The lack of custom citizens is a huge, glaring flaw. It almost invalidates all the effort spent on the custom faction generator. Seems like limitation with the AI image generator was the main reason but why not just include some generic icons or something... anything would be better than being stuck with pre-existing races which is nonsensical.

Originally posted by FDru:

The lack of custom citizens is a huge, glaring flaw. It almost invalidates all the effort spent on the custom faction generator. Seems like limitation with the AI image generator was the main reason but why not just include some generic icons or something... anything would be better than being stuck with pre-existing races which is nonsensical.

Are you even aware the term Custom Citizens infact means they are player made by you and that you add to your citizens folder after you have created them using whatever photo editor software you need to use to scale them and save in the proper file format then manually add them to the proper games folder. Open game civ builder and add them to your race.

The glaring flaw appears to be how sadly misinformed you are.

Originally posted by Airmaster:

Are you even aware the term Custom Citizens infact means they are player made by you and that you add to your citizens folder after you have created them using whatever photo editor software you need to used to scale them and save in the proper file format then manually add them to the proper games folder. Open game civ builder and add them to your race.

The glaring flaw appears to be your informed.

The icons are only one aspect of it. One that is not that concerning to me, actually. I'm fine with using squirrels for everything, I don't even care.

Hello Weregamer, there are many and many traits, which combined result in hundreds and hundreds of possible combinations. With such complexity it is possible that we have overseen something.

If you encounter an issue, feel free to report it, and we will do our best to fix it.
As far as late game goes, with advisors complaining on anomalies, it is just something we, on a dev end, can easily oversee, because playtesting of a lategame is way more complex than of early game.

And this is where the community comes in. Even though we have received gigantic amount of feedback, such small things can go unnoticed even on a bigger scale.

I thank you for forwarding those issues, and if you have other concerns, feel free to share them here or at our discord. On discord we have a special channel set up just for those kind of reports

Originally posted by weregamer:

I'm really surprised to see something from Stardock reach release so half-baked, especially around custom factions. The selections for sustenance type (carbon-based, etc.) control things like your tech tree and policy choices, but you have to pick one of the existing population types and that will actually control what they eat, how they react to the environment, and so on. So if, for example, you want to be radiation-proof you have to take the ameobas, or you will get weird things like a control action that is supposed to clone a pop actually creating an amoeba. It's a mess.

Even if you are happy playing canned factions, there are lots of unpolished edges, like having your advisors whine that you should be sending your flagship to an anomaly when there are none left, or telling you to build a colony ship when you already have one, or telling you you should colonize a planet deep in opposition space.

There is so much here that would be great if it was fixed that I'm not refunding the game, but that's mostly because Brad Wardell has earned some trust. I'm just disappointed that I bought a game marked "release", that even has an expansion pass offer now, but the actual state of the game looks like it needs another 3-6 months in early access to fix.

Instead of complaining about what is annoying you, how about posting your own ideas suggestions for improvements and request changes to things that bother you. This game as with all GalCiv games are ongoing works in progress. Your interpretation of "release quality" does not mean what you think it means. GalCiv3 started this same way and took close to 8 years of continuous updates to get where it is today.

So instead of whinging as you appear to be doing, post your ideas and suggestions for changes to whatever game play mechanics, changes to race factions and other features are annoying you what you want changed.

Mind you others may not want the changes you want and may disagree with your ideas and suggestions. Be civil about it.

-1.
The game is fine.

I'm with Airmaster's view of things. Too many complain about the little things. Not a fraction of them posts of things that could actually improve an already very nice and developed game. There is always room for progress obviously and if there are bugs, ofc report them.

But not judge the game overall for it. It doesn't deserve this treatment. All modern games will have those flaws especially if they're improved on continuously as GCIVSNEP is. One fixes a thing, another that wasn't broken might break. Happens. Those will be also fixed. Innovations cause bits of creative chaos here and there. They're not game breaking, just areas to improve and make work with the rest of the game at times.

But with negativity wells, that have nothing positive to say, only report mishaps they managed to find etc. I'm obviously bored/tired with. You know modern stuff is more sensitive, things might not work as expected. New things will require improvements. Why don't you congratulate the company for making them and add your input and leave it there?

Not like other genre games even have those features. Be creativelly/constructivelly critical if you can. This is like the game is used as a punching bag for stuff that happens in other areas of your lives. And it is not personally directed at OP either. Many people do this, I wonder why.

On the other hand, I've seen games that are literally unplayable on release, so my definition of "release quality" is very different.

Originally posted by FDru:

Are you even aware the term Custom Citizens infact means they are player made by you and that you add to your citizens folder after you have created them using whatever photo editor software you need to use to scale them and save in the proper file format then manually add them to the proper games folder. Open game civ builder and add them to your race.

