TCancer's 4X comparison article

Interesting read. I think he hit the nail on the head about planetary micromanagement in Galciv II.

How would you have preferred it?

I've got to agree about one point on the AI: while very intelligent, and incredibly efficient and challenging opponents, they aren't particularily interesting. By that, I mean that their general strategies seem exactly the same, with only differences in focus to differentiate them. While it wouldn't need to be a common thing (and, in fact, making it too common would get rid of the novelty fast) some sneakier or more experimental strategies on the parts of the AIs could really help shaking things up a bit.

For example, on my last few games, I rushed to better hull techs as fast as possible instead of focusing on fighters that I could pump out earlier with better technology. It was a bit of a gamble... I was left without a military for longer, and my ships were very limited by logistics and lower tech abilities in engines, weapons, and defenses. However, it did make my military much more unique compared to my enemies, and I always ended up with individual ships that were far more dangerous than the hoards of ships my enemies used.

While I've been impressed recently with the AIs new competence in waging war (I've had several fleets gather around my resources, forcing me to scramble fleets to defend in time before war was declared) but I've never seen particularily devious or treacherous strategies being used by the AIs. Additionally, they aren't as ruthless as they could be... a human player will sometimes wipe out an AI or cripple them the moment they declare war, but the AIs, even with their new skill at preparing their military for conflicts, don't attack on the first day after war is declared... you have one turn to counter their attack.

A possible solution there is to have the "fight war" status internal to the AI, and just have the war declaration pop up once they fire their first shots. Thats basically what a human player does... start the attack without actively declaring war in order to get the first shot in.

I disagree with a couple items he mentioned.

1) Ship design. All but one item he mentions in favor of SEV's approach is found in the GalCiv version (the exception being ammo). Further, by saying the only thing that matters is the amount and type of weapons makes me curious as to how much he has really played the game. Armour and engines make a huge differance, as do sensors (unless you have eye of the universe), and especially support. Not to mention the size of the ship, which determines what kind of fleet strength you can muster.

I have not played SEV, so I don't want to say one is better, but I don't think he properly addressed the issue.

2) His view of GalCiv economy. I get the feeling that we would like it to be something it was never meant to be.

He further mentions how "once you fall behind economically, you also fall behind technologically really fast." I would disagree with this. I usually spend most of my games significantly behind the top races economically. Through trading, ship design, and diplomacy you can easily bridge the economic gap.

He discusses how it isn't easy to roleplay with it. Well, you can always turn down the difficulty, you can't expect the AI to make a judgement call on wether you are playing seriously or not, and to only compete when you want it to.

3) He states, "Whereas in SEV you may focus successfully on a certain extreme style of play, in GalCiv2 you cannot afford to neglect even one part (such as economic, technology, or military build-up)". I would again disagree.

The most fun game I ever played I accidently screwed up my economy. I had two or three planets (in a large galaxy with normal settings), and an average of -120 bc a turn. I had NO economy, NO military, and NO research going on (I was so far in debt, with such low approval, that it was impossible to get out).

Through diplomacy, espionage, and heavy trading I managaged to back my one ally (the Yor) until they conqured everyone, getting me a Diplo victory.


Besides those three points, I thought it was a good article. It makes me interested in finding out more about SEV, it sounds like a lot of fun.

A possible solution there is to have the "fight war" status internal to the AI, and just have the war declaration pop up once they fire their first shots. Thats basically what a human player does... start the attack without actively declaring war in order to get the first shot in.

I like this idea, I think that it would be much more intersting and fun!

Re: the "fight war" status thing--personally, I would prefer to have to declare war before just attacking. The only way to accomplish this though will be a more effective "borders" system. It doesn't need to be particularly different than the current game -- the AI should just get more and more pissed the longer you keep armed ships in its influence.

As far as the article, I thought that, while fair, he is also a weird gamer. Some of his strengths of SEV, for example, are weaknesses in my view. And some of his weaknesses in GalCiv2 are definitely strengths as far as I'm concerned. SOTS is just awful, period. Anyway, interesting comparison. With DA, GalCiv2 will be nigh unstoppable as the "new MOO." Plus, while I'm sure the guy coding SEV is very nice, he's still just one guy, and will never be as productive as Stardock. And then there are the developers of SOTS--a larger group of conceited, self-absorbed jerks I have never met online. So there you have it. GalCiv2 for the win. Sins of a Solar Empire will be really cool, but quite different. Plus, Stardock is publishing so they win even if Sins does well.

How would you have preferred it?

MOO 1 style. Less clicking with more control, never need to leave the main map, and allows you to look at the broader picture instead of just trying to get all of your planets running as efficiently as possible and relying on your economic advantage from doing so.

Galciv 2's planetary management isn't bad on smaller maps, but as you move onto bigger maps and better AIs you spend far too much time looking at it IMHO.

What might work good is a hybrid system, where you can make the most common adjustments from the main screen, or go into a dedicated planetary screen to fine tune.

How would you have preferred it?

