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Dano13

Join Date 03/2003

Complaints about too much choice??????

Everyone is entitled to their opinion ... just like I am entitled to mine. But I can't understand the complaint concerning the Tech tree being TOO big, or there being TOO much stuff to put on your ship. The best games allow a billion choices for you to make - the worst only a few. Perhaps it can be overwhelming to be presented with all these choices on your first game, but I don't know how one could avoid this overwhelming without stifling those very choices that make this game brilliant (IMHO). Oh well ... what do I know. People were making the same complaints about Morrowind. Somehow some people feel the fact that you can do anything you want is a negative.

This game is definitely not Civ4, and that is a good thing. Civ 4 was okay, but the tech tree was miniscule, and the diplomacy options were tiny. Personally I would rather be drowning in choices the first few times I play the game, than sink into the 'Wow this game seems just like my last one' feeling that is Civ 4.

Just my two credits - Agree? Disagree?

Dano

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I agree 100%. I had the same 'Civ4' feeling too. Now i'm pretty lost in the endless options in GCII and........ i'm lovin' it!

'Hey, why the hell is visual ship design even in? What's the point? I don't want to design my ships, yet i can't stop using this feature! Damn you Stardock!'

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I mean i'm lovin' it. No doubt that i'm livin' too but that's pretty obvious....

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Yea, which is why I will probably really only play Civ4 multiplayer. Civ4 single player holds no surprises for me. It's all the same each time mostly because they removed so much to make multiplayer. GalCiv2, on the other hand, has the potential to be drastically different each game. Aside from just what you choose to research, there's the random factor of the races, placement, random events themselves, and the interaction between yourself and the AI's. Frankly, each game is a new experience. The same can't be said for Civ4...in single player, at least.

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The ship design feature is fine for people who want to design ships. But what about those of us who want to play the actual game for the most part? It takes forever to design a ship. It takes even longer to design one that looks decent.

Why would it be so bad to let someone just upgrade the core ship designs? If I want to just fix the engines on a colony ship I shouldn't have to spend 10-15 minutes in the ship design feature. I liked galciv 1, but I am about to abandon galciv 2 over this issue. I just don't find it fun to redesign ships over and over and over. Its monotonous and it produces little if any advantage over the old, default ship options of Galciv 1. Give us better core ships and ones that can be upgraded to reflect new engines or new weapons, please!

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If I want to just fix the engines on a colony ship I shouldn't have to spend 10-15 minutes in the ship design feature.

I have to agree with this.

Especially since I ran into that issue where you can't actually save a design anyway since the confirmation screen is hidden behind everything.

My first game was REALLY fun--mostly because I didn't try any of the advanced features--like ship design. And because I focused on winning culturally.

As soon as I tried to win a game militarily, I was amazed at how broken the ship upgrade process was. Why in the world do I not automatically use the improved weapons? There are HUGE holes in the "stock" ships, and as jscott mentioned above, it's tedious to have to build a new ship design every single time you get an advancement.

It may be "gee-whiz" to be able to graphically design a ship, but it's not _fun_ when you have to do it every time you get an upgrade...

Great game--but it definitely needs a patch.

Full disclosure: this is the game that I was hoping for when I dropped $50 on MOO3 a couple of years back. It's already 100x better than THAT game. So I _do_ love this game. I just wish it was a little less buggy.

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So don't design ships. Just go with the Core ships and it'll be just like GalCiv 1.

However, once you design a ship then it's saved for all future games. So my mega fast scout I designed in my first game will be waiting for me once I discovery the correct techs in all future games.

Having said that, it's been posted elsewhere they are looking at being able to upgrade core ships as well has having a spot in the Library to be able to download other peoples ships so you won't have to.

In the meantime, don't worry about and don't design any new ships. I'm not all that into ship design so I'm only designing new ships when I get a big technology leap. But I gotta say I spent a half hour designing my Lasershark Mark II and it was pretty sweet.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

You don't have to design ships.

Moreover, you can pick a hull and pick a module in less than 10 seconds.

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jscott991: Just double click on the items in the list. The game will automatically place them on your ship in a way that is a halfway plausible default.

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I think it's great! It pretty much forces you to focus your research on certain techs, and for me that makes each game different and every race that much more unique. And the ship design...how can one not like it? It's brilliant, and it's really not that difficult to design a decent looking ship. Take a hull, put a couple wings on it, add engines, weapons, life support, and start construction.

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If you don't design your own ships, your colony ships will move at speed 2 for the entire game. Someone else mentioned this in another thread, but I don't understand it at all. The core ships can't be upgraded or used as templates.

Ship design is great for those who want to use it. Forcing people to use it to make effective ships is annoying. I hope reviewers will pick up on this issue or that the game will resolve it. It shouldn't be this annoying to mount new engines on a scout or colony ship.

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I like a lot of choice (and in particular, I like strategy games with a deep tech tree), but a pile of choices with no good way to distinguish between them makes for frustration.

I think the current research screen really illustrates this. Suppose it's early in the game and you've decided your priority is to strengthen your economy. You've researched 5 or 6 techs, but have traded for a bunch more. Now you find you have like 20 research options open to you - so many that you can't even see them all without scrolling.

