The changes from beta...

BTW, if any RC testers were here, feel free to let the others know about what you saw and experienced as I probably missed some details.

I have to say that I like the cut scenes in RC (victory one left me a tad confused though =p). And the performace on gigantic galaxy is great even on my Athlon 850. No long waits in between the turns... Great job Frogboy... can't wait for final release.

wait till you see the cut scenes, they're great (tony the tiger is from michigan ) It;s amazing how the game feels in the rc version. This is definately worth waiting for. By the way Frogboy had us downloading 460 megs each (before extracting) and i've lost count of how many revisions have happened in the last few weeks, In the gigantic galaxy, this game is zipping along quite fast. I'm in a major war with the drengin, fighting for my life, and it hasn't slowed down yet. (the game has been running on this computer for 3 days straight without a reload) Watch out when you destabalize a race, The drengin got pissed at me and then basically said what the hell we'll eat you now. They definately got mad at me destabalizing. Now i think they are doing it to me. Wait till you see the cut scene for the capital ships (wow!!). If I didn't know better I would swear stardock is trying to make a movie out of the cut scene.

There's a lot more humor now, wait till the altarian likes you LOL

there's a lot more than that but my fingers are tired from typing... pen & tablet at work

rich

i'm sure i've made some spelling mistakes...but i want to get back to the game

The cut scenes I have seen are awesome. There are LOTS of "first time event" cut scenes, such as colonizing the first planet, surveying the first piece of space junk, building your first star base, building your first capital ship, and many more, that are just awesome. The startup movie is also awesome. Of course, this is all just eye candy. The real quality is in the way SD built the supporting code and the very intelligent AI.

Congratulations StarDock.

Hmm, awsome is a pretty strong word..

I'd say that they are good or ok.
They have a purpose and they fill it.
The rest is awsome, but that's another issue

I like the intro-movie but when showing my co-workers they werent _so_ impressed. But on the other hand they may just be tired of all my ranting about GalCiv since I first showed them what I spent my gaming time on over a year ago

Fredrik, play MOO3 for a couple hours and then look at Gal Civ's cut-scenes. The most absurd thing is that Gal Civ is supposed to be the game from little guys and MOO3 from the juggernauts. But the quanity and quality of cut scenes in Gal Civ are far superior to what is in MOO 3. Really. MOO 3 cut scenes don't even have sound effects. You should see the user manual for MOO 3. The credits for programmers and artists dwarfs what was on Gal Civ. Sorry to rant but MOO 3 cost me 50 bucks and was something I eagerly waited for 4 years.

The changes in gal civ in the rcs i played were pretty startling. I had no idea how much multimedia ''stuff'' they'd been holding back. The little touches to the AI were nice too.

The cut-scenes are world class, like the most intros to games. But the real class comes in the balance that has come to the AI, and its depth.

Also I like the little touches to the diplomacy and to the interface, like the modifications to the planet list screen which makes life a lot easier. This is definitely what TBS gamers wanted.......

hehe I do like the cut-scenes, but people that arent inte TBS-type of games (like my co-workers) are hard to impress since they compare to the latest games with horiffic hw requirements. Not saying I would whish GalCiv had that too. The current level of prettyness/graphics/hw req is very well balanced IMO.

But - for a strategy fan the game is so much more than a pretty outside. Not that it isnt important to attract new audiences. But it's under the hood GalCiv is world-class, IMO.

Hi Fredrik!
i like the cut scenes the way they are, for a game of this type they are awesome. by the way i work at a motion picture studio and i spent my last month doing special effects at $1000+per hour

The cut scenes are great. I particular like the end game scenes and the opening game scene.

The balancing between the final beta and the last release candidate has been very good as well. Unlike many 4X games where you can do everything you want (build huge fleets, crank out maximum research, build every improvement on every planet) Galciv keeps the game balanced right till the end.

It's nice to have to decide, do I build those starship manufacture improvements and pay the extra maintenance, or do I treat this planet as a research base and use the extra maintenance cash for research?

Balance between the different galaxy sizes is also good. What works well in a tiny galaxy is often the completely wrong strategy for a huge or gigantic galaxy. Adds greatly to the replayability.

Paul.

I'm not that keen on getting a free "BonusPak". I'd much rather get a "Bonus Pack"...

I found the release candidate had much more polish and was much more playable. Very hard to stop pressing the turn button. All the extra graphics really spice it up visually.

The AI improvements are impressive. In my current game, the Yor contacted me 3x offering tribute and praise. I've seen 2 different cut-scene endings: military and cultural.

The box is awesome.
Sorry... that's all I can comment since it's all I experienced from the game LOL

Ah. The truth comes out. Perhaps a certain devilish vulcanized common barnyard water fowl will finally buy the game and finally understand what we have been talking about.

You lucky duck, I can't even find the box.

While the additional eye candy was a nice addition during the RC phase I think that folks will be even more pleased by the significant updates made to the diplomatic engine.

the diplomatic engine looks interesting. i'm glad the cheese stuff was removed. was too tempting to rip off minor races.

I also like the fact that the a.i's wil sometimes speak to you asking for your help.