Idea for Improving on Ship Roles and Making Mixed Fleets More Viable in GC4

from GalCiv4 Forums

I like game design and probably should've gone into it.  I like games that tell stories and the Gal Civ series has done a great job at that.  100% of my experience is with Gal Civ 3, but I will have to go try Gal Civ 2 someday because I've heard so many great things about it.  

Something that frustrated me in GC3 was that I found it difficult to mix different hull types and my most cohesive fleets were made up of one ship type with maybe a support ship in the mix.  Part of this is caused by the speed mechanic in GC3 and part of it is just min-maxing logistics. This led to many battles feeling similar to one another and I generally skip all but the most important clashes.

Mixing ship sizes would make fleets feel more varied and enriches the narrative/world.    

In the current 0.65 iteration of GC4 I haven't yet found a need to combine ships of different sizes.  I need to get a better grasp on the mechanics of combat though. 

I think there might be a way to make mixing ship sizes beneficial and make it fit within the Gal Civ narrative.

My first idea was to make two versions of every weapon.  One that targets tiny/small hulls and one that does more damage to large/huge hulls.  In retrospect this doesn't really help and drastically increases the amount of customization the player and the A.I. do so it wasn't a great idea.

I think a better way would be changing how ship roles work.  The ship role is something the player already had to set in GC 3 so it really wouldn't change the amount of work a player/A.I. has to do.  

For this idea I would give each hull type 2-3 roles it could full fill with advantages and disadvantages to each role.

Some examples:

Tiny Hull

Role: 

Dog Fighter - Damage buff against tiny and small ships, but damage reduction to large and huge hulls. Targets: Tiny>Small>Medium>Large>Huge

Bomber - Reverse of the Dog Fighter. Targets: Huge>Large>Medium>Small>Tiny

Multi-role - No changes. Target: Closest ship

Small Hull

Role: 

Corvette - Damage buff against small and medium ships, higher chance to dodge. Targets: Small>Medium>Tiny>Large>Huge

Heavy Assault - Increased fire rate, decreased damage.  Can help with attacks on core worlds if paired with a transport. Targets: Closest ship

Medium Hull

Role:

Frigate - Increased fire rate, but large  decrease in damage against medium hull and above. Targets: Tiny>Small>Medium>Large>Huge

Cruiser - No changes. Target: Closest ship

 

Making unique roles for different hull types specializes them without a lot of extra customization and would give me and other players a reason to mix and match different sized ships.

Anyway, food for thought.

galactic civilizations iv
10,344 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I had some thoughts for large and huge hulls.

Large Hull

Role:

Battleship - Large increase in damage to medium hulls, increase in damage to large hulls, slight increase in damage to huge hulls. Targets: Medium>Large>Huge>Small>Tiny

Battle Cruiser -  Large increase in damage to small hulls, slight increase in damage to tiny hulls. Slight increase to fire rate.  Targets: Small>Tiny>Medium>Large>Huge

Huge Hull

Role:

Dreadnought - Large increase in fire rate, but a large drop in damage to large and huge hulls. Targets: Tiny>Small>Medium>Large>Huge

Super Weapon A.KA. Glass Cannon A.K.A the Death Star -  Huge increase in damage, but slowed firing rate.  High chance to miss medium ships, and extremely high chance to miss small, and tiny ships. Targets: Huge>Large>Medium>Small>Tiny

Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

When looking at Escort, Capital, Strike, etc. designations for how particular ships behave in battle, i.e. how they move and what they move to try to attack, i.e. their targeting order, we need A Carrier mode, as well as modes designed to attack the other side's Carriers FIRST in targeting priority, as well as ways to split your Fighters of whatever type they are into offensive and defensive missions, i.e. the equivalent of the old Combat Air Patrol (CAP).

I have wanted for a long time in the previous versions of GC some way to be able to change and set the combat Modes (Escort, Capital, etc.) of individual ships before they go into battle offensively, as well as while they are on patrol, as well as how they will react defensively, i.e. when an AI (or other human Player in multi player games) attacks your ships on their turn.

 

Sins of a Solar Empire II