The glaring flaw appears to be how sadly misinformed you are.

I feel that if the AI can generate a new species based on a brief description, and pull up or create an icon for the species, it wouldn't be so much extra for it to do the same for the citizen details - even the same single image as for the species prototype could be used if need be, and their properties could match the description - resourceful and greedy or whatever. Not everybody wants to be sitting around with graphics software producing custom pictures and stats. Isn't it the whole point of having an AI generator to do the work for us?

You must have never played galciv3 lol. I am not surprised by anything these guys do anymore.

Originally posted by Alphatucana:

Originally posted by FDru:

Are you even aware the term Custom Citizens infact means they are player made by you and that you add to your citizens folder after you have created them using whatever photo editor software you need to use to scale them and save in the proper file format then manually add them to the proper games folder. Open game civ builder and add them to your race.

The glaring flaw appears to be how sadly misinformed you are.

I feel that if the AI can generate a new species based on a brief description, and pull up or create an icon for the species, it wouldn't be so much extra for it to do the same for the citizen details - even the same single image as for the species prototype could be used if need be, and their properties could match the description - resourceful and greedy or whatever. Not everybody wants to be sitting around with graphics software producing custom pictures and stats. Isn't it the whole point of having an AI generator to do the work for us?

Apparently you're misquoting Fdru, that is not his comment. It's mine.

And as the comment above pointed out, you likely never played GC3 where we created custom civs from pure scratch using photo editor software and free images we searched for and collected from various sources on the web. You apparently don't know who is tasked to create the images the AI generation uses and yet you expect the artists at Stardock create and add thousands of portrait images all at once is unrealistic. While you yourself can learn to mod your own images just for your own personal custom civ and actually have exclusive control over what they look like. Something Stardock artists would not know because they are not mind readers.

This proves how lazy game players are becoming as AI is used for things like this that the player can do for himself with the right tools and materials. Also proves how selfish they can be expecting others to do things for them they're capable of learning to do themselves. Making you own custom mods from scratch is what makes your creation stand out from the rest. Use your own imagination.

AI can't do everything and you should learn to do some of these things yourself so have have the knowledge of knowing how to do it.

Originally posted by Sushi Dragon:

One thing about the expansion pass that I appreciate is the transparency. The fact that "these are the DLC you're getting in this timeframe and not more." My biggest concerns are what happens after that, I've been interested in Gal Civ 4 but I really don't want to get bogged into spending like 200$ to play a game for 5 years.

Hello Sushi Dragon!
The game pass already outlines a long time span, so we cannot tell what comes after that. Except that we will continue supporting GC4, as we have done for all other titles. This means bug fixing, balance updates, and at least minor content updates.

It is likely that GC4 will be getting more content over the years. But you will always be able to play what you feel like purchasing in good quality.

I guess I am failing to see how giving players total flexibility in what they want to do with their *custom* race constitutes some sort of bug when this was the intention of the system.

The whole point is that you CAN create an organic (carbon) civ that also has robot citizens or a radioactive race with cat citizens.

I can certainly see the argument that there should be more guard rails. But one would expect new players to do the canon civs to get the hang of things before they plow into making custom races.

The advisors can always be improved but they haven't changed at all since the original Epic of release of GalCiv IV and this is the first time I've seen a complaint about them.

None of this is intended to imply that there can't be improvements to the game. Each update we do has pages of improvements to it. I just disagree that not nerfing the custom race designer is somehow an example of an unfinished game.

We have no problem adding more help and suggestions to guide players on custom faction creation, I just don't see that as some sort of 1.0 type feature.

After reading through the entire thread, and the points many people are making, for or against the game...and the "just do it yourself if you dont like it" non-arguments...

Originally posted by Airmaster:

GalCiv3 started this same way and took close to 8 years of continuous updates to get where it is today.

This is the only thing Airmaster said, out of all the droning on and on, that I actually paid attention to. Thanks for reminding me, I was just about to buy this. Hard pass.

Originally posted by AFatalPapercut:

After reading through the entire thread, and the points many people are making, for or against the game...and the "just do it yourself if you dont like it" non-arguments...

Originally posted by Airmaster:

GalCiv3 started this same way and took close to 8 years of continuous updates to get where it is today.

This is the only thing Airmaster said, out of all the droning on and on, that I actually paid attention to. Thanks for reminding me, I was just about to buy this. Hard pass.

The 8 years and recent updates to GC3 and GC2 means that Stardock does not abandon its games when a "new" version comes out. When was the last time there were any company made fixes to Civ $ or 5 ?