I have not played any of the previous versions of Galactic Civilization so I am new to the franchise. CIV: Beyond Earth was a bit too stale for my taste so when I saw GCIII I thought I looked like a good opportunity to get back into space.
At full price even! Not something I do that often anymore for an unfamiliar franchise (I am getting older and more conservative I guess)
On the positive side CG is very different from e.g. CIV and although it really could use some more in-game information it was mostly engaging to figure out the how to play it. I even postponed getting into TW3 (something that I am planning to remedy now); so GC did manage to get its hooks into me for a while.
Nonetheless, I admit that I am ultimately disappointed. Not in a “the game is crap way” but more in the “it could do with some tuning way”. I am not given to ranting so if I had thought the former I would just have settled with shelving it (at least I hope this does not come off as a rant).
Here is a few thought on the game and what I personally feel might be improved.
The difficulty or lack there off
The primary issue is the difficulty level; which, from my observation, mainly comes down to the scaling.
I started out on normal, got to around turn 50, looked around, decided I had an overwhelming lead, restarted and upped the difficulty level. Rinsed and repeated. At suicide, it looked more promising; but ultimately it only managed to add 40 extra turns before continuing became pointless.
For good order, I have played mainly around huge size. The largest number of planets I have had was around 9. On suicide I had 5 including Mars. I never felt the inclination to attack anyone and for reasons unknown everyone else left me alone too; so I have never actually fought a war.
There is a lot depth in the planet/production system; particularly the adjacency bonus system. This is excellent and probably the strongest selling point of the game. Nevertheless, it is diminished by the AIs inability to also specialize effectively. The value of specializing is just too great leading to an explosive power creep. I am generally a “tall” player so I like the system, but in the current state, it is just too much.
I sincerely doubt it will be possible to balance early/late game effectively using only percentage modifiers for production/science/commerce buildings. I think a simple and more effective way of balancing will be to reduce the percentage modifiers and compensate by adding some form of base production to buildings instead. E.g. instead of a 50% science modifier a building might provide a base production of 0,25 and a percentage modifier of 25%.
It would most likely also be easier to balance upgrades with such a system. The current scaling of upgrades: E.g. paying 30 production for a 25% bonus + adjacency bonuses followed by paying 45 production for a flat 5% percent increase is frankly not exciting.
The ideology tree
The ideology tree feels like a missed opportunity. Since it is tied to expansion it does not provide much meat on smaller map sizes (huge; size is relative I guess). At the risk of generalizing, I think most enjoy the opportunity to add some flavor so I do not see why it should be reserved for wide playstyles/very large maps. Does expansion even really need more encouragement than it already have?
I admit I thought I was immensely clever when I chose all the starting ideologies that provided ideology point generating buildings. However, as I never actually managed to play particularly long I never gained anything from it.
I cannot really offer an obvious suggestion for an alternative but I would suggest that some thought be given to if a better system could be put in place.
Ship design
Since I have never actually fought a war I am not really suited to offer particularly qualified suggestions on that front. I will just notice that tailoring ships is one of the most interesting gameplay element. That it is probably totally unbalanced. But if the latter is the case I would be perfectly satisfied with giving the AI a logistics bonus scaling with difficulty (might already be the case of course).
Fighting hordes of enemies with a numerically inferior force is fun.
The fewer the men the greater the share of honor…
A few convenience issues
The number of opponents
It is good that there is the option to create new races but I do not think that is for everyone. It would be nice with a bit more room for choosing the number of opponents without having to create new races yourself. A simple race randomizer, possibly with a selection of premade variants that the randomizer can choose from, could be a simple way to do the trick. Alternatively, if for lore reasons that idea doesn’t sound appealing then a TW2:Shogun solution with multiple factions of the same race would be just fine.
Naming convention for tech trading
In regard to tech trading I found the naming convention somewhat tedious. If I am Terran I would prefer to see the tech names on both sides based on the Terran tech tree so I have clear idea what I am trying to buy and sell. Of course, if it is necessary for multiplayer purposes; then so be it.
Ending my turn
I still do not know how to end my turn without having to go through every ship, shipyard and planet to pass. What is wrong with the traditional “return key ends turn”.
I would have given quite a bit to know how to force skip a turn!
Ps. Big plus on the research and production overflow. I only wish I had figured it out sooner.