23-06-2003 17:58									#1
	Patch Comments Increase Your PM Length

I’ve played a few games with the patch and gameplay has improved. I like the embedded info on tech and planet terrain. There is a lot more useful feedback. Map improvements (like color coding ships) are a big plus. Diplomacy seems less erratic and the AI doesn’t declare war willy-nilly (except the Harvesters, but they’re crazy anyway). The AI is much more aggressive in colonization, which is good (but see below). I’ve even seen fleets of (small) ships by turn 50. I’ve seen the AI take worlds. On turn 80 of my last game the Harvesters took a planet from the Grendal. Good!

But, I do have a few gripes, most of which are from ‘features’ that add to vexing micro-management tedium:
* Previous customized races are not saved (or is there a way to do this and I haven’t seen it?)
* The AI still sends never ending streams of colony ships to the SAME world, resulting in a conga line of ships on a 30 year mission…
* The AI builds system colonies when all that is left is tiny Red worlds – huh? The AI didn’t do this before! If the AI races are doing this then that explains their high planet counts – they’re colonizing every useless size 5 Red world they can find
* The presence of an AI ship prevents colonization, even in an unclaimed system
* The Harvesters now can join the Council (if asked and the New Orions foolishly agree). Maybe this could have happened before, but I never saw it.

I haven’t seen enough combat yet so I have formed no strong opinions.

I did have a nasty bug on the galaxy screen where it scrolled uncontrollably and permanently to the bottom. Obviously that killed those games.

Overall the game has improved, but I am disappointed that some of my major issues weren’t fixed or mitigated.

Hydro

	23-06-2003 18:10									#2
	Tired of ads?

quote: conga line of ships

Funny. But that used to annoy me also. I had 10 ships heading for the same planet. Dammit, I thought they fixed it...

It's kinda sad that they made all this effort to reduce micromanagement, but you still have to do it if you want things to go right....

	24-06-2003 06:22									#3
	Re: Patch Comments Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Hydro * Previous customized races are not saved (or is there a way to do this and I haven’t seen it?)

If you want to generate the exact same kind of game as you did last new game (both same race and same galaxy settings), "quick game" is what you want to use. But no, saving just the races - or saving more than one - isn't possible.

quote: * The AI still sends never ending streams of colony ships to the SAME world, resulting in a conga line of ships on a 30 year mission… * The AI builds system colonies when all that is left is tiny Red worlds – huh? The AI didn’t do this before! If the AI races are doing this then that explains their high planet counts – they’re colonizing every useless size 5 Red world they can find

These have both been adjusted in patch 1.2.4 (new patch, date not determined yet); apparently, the AI was counting colony ships as outpost ships when sending them, and thus calculated it needed many to settle a planet. Don't know if fixing this calculation solves the problem, however. And the AI's love of system colonies has also been adjusted, though the patch update didn't say how much.

quote: * The presence of an AI ship prevents colonization, even in an unclaimed system

Yeah, this is really annoying.

quote: * The Harvesters now can join the Council (if asked and the New Orions foolishly agree). Maybe this could have happened before, but I never saw it.

Could have happened before. This is at least negated a little by making the Harvestors have only 60% of the votes other races would have. (Just like Humans and Psilons get 115% normal votes.)

quote: Overall the game has improved, but I am disappointed that some of my major issues weren’t fixed or mitigated. Hydro

Yes, we still need more... and there are still some nasty bugs left, like being able to bulid more than one system seat in a system and more than one Imperial seat of gov in an empire. (Has been fixed in 1.2.4, however.)

I agree MOO3 still has some big problems. Before 1.2, I waited for the code patch; the code patch would save us. Now, I wait for 1.2.4; 1.2.4 will save us.

	24-06-2003 06:31									#4
	Put an end to popups!

I'm enjoying things more, post-patch, especially now that the AI is a bit more aggressive and builds more warships. I use a mod that lets you have armadas of up to 50 ships...and let me tell you, having an enemy fleet of 300-400 ships come pay you a visit is a real eye-opener. I've actually had to fight off one combined fleet of 455 ships.

