Rediscovering GalCiv

from Stardock Forums

I came across Brad's interview on Gamespot
and thus "re-discovered" the GalCiv website.

I used to play the original a bit (and got
my head handed on a platter by the AI ;)
before I had to wipe OS/2 from my harddisk.
Also saw something on Stardock's homepage
about doing GalCiv for Windows some time
ago, but hadn't checked up on it in a while.
Nice to see you guys are getting some
"mainstream" exposure, I hope it works out.

After GalCiv, I went on to play Stars! for
some time, but the wait for the sequel (Stars!
Supernova) has been most frustrating. After
reading Brad's article on game developing here,
I'd say those guys fell in at least some of
the traps he described.

Anyway, back to GalCiv... I really, really like
the plans for version 2 - the persistent game
universe. It sounds a bit like Total Annihilation's
online game, but built right into the game from
the start, not bolted on later. Also, the whole
idea of having the AI go out and download top
strategies is super, as is having players vote
on rule changes. It sounds very ambitious,
I hope you can pull this off.

As for the AI: I assume you're still aiming to
have a very strong AI to begin with (keeping the
GalCiv heritage)? Do you have any plans to open
up the AI interface for third-party robots, as
you did in the original, or is this going to be
subsumed into the whole "AI download" concept?

One thing I remember from the original game is
its very "trekkish" feel when it comes to ship
classes and movement. I didn't really care for
that very much, I much preferred the Stars! way
of moving about the galaxy. Is this still the
same or have you changed the way movement is
handled in the game?

Last question: I searched all over the website,
but couldn't find any way or mention of how to
join beta testing. Is it a closed beta or did
I miss something obvious?

I'm really looking forward to see this game
coming to Windows, I've been dying for a new
multiplayer space strategy game (I know MOO3
is coming out soon, but I have some doubts
about it, especially when it comes to multi-
player). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that
you'll pull this one off.

Best of luck!

- Thomas



68 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi Thomas!

A few answers:

1) The game does kind of have the Trek philosophy - that is, each star ship is precious. That the goal is to have quality over quantity. One Avatar class battle ship can take out several regular battle ships which can take out whole fleets of battle cruisers.

2) We probably won't have the AI opened up for third parties. The system we have here is more like an automated version of the original.

3) Regarding the Metaverse, we are hoping to get a primitive form of that going around the time of the beta. And you are correct, it is somewhat modeled after Boneyards (I was "Frogboy" on Boneyards too) except instead of there just being "Arm" and "Core" each player is an empire and players can combine themselves into mega empires (sort of like in Asheron's Call). For starters though, we'll probably begin to test out having the game send scores to the Metaverse and just rank the players that way for now and build from there (i.e start with a ladder and move up from there).