Ironically the Avault review is netting new puchases

from Stardock Forums
How can I say that? Because I am buying it now. After the accusations that the game cheats in the review, I had to come here to find out for myself if this was true. Finding out by reading these forums the fact that it is NOT true (the AI does not cheat), means this is an amazing feat in AI devlopment, and I am now buying the game.

It would be neat howveer if the author posted a correction/retraction.

Galciv, you can claim defamation of character and/or false reporting and force them to make a statment as to the incorrect nature of part of the review.
357 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The AI does get extra money, abilities at the highest levels. But the Avault reviewer was playing at Normal. An experienced player can beat the game at Normal without really working very hard.

In his follow-up, he talks about various game wrecking events coming up in the first 50 turns which is, frankly, impossible.

There are literally hard coded requirements that the game year be >2185 before ANY event, even the little ones, can come up. In other words, events don't even begin to show up until turn 84 and the bigger ones don't show up until well after that. And that's in 1.0. In the 1.01A update, the tough events don't even show up at low difficulty levels.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad: out of curiosity, what qualifies as a "tough event" for those purposes? I played a Tiny game on Cakewalk, and -never- had a random event come up, even the planetfall ones. Not that I play on Cakewalk very often (or ever will again :) but that was a little bit of a bummer...you miss a lot of game flavor without the morality choices.

~SDC~
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
"An experienced player can beat the game at Normal without really working very hard."

I've played a whooping nine games, and I can already win at Intelligent, so I can confirm that Frogboy isn't making that up. :)

- Ash

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
NINE!?!? gaagh- took me three days to finish my fourth one I think. Shew, tough one, but scored well.

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Oh, MAN! It's not giving me my 1001 Mpoints... -sigh- I hope that one shows up soon. Trying to help out the GG empire!

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
A tough event would be like the Draginol event or something that is basically a puzzle that if you fail to solve it it could destroy your civilization.

In the shipping game, those only come up well after turn 100. In 1.01A, they won't even come up after then unless you're at higehr difficulty levels.

The Avault reviewer posting at http://forums.avault.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=001071;p=3 is currently trying to parse his words on the events. The meaning of them seemed pretty plain. I think next he's doing to say "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." It's getting, unfortunately, pretty unconstructive. Essentially, everyone else is wrong but him. The other reviewers. The other posters. me. Etc. And we're all reading what he wrote wrong. He really thinks the game is great -- even though he doesn't recommend it.

~SDC~
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah, he's parsing his words - very Clintonian :) The other part that gets me is his saying that he can't recommend the game out of the box. I don't see how he can make that statement!

Grifman
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
"It's getting, unfortunately, pretty unconstructive."

It is. If I were you, Brad, I'd bow out gracefully. You've made your point, you've had lots of backup from various people here making cross-over posts, and you've generated a LOT of press for GalCiv via the discussion. As Eminem well knows, there's no such thing as bad press.

Of course, I've never had a game I designed criticized unfairly (having never designed a game :p), so saying "cut and run" is pretty easy for me. I imagine it's a bit harder for you. :)

Dearmad: "NINE!?!? gaagh- took me three days to finish my fourth one I think."

The first 7 were on Small maps. Games 8 and 9 have been on medium (Game 8 didn't submit 'cuz my net connection was down). So while I've played nine games to completion, they have been much smaller games than many people around here are playing. I'm going to start a Large map later tonight, once I get some coffee made (Brad: it's Friday night and I'm planning to pull an all-nighter playing your game. I mean this in the nicest possible way: you bastard. ;p)

- Ash

~SDC~