Galactic Civilizations: Questions

Bakhtosh · Post by **Bakhtosh** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:14 am

Does Gal Civ have a good single player experience? I will never be able to play this game online, so if it doesn't do well as a single player game, I'll continue to give it a pass.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:34 am

Consensus is hit and miss. For folks who enjoy the game, they *really* enjoy the game. I'd guess that's 40-60% of those who chirp up in these threads.

Myself, I was disappointed. I had the game described to me as Civ in Space and that was pretty far off target. I thought it was pretty boring, to be honest.

Folks rave about the AI, however. I wasn't able to get intrigued enough about the game to give the AI a proper chance. The good news for you is that quality AI generally translates into a quality single-player experience. For me, however, I wasn't able to get past the "shuffling ships around really isn't very exciting to me" aspect of things.

I'm sure someone will be along to counterpoint shortly...

~Neal

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:51 am

It is a basic 4x TBS, and it does that very well. If you enjoy the subgenre, it will give you a good challenge. Just don't expect anything original. I think I played maybe 20-25 games before I got bored with it...but it's still installed, and I'm likely to go back to it. I felt that the game delivered exactly what I expected, and I got my money's worth.

Koz · Post by **Koz** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:53 am

I'm not a fan of the game either, but my complaints are similar to Meal's.

However, it is designed as a single player game. The AI seemed to know what it was doing and I didn't see any large gaps in logic (a la MOO3). I just found the game boring, but if you like the general gameplay, you'll probably love the game.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:30 am

FYI, GalCiv is single-player only. The only on-line component is the "Metaverse", essentially a place to record your score and compare it to others.

So yes, it was designed as (and is) a satisfying single-player experience.

Dirt · Post by **Dirt** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:16 pm

It's more like MOO than Civ.

Bakhtosh · Post by **Bakhtosh** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:45 pm

Before I put it on my wish list for Christmas ($12.90 @ GoGamer), do any of you "bored" people want to PIFF it to me?

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:49 pm

Myself, I was disappointed. I had the game described to me as Civ in Space and that was pretty far off target.

In a true "Civ" like game, you have a different management task on the infrastructure front.

You actually have to deal with terrain, and mapping out a road network (and isn't it just delightful when you infiltrate the other guy's territory and snap his fledgling transportation network in a couple of places?) to deal with that terrain. This is in addition to getting profitable, keeping the kids happy, and even getting everyone down to the theater to see Hamlet (read: culture) - though this latter is new to the Civ line.

Some of these things are present in GalCiv, but it isn't the same, and it really isn't a close comparison. The terrain is space - and you are dealing with far fewer logistics issues. It's just "how quicly can I get a needed ship build, and how fast can said ship can get from A to B", not "how quickly can I get a needed unit built? How do I best plan this road so I can get said unit from hither to yon in a speedy fashion? How much will it cost me to get the road built, and how quickly can I build it?" Yeah, someone could do a space Civ with 13 kinds of nebula/stellar phenominon that mimic traditional terrain considerations, but honestly isn't that a bit silly?

There's a reason that outside of the fantastic worlds mods for Civ II, you don't see that many "space-based" 4x games (henceforth SB4x games) that work like Civ really does (of course, you don't see many SB4x in general. . .). The focus is *always* on star systems, not "free form exploration" combined with "hotspots" (cities in the case of Civ, and also resources in the case of Civ III). Gal Civ is the only "space-based" 4x I can think of that uses the traditional Civ exploration system. I can think of a few that have "free form" exploration, Stars! does. But you don't go around picking up goodie huts & the like (or spare parts/anomolys/etc). It's mostly for hiding a fleet way off to the side and then busting your opponent in the ribs when he fails to diligently scan that perimeter. It is not for picking that "ideal city spot" or anything like that.

Civ-like Free Form is out of place in the this particular 4x niche, I think. Planet scouting tends to be critical in a SB4x, but it's usually just about the planets. Not planets + goodie huts + widely varying terrain considerations. Most Space 4xs trade that sort of exploration/infrastructure for other things. Research, ship management, and often tactical combat (even Stars!, whith it's auto combat, has tactical considerations as you well know, Meal). Now, I can reel off a couple of SB4x games that did ship management wrong (having essentially meaningless ship design decisions). You've played Stars!, and it perhaps did it the best (Moos I & II arguable; all three systems have neat points and flaws I guess). The player spends quite a bit of time designing and (perhaps more importantly) counter designing ships in those games. And has a blast doing so.

Even in Stars!, where you don't get to "drive" in combat, your ship designs and some simple ship AI settings have profound effects on combat. Trading defense or offense for first shot, loading up on beamers (or missiles), support ship considerations, targeting priorities. . .this is the meat of Stars!. And these kinds of considerations are the meat of the best SB4x games (Stars!, Moo I & II, to name 3). Civ's model doesn't deal with this. Combat is abstracted because it's more a grand empire management game.

I applaud Stardock for being who they are and the effort with Galciv, but I think some of the wrong aspects of Civ were emphasized, while others were wrongly deemphasized. People will still find the game fun, and good for them (and Stardock). Not me, though.

It's more like MOO than Civ.

Not really.

If anything, I'd argue the opposite (though it isn't positoned very far down that side of the scale). One of the signatures of Moo is the ship design & tactical combat. Just dropping that makes a game significantly "un moolike" all byitself.

Not being similar to Moo, or quasi similar to Civ, doesn't make it a bad game (or a good one), I should note.

DD · Post by DD » Fri Nov 12, 2004 5:21 pm

The Meal wrote:Consensus is hit and miss. For folks who enjoy the game, they *really* enjoy the game. I'd guess that's 40-60% of those who chirp up in these threads.

Myself, I was disappointed. I had the game described to me as Civ in Space and that was pretty far off target. I thought it was pretty boring, to be honest.

Folks rave about the AI, however. I wasn't able to get intrigued enough about the game to give the AI a proper chance. The good news for you is that quality AI generally translates into a quality single-player experience. For me, however, I wasn't able to get past the "shuffling ships around really isn't very exciting to me" aspect of things.

I'm sure someone will be along to counterpoint shortly...

~Neal

I'd have to agree with The Meal. I'm a huge fan of the Civ/AC games (except CivIII, which I couldn't get into, for some reason) and the MOO/MOO2 games (we will not mention THE GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED!).

Bought GalCiv due to the GGFE, fired it up, played any number of games, but just couldn't get a spark. Seemed like I'd play for a while, things would seem to be going well, then *BAM* the AI would come out of nowhere and kick my ass. And I couldn't see what I was doing wrong, and frankly didn't want to invest hours of time to figure it out. To me it had some of the drawbacks of MOO II and CIV without some of the more fun elements. Of course that is all IMHO - you may love it.

I ended up trading it on the old forums, don't really remember what I got for it, but I know I don't miss it.

YMMV.

qp · Post by qp » Fri Nov 12, 2004 5:28 pm

I was the same GGE purchase, couldn't really get into it. I love MOO2 (was fortunately forwarned about MOO3 heh), but GalCiv just didn't do it for me.

Little Raven · Post by **Little Raven** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:22 pm

I'm big into all types of strategy games, and 4X games in particular.

GalCiv was fine. The AI is indeed very good, but that's probably at least in part because the game is relatively simple. It's a lot like MOO with the tactical combat and ship design pulled out, which is a shame because I loved those parts.

It's a perfectly good 4X game. I played half a dozen games or so and enjoyed them. But it's no MOO.