Galactic Civilizations III

[Gelston]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owdjizoiqVY

Just got an email about it. I'm excited and ready to spends hours upon hours of time in it.

[Ardwen]

elite pre-order name a star system interesting offer in a game.

[Gelston]

Yeah, and Alpha access along with all future DLCs for free. All yours for 99 dollars. The other Preorder is cool though, it is Beta access and 10 bucks cheaper than the final game will be.

[Gelston]

The game is fully released now. Just picked it up.

[Wesley]

Been waitin' for years! Stardock games are always worth the wait!

[Fallen]

Gelston you sure love your Strat Sims or ...4x strat. Or things where you move dudes around in a grid. One of those. You love it.

[Ardwen]

I think I have bought every stardock game they have sold, have yet to regret owning any of them. Not many publishers I can say that about.

[Ashlander]

Only one I regretted was the 4x fantasy one can't remember the name. They did update it eventually and it got much better though.

[Ardwen]

hmm fallen enchantress maybe? I love Sins of a Solar Empire, one of my favorite games all time, gal civ 2 was a ton of fun as well

[Gelston]

Gelston you sure love your Strat Sims or ...4x strat. Or things where you move dudes around in a grid. One of those. You love it.

I love all strategy games. Sins of a Solar Empire was probably my favorite space based one, with Homeworld and Empires at War close behind.


hmm fallen enchantress maybe? I love Sins of a Solar Empire, one of my favorite games all time, gal civ 2 was a ton of fun as well

I liked Fallen Enchantress. :(

[Taernath]

I love the Sins of a Solar Empire series. Fallen Enchantress is pretty good, Galactic Civ 2 I never got into for some reason though.

[Gelston]

Playing a GC3 game right now with a random galaxy set to the largest size, immense I think? I've been playing for like 3 hours and have only run into one of the NPCs so far, out of the 8 I put in the game. Also put in minor powers, ran into none of those yet. Immense must truly be... Immense.

[Whirlin]

Is it just a CIV in space? Not familiar with the game series at all?

[Gelston]

Is it just a CIV in space? Not familiar with the game series at all?

Sorta similar, I suppose.

[Wesley]

Fallen Enchantress was the followup that fixed the broke one. The one it fixed was Elemental. Stardock made it right though. If you had the original game, you got Fallen Enchantress for free. They always do right by their customers. Fallen Enchantress was and is good (though I still prefer Age of Wonders), but nothing beats GalCiv. So customizable, and immense.

[Wesley]

Playing a GC3 game right now with a random galaxy set to the largest size, immense I think? I've been playing for like 3 hours and have only run into one of the NPCs so far, out of the 8 I put in the game. Also put in minor powers, ran into none of those yet. Immense must truly be... Immense.

Oof, and yeah! "Immense" setting was always just way, way too large for me on GC2. You don't run into anybody for forever most of the time, and when you do, you supergimp yourself because none of the computers have run into each other yet. I like a balance, where I can come out of the chute, but run into someone early, and if I'm at war, let that dictate my technology trees and weapon/defense decision paths. That's where I always had the most fun. I usually did that by going with Huge (one step under Immense) and just packing the map with every computer/minor race I could.

[Ashlander]

Fallen Enchantress was the followup that fixed the broke one. The one it fixed was Elemental. Stardock made it right though. If you had the original game, you got Fallen Enchantress for free. They always do right by their customers. Fallen Enchantress was and is good (though I still prefer Age of Wonders), but nothing beats GalCiv. So customizable, and immense.

Yeah Fallen Enchantress was much better and because of the way they handled it is why I still buy games from them regardless.

Edit: I'll be picking up GalCiv 3 soon I still play the second one from time to time.

[Seran]

This game is actually a blast. I've put my game on the third to last difficult with closed clusters and have enjoyed the hell out of it.

[Ardwen]

purchased and playing with the largest possible settings just to see how silly it is, something about 128 enemy civs being a possibility, so far so interesting!

