>> Title: Galactic Civilizations 2: The Dread Lords

>> 03/07/2006

>> Platform: PC

>> Developer: Stardock

>> Publisher: Stardock

Though turn-based strategy games are few and far between, it hasn’t stopped Stardock from creating some damn fine games in that genre. Stardock recently released Galactic Civilizations 2: The Dread Lords, a follow-up to their critically acclaimed title Galactic Civilizations. We had a chance to ask Brad Wardell, Founder/President and AI Programmer of Stardock, about GalCiv2, the future of the GalCiv series and TBS games in general. Special thanks to Kristin Hatcher for making this possible.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your background. 

I'm a 34 year old software developer.  I founded Stardock back when I was in college as a way to pay for school.  I've always loved playing PC games and wanted to try making them on my own so I bought "Teach Yourself C in 21 days" and started writing.  14 years later, here I am.

2. When creating GalCiv 1 (and subsequently GalCiv 2), why did you choose the 4X turn-based style of gameplay? 

I like strategy games that have a lot of depth to them.  I want to have to have as many strategic options available to me to try out.  4X turn based games tend to have that.

3. I’ve always thought that the release of the original Doom hurt PC gaming in some ways.  Before its release, the majority of PC games were the classic adventures from Sierra (King’s Quest, Space Quest, and Quest for Glory), Starflight, and others that required a more cerebral approach as opposed to the attention deficient twitched-based gameplay we see in many games.  Why do you think the 4X TBS genre is ignored by so many developers? 

Because one of the major motivators of PC game developers is ego gratification. I don't say that in a bad way, I'm the same way.  We want to make something that our friends and others will think is really "cool".  And 3D shooters are considered a lot "cooler" by most gamers and editors than strategy games.  Consider the coverage.  The sales levels for first person shooters doesn't even remotely justify the coverage they get.  How many magazine covers each year do first person shooters get? How many of the top 10 most popular games in terms of sales do they have? No where near the same percent.

So we make first person shooters because there is more gratification.  While World of Warcraft, Civ IV and Age of Empires 3 absolutely crush the sales levels of most first person shooters, they get relatively little attention compared with their sales levels.  And we want attention.  It's a major motivation for many developers (myself included).  Game development doesn't make nearly as much money as other pursuits so the coolness factor is what helps make up for that.

4. Sadly, we’ve seen some excellent TBS series either ruined or abandoned over the past few years (Jagged Alliance, Master of Orion, UFO, and Fallout).  Conversely, some series have done well (Civilization, GalCiv, Space Empires) and continue to flourish.  How do you see the current and future TBS market? 

I think the TBS market is going to get a lot stronger in the coming years.  The reason is that the PC game industry is starting to be increasingly run by businessmen rather than gamers and the cold hard sales numbers are going to start trumping the "let's make a cool(TM) game". 

5. In one of your forum posts you briefly touched on the storyline for GalCiv 3.  Have you always envisioned Galactic Civilizations as a trilogy of games, or did it evolve into that? 

Originally there was going to be Galactic Civilizations and then Galactic Federations and then Galactic Tyrants.  GalFed was/is going to be an RTS version in the GalCiv universe and GalTyrant was/is going to be an action oriented game with RPG elements.  But after GalCiv1 and how hard it is to build momentum for a "franchise", we decided that we wanted to try to do GalCiv as a trilogy.  One where players didn't need to play the previous ones but where each could stand alone on its own.

6. It looks like Stardock is planning two expansion packs for GalCiv2.  What can you tell us about them? 

Sure.  The first expansion is one we hope to do late this year or early next year.  Its current title is "Dark Avatar". In it, you play as the Drengin Empire.  Bad things are going to happen to them as they deal with the aftermath of the Dread Lords and the come to terms with some of the choices they made in GalCiv II.   Dark Avatar will have VASTLY expanded espionage and covert features.

7. When developing a game, there inevitably comes a time when you realize you can’t include all the features you wanted.  Were there very many features left out of GalCiv2? 

There were some I really wanted to get in.  It's funny how some of the features that don't get in are not due to programming time but PLAYING time.  That is, play-testing.  For instance, I wanted very much to have asteroid fields in the game where you could mine them with special mining bases.  But we just couldn’t figure out how that would affect the game balance.  Coding in such a feature only takes a few weeks.  Balancing it would require 2 months of playing not to mention another month to implement the AI.

One of the hardest things for us to do is balance feature requests with AI.  As the AI developer, I get frustrated when I hear "Well, game XYZ had this feature and that feature...” and I have to bite my tongue and not point out that said game's AI didn't actually use those features.

8. What feature are you most proud of? 

Each of us on the team has a different favorite feature.  I would say there are 3 features we, as a team, are most proud of:

1) The ship design feature. 

2) The alien dialog system -- different sets of dialog for every AI for dozens of different situations.

3) The combat screen -- seeing your designs battle it out.

9. The GalCiv community is extremely excited about the ability to customize ships.  Will this feature be expanded on in future expansions? 

Definitely.  We are hoping to release a tool at some point that lets people take their ships and export them so that they can put them up on webs and use them in other media as well. 

10. What were some of the better games you played in 2005? 

Civilization IV was by far my favorite game of last year.  I also played a lot of World of Warcraft.  Battlefield 2 got a lot of play time here too.

11. What are some games you’re excited about this year? 

Well Supreme Commander is apparently not going to come out this year, that's the big game in my mind.  Chris Taylor is my god (I have a bronze statue of him in the court yard with his arm reaching towards the sky) <g>.  So when he releases Supreme Commander I'll be done for awhile.   Rise of Legends I'm really excited about.  The Big Huge Games guys are just so awesome.  

12. What can you tell us about Society and Political Machine 2008? 

Society is an MMO that is a bit like a cross between The Sims and Total Annihilation.  In it, you are building up an actual nation where you can get to know each person. Each person is unique and you decide what your society does.  Fighting wars is actually a relatively uncommon thing (like the real world).  That is, wars aren't artificially generated for the player, they are there as a serious thing that causes much destruction (if you spent weeks building up your society, how much risk are you going to put in of having that wiped out?).  So much of the time will be about building up your society, designing buildings, trading resources, finding artifacts, training the royal family (or marrying them off to other players). 

Society won't be out for quite awhile.  We're still trying to hire up and we're beefing up our IT infrastructure for it.

The Political Machine 2008 will be similar to the original with a lot more depth.  Last time we got stuck with a $20 price tag which really hampered our ability to put in the kind of in-depth options we wanted to have. 

13. You also mentioned a possible fantasy strategy game.  Would this be turn-based or real-time?  Is there anything that can be said about it at this time? 

It would be turn based.  But it's on the back burner until we can hire more developers and artists.  Right now, GalCiv and Society are all we can handle until the next hiring phase is complete.

14. What would you say to those who may be eyeing GalCiv2 but aren’t sure if they would enjoy it? 

I'd say wait for a demo. That's what I do.  I trust some reviews but if I'm really not sure, I'd just get the demo of a given game to make sure it's what I'm expecting.  I would NOT, however, use GalCiv 1 as a guide.  The sequel is very different.

15. Is there anything else you would like to add? 

We do plan to keep updating GalCiv II for free for quite awhile.  V1.1 is due out in a few weeks and we're looking at adding a lot of user requested features to it. 

Interview by: Alex Hammond