Distant Worlds mentioned in Galciv 3 RPS review

[Colwolf77]

I've always liked Rock Paper Shotgun for there non-biased reviews and thought this one was worth mentioning here. I suspected Galciv 3 wasn't going to be a big departure from the previous incarnation but figured with the UI improvements it would be worth a go. Reading the review I came upon this section mentioning Distant Worlds;

'Despite a fairly decent empire-wide governor system that can handle the basics of build queues and fleet commands, playing with a massive civilisation is like playing Distant Worlds without the support of customisable automation. A lot of clicking without a great deal of decision-making.'

This was the deal breaker for me, there is no fun to be had once your empire reaches a huge size as you end up spending more time managing mundane build queues than making important decisions. I'm surprised more 4x developers don't take a leaf out of Distant Worlds book when it comes to empire automation.

[ASHBERY76]

The GC's and the Moo's are not designed for huge maps due to the planetbuilding.The game is fine on large or smaller.Why anyone would play on immense is beyond me.What is point of having a planet building system if you leave it to the A.I.

[NephilimNexus]

Because galaxy size directly affects playstyle and strategy. The distance (and time) between you & your rivals can make all the difference between victory and defeat. Also, on smaller maps each battle can be a game breaker for one side or the other, but on a larger map with more colonies those same battles become just small parts of a larger overall war.

Simply put, if my opponent and I each only have two planets with 5+ billion people on them, then losing just one planet is the death kneel of that Empire. But I've we've each got 10 such planets then recovery and payback is still possible.

Also, the number of pirate factions generated is a fixed amount that doesn't seem to depend on map size at all. So on a larger map the pirates are more spread out and it will take much longer before encountering any of them. I've also noticed that pirates as a whole seem to get weaker as maps expand, probably due to having to depend mostly on Independent worlds for income instead of taking on the more profitable Empire targets early on.

[Cauldyth]

I think he was referring to MoO and GalCiv. DW scales to large maps very nicely because the planetary development mechanics don't require you to build factories, farms, etc. on every planet.