Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon

dragonsister writes "Like Master of Orion 3, Galactic Civilizations is a turn-based strategy game involving colonizing and dominating the galaxy - militarily, diplomatically, or economically. Unlike MOO3, GalCiv will (release date March 26th) come without copy-protection; Stardock are addressing the piracy issue by providing a bonus pack and further downloads to users providing a CD key. This 'rewarding the honest' approach is precisely what Slashdotters have asked for ." I've been playing a lot of MOO3, which I love, but this is looking great as well. Ah, the bounty of games.

GalCiv may also be purchased via a subscription to Drengin.net, which also supplies a variety of 'smaller' games which would not sell so well in the normal market.

I have no connection to anyone producing Galactic Civilizations. I'm planning to buy the game because I've been impressed by:

• The developer's interaction with fans, at least on the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
• The level of beta-testing employed
• The comments from the public beta-testers
• The developer's budget of a year of additional development, including AI improvements (Stardock has a reputation for good game AI anyway!)

Others may not be so pleased to hear that the game is developed for single-player only - no multi-player - but to each their own."

Comments

At last!

[SkoZombie]

A game company that understands the key is not to cause inconvience to users but to commit to ensuring theres a better reason for buying the game "because otherwise you're a bad boy". I'll be buying it!!

Re:At last!

[Surak]

Now wait a minute here. Here's a quote from the Google Groups link:

In a nutshell, the game has no copy protection whatsoever. Instead, we've
taken the route of providing long term feature support (i.e. updating the
game with new stuff). But to get to these new features you go through
"Stardock Central" which uses the serial # that comes with the game. The
serial # is authenticated on the server so even if someone cranked out a
serial # generator or passed out serial numbers on the net, the server would
be able to detect serial #'s that aren't in the retail list or serial #'s
getting a lot of differnet IP's downloading the entire game.

This sounds an AWFUL lot like what Microsoft did with Windows XP. Yet, when Microsoft banned certain serial #s from getting SP1, Microsoft was (and still is) severely bashed on /., but when Stardock does the same thing for their "cool game" /.ers are overwhelming saying how cool it is and that this is what they asked for. How come?

Re:At last!

[OneEyedApe]

First, this is just a game, not an Operating System. Far less critical. Second, this is a far better scheme than a lot of companies have been using lately. Be honest, and you get extra stuff. It sounds like these would primarily be expansion pack type enhancements, and not really critical patches.

Basically a 'free' expansion pack then?

[Dan B.]

So would I be correct in saying that if you buy the game, you get every bit of 'expansion pack' style material that comes out in the following year of development?

That's sure to be a success, although I can only think of one expansion pack I didn't buy for a Blizzard game (they're good at releasing expansions that cost half the same as the original game).

Still, I'm contemplating either MOO3 or GalCiv as I don't have loads of time to spend playing games these days.

Quick poll, which one do you think is better? I'm leaning towards GalCiv as I usually like playing strategy games single player. Multiplayer is much better in fast pace eg. FPS.

Not everyone is honest

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it, but some form of copyright is good. Do you think the average joe bloggs in the street gives a hoot about copyright if they can get around it. I personally hate to hear that the game I just forked $90AUD for is being played by a mate who just ripped it off someone else. Where then is the economical reason to purchase the game yourself?

Copyright should only be there to make it hard for most people to burn, not everyone. People should still always be able to back up their data to CD. It is only when copy right goes that step beyond reasonable protection that I complain. Like the CD I purchased the other day that wont play in my computer.

We all hate copyright because we all know that at some point in our lives we have breached it. I know I am craptacular at agruments but all I want is the prices to come down to reasonable levels.

Oh hang on, I hear you talking about the no-copyright utopia. Well sorry it aint going to happen. Ever. Look at the frickin trends that all the large companies are moving towards. Soon we will have to call up an activation center to play our favourite CDs.

(BTW, I just paid for MOO3 and it is an okay game. I realise it is strategy, but c'mon, why cant i up the res a little).

Re:Not everyone is honest

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confusing 'Copyright' and 'Copy-protection'. Completely different things.
Copy protection on CDs is a completely botched affair - it presents a slight inconvienience to those who wish to copy the CD, while producing problems to those who have bought it legitamately.

