Post originally by vbh70s at 2003-08-27 09:21:30
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First off, great review. Very clear and concise (though I guess you've had the practice after 45 reviews ).
I disagreed on some points, so I thought I'd throw my 2¢ in.
First cent, I did not find the interface or the game in general to be opaque. Granted, the last game I had played before I bought GalCiv was MOO3, so that may have skewed my perspective a little. It did take a little getting used to (like any strategy game, IME) but I had no problem getting into the swing of things.
Second cent (as I said in a recent MOO3 forum thread), I very much disagree with the Civ3/GalCiv parallel. I'm not saying that they're *totally* different, but I found the gameplay and the overall "feel" to be different enough. I also disliked Civ3 quite a bit, and liked GalCiv. So I'd say GalCiv is worth a try if you like turn-based strategy in general, regardless of your feelings on Civ3.
Thanks for the review!
PS, One thing I don't remember seeing mentioned: The updates are much more than just bugfixes. Released along with the game was a bonus pack of features available from the website (as a thank-you to legitimate purchasers of the game) and very soon now they will be releasing an entire expansion pack for free as well. Oh, and there's no copy protection!
Post originally by Shannon Appelcline at 2003-08-27 10:28:08
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Yeah, I should probably have noted in the review that the opacity would ultimately be in the eyes of the beholder. If I'd wanted to be much more obsessive about it, I could have kept my brain ticking on what precisely each improvement would do but thinking through gamewide formulas, but that's a level of cognition I'm generally unwilling to offer to a game.
I'm generally very curious about your disagreement on the Civ3/GC parallel. I don't think you could argue the fact that the mechanics are almost identical for production. Personally, the games felt very similar to me. Given that you haven't had the latter experience, how did they feel different to you?
Post originally by Jeremy at 2003-08-27 12:38:41
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Well, quite honestly, the mechanics for production are more or less the same as in most turn based strategy games these days. And really, it's been like that for years and years - only the city/planet upgrades get more and more elaborate as time goes on.
Back in the Empire days, you could only buy new units or defensive upgrades. Then Civ came along and added production upgrades. And things have gotten more and more complex. But you find them in just about every turn based game - Space Empires, Moo, Civ, AoW, MoM, Warlords, Homm, etc.
The most unique innovation (IMHO) is that you can produce both a planet/city upgrade at the same time you are producing a military unit.
Post originally by Jürgen Hubert at 2003-08-27 12:40:00
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I've recently bought GalCiv, and all in all I enjoy it.
But so far I've found building up star bases to be mostly tedious. I've always tried to do a cultural victory in my games, and just planting one star base after another to increase my influence gets boring after a while...
Maybe it's time for a different game strategy. ;-)
Post originally by DrSchadenfreude at 2003-08-27 16:44:42
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I'd say the biggest up-front differnce is ships. MoOII let you customize your own ships with whatever tech you had handy. GC is more abstract. Each hull type has base attack, defense, movement and hp values. However your effectiveness can be incresed by researching specific techs (there are other ways, but techs are the most common). Learning a tech might give you +10 to your weapons rating which will translate to a higher attack value for all your ships, the instant the tech is aquired. Bad news is that you can't specifically customize ships, good news is that there's no refitting-- upgrades are automatic.
Also like the civ games, ship battles are a series of ship-on-ship duels that occur on the strategic map. There's no tactical combat, which for me is a major sticking point.
There's a galatic assembly that passes laws, but that doesn't seem to work out well. You can't confer with the AI's to swing a specific agenda (like you could in Alpha Centauri) and everyone pretty much votes for themselves on everything.
The random events were mentioned, and I think they're the best aspect of the game. There are techs only available to "good" or "evil" races and the "good" ones are worth the inconveniences of being a decent fellow.
Empire management is similar, only each planet can produce a "military" (ship) and "social" (building) at the same time.
Another similarity is that you can customize your race with various advantages (better economy, better attack rating) much like you can do in MoOII.
I should also mention in closing that this game came out about the same time as MoOIII, and after lurking on the forums of both games, I'd say that MoOII fans preferred GC over MoOIII by a sizable majority.
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