Galactic Civilizations III

[mastroego]

Could you point me to the mod? Might be interesting if I replay it.

You're looking for Altarn's Polished Twilight of the Arnor 2.

APT1 is a purist AI fix mod, which introduces as minimal changes as Altarn was able to.

APT2 is not "modder's vision" kind of mod. You won't find the equivalent of Cloud's sword or anything. But it does go beyond strict fixes and tries to improve the game balance in a way that is consistent with the spirit of Twilight of The Arnor. Both mods can be found behind the link, but I strongly encourage you to use APT2. It makes for a far better game.

Have fun

I have avoided GalCiv II so far because of what I read about its combat mechanic. I don't hate the paper, rock, scissors mechanic so much as the simple fact that one has (apparently) to refit his fleet all the time.
I can appreciate micromanagement but not micromanagement hell which is not even meaningful to begin with.
Would you say that this mod would help mitigate even this issue?

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Is rock paper scissor confirmed in? I'm not really following this. I just can't get hyped for another boring Wardell game.

 

[Gord]

I have avoided GalCiv II so far because of what I read about its combat mechanic. I don't hate the paper, rock, scissors mechanic so much as the simple fact that one has (apparently) to refit his fleet all the time.
I can appreciate micromanagement but not micromanagement hell which is not even meaningful to begin with.
Would you say that this mod would help mitigate even this issue?

In most of my games (modded ot not), enemy races are quite often collectively using the same type of weapon system.
Probably due to spying and tech trade. I always held out with low-tech weapons until some general trend would emerge and then research whichever system enemy couldn't defend against. Enemy defenses work similarly, but depend more strongly on how aggressive you play. Could be different at highest difficulties, though.
Anyway, that aspect never struck me as partiularly bad, but ymmv...

 

[sovijus]

In practice you never micromanage ships designs to that level. Weapons always beat defenses, if they are on the same(ish) level. The only time that you can use defenses effectively is when you are significantly ahead of your opponent. And even then you don't change your ships designs that much, just design them before war and mass produce.

 

[mastroego]

Thanks for the replies.
I might give it a chance with the mod then.

I do believe (like many others) that Wardell means well but isn't very talented and tends to do boring stuff.
That said, I did receive for free Fallen Enchantress AND Legendary Heroes (I pre-ordered Elemental) and I must say that Legendary Heroes has reached the status of "Good Game".
There is new blood in the team so there's some hope for this next game I guess.

 

[Turisas]

http://www.pcgamer.com/au/2014/09/01/galactic-civilizations-3-can-support-a-100-faction-game/

Will be cool to have a fuckton of factions with those massive maps.

 

[Blaine]

GalCivII is a very good 4X, but I loved it dearly for one reason: You could build absolutely any ship design you could dream up using hundreds of greebles (parts; I believe they were called "jewellry" officially) each of which you could resize, stretch/deform, rotate, and freely place.

 

[Elim]

Honestly, I do not give a damn about 100 factions.

The problem with GalCiv was always the game-play. It was shallow. And the game felt "soulless" if that makes any sense.
The best part was building ships.

I hope combat will have more depth this time, so that your designs really matter.

 

[Destroid]

The ship design and combat in galciv2 was so weak, the civ style units and combats from galciv 1 is preferable, even with no interesting terrain for them to fight over.

 

[Rahdulan]

Oh boy, oh boy. It sure is pretty.

http://forums.galciv3.com/458426

Beta 2, which adds diplomacy, trade, the United Planets, and the Krynn faction, is now available! Log into your Steam client to automatically update Galactic Civilizations III, and don’t forget to give us your feedback on the official or Steam forums.