Re:business model....

[kfg]

For many companies, including Microsoft item 3 on your list has been filled in with "Sell a shitload of games."

You are perhaps mistaking missing some sales with being unprofitable. Many people make this mistake, and thus fail to profit. Half a fresh pie you can eat is better than a whole pie rotting in a safe.

Apogee actually managed to make a profit *giving* fully functional games away and only selling additional content.

Go figure.

I'm not at all sure that wouldn't make a viable commercial model today. Sell what amounts to a "super demo" for a nominal fee to cover costs, say ten bucks, and get as many copies out there as you could, and then sell extended content for twenty five bucks to those who found the game worth it.

Of course this would only work if you were putting forward a really *good* game.

If you're putting forward a crappy game, yeah, you're right, the only way to profit is copy protect the hell out of it, and make sure you've got the buyer's money well tucked away up front.

Hey, maybe that's why so many games are a pain to play these days. If you can't even get authorized to play a game you've actually paid for you'll never get to find out what a piece of crap it is while you can still return the bugger.

Good games, at a fair price that can simply be copied to a HD and played from there without a key have never failed to be appreciated, and to sell quite well.

KFG

Great move

[Ice Tiger]

This is a good move, allows you to burn backups of your CD's. For an example, Battlefield 1942 came out in the uk (maybe elsewhere) with CD's that were poorly manufactured and so have been cracking whilst in the drive etc. EA charge 7.50 UKP to replace each disc and as there are two that's an additional 15 UKP for the game on top of retail price. Not a good situation at all. Oh before you ask the copy protection on the CD's is a nightmare to get around.

The game comes with a CD key and this can be used to prevent online play which is what bf1942 is all about, ok so that doesn't prevent the warez kiddies from playing the game in single player which is like a training ground for multi player, so the CD key could have been the main form of protection for this game. Grrr

Actually, MOO3 can run on Linux-with a little help

[ClassicG]

MOO3 will run in Linux almost perfectly with WineX. Other than needing to change the cursor to 'system' in the options panel, the game works almost flawlessly for me.

Of course, WineX isn't free, ($5/month gives you binaries and voting rights to what should be worked on next), but I think it's worth it. There's also a bit a movement to get Transgaming to concentrate more on getting older classic games running in Linux, and for that hope alone, I'm behind TG.

Critical mass

[little1973]

I am curious to see if they really solved the critical mass problem found in strategic games as well as they claim here.

Comment on Stardock

[greenreaper]

I've been a Stardock follower for quite a while now. See, I tried out some of their software quite a while back, and I found a rather nasty bug in their window skinning product, WindowBlinds. So I decided to go report it.

Most companies would simply have acknowledged the bug, maybe offering a simple thank-you. Their response was to give me a registered copy of the software and encourage me to submit more bugs.

(disclaimer: this approach may not work for everyone :-)

Stardock are good. They don't mess their customers around - they might not always do what some of them want, but hey, that's true of any company, and at least they explain why ;-). They go the extra mile to help - almost every member of the company is available on IRC, from the CEO downwards. They have a dedicated community on the Stardock newsgroups and over at WinCustomize, who helped them transition from OS/2 to Windows - people bought Object Desktop subscriptions a year before it was officially out, because they trusted Stardock to deliver.

Heck, they even had a positive cashflow throughout the dot-com era, because they didn't rely on stupid business plans and massive investment. Just on listening to their customers, making a good product and shipping it.

GalCiv is one of those products. It's got a solid AI, and more gameplay than you can shake a stick at. And the price is right. So go get it now.

And no, I don't get paid for this. ;-)

GalCiv has multithreaded AI

[glMatrixMode]

GalCiv has such a bright AI that at most difficulty levels, not only doesn't it cheat, but it is defavorised against the human player - for example, if I understand well, it gets less money.

This has been made possible by the use of a multithreaded AI. To wit, whereas most turn-based games did 'think' only during a short lapse of time between the human's turns, GalCiv thinks continuously while the human is playing. So that allows for a much longer computation time.

