Twilight: Arcea's Last Stand

Published on March 24, 2008 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

I have the greatest job in the universe. And finding that out was no small feat. With the universe having a diameter of 14 billion or so light years, I had travel a lot in order to make that determination.

So why is my job so awesome? Because I get to not just play games but as I find things that bug me, I get to change them right on the fly.

My job today is to continue to walk through the different computer AIs and civilizations, making changes to them based on YOUR feedback from the forums as well as my own experiences during playing.

You guys keep commenting on these journals and I'll keep looking.

We on the GalCiv team at Stardock have a pretty transparent way of doing things. We don't mind showing our dirty laundry to our fans because we feel a mutual trust - we know you aren't afraid of seeing the sausage factory and you know we're doing our best to make sure we go that extra step to give you a great game.

You can see lots of issues in this screen. The first problem is that it reads the name of the tournament from the file name rather than the description inside the campaign file.

Secondly, the leaderboard is going to need to be improved so that each leaderboard is based on the selected tournament.

Thirdly, we will need images for these campaigns.

As for the Arceans..

The Arceans are basically noble Klingons. That's the best way I can describe them. They're a warrior culture that is fixated with honor. I've seen some people say the Drengin are like Klingons. But that would be inaccurate.

The Drengin are evil by our standards. It's not a matter of them being misunderstood. They are just vile. The Drengin are ruthless to the core but also very clever. They're much more complex than your typical villains. The Drengin genetically produced their own castes. Their hyper aggressive warrior caste were called the Korath (which eventually became their own incredibly vicious independent civilization). The Drengin have muscle and brain.

The Arcean have muscle but not quite the brain. But they are the toughest civilization in the game.

Display bug:

Look at the time it says it'll take to build this. Clearly I have 4 social IUs. So never is wrong.

Having played the Arceans, I would say they have a pretty rough road. So I've evened the odds a bit by giving them a unique constructor module which is far cheaper than what the other civilizations get.

At almost half the cost, Arceans can afford to build a lot of starbases.

I think the Arceans are in a good place now.

The Torians will get some love next.

Comments

Mac2411

on Mar 24, 2008

This is exactly the kind of tweaking I was looking for in some of my earlier posts on the Arceans and their rather challenging position. My ideas were a bit different (like enhancing the Stellar Forge a bit as one example), but this is good. I guess this will come into effect for the next beta (after 6)?

pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

on Mar 25, 2008

The first constructor I send out to claim a galactic resource may have extended range and possibly engines for extra speed. The constructors I send afterwards I make as cheap as possible. That meant a small hull with only the constructor module until I reached miniaturization 25% at which point I would use tiny hulls. In ToA small hulls are not available until you have researched Interstellar Construction, so cargo hulls are needed until that point.

Will the AI also use cheaper hulls for building constructors?

I've noticed in Beta 5 the AI building planetary defenders with defenses but no weapons! Such a ship would block an unarmed troop transport without an armed escort but will not stop an armed ship. An empty tiny hull ship would serve the same purpose but be far cheaper to build or purchase, until a proper defender could be built or purchased.

Evil Muppet

on Mar 25, 2008

I'm surprised that display bug is still there. Didn't people bring this up when Dark Avatar came out? Anyway, good work. I can't wait to see what comes next!

Gre_Magus

on Mar 25, 2008

Everyone may already know this, but isn't the display bug due to the fact that all your social points are currently being shunted over to military production?

Mistralok1

on Mar 25, 2008

I had travel a lot in order to make that determination.

Yes, but think of all the frequent flier miles you're racking up!

Love to see this kind of stuff, keep it coming. BTW, thanks for upping the resolution of the screenshots.

Emperor_Seth

on Mar 25, 2008

So is beta 7 going to be the last?

Tommymac

on Mar 25, 2008

Thanks Brad - most interesting journal.

I haven't been able to play much for the last 6 monthes due to work, so cannot play test Toa (though I do have a few DA games going for relaxation)- but I hope to be able to have some free time next month to take ToA for a test spin or two. I've downloaded the beta's regularly - but haven't started the game yet - I know I'd be hooked for nights on end with no sleep - and I need my job...

DivineWrath

on Mar 25, 2008

I would like to bring up 2 points here.

1. The Arceans get a "Stellar Forge" structure that is a galactic achievement. It bugs me that they would build one right away without considering a better world to build it on. I ussually find it on "Arcea" or "Hammer II" instead of a class 21 factory world. Building one early might be nice and all, but it provides the most benefits if placed on a world best able to produce the most amount of ships.

My suggestion is improve the AI so it considers delaying the construction of its stellar forge until it finds a really good world to build it on, or until it finishes colonizing as many worlds its probally going to get before deciding where to place it. Alternatively, you could remake the stellar forge, or make a weaker version that can be built one per planet.

I know I would be trying that approach once the custom race tools comes out, and I can start putting things together from the stuff I have written on paper.

----

2. The Arceans could use ion drives for their ships. I'm not asking to give them a whole bunch of engine techs, just up to ion drives. Ion drives are a bit of an improvement from hyperdrives, though it provides the same speed bonus as hyperdrives, its both cheaper and smaller. Having ships running around with hyperdrives instead of ion drives despite the techs being closely related makes the Arceans look kinda dumb, but then again...

The Arcean have muscle but not quite the brain...

________________

I appreciate the time you try to make this game great. I hope I've been to provide helpful suggestions and comments.

kodapa

on Mar 26, 2008

It looks like you manually clip out the window for each screenshot. In that case, alt + print screen will be your new best friend.

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