Features
Added Diplomacy
Added the Krynn Faction: Including Racial traits and Unique Technology Tree
Added the ability to trade: Credits, Techs, Ships, Starbases, Planets and Strategic Resources
Added the ability to build trade routes with other players planets
Added Rally Points, to command your fleets to a location of your choosing
Added United Planets and United Planets Resolutions in order to govern the galaxy
Added a new mood system which drives the AI's choices in decision making
Added the Influence Victory
Added the Alliance Victory
Added the Ascension Victory
Added the Research Victory
Added Universal Translator Tech, needed in order to communicate with the other factions of the game
Added two options to the game settings : Event Frequency & United Planets Frequency
Added In-game Victory Options, to change the victory conditions of the game if you so choose
Added the flavor text system which is the foundation to create unique user experiences
Added decommission button to shipyard screen, enabling the ability to delete an unwanted shipyard
Added a first contact screen when you meet another civilization for the first time
Added Galactic events (19 new events) which can randomly occur as you play
Added the ability to have Galactic Events offer ideological choices in how you deal with them (similar to colonization events)
Added new music to Diplomacy, Govern and Ship Yard Screens
Added Precursor Relics
Added Huge galaxy map size
Can now decommission ships and get credits back

Balance
Too many balance changes to mention

UI
Added Diplomacy/Foreign Relations Screen
Added trade screen and trade route map making it easier to manage and view trade routes
Added Rally Points Screen giving you the ability to command ships to their desired location
Added treaties screen so that treaties can be observed or broken if desired
Added "at war/peace" icons to the power tab to display which civilzations you are at war/peace with
Added a popup to display when a planet becomes culture flipped
Brought back adjacency arrows to the planet screen
Approval system updated: production now slows when the treasury goes negative
Added you have been invaded notification
Added a popup to display ship movement on the hex grid, making it easier to calculate ship movement
Fixed mini map scaling issues, (so it fits in the box better)
Enabled minimap zoom
Made the minimap able be displayed on other screens. (Trade routes - Rally points etc.)
New shipyards will now request the starting planet
Loading screen now has a check box list of sponsor planets so player can choose what planets to take population from
Population on the main game window to only show 1 decimal "12.5" instead of "12.50"

AI
Weaker AI fleets gang up on a stronger fleet
AI are now better at improvement placing choices, use adjacency, and use planet features
AI now reuses shipyards instead of just making one every time for each planet

Fixes
Fixed mini map scaling issues (so it fits in the box better)
New font system so that text would display for Intel embedded graphics users (also improved performance)
Smooth ship movement on screen (reduce zigzag patterns)
Fixed issues with Black holes being visible over the FOW
Camera now centers on the planet that is being colonized
Camera now centers on the battle that is taking place
Fixed a bug where there was an issue with Planets attacking adjacent ship
Fixed long loading times
Fixed particle effect performance issues
Fixed graphical issues with the ships
Fixed crash when custom parts were added to ship design
Fixed an issue that allowed you to put more than 1 cargo modules per ship
Fix error in Prerequisites on Culture Improvements
Fixed an issue where star bases and shipyards would not observe logistics laws
Fixed an issue on the planet screen where terraforming selection tiles go off of the map
Fixed an issue where ships would animate under FOW
Loading ships now take evenly from all sponsor worlds by default
Fixed an issue with non-english symbol/character in the user's profile path causing the game to not save properly
Memory Usage fixes

 

[LizardWizard]

So is this actually any different or an improvement over GC2? Worth 22 bux? Because everything is 50% off on the stardock store with code: STARDOCK50

Loathe giving Wardell money but sort of loved/hated Galactic Civ 2.

 

[Muty]

So is this actually any different or an improvement over GC2? Worth 22 bux? Because everything is 50% off on the stardock store with code: STARDOCK50

Loathe giving Wardell money but sort of loved/hated Galactic Civ 2.

Wait this came out and I missed it?

JOIN THE BETA TODAY

nope

 

[Gord]

Apparently Beta3 is now out, but it seems to go with the WL2 Beta definition, i.e. it's not feature complete yet.
Anyone playing it?

 

[Eyestabber]

I've been playing the beta and i'd say the game looks really promising. Ship designer is vastly expanded, tech tree is HUGE, ideology system seems like an interesting idea and factions play reasonably different from each other (Yor feels pretty unique). GC 3 is, for good or ill, VERY faithful to GC 2. Stardock is clearly preaching to the choir of GC fans. It all boils down to a simple question: did you enjoy GC 2? Yes -> you will enjoy GC 3. No -> unless you had a change of heart during the last couple of years, GC 3 is not really the game for you. Stardock is NOT changing the CORE aspects of GC, so it's a matter of "love it or leave it".

