Galactic Civilizations III

[bonescraper]

By the way, we can expect tactical combat.

I think you guys will like what we're doing with the battles. I'm dying to talk about it but I'd be instantly killed off. I think it'll seem obvious in hindsight.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm totally hyped by medium quality ME3 rip off CGI cinematic and a promise of higher system requirements, bring it on.

 

[VonVentrue]

Not for the purposes of anything functional, as far as I am concerned. A preinstalled Win98 on VirtualPC worked slower than WinUAE on a MMX Pentium on my old P4 machine, and not a shit changed when I replaced it with i3. Jerky cursor, slow-ass opening explorer windows, and running something like Ultimate Soccer Manager 99 on it was out of the question.

Give either VMWare Player or VirtualBox a try instead; the former features a fairly decent support for 3D hardware acceleration even. I have set up two virtual machines with Win98 (when using VB, install rain to alleviate the infamous 100% CPU usage issue) and WinXP guest OS running on a Win 7 host, both of them work flawlessly.
Games tested thus far: Soldiers at War, Chaos Gate, Neverhood, Rainbow Six (VMWare), Warcraft 2 and Warlords 3.

 

[tuluse]

Pretty much this. I think the main issue was funding and getting half-decent coders and game designers. Nobody was able to make combat as good as in MOO2 and let's face it, that was at least half of the reason why the game was so damn good. The combat mechanics tend to be bare-bones (lol Endless Space or indeed GalCiv), tactical combat if present is real time and ships design mechanics manage to be a farcry from MOO 2 despite MOO2's system not being all that deep or complicated. It's just that the mechanics allowed for more modules than just weapons which differ in damage type and amount of damage dealt. How many other games had anti-missiles, MIRV missiles, CIWS, boarding mechanics and beam weapons each of which had a different special effect? Not to mention special modules.

MoO2 had the most interesting tech tree I've seen outside of a Civ* game.

Most games have boring tech trees where you don't even care what you're researching and it's going to mean +1 to something you already have.

*I'm considering Alpha Centauri a civ game for this purpose

 

[mondblut]

Not for the purposes of anything functional, as far as I am concerned. A preinstalled Win98 on VirtualPC worked slower than WinUAE on a MMX Pentium on my old P4 machine, and not a shit changed when I replaced it with i3. Jerky cursor, slow-ass opening explorer windows, and running something like Ultimate Soccer Manager 99 on it was out of the question.

Give either VMWare Player or VirtualBox a try instead; the former features a fairly decent support for 3D hardware acceleration even. I have set up two virtual machines with Win98 (when using VB, install rain to alleviate the infamous 100% CPU usage issue) and WinXP guest OS running on a Win 7 host, both of them work flawlessly.
Games tested thus far: Soldiers at War, Chaos Gate, Neverhood, Rainbow Six (VMWare), Warcraft 2 and Warlords 3.

Whoa, thanks. Meddled with VMWare player a bit and it seems to work far better than VPC. Other than having black square for a cursor, USM seems to work fine, which never happened in VPC.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Gal Civ 2 was too bland. I especially hated the whole stock markets/social production buildings spam. Literally nothing else to do on your planets. Ship design was cool, shame there only 2 viable things to put on them though.

Plus, it's goddamn Stardock. Not a lot of good can come out of this.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I'm totally hyped by medium quality ME3 rip off CGI cinematic and a promise of higher system requirements, bring it on.

Holy shit I just watched the trailer and was hoping to make a ME reference. Oh well.

That being said anyone who isn't running win7x64 is a dumbass at this point.

 

[rvm1975]

That being said anyone who isn't running win7x64 is a dumbass at this point.

Some statistics from steam

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

 

[Volrath]

Endless Space, SotS1, SotS2 (After patching). Unless you mean MoO clone strictly in the "Apes MoO but doesn't understand what makes MoO good and instead makes a gray gruel of videogaming misery since they're incapable of making anything unique on their own" sense, in which case galciv2 is best.

But Endless Space and Sword of the Stars were shit?

 

[Turisas]

Gal Civ 2 was too bland. I especially hated the whole stock markets/social production buildings spam. Literally nothing else to do on your planets. Ship design was cool, shame there only 2 viable things to put on them though.