IMHO, I would rather run the risk of too much micro management than end up with a game like MOO3 where there's little point in the game but hitting end turn until the game is over and seeing whose governor did the better job.

While micro management can be painful it generally means that you have very fine control over the game. I think there are a couple of types of governors that could be added that would help the game. These have been discussed in a number of threads. For example being able to select rally points of ships based on ship class and the ability to use shift click to change the focus of groups of planets in the colony list would both be good additions to the game. But overall I wouldn't want to give up the level of control that you currently in the game.

As far as the article, I thought that, while fair, he is also a weird gamer. Some of his strengths of SEV, for example, are weaknesses in my view. And some of his weaknesses in GalCiv2 are definitely strengths as far as I'm concerned. SOTS is just awful, period. Anyway, interesting comparison. With DA, GalCiv2 will be nigh unstoppable as the "new MOO." Plus, while I'm sure the guy coding SEV is very nice, he's still just one guy, and will never be as productive as Stardock. And then there are the developers of SOTS--a larger group of conceited, self-absorbed jerks I have never met online. So there you have it. GalCiv2 for the win.

Can't agree more with you.

I felt that guy who wrote the TCancer's article may have a thing for having access to every details imaginable to mankind, and then he wants to tweak them all. That's just...weird...

I felt that guy who wrote the TCancer's article may have a thing for having access to every details imaginable to mankind, and then he wants to tweak them all. That's just...weird...

Really? I came away with the opposite impression. I guess that just goes to show how two people can read the same words while at the same time reading something totally differant.

IMHO, I would rather run the risk of too much micro management than end up with a game like MOO3 where there's little point in the game but hitting end turn until the game is over and seeing whose governor did the better job.

I agree that I'd rather have micromanagement than MOO3, but a nice middle ground would be nicer still.

I think his final conclusion is OK where YourConscience says that "If you like to experiment a lot and role-play your empire, your preferences are clearly with SEV. If you want a challenge and your general sci-fi fix, go for GalCiv2." But I think a lot of his criticisms of GalCiv make little sense. In SEV, he raves about choices between guns or armor or supplies or ammo, but you get all those choices in GalCiv2 except for ammo, since life support in GalCiv2 does the same thing as supplies in SEV. Actually, SEV has hard caps on the amount of armor and engines you can put on a ship, so there's actually less choice in those areas.

About tactical combat, in GC2 I don't miss it, and in SEV, it's unbalanced and exploitable. Range + speed = win with no damage.

I don't understand what he's saying about GC2's economy at all. His first point seems to be that the AI is so good that you'll lose if you pursue a moronic strategy such as filling your planets with entertainment networks. Apparently it's a good thing that SEV's AI is so inept that the player can make up for a bad economic strategy by employing a "crazy" military strategy of building ramming ships. You shouldn't be able to win by doing whatever you want.

Next he criticizes GC2's economy for being micromanagey. He says that "You have to either *know* how many morale buildings are necessary to keep x population in check or you have to constantly check happiness." I think that learning the rules of the game and looking at the information displayed are pretty vital to any game in this genre and don't count as micromanagement. Morale doesn't even change quickly, nor does it have dire consequences if it does, so you don't even have to look at it that often. His other example of micromanagement is converting labs to factories. This is rather micromanagey, but doing the same thing is much worse in SEV. Removing facilities and building new facilities are done on two entirely separate screens in SEV, and it requires way more clicks to do.

"In SEV the economy is simpler, but more detailed." This is true, in SEV there is more micromanagement, and less strategic choice. In GC2, you can switch from 100% research one turn to 100% production the next. This is a major civ-wide strategy choice that requires no more then dragging two sliders. It's the opposite of micromanagement. You can't do anything like that in SEV; mines and labs always work at full capacity. Also, in SEV, there is no equivalent of GC2's factories. There is no way to increase the productivity of your civ other than to acquire a new planet and build the one-per-planet spaceyard. The economy in SEV boils down to matching your income to your expenditures, and if you get it wrong, the difference is wasted. Fill the rest of your planets with labs. No strategy decision, lots of micromanagement.

OK, this is becoming a rant, so I should confess that my only experience with the Space Empires series is the demo of SEV. Maybe it gets better, maybe I just don't get it, but the first 100 turns were enough to bore me out of my mind. I guess I fall squarely in the category of people who want a challenging game. I do like to experiment and role-play, but I also like to find out if my experimental strategy or role-playing style is a workable or powerful way to play a balanced game.

I think nullspace said what I was too lazy/didn't have time to type out. He hit the nail on the head. And also, you are 100% right about the SEV economy. It's really quite silly and pointless, and I vastly prefer GalCiv2 in every possible respect.

"In SEV the economy is simpler, but more detailed." This is true, in SEV there is more micromanagement, and less strategic choice. In GC2, you can switch from 100% research one turn to 100% production the next. This is a major civ-wide strategy choice that requires no more then dragging two sliders.

God I love sliders. One click and you get the job done. I think that MOO 1's use of sliders pretty much everywhere is what made that game so streamlined. I personally would love to see more liberal use of sliders in the next Galciv.