GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #17 - How much should you see?

In both GalCiv III and in the Epic release of GalCiv IV (GC4Epic) we were very generous with how much the player could “see”. On turn 1, you could see several solar systems away. Go ahead and see for yourself.

When I began designing GalCiv IV: Supernova, I wanted to emphasize the exploration aspect of the game, which was something I loved in GalCiv II. After all, exploration is one of the key elements in 4X games.

So how much can you see? Well, I figured the player should be able to see most of the solar system but not all the way out to Pluto. In both GalCiv IV: Supernova and Star Control: Origins I added a 9th planet called Artemis, and since we haven’t discovered a new 9th planet (sorry Pluto) then I figure our sensor range shouldn’t quite make it out that far.

Decreasing sensor range at the start has a lot of benefits throughout the game. It makes those upgrades to sensors a lot more interesting and it makes the exploration a lot more interesting. I can’t wait to see what people think.

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Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova Dev Journals

• Dev Journal #18 - Should there be campaign?

• Dev Journal #17 - How much should you see?

• Dev Journal #16 - The importance of onboarding

• Dev Journal #15 - Thinking about planets

• Dev Journal #14 - How many turns should that thing take?

• Dev Journal #13 - GPT

• Dev Journal #12 - Humanoids?

• Dev Journal #11 - The AI Elephant in the Room

• Dev Journal #10 - Little New Things

• Dev Journal #9 - The FAQ

• Dev Journal #8 - The Supernova Crisis

• Dev Journal #7 - What's New in Supernova

• Dev Journal #6 - Technology and Ideology Changes

• Dev Journal #5 - The Planets are Liars

• Dev Journal #4 - Event Updates

• Dev Journal #3 - Battle Viewer And Ship Behavior Improvements

• Dev Journal #2 - Updating Visuals

• Dev Journal #1 - The 2023 plan