New Gamespy Preview of GalCiv 2 - all about diplomacy

[chaedwards]

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/galactic-civil ... 578p1.html

This is my favourite bit:

I knew, for example, when dealing with the Drengin, that trading technologies with them was usually useless, since they're a race of warmongers and not all that bright. When they suddenly started making huge technological leaps and offering me some tempting trades, I realized that they were being used as catspaws by another opponent who I was enemies with, but was being pressed by yet another race and needed help. I was able to then use this information to deduce that the Drengin
had some kind of military weakness I might not be able to see, but could probably exploit if I attacked right then. That's the only reason they ever seem to negotiate, and if someone was feeding them technology, I needed to take them out before they got too strong.

It sounds promising, but I don't know how much of that is the game or the previewer just making up stories in his head. Anyway, some of the other changes, such as better planet management and ship design should also improve it.

Personally, no matter how much I tried to like the original GalCiv, I was disappointed in the end. Some of the reasons:

Diplomacy felt flat - trying to juggle techs to trade until the text went green
Usually only a few civs were viable, others getting placed in bad starting locations
For some reason, I could never get a warlike civ to work properly - my economy always fell apart
Planet development was a bore.
Lack of habitable stars meant that exploration became old very fast, particularly as the AI knew where all the yellow stars were.

Occasionally a game would click and it would be marvellous, and you could really get a sense of the ai working behind the scenes, but for me that was quite rare. Anyway, we'll see how GC2 turns out - I'll probably still buy it, 'cos I'm a sucker that way.

 

[Section8]

All too often, game developers get caught up in the marketing wisdom that in order for a game to be successful it has to be "accessible." In marketing-speak, that usually means, "Make it like that hit game that's out now, only dumber." This is usually worse with sequels where every empty head in a suit feels like they should have input on how the franchise develops.

A very un-Gamespy-like preview, or maybe just targeted hype at the game's logical audience. Either way, it sounds promising.

 

[Avé]

I knew, for example, when dealing with the Drengin, that trading technologies with them was usually useless, since they're a race of warmongers and not all that bright. When they suddenly started making huge technological leaps and offering me some tempting trades, I realized that they were being used as catspaws by another opponent who I was enemies with, but was being pressed by yet another race and needed help. I was able to then use this information to deduce that the Drengin
had some kind of military weakness I might not be able to see, but could probably exploit if I attacked right then.

That reads like bullshit.