Will this game be crazy hard?

from Stardock Forums
It seems to me the reason a lot of people aren't buying games anymore is that the 'fun factor' has been replaced by insane levels of complexity and difficulty. I guess the thinking is 'if being able to design 12 different ships is good, being able to design 120 will be 10 times as good!'. I dloaded the Space Empires IV gold demo and thought it was 'spreadsheets in space' - ridiculously complicated.

And then you get games where the AI cheats like crazy. You've built four ships and they have a fleet of sixty-three ships in the same time.

Remember Ascendancy? I really enjoyed that game, although it got a little tedious towards the end.

Will galciv be more of an Ascendancy, with an emphasis on fun, or will it be another 'throw in the kitchen sink, be the ultimate game' kinda game?

I've been waiting for a good, fun, 'build a galactic empire' game for a long time, and it looks like moo3 is sure not it.

Comments?

-Mike
238 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The basics of GalCiv are much easier than most games. Rather than make the game "challenging" by making it supre complex, we are focusing on giving the game a lot more depth where the AI and the population and trade seem to be somewhat organic in nature (i.e. they seem truly alive).

So in GalCiv, for instance, you build ships that come with a given technology. Ships just have attack, defense, and hitpoints along with experience. As they gain experience, the ships become more powerful. Ship battles are simply a matter of intersecting with an enemy ship.

The depth comes from deciding what technologies you want to research. What decisions in diplomacy you make. What improvements you make to your planets. How you use your influence.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
There is something about Gal Civ, it's like it's a really simple game at first but under the covers you have a wealth of depth. It's the type of turn base strategy game that you can pick up and start playing right away, without reading the manual. It has a really good UI that just makes sense, any gamer will be able to get into the game in the first half hour. I am of course talking about the OS/2 version, this is how I felt the first time I played it, when I came for a job interview like 3 years ago. :-) I didn't have to ask the guys "what does this button do??" "How do I build a ship??" etc. Now with the windows version we are trying to make it even easier but at the same time adding more depth and playability. Oh and the AI... Brad has had 5 years to improve on an already good AI. Any OS/2 user that played Gal Civ will tell you Gal Civ had a great AI.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
It has a really good UI that just makes sense, any gamer will be able to get into the game in the first half hour.

Any gamer that has played any other 4X game. I FPS only gamer would be lost, either with or without the Stardock manual.

Frank
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
BTW -- I tried to use some html to make the quote look like a quote -- and failed.

How would I do that (bold or italic some text)?

Frank
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Our forum is custom made so it's a bit primitive in respect to formating. :VOMIT:
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Frank,
How about plain old simple quote marks (")?

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with you "Fun 4 Free" when it comes to the casual gamer but I think the a FPS gamer, also know as a hardcore gamer just doesn't have the patience to play a turn based game, or any STG game for the matter unless of course it's from Blizzard. I think if we give the game a faster paced early on, we may be able to attract hardcore gamers ass well. Of course later on it's a different story :-) In the end we are making this game for the Hardcore strategy players.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Ahh when are we getting that "edit post" feature anyway??
:d
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't know, but I want a feature to hide the puking face...every time I see it, I want to puke...
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
" In the end we are making this game for the Hardcore strategy players. "

Yes. When I first met GalCiv 2.0, I had only played CivII -- and I read a ton of stuff for Civ II before everything made sense. But, having that template in my mind, everything was intuitively obvious in GalCiv 2.0. I think that if I had started with GalCiv 2.0 rather than Civ II, I might have been lost because the *Stardock Tradition of Terrible Manuals* was in full swing at about that time.

For newcommers to Stardock -- they code well, but document poorly. Of course, I haven't really looked at their newer stuff except GalCiv/Win -- and you can't judge the documentation until the release date. But, if I were to wager -- I'd bet that when release date comes the manual will not win any awards for comprehensiveness.

Cheers,

Frank
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
LOL, thats right... the SF docs need to be updated, once the summer comes and I am out of school I am going to work on a few things for SF :CONGRAT:
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Don't worry the Gal Civ for windows Docs will be up there with everything else out there. Gal Civ for OS/2 was done with a much smaller team then what we have now.