GalCiv has already been used on Tom's Hardware to test the hyperthreading capacity of the new Pentium4 3GHz.

Moreover, there's a stuff called the 'Metaverse'. In short : after you end a game, you can automatically upload some crucial game data (your score, elements of your strategy...) to a central server which then deduces improvements to the game's AI. Then I guess you end up with a game which plays better.

The guys from the GalCiv team say it has already been working with the betatesters's games and has very significantly improved the game's AI.

Reward the honest?

[acoustix]

What does this say about our society? It is sad that we feel we should be rewarded for doing the right thing. We should want to do the right thing without expecting rewards.

I thought it was something big....

[mbone]

Sheesh - I see a headline like
"Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon"
and I thought ./ had a scoop from the SETI Institute.

Alas, it was just a game...

Galactic Civilizations?

[Sgs-Cruz]

Sweet......are these galactic civilizations the anarchic oppressive Star Wars-type, or the unrealistic techno-communistic Star Trek type? And do we, as a species, stand to survive in these civilizations? I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords :)

Problems with MOO3

[ColoradoZippy]

I agree with the parent poster; MOO3 is not ready for prime time. As said elsewhere in this thread, the AI is buggy (will almost never attack, loves to build troop ships) and there are DirectX issues.

MOO3 is all about macromanagement, says developer Quicksilver...and that's all well and good, except they took away all ability to get down "in the weeds" and do the sorts of things people loved to do in MOO2, like build custom ships and command them in battle.

Sure, you can specify what types of weapons, engines and defensive systems a particular class of ship has, but when it comes to combat your control is limited to a particular battle group with the options "patrol", "attack", "move", "stop" and "retreat".

Finally, the graphics are less than stellar. Yes, I agree that gameplay is more important than graphics but MOO3 appears to be a step backward in many ways from MOO2. Combat, for instance, consists of a green grid on a black background; most ships are depicted as tiny grey or brown dots. There isn't a starfield to be seen.

The GUI is also lackluster, cumbersome, and reminicent of the Windows 95 interface. While planet and diplomacy animations are nice, a suite of generic icons are used for technologies -- a far cry from MOO2's research animation which showed a member of your race standing by a rotating custom depiction of the newest gadget.

Did I mention that there was no way to rename planets or star systems, nor choose player colors as in MOO2?

The MOO3 player community is making great strides to improve the game, but there is plenty of left to do on Quicksilver's part. I might add that the only official comment received from the developer so far has been from the art director, who says that they're working on updating the manual. After so many years of development and testing -- and over a month between Gold status and release -- one really has to wonder what the hell is going on at Quicksilver, and if they truly intend on making a mediocre game great. I fear that they will release a single AI-strengthening patch, then wash their hands of the whole affair.

Some people love MOO3, and I say: good for them. Those of you who loved the previous version, be warned: this game is not like MOO2 and is as problematic as the first (pre-patch) release of that game.

Galactic Civilizations, at this point, would appear to be the wiser choice.

Re:Not the same thing at all

[thelexx]

"How do you know?"

From a linked article:

"Stardock has found that the best way to keep customers and decrease piracy is to reward people for supporting you rather than punish people by having to go through copy protection.

Each GalCiv user has their own unique serial number that is verified on our server as being a valid serial number. When a user enters this serial number into our server, they get a Stardock.net account which lets them instantly gain access to all sorts of extra goodies including the BonusPak."

The language they use, throughout the sites actually, displays a distinct lack of intent to use serials in such a way as to prosecute people who don't have one. "If you have one, great, thanks and here's some extra stuff" is the clear and ringing message I get from the sites. Maybe they will become evil in the future. They have the benefit of the doubt however, due to a lack of past bad behavior. MS does not have this advantage, and further, clearly has the intent of using their serial scheme to shut down and/or go after people without (a real) one.

"And? Microsoft will deny patches if no serial is provided, and StarDock will NOT provide additional goodies if a serial is NOT provided."

There is a huge difference between a patch to fix the base product and additional graphics, sounds, etc. MS putting free stuff up for XP isn't the same, since if you haven't a serial for XP, you're still screwed at a more fundamental level. Not so with GalCiv.