Orion Adrian

Join Date 03/2006

Making GalCiv more like chess and less like checkers

Or how to give the different pieces more flavor

Checkers is a fun game, but it doesn't tweak my strategy brain cells the way chess does. There's something about the fact that the chess pieces have personality and function that really does something for me.

Lack of flavor in this game has always been a major concern for me and what keeps this game from being great. I know it's got a lot of fans, but I want it to be more. Heck I'd even spend time working on it for free if they'd let me.

But the game feels an awful lot like checkers to me. At each stage of the game you may only have a few varieties of ships in your fleets. Small and medium or medium and large. You have have fighters and frigates, but I'm looking for more of a Battlestar Galactica / Star Trek DS9 feel. The problem is there seems little reason to name individual ships since each one is a clone of 50 more just like it.

In the real navy the big ships are huge multi-year deals and each ship is different from the other because the technology changes. There's also a limited capacity for them due to cost and just not having the trained personnel to man them.

I'm thinking we need the same thing with our space ships. The really big ships in the game should be limited. Each planet should have a ship capacity that's spent on the ships it creates based on the size of the ship. Small ships shouldn't cost anything or very, very little. Big ships (the largest hulls and a few levels down) should cost in terms of your planetary capacity. Each ship could then be named for the planet/region much like Battlestar or Battleships are.

Want to add even more flair -- make the biggest ships multi-planet (in the same system) affairs though this would require rethinking resources and planet interaction.

So in a small map you might have 10-12 of these beasts at your height by the time you've conquered almost all the map. To make this feasible you could have a certain percentage of the cost of these ships free for the first per system.

Want to add even more flair -- tie them to morale. When the named ship from your area does well morale goes up. When it does poorly morale goes down. There's a ton of things you can do with these when there's a sense of emotion behind them.

Given such limited resources you have to think much more strategically than the game currently makes you think. It would benefit you to make them differently to serve different needs much like a chess piece and you wouldn't be so indiscriminant in throwing them away.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I don't think Galciv is chess or checkers. It's mercilessly blowing up slimy aliens and using their green blood for wall paint.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Sounds like you want a mod. Have at.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I agree with Tetleytea somewhat except for the green blood for wall paint. You're wrong there. Everyone knowns aliens don't have green blood, that is just a myth. Aliens have spaghetti sauce for blood.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Wait a minute, I just checked my refrigerator, and spaghetti sauce *IS* green. Mine has been that way for the last 13 months.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Aliens have spaghetti sauce for blood.
[Lieutenant] [Custom] [Over 5 Battles] [Neutral] [Beginner]

Yeah, and meatballs and sausages for... ahh, forget it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Actually, I think we do have different chess pieces, and that the game works more like chess than checkers, if the difference lies the variety of pieces. Orion's post only focuses on offensive ships (i.e. ships with weapons and shields). Put aside for a moment the tactical variety in these ships, and the byplay available from designing and redesigning to evade the AI's production and to attack the AI's weaknesses.

We still have other ships, with other functions and movement patterns i.e. other pieces: colonists, miners, constructors, scouts, now even spies. Each "ship" has its separate game function, and each thus "moves" in a different way and for a different purpose. Moreover, the ship designer gives the ability to redesign these too (except for spies).

If you consider the whole game environment to include all game elements (much as you would consider an 8x8 chess board), and if you consider all available ships (including your own redesigns) as your pieces within which to gain decisive advantage within that game environment, then, well, that's much more like chess.

GalCiv lacks the simplicity of chess, as well as the extreme logical complexity that results from having six differently enabled pieces on an 8x8 board. But it's much more similar to that complexity than it is to checkers.

Just my two cents.

Alex

Successfully updated karma reason!

i agree with Alex that GalCiv is more like chess than checkers, though i think it doesn't quite match up to other games. checkers is very simple, on par with tic-tac-toe or paper-rock-scissors. i've heard GalCiv compared to paper-rock-scissors.

but there are subtleties, and if all your ship designs are identical, maybe you should play at a harder difficulty level. i usually have a couple classes per hull size, and i'm finding even more variety in DA.

for example, i often have a weak destroyer (medium hull) model, and a strong one for individual ships that gain a few levels.

in some games, i have a faster-moving huge ship model, and an engine-less one i use to patrol homeland areas littered with military bases (in games where i build them). it'll often be accompanied by fighters with no gengines and only 1 defense (invariably in missiles).

sometimes i'll have different models geared to fight different enemies: different defenses or even sometimes weapons, different speeds and ranges.

it all depends on how i play, and i mix things up. try new looks and feels. it sounds to me like you've fallen into a rut - you found a model of playing that works for you, and you stick to it. change your priorities for a game. try focusing on a different aspect. limit the number of planets you get, thus making every available tile feel like it counts.

or not. how you decide to have fun is up to you.

Successfully updated karma reason!

The reason I compare GalCiv to checkers is that while the rules are complex the pieces are interchangable. Loosing a knight, queen or even a specific pawn changes the dynamic of the game. Loosing Scout #9 doesn't really do anything and while I understand that you have to have a certain amount of redudancy the ability to abstract specific ships as one in a class means its loss will never have the same meaning as a specific chess piece. There's a certain sentimentality that players of chess make for the pieces on the board. Each one has great personality and there's a feeling of loss when one is lost... there is a consideration to be made.

I reference Cavedog/Gas Powered Games versus Blizzard. One of the major selling factors and the thing that brings Blizzard games the extra level is that they strive to make an emotional connection. The underlying engine and interface may be inferior to what Chris Taylor has produced, but Chris Taylor (though I love his work) lacks the sentimentality to bring personal, emotional connections to his games.

The same problem has plagued me here. In an effort to let you do anything it's as if nothing matters long term. While there may be a personsal connection to a favorite design there's unlikely a personal connection to the individual units on the board.

I simply find it hard and compelling to tell a story about "people" or "ships" when all the ships are named things like "Destroyer #132" or "My cool design #64". Even if my names were on par with Excelisor Class, it still doesn't create the same connection as the "Enterprise", the "Defiant" or the "Galactica".

The solution and the secret to telling the story is to limit focus. There's a reason that war stories follow specific warriors and not batallions. So perhaps having the big ships be limited would really help the story-telling aspects of the game and allow individual games to create that personal connection.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Mistralok1

Join Date 05/2006

+22

The game, much like life, is what you make of it, OA. If you choose to play it out as a comparison of cold statistics, then that is the experience you will have. If, however, you are willing to unclench your sphincter, and invest some part of your emotional self into it, you can have a much more enriching experience. Have you ever read any of the AAR's? There is passion there. This game is very much like chess. They both begin the same, and end the same; the interesting part is in the middle- and that is entirely up to you. There is an old Yor saying: 0111001001110010011100100111001001110010011100100111001001100101010 0000010 0000010 00000110110101100101010 0000010 000001110011010 000001101111011101100110010101110010010 1100010 0000011101000110100001100101010 0000110 1011110 10010110111001100111010 0000011000010110111001100100010 000001110000011000010111011101101110010 00000110011101101111010 000000110000111000100110001101101011010 000001101001011011100111010001101111010 0000011101000110100001100101010 000001110011011000010110110101100101010 0000011000100110111101111000010 1110 (for any grammar nazis who may be out there, I remind you that Yor is not my first language, and I am a little rusty at it, so please be kind.

Successfully updated karma reason!

...111011011...

Ya, I was going to call you on this part, as it should read 101011011.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Mistralok1

Join Date 05/2006

+22

Successfully updated karma reason!