So far, my impressions are fairlly favorable. I've run through two games at a lower intelligence level and one at normal.
Here's what I like:
1. The Graphics are very good for a game of this type.
2. The ability to design a ship is probably my favorite part of the game. I can literally spend 30 minutes building one. I suck at it, but it's a blast.
3. The AI and their reactions are a hoot. An overwhelming, but disorganized attack, will net nothing when the computer gives his planets to a rival. I haven't been down so they can gloat on me yet, but I can already see where this adds some "flavor" to the game.
4. Overall concept is good.
5. The AI doesn't cheat.
Here's what I'm not so sure about. This list is bigger probably because I haven't uncovered some parts of the game yet. It's also in more detail in order to explain why some of it doesn't seem to work for me. So some of these may not be valid. If they're not, just let me know why/how/where.
1. He who colonizes first wins. On my 2nd game, I discovered and colonized about 8 worlds in the first 30 turns. At that point, the game was effectively over. The next 4 hours were spent convincing everyone else of that, but the game could have ended at turn 30.
2. There's not much to do at times - and this is my biggest concern. I set up a building schedule on my worlds and let it fly. There's nothing to irrigate, mine, no roads to build, etc. like in Civ. Once I set up a world, that part of the game is done. The only thing left is shipbuilding. I found myself skipping through turn after turn last night because there wasn't anything to do.
Once I have a comfortable number of ships, everything is discovered and I'm not at war, there REALLY isn't anything to do at all. I can't colonize or explore anything else. In Civ, I don't reach this point until 1700 or so - so I'm always exploring. In GalCiv, I've hit this stage within 50-100 turns.
3. Combat is very simplistic. It seems to come down to "who has the bigger gun". I'm surprised that in a game with capital ships, weapon range isn't a factor. As it stands, combat is pretty unsatisfying...and so far, I haven't even found anyplace to use any strategy whatsoever.
4. The tech tree is big, but it's not deep. What's the real difference between laser I, II, III, IV and V? Not a whole lot - only small increments of size. They all do the same damage and there is no range in the game. As a result, I'm not waiting with baited breath for my next tech. It's all very mundane. Why is it like this? Just to lengthen the game artificially? Why not take half of these out and just increase the amount of turns it takes to get them? Keep laser I and V (rename it to II) and double the turns so that when you get laser II (which was V), it actually means something.
So the end result of these - at times I was a bit bored. There was nothing to build. There was no one to fight. There was nowhere to explore. And I wasn't waiting on anything decent to discover. That's not a good place for any 4X game to be. So what am I missing?
I can see that once I have AI on par with me, the game will be challenging. I'm just not sure that it'll be that much fun, especially with Civ IV sitting on my hard drive. I haven't discovered the layers of depth that I find in Civ IV in GalCiv. They may be there - I'm certainly going to continue to give it a shot - but I'm not sure that the game has the legs to compete with something like Civ IV.
I played again last night - bigger universe, smarter AI. Not much changed. Again, the first 50 turns were like the Oklahoma Land Rush - build as many colonization ships as possible and send em out. Meh.
The anomalies were gone shortly thereafter.
So after setting up my planetary building queues and trading the occasional tech to keep the AI happy, the game runs mostly on autopilot. Seriously. I'll control a scout ship or two to visit the other planets and send a couple of frieghters on their merry way, but I'm just not doing much. It feels to me a bit like Dungeon Siege - point the guys where you need them to go and the game does the rest.
Yes, the game can be "situationally" fun. But it seems you almost have to be put in a deficit position for that to happen. If you're not, it's not that interesting and combat just seems to be a zerg rush. Combat in Civ 4 is MUCH more interesting, if only for the rock-paper-scissors design of the units in it. For example, I'm going to need cannons to blast he defenses, macemen to take out the melee units, knights to take out the archers, etc. It seems to be of little consequence whether my GalCiv ships have mass driver cannons, lasers, plasma or missiles. Maybe it's due to a lack of feedback on the actual damage done, but I don't see much difference at all.
As for events, the ONLY one I've had happen is a prison break where they capture a couple of ships. That's 3 complete games...and that's the only real event I've had happen.
I'm not down on the game - it's a fine piece of work - but I'm probably missing some level of complexity. If I'm not, the game is pretty shallow and will be forgotten pretty quickly.
