I would like to start out by saying that I am very impressed with the Alpha. You guys really took the baton from GalCiv2:TA and ran with it. You could fix the current bugs and honestly release this summer. The design is very intelligent and the game is fairly well balanced. I am, however, quite pleased that you are willing to spend more time perfecting your work of art. This game is going to be the multifoliate space TBS in an environment with zero competition.



There are a great many positive game mechanics. Many of them seem to hale from GalCiv2. You have clearly taken Stardock's good ideas and refined the design scheme. The tech tree is specifically well thought out. It appears to have been crafted by an expert in systems theory, one of my specialties. There are of course a few rough edges where tech tiers meet some ship balance issues. Overall, the opportunity costs are well balanced. The decision to specialize or generalize is always a tough choice. It is nice to see that each non-weapons branch has some very necessary military resources, without being superior to the weapon techs themselves. The economy system is a little difficult to understand, though I find the end result quite interesting. Food does need some nerfing though. I would like to see food harder to come by in the midgame and population growth more dependent on population satisfaction. Later techs have room for a system improvement that increases population growth and defense. Civic Duty would include both those factors.



Invasions leave something to be desired. I should be able to bombard a system and destroy improvements. I should be able to wipe out everything in a system or destroy it. A Genesis device that remakes all planets into gardens of Eden. A doom ray that can destroy a planet per turn and turn it into an asteroid. It would be nice to have these at the far end of each tech tree. Something very difficult to achieve, but not ridiculously flimsy like the Death Star fiasco. The current invasion modules are a nonstarter for human players. They make the ship extremely vulnerable to attack and normal ships are very effective in invading. If I am going to spend any space on these modules, they need to be devastating and possibly offer some tactical advantage to battles.



The power modules take up alot of space and get progressively worse as you move up the tech tree. I would like to see each module take up less space, but only allow one per type. Each one should offer a trade off. Higher attack, higher defense, more Hp, and combinations of these options should be the rule. Repair and high Hp is one great option. High attack and a specialized defense is another option. There are lots of ways to go here. Give us some nice variety that increases with each new tech. There are a few techs that only give power modules that a smart player avoids like the plague.



Add plagues.



The best strategy is to have a minimum of 1 of each type of defense and to have more of the ones our enemy is using. The AI chooses only one of each type. Make them diversify more. They often outclass me in technology, but I can still dominate them because I have more ships and I diversify.



Fleet size matters much much more than anything else. I have yet to fully understand the minute details of the battle system, but I have seen that outnumbering the AI is very easy. They don't seem to value command as much as they should. Increasing the starting command value would be a nice way to ensure more fairness. It would also be smart to add a tier one tech to increase command.



Kinetic is useless later in the game and yet it seems to be the most commonly researched item due to other factors. I would like to see some openings in a highly defensive strategy. The problem is that 80% of my battles are decided in the first two phases and kinetic is mostly good for the third. I would like to see kinetics be less useful in the first two phases, take up much less space by the midgame, and be absolutely deadly in the third phase. Add some power modules that make all defenses increase by 50% but decrease the power of missiles and beams by 50%. That way we can try to build massive ships that need to get in close before they are effective.



Missiles are looking pretty good, but I would like to see more nuances to the strategy. Perhaps a power module that greatly increases damage, but weakens the ship's defenses. Hit them first and hit them hard should be one of many tactics. Right now it seems to be the only option.



Beams are great. They are the most desirable option, but also very possible to counter with cards. The best way to use them is and should be to make it the middle ground of my weapons. It should tempt my enemies to use magnetic defense, allowing my missiles to do the real damage and also limiting their beam attack capacity. Also... pew pew pew never gets old.



As far as things I would like to see added from you know what:



-I would like to see some of the modules I add on the ship when in a battle.

-Proper ground invasions and invasion tactics.

-Allow me to mod every aspect of a module so I can make a weapon that does multiple types of damage.

