Newer Poll

On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give AP a 4 since it has some room for improvement but is better than the average expansion. I'm also confident that AP will continue to approach the perfect 5.

A 'neutral' choice would have been much better. I think the improvements to the AI are nice but, overall, I am very underwhelmed by the new features. Most of the features are nothing more than something that could have been added as a mod to base gal-civ (and I expect that someone will wind up doing just that). The campaign is extremely clumsy and far from ready for public release in my opinion. Scenarios may or may not prove to be a great thing in the future with the mod community but it's too soon to tell. New metaverse features are currently AWOL and having seen the empty promises about the metaverse with base gal-civ I'm not exactly going to hold my breath.

However, since I am underwhelmed, the choices lead me to vote 'disappointed' even though that's not really accurate.

I agree with Code Monkey. The expansion is quite good but not compelling. Neither the campaign nor the new features are enough to prompt me to play this game rather than to move on to something different. I can't answer the poll.

That's very disappointing to hear.

Consider these basics in the expansion pack:

1) You can now create custom-made scenarios. Before, it was all random.

2) You can now have teams. Before it was always free for all. Now you can set things up however you want.

3) Before it was only random maps. That's it.  Now you can make your own maps to put together your own strategy.

4) Before you were at our mercy to come up with specific new features. Now, there's editors to create your own stuff relatively easily.

5) Before the metaverse only allowed you to input different random games. Now, there will be a campaign metavese option so you can all compete on the same exact grounds. Much less "luck of the draw".

6) Before you had a total of 5 opponents to play against. That's it. Now there's 7 which gives you 4 on 4, 2 on 2 on 2 on 2, etc.

These aren't little "mod" stuff here. These are major changes that will let you get vastly more replayability.  Heck, I think the custom scenarios and pre-made maps would be worth $20 on their own.  And these 6 features I just mentioneda aren't even mentioning the campaigns, the new ships, the new techs, etc. 

I think that AP is worth it. I have enjoyed the new one, and rate it at the level of GalCiv, which rates as the best game I have ever played.

Depends on what you found appealing about GC to begin with. I *like* the random, open game. From my perspective, what I get for the most part from AP is improved AI and the promise of continued support at a time when base GC is about to stop being tweaked.

The new techs and buildings could be a mod. The new ships can't perfectly be recreated but like everything about this game they're just a matter of each tech advance or ship being a foo++ change anyhow. People can make approximations and even use your guy's art and ship animations (although you probably won't want to host it here for obvious reasons).

New AI players? For scenarios, yes, maybe there is something to them, but in the random game they're another foo++ change that adds minorly to the variety of any one particular game. However, since you've never really made the different AIs that distinctive (and I'm still not sure what the 'default' alignments are for the Drath and Korx are since there's nothing in-game that indicates this - I've been playing with them on random) it's just new animated art. Someone could use some Bink tools, make some short animations and replace the Altarians and rename them the Ooogledy Boogledies and, voila, you'd have the same effect for all intents and purposes.

Scenarios are an unproven element that will only show their value in the long run (and maybe will never materialise as a significant value). The metaverse is an unproven element that may never prove a thing. I'm not dissing your guy's hard work, but there were pie in the sky intentions for the initial metaverse that never materialised. There has never been anything approaching a balanced scoring system.

Now, maybe there's a lot of people out there dying to create scenarios, maybe there's hordes of people who want to play them. I was more interested in seeing a dynamic campaign along with tweaks to the base game. I got tweaks to the base game, but I also got a campaign that's barely playable on Normal difficulty and tedious to progress through - the attempt at balancing with the inverse ally/enemie AI intelligence screwed the thing up beyond recognition. Since what should have been the biggest draw for me was a let down, AP get's a solid 'eh'.

Mind you, I'm not saying I don't like it, I'm saying I dont like it 'a lot'.
1) The amount of events that are available is too tiny for me to play with it. Events must be things like 'if you invade planet X, then ships are created for race Y'. I haven't seen that possible. Civ2 had this, and more.
2) If the teams acted as humans would (sharing all techs for nothing for instance, and coordinating tech research), it would be interesting. Right now, it doesn't feel much different from being allied, except you can be allied with good races and pick the evil choices. Also, the game would need diplomacy with team and not diplomacy with a single race. If I want to make peace with team A, I can do so only by going and checking whether I can with teammate1 and then teammate2 (and teammate3...). That's not funny.
3) The map editor being 3D actually deters me. I crashed when using it, and don't feel it's worth downloading DirectX to avoid the crashes.
4) I could already edit most things I wanted by hand, but the ai wouldn't follow (I still can't get the ai to play correctly with negative range colony ships - a map designed to prevent early expansion was an idea I had, but it can't work out well, because it just delays expansion, not makes it harder)
5) Don't care. I no longer submit my games to the metaverse anyway.
6) 7 is better than 5 indeed, but not compelling.