Plus, it's goddamn Stardock. Not a lot of good can come out of this.

I hope they come up with a more interesting tech tree this time around, too. Laser I -> Laser II -> Laser III -> Laser IV was just bleh.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

What's even worse was that all the numbered techs after 'Weapon Name' I did was simply make that smaller as a ship component.

 

[Space Satan]

That being said anyone who isn't running win7x64 is a dumbass at this point.

Some statistics from steam

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

OS Version - Windows 7 64 bit - 51.41%
Haha. That reminds me about retards preching that dota1 and starcraft1 is the only true DOTA/SC2.

 

[oldmanpaco]

That being said anyone who isn't running win7x64 is a dumbass at this point.

Some statistics from steam

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

OS Version - Windows 7 64 bit - 51.41%
Haha. That reminds me about retards preching that dota1 and starcraft1 is the only true DOTA/SC2.

Windows 7 64 bit
51.41%
-0.54%

Windows 8 64 bit
15.00%
+0.99%

Windows 7
12.83%
+0.13%

Windows XP 32 bit
6.96%
+0.13%

Windows Vista 64 bit
4.47%
-0.71%

Windows Vista 32 bit
2.07%
-0.25%

There are almost as many people running Vista as there are still running XP. Wonder what that says about the x32 crowd.

Although I don't really get the 13% who are running win7x32.

 

[JarlFrank]

Doesn't work on XP, doesn't interest me.

So I don't care if it ends up being just as boring as GalCiv 2.

 

[Rayearth]

MoO2 had the most interesting tech tree I've seen outside of a Civ* game.

Most games have boring tech trees where you don't even care what you're researching and it's going to mean +1 to something you already have.

*I'm considering Alpha Centauri a civ game for this purpose

I can't even recall a 4x that had a research system as unique as Mo2's "here's three techs at the research level you just earned, but you can only choose one" mechanic. That, and also how older-tech weapons were still useful because they were smaller and you could stick mods on them.

 

[tuluse]

I can't even recall a 4x that had a research system as unique as Mo2's "here's three techs at the research level you just earned, but you can only choose one" mechanic. That, and also how older-tech weapons were still useful because they were smaller and you could stick mods on them.

I always took creative so I didn't have to choose

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

I always took creative so I didn't have to choose

One thing I liked to do was to take uncreative and penalties in spying, made game bit more interesting since you had to work with what you get instead of picking best toys. Also Very Difficult Choice mod is pretty nice.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Largely incompatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit software

I'm pretty sure the incompatibility with 32-bit software is just one of those myths that propagates itself, everybody just taking it for granted. I've used it for a good while and whatever didn't work on that doesn't work in W7 64 either.
And incompatibility with 64-bit software is just bullshit.

Or at least that's how it was back when I used it. I don't know how it fares now (save for programs dropping XP support entirely), but even then there were plenty of people going all "lol win xp 64 suckzors!"

 

[Raghar]

Well it had problems with some drivers.

 

[General Maxson]

I have some hope for this, as I miss a good space 4x, but this being Stardock, my expectations are pretty low, hope I'm wrong.

Their GalCiv2 sucked balls, and I don't get how so many people like it (ie. what's good about it? It boring as shit, like playing an excel spreadsheet). I'd rather play MOO or MOO2 for the 1000th time.

 

[Destroid]

MoO2 had the most interesting tech tree I've seen outside of a Civ* game.

Most games have boring tech trees where you don't even care what you're researching and it's going to mean +1 to something you already have.

*I'm considering Alpha Centauri a civ game for this purpose

I can't even recall a 4x that had a research system as unique as Mo2's "here's three techs at the research level you just earned, but you can only choose one" mechanic. That, and also how older-tech weapons were still useful because they were smaller and you could stick mods on them.

Honestly MoO and MoO2 have the best tech systems out of any game ever (each in their own way), which is a bit sad.

 

[rvm1975]

Derek Paxton explains how a new 64-bit engine can revitalize strategy gaming
http://www.pcgamesn.com/stardocks-d...ngine-can-revitalize-strategy-gaming/page/0/1

 

[Destroid]

More like Derek Paxton explains a load of crap.

