UnclePuffy, first of all, that's a really nice chart of yours! :D

Now to the math: You have to understand "tax" from government point of view.
Your people produce GDP, and you tax it as a government. If you tax higher, you get more money, but people will be displeased by it. 

So tax is not you paying someone, but your people paying you, based on their GDP. 
In your case, the GDP is 393. You tax 33%, and get the 130 into your treasury

Reply #8 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Oh, I understand taxes, just the way everything is being presented is what was confusing me. I get the numbers now. Even though my people are creating 393 worth of revenue (GDP, trade, treaties), I'm only collecting 33% of it, which is where the 130 is, and then minus the 14 and change brings me to the 115 monthly. 

Now that I understand how the numbers are calculated, I do understand the presentation a bit more, though not confusing to me anymore, I would imagine that others still might not understand it.

One thing though, shouldn't the 33% tax only be on the GDP, and not the trade routes & treaties? Are the trade routes & treaties not created by the 'government', so why would I be taxing myself on those?

Reply #9 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting UnclePuffy, reply 8

Oh, I understand taxes, just the way everything is being presented is what was confusing me. I get the numbers now. Even though my people are creating 393 worth of revenue (GDP, trade, treaties), I'm only collecting 33% of it, which is where the 130 is, and then minus the 14 and change brings me to the 115 monthly. 

Now that I understand how the numbers are calculated, I do understand the presentation a bit more, though not confusing to me anymore, I would imagine that others still might not understand it.

One thing though, shouldn't the 33% tax only be on the GDP, and not the trade routes & treaties? Are the trade routes & treaties not created by the 'government', so why would I be taxing myself on those?

Sadly no, we, the galactic government, apply our tax to everything.  Trade routes are technically handles by the private sector in the game.

Reply #10 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Just finished a game of Gal Civ 4 Supernova.

It was the first game I started of Gal Civ 4. Never played Gal Civ 3. But enjoyed Gal Civ 2 as the cult classic it has become.

Since I usually watch my share of Youtube content (shoutout to Battlemode!) before I jump into playing a game myself, I felt reasonably prepared. Also read steam forums, this forum's first few pages and some beginner guides/tips posted here.

What a fantastic first game experience I had!

I enjoyed the victory screen. Even watched the end game credits.

I played terrans on "normal" (incl. difficulty), took me until mid game to figure out how planetary improvements fully work. But I have to say, it is extremely fun! I even like the pop system as it is right now.

I really want to play again, using different play styles. This particular game went largely peaceful and Altarians threatened to win a prestige victory with them being in the 90% and me being close behind. I really wanted to learn about war faring, so I thought I'd give it a try and garbled up two of my neighbours one after the other, after making sure to switch from Growth and Research into Manufacture and War themed Civilization Policies.

Built up a navy, using all the fascinating leadership based hero ships (what an interesting concept!) and noticed how the HP of ships went up just with changing a Civ Policy, giving 20% more Hit Points. Good to know!

So I won the Prestige race myself 100% to 96 % just by ignoring the winning Altarians on the other sector and by grabbing all the low hanging fruits (neighbours) in my own sector.

Really loved how I can still manage single ships from a fleet to engage the enemy. First I lost a lot of turns until I noticed I can select individual units from fleets and let them attack individual places from within the fleet. Before I just used the whole fleet most of the time!

The music OP mentions, I actually liked it and kept it turned on, which I usually normally never do. No irrititations with that at all. Liked some of the titles and found some immersive enough.

Congrats, has been a long time since I finished a game like this, and on my first run, it was super interesting and engaging!