Which techs are your best options? You can click on a tech to see what bonus it gives. But are you currently strong or weak in that stat? Have you already traded for a tech that does the same thing? And would you get a better bonus by picking a different one? Are some of the techs weaker, but are prerequisites to more valuable ones? And would you guess any of this from the name "Xeno Ethics"?

Sure, you can figure this stuff out. You can write down your stats from the civ management screen. You can tediously click on all the tech choices to make sure you've compared all your options. You can scroll around the whole tech tree and try to figure out where it's all going. You'll eventually remember what the weird tech names correspond to. But man, that's a lot of work for a game! And so far it feels more like randomly clicking items in a list, than making hard choices among a bunch of compelling options.

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Personally I would like to see more variations and additions to the tech tree. More than three primary offensive and defensive classes would be nice. The fact you can design your own ships is great. More options is much better then to few. Civ 4, played several times, doubt I will play it much if at all anymore. MoO3, many people didn't like it, but talk about crazy options and staggering tech trees, I still play it.

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You don't have to design ships.

Moreover, you can pick a hull and pick a module in less than 10 seconds.

As much as I love messing around with Ship Desing (Btw great tool) it is just too much hassle in my mind to just update basic ship (colony, consturctor, trade) designs every time the engines get better. Hopefully somekinda solution can be found, but I can live with it.

Btw does it help your trade income if you put better engines on your trade ships?

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I need to listen to the ship design tutorial. Tried placing components but got bored so I just do the click click click thing and leave it at that. I'm playing at a reasonable zoom out so it's not like I have to look at them too hard. Like the man said it doesn't take any time at all to make a perfectly functional ship and you're missing out nothing by ignoring the girlie-wurly dress-up aspect of ship design. If upgrading the core designs is a nono why not just allow us to copy the template for editing?

The ship combat cinematic thing is pretty tedious too, though it does tell me where I should be concentrating research I spose. I'm sure there's an option to turn it off but haven't looked too hard yet.

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I actually like the tons of techs that affect the game. You'll either be really good at one thing or so-so at a lot of them, and you may be forced to trade with AI players to remain competitive.

I really *loved* the MOO-1 style, where you put in a required amount of points, and then it became random as to when it would be finished, so there was a point in researching multiple tech areas simultaneously. I also liked the random chance that your favorite tech might NOT appear for you in all games. Made for a lot of replayability.

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i just looked at the tech-tree pictures, and there are not very many tech's, what are you talking about? the tech-tree is very straight forward, and you know by the colors what research does what... Well, all in all, i like it, can't wait to play it...

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it is just too much hassle in my mind to just update basic ship (colony, consturctor, trade) designs every time the engines get better

Are you meaning when you get a new propulsion tech or when you get a propulsion that increase your speed?

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Simple solution, don't use the basic ships. Create your upgraded versions of the basic ships once, and then every time you play, when you have the needed techs, the previously designed ships will appear. (Note, Metaverse and non-Metaverse ships seem to be saved seperately, and ships can look ugly if you designed it for one hull type and are playing a different hull type, ie played Alterian the first time, Terran the second time).

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That isn't a particularly simple solution. In fact, that's the reason I'm no longer playing the game.

The constant updating of ship designs, the fact you have to design every ship from scratch at least once, and the extreme monotony of trying to make the design look passable is just too much.

Until its patched to let me modify the basic ship designs or use them as templates for new designs, I'm moving onto to other games.

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Takes me 60 seconds to upgrade a ship design to a new engine, slighty longer for new weapons/defenses, and I only had to do the non-upgrade design ONCE. Not even once per game.

Not trying to convince you, just making sure that others don't assume this is a bigger issue than it is.

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The people complaining about the techs and the ship designs in particular are either those kind of people who love to complain about anything just for the hell of it and ruin the game for everyone else by getting it changed to their minor viewpoint's specifications, or they are too impatient, immediate gratification desiring dummies. Thank you

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I havent played the game yet... still waiting for my store to get their shipment (god i wish id have bought it from Stardock..but alas, I had gift certificates to Gamestop).

Anyway.. on the whole "its annoying to have to design new ships every time you get new technology" thing...

Judging by the game examples ive seen.... building a new ship design for every new tech is not how the game is "meant" to be played.

Again, im fairly ignorant of the game, having never played it.. but it seemed to me that ships were only designed once the computer managed to build a ship which countered, or was more powerful, than your current one. Then you go in and design a new ship using all the new technology that you have researched since your first design.

So, basicly.. if you are redesigning your ships every time you upgrade your enginers or weapons.. you are probably making unnecessary designs.. just wait until your ships are obsolete.

BTW.. my 2 cents.. if you do not enjoy lots of options.. and simple things like sitting back and taking your time designing a cool looking ship.. then maybe 4x games arent for you? Sounds to me like people are wanting a quick and easy game.. something they can jump into and complete quickly.. that isnt how TBS works. In my experience. The intricacy and depth of TBS is what makes the genre so compelling.

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