-Want to make defenses do the same.

-We are in desperate need of rally points.

-Morality choices and choices in random events would be nice.

-A united planets council would seem appropriate.

-Some form of government type to choose from would be cool. It could be from techs or at the start. Make it affect relations.

-Diplomacy seems to need alot of work. I will comment more about it when you guys flesh it out a bit.



I look forward to the next update. Great game so far!

Really great constructive critique of the game. I agree with a lot of what you've said here.. obviously this is an Alpha but a lot of the things mentioned here need to be changed sooner rather than later for this game to really shine.

"Kinetic is useless later in the game and yet it seems to be the most commonly researched item due to other factors. I would like to see some openings in a highly defensive strategy. The problem is that 80% of my battles are decided in the first two phases and kinetic is mostly good for the third. I would like to see kinetics be less useful in the first two phases, take up much less space by the midgame, and be absolutely deadly in the third phase. Add some power modules that make all defenses increase by 50% but decrease the power of missiles and beams by 50%. That way we can try to build massive ships that need to get in close before they are effective."







Actually they have this mixed up. As shown in Mass Effect it should be for ranges, kinetic/missile/laser. The kinetics should also be slower firing cannons for softening up the enemy missiles should pick off the smaller ships in a fleet, and the the lasers should be used in close, think Borg cutting beams rather than what they show during battle. Oh and what they show in battle aren't lasers. Why do people still always mess that up?



As for the plagues, the games random events are too rare. With an increase in the number of events there should be a greater increase in variety. Having asteroids and Silicoids threatening your systems as well a finding ancient monitoring stations and partially active hulks is a great part of SotS.



As for doomsday weapons we at least need nukes, neutron bombs, and again bio-weapons. With expensive system improvements that counter these, they would really spice up the game would be a nice balancing factor.



Invasions are really crappy. We should be giving opportunities throughout an invasions to make strategic and tactical decisions. Think options like scorched earth, shock-and-awe, demoralization, and whether or not to peacefully occupy, enslave the population, or wipe them out. GalCiv2's handling of random events is brilliant and expanding on that throughout a game could create an amazing and some what novel experience.

I completly share the criticism on kinetics : if you survive until melee range with kinetics weapons, you should absolutly rape your opponents equipped with missiles.

I agree, they should have massive damage. Also if they make large ships viable, kenetics may come into play even later. Meaning larger ships survive longer, and get shreeded with kenetics.

fixou wrote:
I completly share the criticism on kinetics : if you survive until melee range with kinetics weapons, you should absolutly rape your opponents equipped with missiles.

It would be absolutely amazing if they made more weapons of the three basic types. Slow firing kinetics that are great at long range makes just as much sense as the inaccurate machine guns we have now. Why not have both? Why not have a middle of the road as well? If they did that for each weapon type, the game would much more interesting. Of course if the devs want to focus on less complex design, I am happy to make my own weapons and defenses. It gets really cool when we start adding faction specific weapons, but I am not sure that is possible with the current xml. We will have to see.

This is a double post with 10 characters.

seanw3 wrote:
It would be absolutely amazing if they made more weapons of the three basic types. Slow firing kinetics that are great at long range makes just as much sense as the inaccurate machine guns we have now. Why not have both? Why not have a middle of the road as well? If they did that for each weapon type, the game would much more interesting. Of course if the devs want to focus on less complex design, I am happy to make my own weapons and defenses. It gets really cool when we start adding faction specific weapons, but I am not sure that is possible with the current xml. We will have to see.

I agree, but I would like to expand that. Basically allow customizeable weapons (to a degree), I loved sword of the stars for allowing that.

Hi seanw3, it seems we have a mutual taste in betas... Great suggestions, as always.

Actually they have this mixed up. As shown in Mass Effect it should be for ranges, kinetic/missile/laser.

Why? How are you supposed to hit a target at long range with a slow chunk of matter that can't even correct its trajectory?