Galactic Civilizations III

[Turisas]

2Gb is an insane amount of memory if you optimize your applications.

Because game devs in general are known for their high-level code wizardry and smart programming practices.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Just look what games like MOO did with how much RAM and what GaliCiv does and multiply that with the amount of RAM. 2GB is more than enough.

 

[Turisas]

Just because MOO had to make do with such limitations doesn't mean that GalCiv should, too. If someone doesn't have 64-bit capability these days, they probably can't run today's games either and therefore are of no concern.

 

[Burning Bridges]

There are a lot of reasons people don't use a particular system, in my case that I couldnt be assed to move 10 years worth of work environment to another system yet. That's certainly not Stardock's concern. I will move to 64bit anyways, but just not yet. However, I can already envision how in 2 years the yammering begins again, that the game did not do well enough because they did not have the latest graphics and such and to do a game like this you need at least 500 people and 50+million $.

The number of people who still use 32 bit is grossly understimated and downplayed. A lot of people I know have a somewhat older computer/laptop which they use to play Panzer General 1 or something as old, once in a while.
Those are exactly guys who would play a game like GalCiv, not just the newfags who are on Steam. The rule should be that a technical decision should be dictated by what is best and not by the circumstances (i.e. fresh from university programmer does not know how to make something run on 32 bit, so he runs to boss and demands everyone should use Windows 64 from now on).

As to >2GB really needed for what they are simulating, I completely don't buy it.

 

[Turisas]

As to >2GB really needed for what they are simulating, I completely don't buy it.

I necessarily don't either, but if Wardell says they need it, I guess he knows better.

 

[Burning Bridges]

It's their decision, as it is mine to stick with whatever I want.

 

[Ulminati]

Sure. Just don't come crying when they won't scale to your level.

 

[adddeed]

GalCiv3 looks like crap anyway, I don't buy that it needs 64 bit and lots of ram.

 

[racofer]

More games should enforce 64bits and purge 32bits system from existence. It's 2015 already for fucks sake.

 

[Angthoron]

 

[Branm]

GalCiv3 looks like crap anyway, I don't buy that it needs 64 bit and lots of ram.

LOL this one aint too bright....I can show you a fuck ton of games that look like crap and do need lots of processing power in which a 64 bit OS helps a ton....

 

[adddeed]

I don't care bro. Program better then.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

It's 50% off on Steam this weekend, which should make it a *bit* easier to swallow if GC is your type of game. I went ahead and picked it up - I liked GC2 okay. Will report later on how awful and it is and how 64 bit is lame and we should all still be running Dos.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Can you get raped by the AI in this game? Or is it checkers with graphics like GalCiv2 and Elemental?

I didn't do too hot in my first game - I attribute a good bit of it to rust though since I forgot to optimize my planets even reasonably well. I don't think it'll be too difficult on the normal-ish difficulty settings, though.

 

[Turisas]

Are the map sizes finalized yet? How ginormous is the most ginormous galaxy size?

 

[Angthoron]

I didn't play on the largest yet, either 3rd largest or 4th, and it's pretty fucking huge, after ~150 turns I still don't have 1/4th explored. Will post screens tomorrow. Map sizes/options/colonies, if you have questions, lemme know, I can take screens if it's implemented.

 

[Spectacle]

There are also to sizes above what's available in the beta so far. They are grayed out in the menu so no way to tell exactly how big they are.

 

[Turisas]

Any changes to victory conditions or are they roughly the same as gc2?

 

[Angthoron]

Any changes to victory conditions or are they roughly the same as gc2?

Fairly standard, I'd say, except the "Ascension" thing. Can't remember GC2 conditions.

Colony management screen. It's still lacking a planetary governor option, I'm guessing you'll be able to automate the management at some point. As you can see, the amount of hexes to build shit on is limited - though the limit can be extended with terraforming. It's actually not as boring as I originally reported, plus the manager AI seems to automatically start upgrade projects when better versions of buildings become available, so, yay, no need to go through a dozen planets to improve Basic Farms to Advanced Farms - the game will take care of it for you.

2x battlefleets, space station, black hole.

You can stack units in GalCiv3, and form battlefleets. Pictured are two battlefleets of mid-sized ships, which cap at 3 ships per fleet. None of that 1 unit per tile bullshit.

Diplomacy screen, pretty self-explanatory. Can mouse-over the factions to see the modifiers and general attitude towards you easily. Currently seems to be missing the "Relations between empires" mode though, I'd like to see who's warring/hating whom.

Govern screen, opened at Trade Routes window.

Oh yeah, and my current map (still not sure which size it was, somewhere at medium+) is a mighty hex with each side being 90 hexes long. So yeah, maps can be pretty fucking huge. At the start, ships move ~3-5 hexes. I'm guessing this makes the maps "kinda big".

 

[Turisas]

Ascension Victory was in one of the expansion packs, but I don't recall the United Planets one at all. Overall it looks pretty good, but is the GUI scalable at all? The last two screens look like they'd get cluttered real fast. Optimally you'd have all that crap on a secondary monitor, of course.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Ascension Victory was in one of the expansion packs, but I don't recall the United Planets one at all. Overall it looks pretty good, but is the GUI scalable at all? The last two screens look like they'd get cluttered real fast. Optimally you'd have all that crap on a secondary monitor, of course.

UP victory is new I think, but to date not implemented.

 

[exe]

The only new thing from GalCiv2 on those screens is the UP victory, I think.

 

[Angthoron]

Ascension Victory was in one of the expansion packs, but I don't recall the United Planets one at all. Overall it looks pretty good, but is the GUI scalable at all? The last two screens look like they'd get cluttered real fast. Optimally you'd have all that crap on a secondary monitor, of course.

I'll check later. They only take up a portion of the screen, anyways.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Maybe this time around they'll introduce some kind of expansion pack which actually changes combat to something more "player-controlled".

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Maybe this time around they'll introduce some kind of expansion pack which actually changes combat to something more "player-controlled".

See - this is a complaint I don't get. I'm just not into crappy tactical combat added in just to give you control over this particular element - if the game isn't built around strong tactical combat, adding it in at this stage is bound to be disappointing.

I wish the tech trees were a bit more dynamic and varied between races. Probably my big critique right now.