What Am I Missing?

[Shucker69]

When I read the reviews and the comments I hear generally nothing but good/great things. My experience has not been the same. I am a long time strategy/Civ player but I am being left cold here. Before you start, i am not a hater, I would like to love this game but I am not getting it. Being new to the game, I started from scratch and pretty much put everything to random. I started out and colonized some planets, mined some asteroids, set up starbases, that sort of thing. I made a lot of mistakes and learned a great deals about how it works. The only problem is practically nothing e4ver happened. I developed my planets, I saw all of the others doing the same. I tend to be peaceful unless attacked and I guess I must have been playing my alter-ego because we all just became the best of friends. Nothing ever really seemed to happen. Sure Civ is slow at the start when all you have is a Settler, but you run into barbarians or animals or other people reasonably quickly. But I have put in an inordiante amount of time and I can say that I have had little to no joyful moments, just researching and building. My 88 hours is split between that experience and then moving into the Dread Lords campaign. I actually won the first couple of scenarios on normal, but still it was rather boring without much taking place besiades getting the tech to defeat the Dregin planets. Then when they relesaed the Dread Lords I am at a complete loss. Lost twice on Normal so i went to Beginner. Lost again so I went to Simple, which is embarrassing, but I have got to see what I have got to do to beat any those Dread Lords ships. It simply doesn't seem to make any sense to build a ship beyond having Destroyer capabaility because they so much more advanced. I would have liked to at least put a fleet of ships togetrher to take a shot at them but as soon as a ship0 is built they just come and destroy it. I find it terribly frustrating and I am the point of dropping it altogether. I don't want to though. Like i said, I want to like this game but it is sooo slow. Am I missing something??

[Minoris]

Funny, I just re-installed (and basically bought anew, as I couldn't find my old CDs...) but I've been playing this game since its release.

Honestly, at first, I remember being kind of like you. I didn't really get it and left it to rot in some corner of my hard drive. Then the expensions came out, I grew a few years older (yes, I think it did make a difference) and gave it another shot. And... I couldn't understand why I didn't like it at first. Now, I can't help you about the campaign, I haven't played them all and can't really remember anything. As for the main, sandbox game, I can only offer a few pointers.

1) Find what works out for you. Being on random is fun sometimes, but most people have set-ups that they prefer. I know scattered star systems bores me to death. I love tight clusters, common stars, common planets, common habitable, on the biggest map available. I need huge chunks of empty space to make life support modules really important. Also it just simply makes for more interesting wars in my opinion. Also, don't forget that different technology pace makes really different games. I love long, drawn out wars (and games) so Very Slow is my thang (nothing beats the thrill of waiting for that new tech to turn the tide while, in the meantime, your forces are getting mauled hopelessly).

2) What difficulty level were you playing on? I tend to use higher tiers difficulty levels, though not the highests as there are just insanely hard to me. Too easy is boring and exactly as you described. Also, sometimes, no matter what, you might just end up with a boring game... it happens... (Reminds me of Hearts of Iron or Europa Universalis in some way. From time to time you'll end up with a game so weird and/or boring it just makes you rage quit.)

3) Finally, don't trust this game's name. As you've noticed, it is far from being "Civilization, but in space!" I think the mistake I might have done a few years back was to expect some kind of Civilization copypasta with a space setting. Of course they're both 4x and share quite a lot of mechanisms and stuffs. But overall GalCiv offers such a different mood, playstyle and pacing that yes, it is possible I ended up being disapointed because my expectations were wrong. Who knows, maybe it is what happened to you as well. Or maybe you just don't like this game at all, which is fine as well. Sad, but fine. ;)

[Shucker69]

Thanks for the response Armid. I think I may have gotten that strange edition of a sandbox game. Admittedly that is the only one I tried.

One thing that popped to me was when you said you choose very slow for game setting. I am almost sure I didn't select that in the sandbox experiment but it is worth checking to see if i missed that. When it comes to the Dread Lords campaign, I don't recall seeing a choice, but that might be worth checking as well.

I am a research first guy, so I set that real high, but I still have enough to fill my slots on the planets and keep up with the upgrades so that doesn't appear to be the problem.

I am mainly concerned about the Dread Lords campaign at this point. I am not sure you have done these but it is what I am working through now. I am about 4 or 5 scenarios in, after the Dread Lords have been "released". It just takes forever to generate enough technology to build a ship that could hang with them. I would like to be able to get a fleet together to get some strength in numbers but as soon as I get one built they come and destroy it without ever having launched it.

