I still think its much better to have the choice to play the aliens rather than just modified humans all the time..

humans tooooday, humand tomorrah, humans fa'ever!!!!!!!

-russellmz, leader of the humans first militaristic party, future president for life of the evil, domain of inalienable confederate humans (ie, the DICHs)

Sounds like Jythier read L. Ron Hubbard's space yarn. Remember the "has been will be" engines?

~SDC~

"I still think its much better to have the choice to play the aliens rather than just modified humans all the time.. "

And yet you give no reasoning.

This cracks me up because you have probably never played the game. All I can say is look at other TBS games and their different 'civ/race' choices. CivIII allows you to chose from 16 different civs. The only difference is in their bonuses and unique unit and appearance. Whoopedoo. MOO3, pretty much the same thing, its just number and picture changes. Both these games have weak AI's and pretty much no story. Who you play as or against is no different in GalCiv, except for the fact that you're called the humans, and instead of picking a civ with set traits, you simply choose yer own.

I think too many people are in the mindset that more 'races/civs' means a better game. The 'Play the World' add on for CivIII is a joke. If you dont need multiplayer, its worthless. The added civs add nothing to the game. If you didnt like the existing civs you could just hack the game and change one.

Traviathan, I don't entirely agree with you. taking Se4 or MOO2 as example, you definitely CAN play "aliens" of much different "flavours" (but no background, I concede that), that plays MUCH more differently from each others or from "humans" (even if those are customizable).
Taking abilities as MOO2 Lithovore, Telepath, Increased Growth or SE4 Methane-breath or Religious tech made for entirely different strategies.

I'm pretty sure that Galciv will give enough customizability (uh ? ) to enjoy 1000s of games AND have background story and events that these games lacked, but it will not allow the same level of "differences".

Frogboy:
"But you'll be able to make your own ships with tools we're releasing with the bonuspak or shortly after."

Space Dust:
"It's modable with the utility they will release in final version."

So there you go guys. If you REALLY want to play the Haskjahs or the Granaadoenososes it's just a question of renaming and put some new sprites in the game. Well, not that it's really easy to make but I'm sure people will start making those mods.

So if you REALLY can't live with the Human only thing, there's your passport to using any race you like.

Looks like the game is greatly customizable for the people who enjoy making mods. Another great feature for this great game!

"This cracks me up because you have probably never played the game"

I have the beta.
Let me say that it's more than just the point that you could play evil humans or good humans, some guys like to roleplay and the idea of leading a robotic race or an sakkra type race appeals to the imagination thats why most people like the choice fanboy.

So, appeal to your own imagination. Make up a race and mod the game, or imagine you modded the game. Or change Terran to Those Other Guys. Whatever you want. It's your game. Or if you don't buy it, it's not. So what are you worried about? The idea of this game appeals to me so I'm going to buy it, even if it's not everything everyone wants it to be. Just my take on it.

Yea.. if you don't like it, simply don't purchase it.

I rather wish I could play as other races as well, mostly for the 'neato' aspect of it, but it hardly kills the game for me. Playing this way, I will soon get into a happy 'us against THEM' mentality, which should be a kick.

Really.. in games like MOO2 and SEIV, the only difference was you would inhabit different sorts of planets. The changes for each race was actually pretty minor. Since this game completely lets you tweak and customize, the initial starting bonuses are irrelevant from those other games.

In fact.. it was sometimes annoying. If I wanted a fighting bonus in ships, I HAD to be the cats, no choice. At least now, I can tweak to my hearts content, and that to me, is more important that if I breathe oxygen or hydrogen or methane.

fleabitfox

... I'm pretty sure breathing oxygen would be a lot more important to you if you were in a room full of hydrogen, or methane, at the moment.

fleabitfox,
How can you say
"Really.. in games like MOO2 and SEIV, the only difference was you would inhabit different sorts of planets. The changes for each race was actually pretty minor"
and "In fact.. it was sometimes annoying. If I wanted a fighting bonus in ships, I HAD to be the cats, no choice. " ???
That's obviously NOT true, in those 2 games you could customize as much as you want, give ships bonus to Psilon or EEEmpire.. And those DID define the strategy you had to pursue.