 

[Brinko]

http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/gal...el=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Kevin Kelly at 14:34 on 20 November 2013


"A smaller company could survive off of what Galactic Civilizations II does,” Paul Boyer tells me. It’s not a humblebrag, but a testament to the passion that fans have for Stardock’s flagship 4X game. It’s also a telling statement from Boyer, who was art director on Galactic Civilizations II and is now in charge of Galactic Civilizations III, the developer’s forthcoming sequel.

After working on the GalCiv II expansions, Boyer decided that he didn’t want continue as an art director, and made his case to CEO Brad Wardell that he should be a game designer. Wardell agreed, and Boyer was handed the reins to the franchise and a new sequel. Boyer feels the weight of his new responsibility. “My biggest focus as the designer of the game at this point is to more or less not screw up.”

Part of that "not screwing up" means keeping what fans love about GalCiv II – features like its ship designer, where players have built an astounding amount of custom units. To that end, GalCiv III’s ship designer will get a big shot of steroids, to the extent that Stardock will be including basic and advanced modes. Every ship in the game will now be constructed out of basic parts, and users will be able to go in and take them apart and create whatever they want.

“All of the data side of the game will be available in an editor,” Boyer explains, “and I think that the people who have gone through the hoops to make crazy mods in GalCiv II, their heads are going to explode.” He’s also prepared for the dark side of user-generated content. “I’m ready for an assault of penis-shaped ships – that goes without saying.”



The biggest change in the core game mechanics is the switch to hexes, which was divisive among strategy fans in the past, such as when Civilization V went hex. “It was a decision I made because I was always bothered by the fact that if you move diagonally, you’re technically getting two tiles. We moved to hexes so everything could be equidistant, and it just looks sexier – more science fiction. But gameplay wise, it should help balancing substantially.”

Many of the familiar races from the game, such as the Krynn Consulate and the Iconian Refuge, will return alongside new races. The Iridium Corporation, for instance, was always part of the series’ lore but never a playable race. Boyer notes that “they are essentially ultra-capitalists, like if Apple was a race that was going to take over the universe”.

Other tweaks include revamping the UI, building a better tutorial system (including a tutorial campaign), and finetuning the AI, all within the confines of a brand-new game engine, referred to internally as Kumquat 2. Also new is the fact that Galactic Civilizations III will only run on 64-bit systems.

While some players might consider that requirement overkill for a turnbased game, Boyer considers it vital for expansion. “What tends to kill turn-based games is the fact that you can end up with thousands of units on screen at one time, so we need that memory.”



The 64-bit architecture will allow for improvements beyond the visuals as well. “Nebula storms, black holes, asteroids will be more important... all of these things are going to be out on the map. The AI will be able to do amazing planning ahead. Each of these decisions can be bigger.”

GalCiv II’s alignment system has been completely jettisoned, and in its place is a new Ideology system. “It’s not a tech tree,” Boyer explains. “It’s actually three separate pyramids, and you will be able to earn Ideology points through improvements, or more interestingly through planetary events, through cosmic events.” Each cosmic event will require you to make ideological choices, which generate points used to unlock new abilities and most cultural traits.

The final major change is that multiplayer is coming to the series for the first time, although Stardock isn’t saying how many players the game will support simultaneously. “More than four,” Boyer jokes. But he does plan on remaining true to the solo roots. “Singleplayer is the heart of the game. This is not DotA; it’s a turnbased game. There will be a campaign of course – hopefully the best campaign we’ve ever done.”

The team has a long way to go, and Boyer quoted the familiar “when it’s ready” line when asked about possible release dates for alphas, betas and beyond. “This game has to be perfect,” he says. “We’ve had games in the past where bad things happened because they had to be out a certain time. So this game will be released when it’s done, and we’re going to make sure it’s awesome.” Which means you might want to add a fifth X here for "exhale," as we might be waiting a while.

 

[Space Satan]

GalCiv's problems are not hexes, but several key concepts that were totally broken and affected overall game. Combat, planet developement and quality for example. But mainly combat.