Re Campaigns - we are LOOKING for feedback on the campaign. We can only go by what we're told. If someone finds the campaign bad, they need to tell us what they don't like. It's a bit of a pisser to have someone complain about the inverse intelligence thing two weeks after the RCs started coming out.

Re Teams - in the release candidate trading techs between teammates IS cheap now. It was the primary AI change in the last build.

I me sheesh, it's a $20 expansion. The last expansion I bought for amajor game cost $30 and gave me a few new maps and new units and that's about it. That's the typical. I think we've provided a heck of a lot of goodies in a $20 expansion.

But I can only go by what matters to me and people like me. Being able to play as a team on pre-canned maps or maps I can create myself matters quite a bit to me. Having more major civilizations isn't just foo++ but rather significantly changes the diplomatic dynamics in the game.

Well, for what its worth I consider it money well spent. Nothing is ever perfect and I could probably think of extra things that could have gone in but its worth it just for the campaign and new races if you ask me.

Brad, I mentioned the balance issues in the campaign feedback before (4/18) in the feedback thread although I don't think I was as explicit as I could have been regarding my feeling about the inverse difficulty being the root cause. It also wasn't until I played around some more with the difficulty that I really became convinced that it was the main problem. You initially designed these maps as 'fair and balanced' but you actually screw yourself by going easier than normal (your so-called allies hose you) or by going harder (you have to do the work of two races). The only playable difficulty for the last half in my opinion is Normal.

OTOH, I'm a little puzzled at your reactions. Me & DiCesare aren't panning the expansion, we're neutral. You have our money anyhow or we obviously wouldn't be providing feedback. If we hated it we'd be in here going on about "What a waste of money! Give me my money back!"

You focused on the features you wanted, nothing wrong with that. It's to be expected that it won't light everyone's fire as no expansion could. I'm just giving you my feedback: I'd have been happier with a much more robust campaign system (balance issues aside), you opted for scenario building tools. The world goes on.

I LIKE it!!!!!!!!

LOL

The addition of the other 2 races made me have to rethink my strategy.

Concerning the campaign: I think part of the problem is that many of the more skilled players have only played at normal and above. The inverse AI problem seems to be evident at sub-normal levels.

A possible solution lies in having having the Team/Ally AI "smartest" at "NORMAL" and get "weaker/more dumb" as you approach the two extremes. This way at easiest levels you don't get overwhelmed by your ally. Secondly the higher levels would be harder because you would have "an anchor around your neck" for an ally.
[Message Edited]

On inverse difficulty of allies. Note I only said "A suicidal difficulty should have incredible opponents and dumb allies." I didn't mean an easy game should have incredible allies. You can in fact make the switch to normal: If below normal, allies are standard, over, they are inverted.
Trading techs between teammates shouldn't be cheap. It should be automatic and free.
Again, I want to stress that I like teh expansion, not that I like it 'a lot'. It would get 7 in 10, not 9 or 10/10.

Everything you say I agree with. I think for $20 it is a great value.

But I think the poll would be easier to take if there were more choices. I would rank the AP at about 8 out 10.

I think it's even more pronounced because you effectively increase difficulty by ~2 levels with a single increase in the alleged difficulty for most of the maps as you go above normal. It's a kludge fix that doesn't really work in my opinion.

Yes but what's the point of playing maso if you sit and watch your teammate kill the opponents for you?
It's not that difficult to survive if you've got an ally, except if the scenario puts you in a very bad situation.

Best $20 I ever spent - and I haven't even looked at the campaign yet.

Well done and thanks Stardock.

It's a question of the slope of increasing difficulty. I don't like playing at the higher difficulties. Changes the "strategy" to nothing but AI exploits in my estimation. I will say that with the way the difficulty is currently scaled going from just normal to challenging is like going from normal to painful in the standard game. The maso and suicidal players should not ever be who Stardock is caring about pleasing as, while they dominate the metaverse, if that's where the sales are then GC only sold a couple of hundred copies and we know that's not the case.

The flaw is the allied and team AI "logic" more than anything else, the fix was a kludge that doesn't work except for the outlying players who find it trivial to churn out a 60K Gigantic on Maso difficulty in less than a day. The mainstream players, who I hope is what Stardock want to cater to more, are going to be extremely disappointed, I know I am. I can't help but win on Normal, I can't win at all on Challenging after mission 6.


[Message Edited]

Well I think we need to have another RC build then because I don't want the campaign to go out not being great.

So I think that the difficulty level just won't affect your allies at all but instead just affect your opponents. How does that sound?

That sounds good.

Does this mean that allies will always be at normal?

Allies would always be at normal intelligence.

..in the campaign.

The Allies always at normal makes sense. A little boost at lower diffs without them going all the way to smacking you around, and decent enough at normal and above. Better

The Editors aren't very well designed. Most the ships aren't on the map editor, there's no way to customise planets and place specific improvements on them. You can't customise the AI's or make your own minor races. And that's just the map editor.