GalCiv III v1.9 Changelog

from Stardock.net Forums

[[RELEASED]]

 
 
This is an opt-in patch:

To enable the patch, please do the following:

  • Select Galactic Civilization III in your Steam Library list
  • Right-click and select Properties
  • Select the BETAS tab
  • From the dropdown, select opt-in and click Close (if you don't see this option, restart Steam)
  • Steam should pull down the changed files; if you ever want to go back, do the same as above but select default

Please note: The opt-in is an early preview of the next update and you might experience bugs or other issues. We encourage players who try the opt-in to report any issues to the support forum or via support ticket so we can address them.

Optimization

  • Memory: introduced new texture compression for planetary and ship textures to greatly reduce memory usage and dramatically improve startup times.
  • Removed legacy stopwatch code from the sound system
  • Moved old profiling junk
  • Reduced CPU usage of the particles and main graphics threads
  • Removed redundant debug output
  • Multithreaded the texture loading at the start of game to improve performance.

AI

  • AI builds scout ships later in the game to keep exploring very large galaxies
  • Dramatically reduced AI >normal economic bonuses (no longer needs them)
  • Re-designed the way the AI expands into the galaxy with colony ships so that its expansion no longer stalls on large maps
  • Dramatically reduced the amount of time an AI will interact with a player if they are not within ship range
  • AI doesn't try to bribe other players to go to war unless they and the other players have a decent military already
  • AI will no longer give tech gifts to players with a different ideology (i.e. no more Drengin giving you tech if you're a nice person)
  • AI now scales the number of similar ship projects based on number of colonies rather than a flat number
  • AI pumps up colony ship production priority if there are a lot of nice planets laying around
  • AI pumps out fewer Constructors in general
  • Re-designed the way the AI determines which planets should get a shipyard to be more (way more) intelligent
  • Updated AI's handling of adjacency bonuses to be more intelligent
  • AI values planet quality more when picking planets to colonize 
  • AI somewhat more heuristic on tech research
  • AI somewhat quicker to war
  • Auto Surveying Survey Ships will now survey extra anomalies if the ship has extra movement points.

Balance

  • Starbase minimum distance reduced from 5 to 3 tiles.
  • AI tends to focus more on tech (generally) than previously.
  • AI will build survey ships late in game.
  • AI provided with a much wider variety of ship designs to choose from with the various strategies.
  • AI weights units much more closely than previously in order to not make one virtually impossible to build.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty reduced from 1.25 to 1.1 if AI is benevolent.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is merciless.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is cruel.
  • Close to victory diplomatic penalties increased from 1 to 5.
  • Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty reduced from 0.75 to 0.1 if AI is benevolent.
  • Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty increased from 0.75 to 1.25 if AI is aggressive.
  • Minimum planet class to be a manufacturing world reduced from 7 to 4.
  • Max number of colony ships the AI will construct at once increased from 2 to 3.
  • Max slider focus reduced from 95% to 75% (to deal with coercion penalty).
  • Coercion forgiveness eliminated (there is always some coercion if you move off from center).
  • Maximum coercion reduced from 50% to 35%.
  • Colony Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Civilization Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Influence Radius root increased from 1.75 to 4 (i.e. influence ZOC will start out much much smaller now).
  • Tech inflation penalty significantly reduced.
  • Penalty for switching a constructor to a colony ship increased from 50% to 75% (yea, you know who you are).
  • Pirates moved further away from starting location.
  • Increased the variance for the various settings (minors, pirates, etc.).
  • Modified the governor script to provide a bit more flexibility based on planet bonuses when building improvements.
  • Colony capital maintenance eliminated.
  • Colony capital hub provides a 2 (was 1) level bonus to adjacent buildings if they are population or manufacturing or research.
  • Civ capital hub provides a 3 level bonus (was 1).
  • Reduced maint. slightly on research buildings.
  • Rare habitable planets decreased from 30% to 25%.
  • Nebula and black holes and anomalies made much less common on all settings.
  • Occasional planet frequency amount doubled from 1X to 2X.
  • Common stars modifier increased from 0.9 to 1.
  • Common planet frequency amount increased from 0.75X to 3X (this also fixes a bug where common was less than occasional).
  • Abundant stars increased from 1X to 1.5X.
  • Planet Frequency increased from 0.25X to 3.5X (also fixes bug).
  • Tiny map base objects increased from 32 to 120 (i.e. tiny maps will be a lot more filled).
  • Small map base object count increased from 64 to 150.
  • Medium map Base object count increased from 110 to 200.
  • Large map base object count increased from 155 to 300 (i.e. over twice as many stars/planets/etc. in a particular size).
  • Huge map base object count increased from 250 to 350.
  • INSANE map object count INCREASED from 1200 to 1400!
  • Sensor cost components reduced slightly.
  • Cargo module cost reduced from 27 to 10 (cheaper colony ships -- but remember, planets now rely more on population for their production).
  • Tiny hull cost reduced from 11 to 10.
  • Small hull cost reduced from 25 to 20.
  • Medium hull HP increased from 100 to 120.
  • Large hull cost increased from 128 to 300.
  • Large hull HP increased from 250 to 600.
  • Large hull storage increased from 100 to 120.
  • Large hull logistics cost increased from 7 to 10.
  • Huge hull cost increased from 432 to 500.
  • Huge hull HP increased from 500 to 800.
  • Huge hull storage increased from 250 to 300.
  • Huge hull logistics increased from 10 to 16.
  • Cargo hull cost reduced from 42 to 24.
  • Cargo hull HP reduced from 10 to 1.
  • Cargo hull logistics increased from 5 to 6.

