new here,moo3 sucked,NEED Galciv

Welcome to the boards, Mob! Yeah, the three things people seem to have gripes with are 1. no custom ships 2. no tactical ship battles (though they are animated ;)) and 3. no MP (see http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=17469 for more on that). Brad's philosophy has always been to make GalCiv where Empire building and AI interactions are the meat of the game, and there's some good discussion going around about this idea. And beta testers are pretty great when it comes to answering questions about the game, so if you want any non-Stardock responces, they're the guys to ask. Anyways, again, welcome!

I am also new to these boards and have visited them after Moo3's apparent disaster that discuraged me from buying it.

I am wondering if you can go more in depth and explain "no custom ships" and "no tactical ship battles." Does this mean that although you can't customize your ships, once you have researched technologies a new ship will be presented to build? Also do ship battles exist at all or are they just a report of what happened when two fleets meet?

I appreciate any answers you can give me and I am looking foward to this game.

New ship designs become available over time. Researching "Corvette Technology," for instance, allows you to build Corvettes. But you don't design ships in the MOO sense (in which you pick a hull and mount various components on it). GalCiv works more like Civilization, in which specific techs allow you to build specific units.

Ship battles, by the same token, are also more like Civilization than like MOO. You move ships on the strategic map. Fleets are stacks of ships in the same space. When two ships (or two fleets) engage, the game compares attack and defense values for each of the ships involved and conveys the results visually (the ships fire at each other, destroyed ships explode, etc.). This is essentially identicval to combat in Civ: everything happens at the strategic level--you do not get whisked away to a tactical map to play out battles in detail.

Given the scale of the game (especially on the larger maps), it's just as well.

MobRuleR, happy to see that we're at least 2 playing BOTF ! I didn't even try MOO3 with all the debate around, will at least wait for soem patches...
In fact it looks like GalCiv will share a good number of features with BOTF : emphasis on background/events, no ship design, rather "abstract" economics but requiring mm... Too bad GalCiv won't feature the nie 3D Tac combat of BotF !

And BTW, did you try BOTF mods ? Some looks very interesting, as they "offset" some of the game weaknesses : there is a mod with larger planets , a "Building Mod" that increase effect of tech level, a "Trek real" mod that rebalances ships and races, another replacing Cardassians with Dominion...

Grab them at http://embark.to/botf

Sure, now that GalCiv is gold we have a bit more time to answer questions

Custom Ships: Basically, you dont get to build your own ship. You cant say "I want a scout with Shock Turrents, Hyper Engines, a Deflect Shield and Repair Droids" (even though, I agree, this would be cool). Instead, any upgrade technology you get will automatically be distributed to ships in your fleet. Researching "Impulse Drive" for instance will give all ships a slight speed boost. No need for refitting, the bonus is automatically applied (Drastically cutting down any fleet micromanagement). "Impulse Drive" will also give you the ability to build the new ship type "Transports", giving you the ability to invade planets.

Ship Combat. Instead of switching to a different tactical screen when ships do battle (one ship tries to move into space occupied by another ship), fights are performed right on the galaxy map. You get a quick animation of some gun fire, and the loser will explode, and the victor, well, won't Ships also gain experience (crews improve the more battles they're seen) and will become more powerful as their level increases.

Let us know if you have any more questions!

ScottT

No

hehe

Felderin beat me to it. (:( I need to learn how to type faster, I guess

*sigh* And I dont know why it says "No" on the bottom of that one post. Ah well...guess that's my sign to get back to work.

Also, since the ship designs are defined in text files, you can create your own ship designs. But the AI can use any ship that you can.

--Cari

Will the AI use custom-made ships effectively? This was kind of a problem for Civ2 when it allowed this feature.

pdifolco yes i have tried some of the mods,and deffiently bring out the better aspects of the game.I personally want a mod where minor empires dont build up so fast when you play a T1,T2 or T3 game,cause it becames a matter of making them join you and do everything for your empire.
Maybe we should hook up one day and play a game on MSN gaming zone.

Hello All,

Disappointment in MOO3 led me here as well. Returned it today to beat the 7-day return time limit. I was looking for MOO2++ and it failed miserably. QuickSilver tried to re-invent the wheel and made it a square. Good news is that with the $54 I got back I was able to turn around and pre-order GalCiv and put $10 back in my pocket. Looks like GalCiv has a lot of potential to become the next big 4X addiction in my life. [crosses fingers]

hi MoonTzu!

I hope you like this game It's a pretty addictive game, it has that i can't wait till the next turn going for it. also the a.i. is amazing, the best a.i. i've ever run into. BoogieBac is correct, we don't jump all over noobies, hell we were noobies once! Don't hesitate to ask a question, Almost everybody who hangs around in here like helping people out. Catch you around the forum, and have fun with the game it is addictive

rich