	24-06-2003 07:28									#5
	Re: Patch Comments Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Hydro I did have a nasty bug on the galaxy screen where it scrolled uncontrollably and permanently to the bottom. Obviously that killed those games. Hydro

I ran into this a few turns ago. No idea how it happened but when I loaded from the autosave it was fine again ...
The harvesters were always able to start off in the senate just like any other race IIRC as they did it in both of the games i started before the code-patch.


I like it now too (although the pd bug still comes up sometimes) as I just fought off a couple of 160-ship waves from an unknown intuder wandering into my space (I haven't actually fought any full wars yet though).

One thing I do find a little irritating though is the distribution of races generated in the setup. I always seem to get 2-3 Ithkul, a couple of silicoids and 4-5 Ethereans in a 16 race huge galaxy. Haven't seen the Meklar or the Evon once. It'd be nice if there was an option to actually use the other 15 after I've picked one (whether I customize it or not).

	24-06-2003 14:05									#6
	Re: Patch Comments Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Hydro I did have a nasty bug on the galaxy screen where it scrolled uncontrollably and permanently to the bottom. Obviously that killed those games.

I know one Instance which reproduces the bug:

If you Doubleclick on the Planet in the Planet List and have checked the Tab "Location" (where it shows right of the Planets the Galaxy Map) it normally jumps directly to the Star where the Planet is located (but it doesn´t enter the System- or Planet-Menu).
The Bug occurs if you are currently in the Planet Menu of a Planet, click onto the Planet-List and (with the Tab "Location" active) doubleclick onto another Planet. Then it jumps directly to the other System, but the Galaxymap begins scrolling up (and you aren´t able to access Systems from the Galaxymap by clicking on them).



As for the other features of the Patch:
I really like the fixed Point Defence. Now, with adequate PD-Ship support (currently it´s autofire PD-Hardbeams for me) the enemy missiles aren´t able to cause much harm to my ships
(but my own missiles would also face much harm, if I wouldn´t regularly use the tactic of firing them while the enemy Point Defence is very busy with shooting at my fighters )

	24-06-2003 17:37									#7
	Increase Your PM Length

I've played a bit more and have seen more combat, and it seems much improved. The AI is now building real fleets, which it can now support since it has colonized more aggressively. PD works too, and that is good.

One curious note, though. Every AI I have contact with (year ~110) is set to Holy War, and it is obvious that they are cranking out tons of ships. Moreover, the AI seems to be concentrating on a few wars (except for the Harvesters) and feeding an intense super-galactic war. This is OK as long as those wars continue since the ships die gloriously and don’t, in general, bother me. It also means that my previous strategy of staying on Peace through Strength will not work since I will fall behind militarily if I don’t (reluctantly) spend 25%+ on my military.

I am also seriously annoyed that the AI, in its continuing brilliance, builds Marines and Command Centers at worlds with 14 industrial DEAs and PPs in the high hundreds or thousands (let's hear it for high-pop, large world gas bags!!). The AI also loves CL hulls and will build a never-ending stream of CLpd-4, Cle-4 and CApd-4 unless I intervene. Making these ship designs obsolete does NOT help since the dozens in the queue remain there, even when in the 2nd and 3rd slot. So, the Micro Management H*ll continues.

I’ve also seen evidence that alliances, wars, and diplomacy matter. The Silicoids, who had a +100 relationship with me since I was pounding their enemy the Harversters, suddenly declared war. Erratic? Nope. They had an alliance with the Meklar, who hate my Gas Bag Guts and had been at war for a long time. I was able to coax the Silicoids into an Enforced Peace, and then a trade agreement. I’ll have to pay closer attention to diplomatic inter relationships now and give some races special attention.

	24-06-2003 18:18									#8
	Put an end to popups!

