Lengthy list of observations, comments, and bugs
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
This is going to be both far ranging and lengthy so please bear with me. I’ll attempt to organize things by section but there is some overlap. I finished my first complete game of Beta 1Z last night and I have quite a few observations and comments which I hope will be of value.
Planets:
1. The game needs a way to get a quick overview of what is currently in production on a given planet.
2. When another race finishes a one per galaxy production item it would be helpful if that fact were to become a news item, especially if one of my planets has the same item in its production stream.
3. The game could use an “at a glance” list of planetary production ratings. This leads into the next item.
4. The planet listing, however it turns out to look has to be sortable by, at least, planet class, production rating, morale, population, and income.
5. In the planet listing, the values next to the planet name:
a. What is the red number in the upper right of each entry?
b. Morale seems to be the number attached to the little “thumbs up” image but it doesn’t always match the morale value that appears if you go to the planet detail screen.
c. What is the icon and value between population and morale? It looks like a little gallows.
6. Planet detail screen – hit the detail button – the economy value on this screen doesn’t seen to bear any relation to any other economic indicator. What is this number and what is it supposed to be?
7. On the planet “Detail” screen in the Social Projects built area there are two scroll buttons that appear if the list of projects is larger than the display area. These scroll buttons do not function.
8. Planetary system influence ratings appear to be far too random. Sol system with a couple of nice planets has an influence rating of 1. A nearby, scruffy, white dwarf with one class 6 planet has an influence rating of 3.
Technology:
1. A goodly percentage of the techs in the game currently do nothing. I eagerly await the addition of more functioning technologies.
2. The technology “Beyond Human” has three technologies listed in the “you get access to these techs by researching the current tech” area of the screen but by researching “Beyond Human” the game ends. How does one access those techs?
3. In the entire game there is only one technology that improves sensor technology and that one is “Sensors” at the start of the game. There should be more techs that allow a race to improve this aspect.
4. Researched the tech that allowed the construction of Eyes of the Universe but the item never appeared as a buildable choice. As far as I can tell no other race built it either.
United Planets:
1. In the United Planets display, the one that pops up when there is a vote to be taken, the display area for how many votes a race has to cast is 4 digits in size. This has to be 5 digits wide. When you get more than 9999 votes the last digit is being clipped.
2. It would be helpful if your race’s total United Planet votes were visible somewhere amid the Domestic Policy screens.
Miscellaneous:
1. Space debris: During the entire course of the game I found an absurdly high percentage of things that added to the attack value of the ship, better than 80%, the remaining 20% was almost entirely comprised of hitpoint additions, in the entire game I found only 3 adders to defense.
2. When you totally absorb a race through peaceful means (they trade you all their planets) you should get their ships as well. This to my mind is the equivalent of the race saying: “Wow! We want to join you guys.” What happens currently is that all of the absorbed race’s ships become “zombies” and just sit there, nominally owned by the now defunct race, and do nothing, either taking up orbital slots or lying dead in space.
If you try to attack one of the zombie ships you get a pop-up that asks you whether you want to declare war on the now non-existent race.
3. I had two races declare war on me during the course of the game but there was no pop-up that informed me of that fact (which was the case before Beta 1Z). There was just a sudden attack and a change in the relationship status on the Diplomacy screen.
4. On the Domestic Policy screens – Stats tab – Abilities section: If you get all possible bonuses to abilities there isn’t room in the designated area to hold them all. The “Soldiering” bonus gets bumped out of the viewable area and there is no way to scroll the area.
5. Starting another game, without shutting down GalCiv after winning results in strangeness.
Nothing shows up on the planet build area as a choice to build on colonized planets.
The tech that I researched to win the game “Beyond Human” was completed and I got the end-game summary screen but I never did get the “You have researched the technology…time to choose another…screen. Except. That screen did show up as I whacked the “Turn” button for the first turn in the next game.
6. The game, overall, could use more tool-tips. One example of an area that could use them is the planet listing.
7. What is prestige good for? Many of the late-game, expensive, buildings add to prestige. What does it do? Has prestige been implemented yet?
8. If a one of a kind trade good has been produced by a race and a trade deal for that item is in effect with another race the item disappears from the tradegoods section of the Diplomacy screen and reappears as a production choice in the planetary build queues.
If these one of a kind items are only able to be traded to one race at a time then there should be some indicator placed next to the trade good that signifies that it’s currently being traded. This doesn’t make a lot of sense though. You should be able to trade things, especially special trade items to more than one race at a time.