 

[General Maxson]

Too bad, as I found GC2 as interesting as an excel sheet simulator game. No mystery of exploration, no interesting techs or events, no nothing...

 

[mastroego]

Sheet simulator, you say.
So, despite all the new hired blood, it's still a Stardock release, is this what you guys are saying?

Josh Sawyer for RPGs, Stardock for strategy games.
Why is the gaming landscape so barren?

 

[Eyestabber]

Sheet simulator, you say.
So, despite all the new hired blood, it's still a Stardock release, is this what you guys are saying?

Josh Sawyer for RPGs, Stardock for strategy games.
Why is the gaming landscape so barren?

Well, it all comes down to expectations, really. When CIV 4 BTS was released I spent so many hours of my life playing "Final Frontier"...

I wished it was a standalone game and Gal Civ kindda gave me what I wanted, so yeah, I like Galactic Civilizations. Stardock TRIES at least. I still mourn the death of the Civilization franchise (CIV V = ). Stardock is a harmless kitty compared to certain OTHER evils out there...

 

[Raghar]

I looked at pirate early version. It was boring. The worst thing it's too similar to previous version.

 

[tuluse]

Too bad, as I found GC2 as interesting as an excel sheet simulator game. No mystery of exploration, no interesting techs or events, no nothing...

What you don't like researching Laser +2, Laser +3, Laser +4?

 

[mastroego]

Stardock TRIES at least.

What you don't like researching Laser +2, Laser +3, Laser +4?

Must not be trying too hard, I would say...

 

[Raghar]

What you don't like researching Laser +2, Laser +3, Laser +4?

Because these had next to no impact on the game.

 

[Eyestabber]

Well, GC is no masterpiece, but I would bet one of my kidneys that the people trashing the game on this thread will end up buying it during steam sales and playing some 20+ hours before coming back here to complain some more. GC is just like that average looking chick you banged: you don't brag about doing it, but you did. And you don't regret it either. If any of your "friends" ask, however, your answer is always something like "She is nothing special/I've had better/bla bla bla".

 

[hoverdog]

Well, GC is no masterpiece, but I would bet one of my kidneys that the people trashing the game on this thread will end up buying it during steam sales and playing some 20+ hours before coming back here to complain some more. GC is just like that average looking chick you banged: you don't brag about doing it, but you did. And you don't regret it either. If any of your "friends" ask, however, your answer is always something like "She is nothing special/I've had better/bla bla bla".

if GC2 is anything to go by, I will pick it up in a bundle or whatever and play an hour before falling asleep instinctively

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Well, GC is no masterpiece, but I would bet one of my kidneys that the people trashing the game on this thread will end up buying it during steam sales and playing some 20+ hours before coming back here to complain some more. GC is just like that average looking chick you banged: you don't brag about doing it, but you did. And you don't regret it either. If any of your "friends" ask, however, your answer is always something like "She is nothing special/I've had better/bla bla bla".

Well sure. I rant and rave and spray spittle in almost every Stardock thread about how their games are shit, and yet I own all of them (Barring galciv3 and the new Elemental) on Steam due to 75% (Or better) sales. I even played 5 hours of galciv2 a year or two back because I had never played with all the expansions (Or any expansions) before and I figured I'd give it a second chance. 5 hours won the game and it was still dull as dirt.

The Stardock games I actually DO play 20+ hours and still say are shit are the Elemental games (Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes at least), although I almost always say they're less shit than galciv. But even in the case of Legendary Heroes they Stardock shit as simple as archers. Archers can shoot at anything in a tactical map. Doesn't matter if they're on the complete opposite side of the map, doesn't matter if they're behind multiple buildings and a volcano and you're shooting through 10 other units, you can attack that. Why would they do this. What person thought it was a good idea. Brad Wardell, that's who.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Sigh...