Glad to see that they have the support for patching the few ****-ups in the main patch. With a second large patch being unlikely its good to see that they are not going to leave the game with significant bug issues. Sure there are always more features we would like to see but getting rid of the bugs is the important thing.

	25-06-2003 04:38									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Some more notes from me:
Even if you´re not at war, it doesn´t mean that you peacefully coexist with other Races.
If another Rac has the majority of Planets within the System (which means that the System turns to the color of the race after pressing the B-Button) it will often attack your Planets even if you´re not officially at war with the other race (unless you have a Non Agression Pact).
Happened in my current game with my race (Psilons) against the Silicoids and Cynoids. I think it is dependand on their Casus Belli with your Race (I had negative numbers with both of them, they surely didn´t like me [their relations to my race on the other hand were positive and well above 100] ).
I waged a nice little Border War against them, the Silicoids managed to bombard one of my Border Worlds into oblivion, but I retaliated and staged successful Invasions against the worlds of the Silicoids and the Cynoids within the Border Systems.
The interesting thing is, that, after I had conquered all the Silicoid worlds in the Border System and the System turned into red (the colour of my race) and also the starlane to the next System (which also belonged to me) was shown in red, the Silicoids ceased to attack me in this system.
So I assume, that the color of the System is very important and if you´ve got worlds in Systems which have the color of another Empire those worlds will be seen as intruders which can be bombarded at Will.
(The AI-Player seems also to be somehow reluctant to use starlanes which have the color of your Empire [i.e. connect Starsystems you own] as long as they don´t have at least a non agression pact with you. After knowing this I always try to build a territory where all starlanes have the color of my empire (and it seems to work, since the Silicoids and other races for example have never tried to settle one of the Systems in my colour and also don´t travel on the starlanes which belong to me).

Somehow the game has gained a new depth after I know this. Reminds me of the Cultural Borders in Civ 3

	25-06-2003 10:58									#10
	Re: Re: Patch Comments Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by ravagon One thing I do find a little irritating though is the distribution of races generated in the setup. I always seem to get 2-3 Ithkul, a couple of silicoids and 4-5 Ethereans in a 16 race huge galaxy. Haven't seen the Meklar or the Evon once. It'd be nice if there was an option to actually use the other 15 after I've picked one (whether I customize it or not).

I've always wondered about that. I'd much prefer to see all the races represented in a game.

	02-07-2003 04:25									#11
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Just played my first full game post patch. I'm a little annoyed to find that the PD bug still exists, albeit in much reduced form. YOu can still get caught by it occasionally though if the enemy are keen on building a lot of IF and carrier TF's.

The enemy are certainly taking planets from me and each other now, and have learned how to run away, which is cool. The fact that they don't have to leave the system when they run is a bit unbalancing though. Fight in a multi planet system and the same 5 long range TF's can be ambushing you and scooting every turn for ages as you bomb or invade each world in turn.

One game start was bizarre. The council consisted of the New Orions and myself. All 9 other races were outsiders. I think the council needs to be 3+ races to work otherwise you just refuse to second any of the motions put up by the NO's and it never affects your gameplay (except if you allow council victories, in which case, surprise, you cant fail unless you get wiped out.)

Its more of a challenge now. Even on easy and normal modes the races will be keeping pace in tech even if they don't need such careful handling to avoid dogpiling you. The extra help information is welcome too. All it lacks now is the sort of polish and extra fun that only a major code change can achieve, like making the search for the 5 X's meaningful and more integrated into the game and making more of the 300+ turns in a game actually count instead of blur into each other. That will only come in an X Pack, which seems unlikely at this point.

I'm glad I bought it, and its still on my HD, which is more than I can say for GalCiv. Its not going to be something I play exclusively for months but then no game has held my interest like that since Civ II, and there were far fewer games released back then to vie for my attention. With luck 1.2.4 will remove the remaining rough edges so that when I fire it up every once in a while I am glad I chose MoO3 to pass some time with instead of another old classic.