Cheers
Magus
Planets:
1. The game needs a way to get a quick overview of what is currently in production on a given planet.
2. When another race finishes a one per galaxy production item it would be helpful if that fact were to become a news item, especially if one of my planets has the same item in its production stream.
3. The game could use an “at a glance” list of planetary production ratings. This leads into the next item.
4. The planet listing, however it turns out to look has to be sortable by, at least, planet class, production rating, morale, population, and income.
5. In the planet listing, the values next to the planet name:
a. What is the red number in the upper right of each entry?
b. Morale seems to be the number attached to the little “thumbs up” image but it doesn’t always match the morale value that appears if you go to the planet detail screen.
c. What is the icon and value between population and morale? It looks like a little gallows.
6. Planet detail screen – hit the detail button – the economy value on this screen doesn’t seen to bear any relation to any other economic indicator. What is this number and what is it supposed to be?
7. On the planet “Detail” screen in the Social Projects built area there are two scroll buttons that appear if the list of projects is larger than the display area. These scroll buttons do not function.
8. Planetary system influence ratings appear to be far too random. Sol system with a couple of nice planets has an influence rating of 1. A nearby, scruffy, white dwarf with one class 6 planet has an influence rating of 3.
Technology:
1. A goodly percentage of the techs in the game currently do nothing. I eagerly await the addition of more functioning technologies.
2. The technology “Beyond Human” has three technologies listed in the “you get access to these techs by researching the current tech” area of the screen but by researching “Beyond Human” the game ends. How does one access those techs?
3. In the entire game there is only one technology that improves sensor technology and that one is “Sensors” at the start of the game. There should be more techs that allow a race to improve this aspect.
4. Researched the tech that allowed the construction of Eyes of the Universe but the item never appeared as a buildable choice. As far as I can tell no other race built it either.
United Planets:
1. In the United Planets display, the one that pops up when there is a vote to be taken, the display area for how many votes a race has to cast is 4 digits in size. This has to be 5 digits wide. When you get more than 9999 votes the last digit is being clipped.
2. It would be helpful if your race’s total United Planet votes were visible somewhere amid the Domestic Policy screens.
Miscellaneous:
1. Space debris: During the entire course of the game I found an absurdly high percentage of things that added to the attack value of the ship, better than 80%, the remaining 20% was almost entirely comprised of hitpoint additions, in the entire game I found only 3 adders to defense.
2. When you totally absorb a race through peaceful means (they trade you all their planets) you should get their ships as well. This to my mind is the equivalent of the race saying: “Wow! We want to join you guys.” What happens currently is that all of the absorbed race’s ships become “zombies” and just sit there, nominally owned by the now defunct race, and do nothing, either taking up orbital slots or lying dead in space.
If you try to attack one of the zombie ships you get a pop-up that asks you whether you want to declare war on the now non-existent race.
3. I had two races declare war on me during the course of the game but there was no pop-up that informed me of that fact (which was the case before Beta 1Z). There was just a sudden attack and a change in the relationship status on the Diplomacy screen.
4. On the Domestic Policy screens – Stats tab – Abilities section: If you get all possible bonuses to abilities there isn’t room in the designated area to hold them all. The “Soldiering” bonus gets bumped out of the viewable area and there is no way to scroll the area.
5. Starting another game, without shutting down GalCiv after winning results in strangeness.
Nothing shows up on the planet build area as a choice to build on colonized planets.
The tech that I researched to win the game “Beyond Human” was completed and I got the end-game summary screen but I never did get the “You have researched the technology…time to choose another…screen. Except. That screen did show up as I whacked the “Turn” button for the first turn in the next game.
6. The game, overall, could use more tool-tips. One example of an area that could use them is the planet listing.
7. What is prestige good for? Many of the late-game, expensive, buildings add to prestige. What does it do? Has prestige been implemented yet?
8. If a one of a kind trade good has been produced by a race and a trade deal for that item is in effect with another race the item disappears from the tradegoods section of the Diplomacy screen and reappears as a production choice in the planetary build queues.
If these one of a kind items are only able to be traded to one race at a time then there should be some indicator placed next to the trade good that signifies that it’s currently being traded. This doesn’t make a lot of sense though. You should be able to trade things, especially special trade items to more than one race at a time.
Cheers
Magus
There is a delay in updating. Opening the planet screen should force the planet list to update.