I'm not flaming GalCiv at all, I'm pretty happy with what it'll give, but you can't make such untrue conclusions on other 4x games...

Sorry, but redistributing 10 "ability" points to other factors and choosing "party affiliations", does not introduce a WIDE RANGE of customability that makes up for the LACK OF choice in this game.

ALPHA CENTAURI perhaps got it right out of any game I have played. Each civilization was distinct and different, and even had social restrictions based on who they were as a group. So far, I've yet to see any of this in the game. And a reformatted "customization" screen from this Bonus Pack isn't going to change things.

So far the game is "ok".

MOO2 had the coolest race customization I've seen yet. Aquatic race, telepathic race, etc. were very cool changes. HOWEVER, it was fairly easy to make an almost "unbeatable" race in that game.

Simply put, the more complex options you put in a game like that, the more difficult it becomes to keep the gameplay balanced. The AI is also very negatively influenced by the complexity of the game's basic design. Think back to each of those games that had all the "cool customization features" (MOO2, Master of Magic, Alpha Centauri, etc.),and remember how very poor the AI was in those games.

It's easy to assume you can just add things to a game design and that everything else already in the game that was good before those changes were introduced will stay good, but that's simply not usually true.

You also have to consider what a game is trying to accomplish, and weigh whether anything that could potentially be added really improves on the core experience the game is trying to provide for you. In this case, the game seems to strive to give you a lot of strategic decision making that genuinely affects the actual gameplay in significant ways, an ultra-challenging AI, etc. Anything you add that reduces the effectivenless of the AI, no matter how cool it might otherwise be, will greatly diminish the entire game. And honestly, with the race customization features already in the game, you can totally change the way you have to strategically approach the game, giving you a notably different play experience. So while it might not have "everything" you want, the essence of what you want is probably already there...varied and challenging strategic gameplay with a high degree of replayability. Are the specific things you want added to the game REALLY worth it when the AI and/or game balance would probably suffer?

Couldn't it be just as easily said that, "Wow MOO2 and Alpha Centauri really rocked, but wouldn't they have been ten times better if the AI was really challenging and surprised me a lot?". The truth is, all the added "features" of those games are a big part of why the AI was not very effective. Everything has a cost...

--Soulfire

Personnally, I am going to wait until 3/26 to play the game, and then if I have really bright ideas for improving the game (ie Civilization Customizations included) I will post it on this forum for Frogboy, Stardock, and the other players to consider for a future update.

As people have said the races aren't all that different in the end. Though alien races allow for some of the odder abilitys like rock eating and telepathy. Races also add a distinctive personality to enemies sometimes. But mostly what added races are good for is variation.

Eventually the same look of ships, same race and rounded out abilitys get boring. Is a Cat-man with feline reflexes that different? Not really, but the cat-man race has different looking ships and would improve the variation. I don't get how "too many features hurt the AI", but all races are similiar as both being arguements not to have more. If they're all similar, whats the problem? It wouldn't hurt the AI any.

Also, what is this backstory? Was the ability to play other races trashed for more custom random events? I don't know about anyone else, but i've never played a TBS for its story, playing the game is your own story. Who cares Planet-X had a plague in the year 2463, I spent from 2382 to 2436 conquering the evil Whomevers. Tell me about that, not a few hundred million dieing where noone cares. I don't see a good reason not to be able to play other races, and being able to mod it in really isn't the answer.

But, i've got some hope. They said they plan to work on the game for a full year after release, thats enough time to allow alien races playable. Don't take my criticism the wrong way, I do like the game and can't wait to try it, i'm just a bit baffled by people arguing against having more races to play.