I know the feeling.  After releasing v1.1 of my mod, I puttered around a bit more and eventually ended up taking nearly a year off.  It's hard, time consuming work and eventually you end up hitting the limitations of the game itself, no matter how much sweat and tears you put into it.

You've done a great job both on your own mod and by contributing to the community.  You were the spark that got me modding and sent me down the right path.  It's a little sad that GalCiv 2 is left in the state that it's in; however, I've gotten a lot of time and enjoyment out of it.

Take some time off and maybe someday you'll come back fresh and find new enjoyment.  That's pretty much where I'm at.

Well I've taken a look at StarbaseModules.xml and chopped a lot of modules.  Ship Assist modules got the brunt of the cuts, along with all of the freebie weapon/defence modules.  I got rid of Battlestations II through IV as well.  I ditched several culture modules, but reduced the initial outlay for Diplomatic Outpost and Franchise Centre.  The sensor modules have been cut down to just one.  Production assist modules took some minor cuts as well, notably Smart Drones.  Yes, I know that production assist helps with research too, but it makes more sense for the modules come from one category of tech.

As a result of the module shake-up, the Stellar Fortification and Starbase Militarisation techs have become obsolete and have been cut from the tech trees, though there are some exceptions for some of the races with unique starbase modules.

There's still probably a hundred plus modules there (dunno how after all that!) but it's enough to alleviate the problem of starbases not being armed for now, and it will need testing, which I will do when I'm good and ready.

Big thanks to qrtxian for suggesting playing against the Drengin in a crowded galaxy, it does seem to make a difference.  Although they still outstrip everyone's military, the fact that they're fighting against just about everyone (except for the Arceans, who are allied woth them!) seems to have slowed their progress.  I've also been a little more aggressive, taking out the Thalans, who have been a thorn in my side since the game began.

The crowded conditions really do it.  I've been doing playtests with all 3 AIP 7 races and they really do a good job if they can just get enough planets at the start.

Changed a few things for my next test game, don't know if it will be popular with teh general user base but here goes anyway.

With weapons divided up by Tech Progression, it has become possible to skip certain sections of the weapons tech tree.  However, until now I hadn't realised what a massive shortcut this is.  I mean, if I unlock Tech Progression III in the Terran tech tree, and I have already finished researching Pulse Cannons III, then I can do either Graviton Driver I or Quantum Driver I, and they take around the same time.  Hmm, no prizes for guessing which one of those I'll be picking.

So, what I have done (for next game at least) is make the last tier of weapons (before you go on to do ultimate weapons) cost ten times more to research.  And the ultimate weapons which follow on from that cost twenty times more.  So there will be a point to researching those less advanced weapons techs - they'll take far less time!

The Torians, who only get access to mass drivers and missile weapons after Tech Progression III, will get to start on Photon Torpedo or Quantum Driver rather than the more primitive stuff, but they take 50% longer on those shorter branches on top of the ten/twenty times from the above.

Here's an overview of my current game:

You can see from the Military graph that up until recently, the Drengin have been top dog.  But their Ion Cannons have become increasingly outmoded.  The now third-place military power (that's the pink blob) made the mistake of launching a sneak attack against me, and you can see right away that they suffered for their impudence.

So far it's been quite an interesting game, although for a good while now every race has been swimming in cash thanks to a tourism boom.

The Altarians have developed medium hulls and armour tech, while the Drengin have gone for large hulls with mostly just Ion Cannons.  The reason why the Altarians aren't winning is because the Drengin have lots of manufacturing capability - they can replace their lost ships quite easily - while the Altarian ships tend to be more costly, thanks to the Nano Ripper that they're using, and therefore quite costly to replace.  Also, they're just using a single armour module on their frigates, which only provides a basic 9 points of protection per combat round, which doesn't give them much of an edge over the raw weapon power of a Drengin fleet.

The LMT Corporate (those are the pink guys) have been able to put such a dent in the Drengin because they're using the same low-tech approach, manufacturing lots of fighters with retro railguns, and more recently some medium hulls too.  That's why I paid them off for peace, actually.  I could have just as easily wiped them out and used their worlds to support a massive fleet, but that's not my style.

I will let these two races battle against the Drengin so that I can see if it is possible for them to win without too much help from me.  I certainly think that as soon as the Drengin start to get into a losing position, they will be researching some badass weaponry, and that could well turn the tide of battle.  However by the time they do that, the other races will likely be fielding some pretty impressive ships of their own.

Yeah I just noticed the date myself, can't believe 14 game years have gone by.

I've posted a new version.  Because of the sweeping changes that may not be to everyone's tastes, it's a new version number entirely, so you won't accidentally overwrite your version 4 when extracting.

Something I noticed in my new game is that, at least the way I play them, the Terrans have a tendency to collect wealth and be unable to do anything with it until they get their own weapons research done.  But for the moment anyway they have a great alternative - buy ships from the other races that are faster off the mark.  It's expensive, but when you have Thalans declaring war all over the place, it tends to suck to be the only one without any combat ships.

Holy culture bomb, Batman!

The Korx set up a couple of influence starbases near two of my planets.  Very crafty, and something I've not seen the AI do in a long while (possibly due to the module under-read problem).  It's nothing I need to worry about at the moment, but if they keep going with culture research, I will need to deploy my own culture stabrases to counteract.

5 post combo, nice roll there.

I think this mod has pleased my need for guns and balance.

