Galactic Civilizations III Preview - Spacetime Sink
- Thread starter Encaen
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While I'm very happy that they're making this, the impression I've got so far is "GalCiv 2 with hexes." Hopefully it won't go the route of Civ V and fail to meet expectations upon launch...
One of the things Gal Civ II did not excel at was warfare. Combat, more specifically. The ground battles looked like an arcade game and the space battles... well you have to see them to believe them... Has this been altered at all? Will there be more tactical control of your forces this time around or anything? Or is it still just watching video play out while waiting for the results to tally? I think MOO2's combat system is more robust then Gal Civ II's was, so it would be nice to see some improvement there.
GalCiv 2 with hexes... and multiplayer. That's probably plenty enough for me to pour hundreds of hours into the game, since I have a few friends who are into grand strategies and the like as much as I am. So long as they don't simplify the game for multiplayer, or release a completely broken mess like the original Elemental, they probably can't go too wrong.Hochmeister said:
Oh crap.
Now I get to piss away a few more years of my life playing an incredibly addictive game, that ACTUALLY GETS the scope and scale of galactic warfare. I am reminded of Emperor of the Fading Suns in terms of scope (though that universe just felt so much richer to me for some reason.)
Of note, having the Deathstars actually do something awesome would be worthwhile.
Now I get to piss away a few more years of my life playing an incredibly addictive game, that ACTUALLY GETS the scope and scale of galactic warfare. I am reminded of Emperor of the Fading Suns in terms of scope (though that universe just felt so much richer to me for some reason.)
Of note, having the Deathstars actually do something awesome would be worthwhile.
The core game is GalCiv, but visually, there's still lots of things to be added. It's the first day of the alpha, and the final release is still a year off at least.Zeetchmen said:
You want feedback? Here's my feedback:Island Dog said:The core game is GalCiv, but visually, there's still lots of things to be added. It's the first day of the alpha, and the final release is still a year off at least.Zeetchmen said:
You have two types of 4X players. Those that want to control tactical combat between their strategic planning and those who don't.
Galciv II combat happens in a single picosecond and then gives you the option to watch a low-fidelity butt-ugly representation of how the battle played out. There's no reason to watch it, everybody I know skips forward. This means we, the players, never get to admire the awesome lego craft we spent hours building.
We want actual spaceship combat! Master of Orion did it! Sins of a Solar did it! Space Empires did it. Come on!
How should spaceship combat look like? This:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-IPZhoM664
Things to note:
- projectiles are FAST, so fast a bad physics engine will let them pass though small ships.
- projectiles are small, hot and bright. Like bullets in space
- much work was put into making impact/explosion effects look different from firing/muzzle effects. This way, despite having a mess of projectiles on screen, the player can see which ones are hitting his ship, which ones are fired by it.
- Explosions and muzzle effects are SHORT, a couple of frames at most. Propane fireball explosions in space are a no-no.
- Projectiles are at their brightest when shot (muzzle effect) and impacting another ship. They're the dimmest during travel.
Take extra note of the dynamics of both the ships and the projectiles. You can feel how heavy the ships are and how massive the firepower that's being thrown around really is. The relative velocities of both work very well for the scale H2 chose. Try to follow the dynamics, but adjust it for your distances and max projectile count.