Published on April 5, 2022 By JeremyG In Galactic Civilizations IV

I played a couple hours of v .90 over the past 2 days and wanted to share my impressions.

I want to start by saying overall I like it alot!    Seems like alot of game mechanics are being streamlined.   But admittedly I haven't played all aspects so this is just going to be a smattering of my observations.

  •  I absolutely LOVE the bottom bar, which shows you all your actionable options and analytical tasks in one place.   In previous games, these things seemed spread out across different UI elements.  (though I have to ask, why isnt research on this bar?!?)


  • Text highlighting seems weird.   For example anytime an action relates to Ideology, the word "Ideological Awareness" is hightlighted in yellow....but really the word that should be highlighted is Liberty/Opportunity/Harmony.  (this reminds me of someone I knew who used to do technical documentation and BOLDED the "action words" and not the subject works.  So they would write:   "Step 3 *click* the ok button"   This resulted in a huge document with the word "click" bolded hundreds of times, when the bolded words should have been the name of the button you had to click on)

  • The leaders screen needs work.   It uses Drag & Drop, but no other part of the UI does, so it's kind of unclear what to do with the screen.  Right-clicking does nothing, but double clicking commits to the purchase...which you can do accidentally when you're trying to figure out what to do.

  • I just said Drag & Drop isnt used anywhere else but it actually IS used in the Ship build-queue, and there it is AWESOME!  Nice job on the construction-yard UI!
  • Sorry, but the Research screens are a MESS!  Arguably one of the most fun parts of the game is reviewing your tech-trees and what you want to accomplish...but for the life of my I cannot figure out how to see everything, or what everything means. 
    • Grey means not-researched?   But then things that CAN be researched are colored, and looks like you already have it....but it has a number for how many weeks it would take to research?   Confusing an inconsistent. 
    • I understand what the different colored techs mean from previous games.   But some trees now have different colored items in the same tree?   Also  there are times when the 4 suggested techs have items from the same tree, and it becomes impossible to browse the other trees?
    • I dont understand the benefit of a Tech minister to unlock a 5th research candidate?   They arent all being researched at once...and you are restricted to your options based on prior research.   Maybe I'm missing something. 

  • I love the idea of the smaller "areas" that link.  It let's you maintain interaction with your "close neighbors" before being subject to an "incompatible civ", like a war monger that sends ships to attack you, when you were just trying to get a start with your neighbors. 
     
  • The planet management screen still needs work.   I love that "upgrade manufacturing" is now a thing instead of upgrading each manufacturing hex.   But there's now SO MANY options on what to do that the planet screen seems overwhelming.   Right-click-build menu +  Unique-building + level upgrades + citizens + projects   (and I'm still not sure how to build a new ship yard)

Comments
on Apr 05, 2022

Nice post.  Here's the answer to your shipyard question.

perhaps this means more orbital structures in the future?  Who knows, but this is where the icon to build it is located also.

cheers,

 

on Apr 05, 2022

It's funny to me because after over 100 hours in this game, I'm not really bothered by any of the things you pointed out except for the research mechanic. It's a big game, it's new, some things are going to take a while to get used to.

Following are my top reasons why I believe this game is not even remotely close to ready for release:

  1. Disconnects between the UI and reality are so pervasive that it feels like the developers are trolling us beta-testers. I complain a lot about mystery mechanics but I don't even trust the UI to tell things accurately. I've had to reverse-engineer pretty much everything I know about the game and every release I have found new and ingenious ways that the UI lies to the player.
  2. There is still really only one viable strategy - prepare for war as expeditiously as possible. The other mechanics are mostly annoyances and really only matter if you are sandboxing. This includes the afore-mentioned research mechanic.
  3. The "blocking" UI for events, trade deals, etc. makes decision-making impossible unless you have an eidetic memory.

I still have high hopes for this game but not if they rush to release it before it is ready. 

on Apr 05, 2022

slarjy

I still have high hopes for this game but not if they rush to release it before it is ready. 

What I'm about to say might sound bad, but it's not intended that way:

No GalCiv game has ever been what I think it should be until about 1.5 years after release.

But this is NOT a comparison like a lot of games that "ship before they are ready".   GalCiv is just very deep and complex.   The difference is that a game like CalCiv...if some stuff is missing...or some things "seem useless until a patch"....the overall game is still enjoyable  (as opposed to an RPG where stuff like that can easily ruin the game experience.

on Apr 05, 2022

JeremyG

No GalCiv game has ever been what I think it should be until about 1.5 years after release.

But this is NOT a comparison like a lot of games that "ship before they are ready".   GalCiv is just very deep and complex.   The difference is that a game like CalCiv...if some stuff is missing...or some things "seem useless until a patch"....the overall game is still enjoyable  (as opposed to an RPG where stuff like that can easily ruin the game experience.

IDK, I bought GalCiv I and II on release and liked them both. I didn't find them completely broken. Both militaristic and non-militaristic strategies were viable and I don't recall any major UI issues. I also think that the market is much less patient now. Humankind is languishing and Old World is moribund. I'd be surprised if another turn-based 4X game could really withstand such a mediocre rollout as Civ VI's.