Looks like a wild ride.  I'm eagerly getting ready to release my latest version and finally play a game.  I think my first game will go up as an AAR with some commentary on how the AI is developing.  I've kicked around the idea of doing a full AAR on a good playtest game, but I just end up making adjustments and moving on the the next test.

I think I may have to nerf the Ranger.  It's bad enough that the busy archaeologists have unearthed four of the suckers in my latest game, but I can buy them from the AI for a little under 40000 bc.  Dunno what happened to the fourth one, but now that I have three of them pretty much nobody can stop me.

If you have 40,000bc, that might have something to do with why nobody can stop you...

Economic boom may have had something to do with that.  It's over now, and the lack of extra credits is a bit of a pain.  However, I've made good inroads against the Drengin and Yor during a brief period of hostilities.  The Yor are doing well for themselves, having got Plasma Weapons researched.  The Drengin are a bit further behind but they make up for their low-tech ships with their impressive weapons bonus and numbers.  Still, neither of them has anything that can even touch my Ranger fleet.

Okay.  Another thing I'm fixing for next release is the Psionic Beam on the Drengin tech tree.  It's available far too early!  So it's now available for research when Ion Beams III has been completed.  For the Yor and most other races, I'm moving it back in the tech tree to just after Plasma Weapons III.

Going to improve Quantum Drivers damage output by 50%.  They have the worst damage output of the regular non-ultimate weapons, low damage for space used, and they take a bit longer to research than Phasors/Disruptors or Photon Torpedoes.

And, to think on it, I'll do the same for Black Hole Gun.

As it turns out, putting the weapon components on a spreadsheet reveals a few minor problems that need to be looked at.

What I'm looking at here is the size a component will be on a small and large hull, the damage you can then squeeze in per unit of space with that weapon for each hull size, and the cost per unit of damage.

There is a healthy gap between Plasma III and Disruptors in terms of damage/volume.  But not so for Plasma III and Phasors.  With the increased research costs in the tech tree it's barely worth going for Phasors at all.  Same dealio as far as Photonic and Photon Torpedoes go.

Here's what I've worked out and incorporated into the components XML so far:

So there was nothing too difficult with that, have to see how it plays out in the game though.

There are a few things I'm going to change for the release of version 5A, after the past two games.

I'm going to move the Drengin Exoskeleton Hull Point to later on in their tech tree.  It makes their early ship designs a bit inefficient and more costly to manufacture, even if it does make each individual ship harder to kill.

I've also decided that medium hulls should always come after Technology Progression II, regardless of which tech tree I'm looking at.  It makes things more consistent and as a human player, you will always know what you need to be aiming for.

I'm thinking of making a reduction in the cost of researching new research facilities, like maybe 20% across the board, because while some races seem to have no problem teching up, others seem to struggle a bit now that initial colonies don't have much intrinsic research value.

Finally, I'm going to do something crazy with the Arceans.  Give them a +1 natural speed bonus as opposed to a speed penalty.  However, they will take -20 to their Defence ability.

Also, while I was making changes, I noticed and corrected the Iconian bug with Biology as the category for Research Centre/Academy.  Should have seen that ages ago.

I've made a few changes to the Terran tech tree.  I've added Impulse Drive and Warp Drive to the Core Technologies groups.  Don't have to complete the whole line of each, just the first tech of each.  I also switched the positions of Invention Matrix and Medium Scale Building, and Superior Hulls now starts after Technology Progression III.

Finally, because some of the research facility techs had Technology Progression as their prerequisites, and I did a 20% cut in the cost of those, the costs of some Technology Progression techs have been adjusted.

Also, I've added three new Super Projects, one for each technology progression tech.  Of course not all races have all those techs yet, but it will happen eventually.

The Drengin get to keep their discount on Planetary Invasion technology, but they now have to research Technology Progression II first.  Should help to take the edge off.

Okay, there we go, version 5A is up.  Let me know if there are any problems though, because I obviously haven't had time to check every tech tree yet, just the ones I did all the major changes to.

There are some visual issues with the Terran tech tree because I added Impulse and Warp Drive to groups, but nothing major. but I've fixed them by switching techs around.

Also, you may need to clear a race's config in order to load the stats (currently just the Arceans are altered) from the receconfig xml file.  In there I've also switched the personalities on most of the major races to what seems to work best so far.

I've taken some time out from the AAR to work on Version 5B, in particular paying attention to the Korx, Arceans and Torians.

Version 5B is up, see top post for changes.

Oh, just caught this, don't build the Personalised Advertising trade good.  It will crash your game.

Some upcoming changes to Farming improvements:

• Xeno Farm - increases Food production by 25%, 1PP
• Enhanced Xeno Farm - increases Food production by 50%, 1PP
• Advanced Farming - increases Food production by 2 + 50%, 1PP
• Robotic Farming - as Advanced Farming, only 2bc maintenance, 1PP
• Harvestor - increases Food production by 2 + 25%, still 1PP
• Food Distribution Centre - removed

The idea here is to minimise the damage that the AI can do to itself by placing farms on a farm tile, and make it actually worth pursuing Xeno Farm Construction II/III.

Some more changes coming up:

• Devils' Forge upgrades to Slaveling Training Center.
• Slaveling Training Center boosts production by 25% and adds 10 mp, and upgrades to Artificial Slave Pods.
• Artificial Slave Pods boost production by 30% and adds 12 mp.

Basically this is to avoid giving over three whole tiles to these sorts of facilities, when there's no guarantee (in the case of the AI) that they're actually multiplying the output of any slave pits/canyons.  At the same time, the upgrades give the output that you would get if you had a half-decent factory on the tile.