[Gelston]

purchased and playing with the largest possible settings just to see how silly it is, something about 128 enemy civs being a possibility, so far so interesting!

Yeah, I finally ran into two other Civs, 3 total. Conquered the shit out of one. It was great. I was already rocking Huge sized ships and carriers by that time though.

[Whirlin]

After hearing about you guys talk how good it was, I decided to pick it up, and just have one super quick question:

Is there anything I can actually do during combat? The UI makes it remind me of the air combat sequencies from Xenonauts (which, I never got a good grasp on), but the other options that I see on the screen implies that the outcome is predetermined.

[Gelston]

After hearing about you guys talk how good it was, I decided to pick it up, and just have one super quick question:

Is there anything I can actually do during combat? The UI makes it remind me of the air combat sequencies from Xenonauts (which, I never got a good grasp on), but the other options that I see on the screen implies that the outcome is predetermined.

You can change the camera view, speed it up, pause it... But no, not really. It used to just be the quick battle part.

[Whirlin]

You can change the camera view, speed it up, pause it... But no, not really. It used to just be the quick battle part.

That's fine with me, thanks for clarifying. Seems like there's enough complexity around the game without having to deal with micromanaging combat.

[Whirlin]

I decided to go for broke and generate a super super biggest world you can generate.

...

...
...

I've clocked in maybe 5 hours and finally met 1 other NPC after setting a couple drones to auto-explore. Even then, I don't think my process is even too noticeable on the map if I were to zoom out completely. I've only recently started encountering pirates, and finally have started needing to produce some warships to protect myself and aid in expansion.

[Ardwen]

yeah shit load of pirates around me now lol, still no other NPC though

[Gelston]

I think it is fun to turn off pirates, put size at immense, and pretend we are at about 100 years from now.

[Whirlin]

Ok... so... after 10 hours clocked in, I've decided to restart my game:

I've learned a ton about how the planet building system worked... previously, I had F'ed up a LOT of worlds due to not understanding those that actually gave bonuses, and those that enhanced them...

Arranging little planet clusters to maximize Ship Yards... And properly placing / managing ship yard placement. Because damn, rearranging them and managing logistics on a cluster that you've already developed is awful.

The relationship between influence, maximum distance travelable, and other such nonsense.

Don't build on EVERY planet you see... ... ... This one can be difficult.

Starbases... all the time. More Starbases. So much mining.

[Ardwen]

I am thinking of a restart as well, so much to learn, the tech tree choices need to be made correctly or man can you screw things up too

[Whirlin]

I am thinking of a restart as well, so much to learn, the tech tree choices need to be made correctly or man can you screw things up too
Although, I found that you can trade with other civs for the other talents that you didn't choose.

[Seran]

It's all about wealth and income generation.

[Taernath]

I think I fucked up in the tutorial. :o

[Ardwen]

several hundred hours in on many games to play thru stuff, the DLC are unbalancing as hell for the most part. Until the last tweak I had fighters that were more powerful then other races battleship and titan class ships it was comical.

[Whirlin]

several hundred hours in on many games to play thru stuff, the DLC are unbalancing as hell for the most part. Until the last tweak I had fighters that were more powerful then other races battleship and titan class ships it was comical.
I just found that if I spent the time in the ship builder, the game was over... I'd just make a micro-frame ship with a builder or carrier add-on, and have it produced in one turn, rather than whatever-the-heck default builders/settling ships were.

Once I find opposition, just load up defenses against whatever weapons they're specialized in, and add in a ton of weapons of whatever they're not defending against.

I haven't gotten any DLC for the game... However, I did just finish building a new rig, so I theoretically should be able to handle the max world size this time around!

[drauz]

I think I have bought every stardock game they have sold, have yet to regret owning any of them. Not many publishers I can say that about.

Demigod wasn't worth it for me. That's the only game of theirs that I have played (I think). A WoW guildmate was a developer there when it got released and she hyped it up. It was just a crap dotaish game that had none of the fun elements of dota.