I don't expect to be terrific at it, but I would think I should be competetive at normal. I am not afraid of getting beat either, I prefer a challenge to a cakewalk. But when I get destroyed twice in a row on Normal, then drop to Beginner, which is what I am to this game, only to be trounced again and then all the way down to Simple my ego is taking a shot here.

Finally, I can see that maybe my random got me too big of a universe and too friendly of competitors, but I am frustrated by the lack of action in the Dread Lords scenario/campaign. i would have thought being drawn up the way it is there would be more action than waiting for them to come with their super ships that I can't hope to do anything about.

[MC858]

sadly, i dont know anyone that plays the scenarios in this game or Civ lol

[Karagek]

I've played this game a bit myself. The campain i personally find impossible. There is nothing else to describe it. The dreadlords frigates have over 300 damage, at the start of the game. You have to tech up a bit to even get weapons. During that time, the dreadlords get a few ships out, and begin to destroy you. It becomes more of a "have to tech up quick or i'm dead" than an even fight.

As for the random maps, if you want to be attacked by the ai, drengin and korath are the most warlike. Arceans are also militaristic. If you keep a small military, they are likely to start extorting money from you. They will eventually declare war.

In random maps, you can select Mega Events. These events have very different effects. Three that i find common are annoying though.

The Jagged Knife spawn, they literally steal controll of a number of systems from every faction, as well as all technologies. I think they also manipulate the civilizations to go to war.

The Dreadlords can spawn, this usually happens much later. The dreadlords in these random maps can't create ships anywhere near as fast as in the campain. Usually, the dreadlords spawn mid-late game, where you have a chance at survival. The peacekeepers i've actually seen only once, but they were annoying.

The peacekeepers attack every warship that enters their range. The peacekeepers stats are dependant on the capabilities of every civilization in the game. If everyone is using beam damage, the peacekeepers have massive shielding. If nobody has missile defense, their main weapon is missiles. This becomes a massive pain if they spawn late game, as their numbers are also dependant on the numbers on every other ship.


I've read that the strategy for dealing with the dreadlords is to rush them, because they build slowly, but i think they meant that for the randomed maps. I still find it impossible to deal with Dreadlord ships in the campain because it takes longer to tech up. However when the mega event spawns them i actually have a chance because i actually have weapons. The first time they spawned for me, i created a massive ship that drained about 1/10 of my money to purchase, that single handedly destroyed the first dreadlord ship in my territory.

I've given up with the campains myself, sure i can tear the non dreadlord civs apart, but the dreadlords are unstoppable...

[Shucker69]

MC858, meet Karagek. Now you know someone that has played the scenarios. You might also take note on how to answer a legitimate question rather than stating you don't think anyone plays the game except for the way you do. I suspect the developers had someone in mind when they created not just Dread Lords but followed that up with Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor. Something tells me there was an audience that did play them.

Karagek, thanks for the answer, that was very helpful to learn that I am not alone on the Dread Lords. That just seems incredibly unbalanced. I think I need to try another random map and see if something happens next time, could have just been bad random luck.

[MTB-Fritz]

I dont think MC858 was being sarcastic or belittling to be honest. If at all he was agreeing with you that the scenarious are really really hard.....

[Shucker69]

I can see your point. If that is the case, I apologize for my misplaced sarcasm as it certainly wasn't warranted. Wow, looking at it like that makes me look like a real douche. In this case I certainly have been. Thanks for the perspective.

[MC858]

yea i was being serious. Usually games like this have half assed scenarios (in your case its not balanced) - its just the nature of the beast. these games last because of the open world nature of playing random huge maps IMO. I have been playing since Civ2- SMAC- Fallen Legends. Theyre all the same lol. i love those games but i have never tried to complete any of the scenarios

[Karagek]

Good to see people who recognize their own mistakes too. :)

[Minoris]

Originally posted by Karagek:

Good to see people who recognize their own mistakes too. :)

Damn right. Surprising, too! Props to you, Shucker the 69th.

[5n4k3d0cToR]

Its been a looong time since i completed the campaigns. Still have the box on the shelf from the (collectors edition was it?-with the book attached?), but i got the x-pacs digitally. I recall not launching my main force from the spaceport, until they were 'ready' to face the lords. ALso i recall keeping them occupied/their attention elsewhere with scout/minor ships. Military starbases also helped & so did military resources. Though i did find that it took me a while in some cases & a few attempts.

[MC858]

OP- play Space Empires 4 Deluxe, Master of Orion 2, Sins of a solar empire.- if you really like this game you will also like those.