Space strategy roll-call!

[Martok]

Right now I'm still playing GalCiv2/Twilight of the Arnor and it's the best I've seen lately. Very challenging at the upper difficulty settings, with interesting and varied tech trees.

Since I'm currently playing vanilla GalCiv 2 (I'm waiting/hoping for a full bundle to be released in an actual box), I have to ask: How does the AI compare? I know it received a major upgrade in Dark Avatar, and again with Twilight of the Arnor.

I know a lot of gamers don't like that strategy-only approach, and apparently Stardock will be adding tactical combat to GalCiv3. But that's years away.

Yeah, I know. *sigh* Brad recently said that we definitely won't see the next GalCiv game this decade, which I pretty much expected -- I know Stardock already has their hands full working on their fantasy strategy game. Still, it's hard to wait sometimes!

For a strategy game, I'd want the vastness of space to be represented meaningfully on the strategic level. That means no magic jump gates or hyperdrives, which crowd planetary systems together on the gaming map. Make it so the player and the AI factions can travel just a hair under lightspeed, but no faster.

I hate to point this out, but wouldn't that make space travel completely impractical? While I've not brushed up on my astronomy recently, I'm still pretty sure that it would take years -- if not decades -- to travel to other stars even *at* light-speed, to say nothing of near light-speed.

Make the logistics of those distances matter for colonization, military offense and defense. Include the effects of lightspeed delay on your current intelligence and ability to know where the enemy might be.

Well I would say that most space strategy games already take this into account, at least to a degree. Or are you saying you want stars so far apart (at least time-wise) that colonies would essentially be on their own? I'm not quite sure I follow you here.

[Zenicetus]

Since I'm currently playing vanilla GalCiv 2 (I'm waiting/hoping for a full bundle to be released in an actual box), I have to ask: How does the AI compare? I know it received a major upgrade in Dark Avatar, and again with Twilight of the Arnor.

The AI is noticeably better overall in TA compared to the original. Although, it's somewhat complicated by the way each faction AI now has to optimize a different (and in some cases radically different) tech tree. That was a little shaky at first, but it seems to have settled out now. And Brad is still doing small tweaks AFAIK. You'll notice the difference if you get the TA expansion. It's really a whole new game.

I hate to point this out, but wouldn't that make space travel completely impractical? While I've not brushed up on my astronomy recently, I'm still pretty sure that it would take years -- if not decades -- to travel to other stars even *at* light-speed, to say nothing of near light-speed.

If relativistic effects are included (and we assume ships powerful enough to accellerate to lightspeed quickly), then what's practical depends on whether you're on the ship, or stuck on the planets.

With time dilation, a trip covering vast interstellar distances might take only weeks or months, from the crew's perspective. They could planet-hop in almost the same way as games that use jump gates or hyperdrive. However, back on the planets, centuries of population growth, wars, and tech development would be taking place. So you'd have a strategy game of overlapping timelines.... time running "slow" for the planets, and "fast" for anyone aboard ship. On the flip side, it might seem like technological advancement was radically sped up on planets, from the crew's perspective.

Fleets of conquest might not know exactly what they're getting into, on arrival at an enemy system. Localized battles inside star systems would probably be all-or-nothing, with no reinforcements (unless you plan your conquest in successive waves of fleets, spaced out over several years' time). Instead of a Fog of War, we'd have a Fog of Time, where things would be unpredictable. It might throw some interesting monkey wrenches into the game. Or maybe it would be unplayable as a game. I dunno... nobody has tried this.

Or are you saying you want stars so far apart (at least time-wise) that colonies would essentially be on their own? I'm not quite sure I follow you here.

Colonies would be separated from each other in the time dimension, but not completely on their own. There would be regular trade with starships, but the news the ships would carry of other planets would be old. There could still be close to realtime action with battles inside a star system, between different factions. Maybe that's where most of the battles would take place, although slow-paced chases between fleets at relativistic speeds, taking place over centuries of static-reference time, might be interesting too. Different than anything else we've seen, at any rate.

I don't know.... maybe not enough people would enjoy this. The most realistic "space travel" sim using present day tech is Orbiter (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/). If you've tried it, you know it's difficult enough that only a few hardcore people spend much time with it. A game like this might need some artificial gimmicks like instantaneous communication with lightspeed-limited physical travel, so trade and intel would be workable. It's a different enough concept that I can't see any of the majors risking it. But maybe an indie developer might try it, someday.