How do you ______ when there's no game manual to explain game mechanics?

from GalCiv3 Forums

At least, there's no game manual to be found in my game library on Steam.  What is prompting this game question specifically, now, is that I see that sometimes when I hover the mouse cursor over a fleet it will show how many ships in the fleet and the Logistics cost for all those ships combined.  Other times, what I see is combined hit points, number of moves, and sensor range.  NEVER all that info on one panel.  And for the life of me, I haven't a clue how to toggle from one info panel to the other.

There are actually quite a few game mechanics that I am guessing at rather than knowing by having read a non-existent game manual.  Things like, How do you remove Stellar Marines from an Troop Transport without assaulting a planet?  After having populated a conquered planet with Marines, why don't they fight better than regular civilians if the enemy counterattacks shortly thereafter?  Just how much Influence does it take to annex an enemy planet next door?  How can you tell that dispatching a Constructor to a starbase will even be able to improve function X or function Y before you send off the vessel on that long voyage?  How do you _______ x 25 or 50 other questions.

I suspect that there IS a game manual that can be accessed.... somewhere.  I just haven't found that somewhere just yet.

41,314 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Here. The link is on the Steam GC3 store page, right next to the other useful links.

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Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Why you ask on a forum of course and then sift through the multitudinus replies for one that may have a shread of relavence to your actuall question.

 

Which was again?

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

It works like this:
you have a bunch of elderly clerks, who work at an insurance company and hope for early retirement. Then you put all of those on a transport ship, and voilá.

Out of nowhere their equipment spawns and they are trained soldiers who get a bonus when attacking elderly insurance clerks and have a k/d ratio of about 4:1.

Then after conquering they lose all training and equipment and probably can't even work as insurance clerks, cause you paved the planet with factories.

 

FYI: to unload a transport or conlony ship, move it onto one of your planets. 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Rhonin_the_wizard, reply 1

Here. The link is on the Steam GC3 store page, right next to the other useful links.

Thanks for the link!

It seems counter-intuitive to put the manual there when for nearly every other Steam game in my Library, the manual is found by right-clicking on the game title.  ("View player manual")  Especially since I did NOT buy the game directly from Steam, but rather through Green Man Gaming.  How is a player supposed to know?  For quite a few games, consumers really don't need to be persuaded to purchase a given game, given that it is a "hot" title.  (Titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Galactic Civilizations III, and the upcoming Fallout 4.)  And so they just go ahead and buy the game without reading through all of the Sales pitch rah-rah about why they should consider purchasing the game.  It seems silly to establish a clear pattern of "This is how we do it" and then for whatever reason change that pattern.  It requires a certain level of prescience on the part of the consumers.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I didn't even realise there was a manual. I just futzed with it until I figured it out. The ingame tooltips are awesome and keep getting better and better, I rely on them heavily.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Christian_Akacro, reply 6

I didn't even realise there was a manual. I just futzed with it until I figured it out. The ingame tooltips are awesome and keep getting better and better, I rely on them heavily.

Point me towards the nearest tooltip explaining the mechanics of Total Manufacturing. Heck most of them don't even make it clear what your TM is, or even what TM is as a concept.

There's info you just DON'T get with tooltips.

Nor can you properly guess it.

Especially if we're talking about pre 1.02 TM mechanics.

Good luck figuring out that there's an k+x^0.7 progression and an approval based multiplier, which, BTW, is NOT mentioned in the approval tooltip.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Not all mechanics are meant to be visible to the player, if you want to know it figure it out. That being said, yes some things can be made more clear and Paul has noticed the lack of clarity on your total production. It'll be addressed.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

The manual isn't great either.  It doesn't explain how tourism works, for example.  Nor do the in-game tool tips explain it. 

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I love a lot of this game, but I have to throw in again, the manual is poor. A lot of game mechanics we are still guessing at.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Why don't you post your questions individually on the forum? Then, if you get a useful reply, go to the Galciv3 Wiki and make an entry to help someone else with the same question.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Ambermonk, reply 11

Why don't you post your questions individually on the forum? Then, if you get a useful reply, go to the Galciv3 Wiki and make an entry to help someone else with the same question.

A lot of the questions have been asked on the forums, multiple times. The Devs just haven't gotten to them yet, I'm sure they are very busy with updates to the game.

I am frustrated with the lack of game info, but I understand its a matter of priority, and there are many priorities to attend to.

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Christian_Akacro, reply 8

Not all mechanics are meant to be visible to the player, if you want to know it figure it out. That being said, yes some things can be made more clear and Paul has noticed the lack of clarity on your total production. It'll be addressed.

Yep, and in fact there's even a whole genre focused around the idea of player figuring out those mechanics. That genre is called economic simulator (although, to be fair some other simulation games also fit in the same definition, regardless of the fact that their mechanics do not look like they have anything to do with economy).

CGIII however is NOT a game of that genre. And in any game that is not BASED on figuring out the rules, forcing players to figure out the rules is an inexcusable blunder.

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

And now I realise why that never bothered me with GCIII. I love econ sims. Playing this kickass one in beta now called 'Big Pharma Needs You'. Great game.