Improvements/Bugs Fixes

  • Added author fields for maps, factions and ships.
  • Starbases will now notify the you that they need to be upgraded after being initially built.  
  • Fixed double counting of trade routes for AI diplomacy purposes.
  • Fixed late game crashes related to textures on large maps.
  • Fixed an infrequent crash on loading large maps.
  • Fixed bug that could cause the AI to see tiles in the opposite map position of where they were exploring.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the AI to reduce the priority weighting on colony ship production based on the # of targetable planets.
  • If a player faction is set to random in the prefs.ini file, the quick-start tooltip will no longer display an invalid faction.
  • Fixed an issue where if you changed the planetary spending wheel, the displayed. manufacturing time for improvements wasn't being updated at the same time.
  • Clicking available projects tabs no longer resets the improvement cursor.
  • Add ESC to close Ship Designer and Diplomacy screens.
  • Starbases no longer incorrectly show the upgrade option when none avail.
  • Fixed a crash related to the AI defying the UP.\

If you want to read my Dev Diary full of me complaining and whining and how I worked on the update visit here: https://forums.galciv3.com/480761/ and here: https://forums.galciv3.com/480723 

560,804 views 94 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Damn, my computer is down for the count till I get my new ram from Gskill. Looks good Frogboy, I will say many thanks up front. Unfortunately I cannot even fire up my computer if I wanted to. 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I want!!! I want now!!! Seriously, changes look interesting and will definitely give the game a new feel. Hope to see it drop soon.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

So you ended up not changing the galaxy size or planet count?  it's okay if you didn't change them, just getting clarification :)

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Just let us know when it is for real.  That is a lot of changes to handle and adjust to, but it is downright exciting. There are things in the list with exceedingly interesting consequences. Starting game should be very different. It's like getting a brand new game for the holidays without all that wrapping paper to get in the way.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Frogboy what are your thoughts about the endgame mop up phase and spicing it up? Great work btw!

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Shouldn't this be in the Support forum with all the other updates, even if its just an opt in?

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Okay, I have to day off today but do have to go to the dentist. that's at 10am EST, I should be home by noon so you can have it drop any time after that. Thanks, I'll need the distraction. ;)

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Wait, so it's now cheaper to get huge hulls than large hulls, with less HP? 

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Why cheaper?

 

  • Large hull cost increased from 128 to 300

  • Huge hull cost increased from 432 to 500

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Lots of good stuff

 

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Updated with larger log.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Whoops, misread that line, my bad!

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm not seeing anything about shield punch being fixed so it, well, works.

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Will administration be part of this?

I am not sure about many changes without that, starbase distance reduction being the most flagrant >_>

Starbase minimum distance reduced from 5 to 3 tiles.

Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top

 

Hi,

I see that in the interests of balance the starbase minimum distance has been reduced to 3 squares. Isn't this going to make the Arcaeans massively overpowered? In the early middlegame - rather than later when they've got the two distance extensions  - they're going to be able to build 18 economic starbases around their main planets, in a ring of six three squares away and a further 12 six squares away. Once they've got the two distance extensions won't it be 30?

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

 

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

 

Sorry miscounted - with the two distance extensions the Arcaeans get up to 6 + 12 + 18 = 36 starbases round their main planets - rather than 18 as before.

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

Reply #17 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Holy cow!!!  The game turns are blindingly faster! So far, so good!  

Reply #18 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Why this:

 </Stats>
    <LevelEffectStats>
      <EffectType>HitPointsCap</EffectType>
      <Target>
        <TargetType>Ship</TargetType>
      </Target>
      <BonusType>Multiplier</BonusType>
      <Value>0.05</Value>
    </LevelEffectStats>

to every hull type in ShipHullStatsDefs.xml?

Haven't noticed it before and never saw this change noted anywhere.

???

Reply #19 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Go4Celerity, reply 18

Why this:

 </Stats>
    <LevelEffectStats>
      <EffectType>HitPointsCap</EffectType>
      <Target>
        <TargetType>Ship</TargetType>
      </Target>
      <BonusType>Multiplier</BonusType>
      <Value>0.05</Value>
    </LevelEffectStats>

to every hull type in ShipHullStatsDefs.xml?

Haven't noticed it before and never saw this change noted anywhere.

???

 

thats the 5% HP your ships get for leveling up,

was in the same patch wich introduced the Levels for ships

Reply #20 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Ed49663, reply 17

Holy cow!!!  The game turns are blindingly faster! So far, so good!  

Just finished several hours of MP session.  Had some initial issues that may have been my setup, but once we got started the MP turns seemed very fast to me.  Not the waiting for the human part, but everything else.  Cross trading the data for custom factions and such still takes a while, though, especially when each side has over 100 created or downloaded factions.

The AI changes show up in MP and I find them welcome.  Colonizing is definitely a stiffer race than before. They are doing an effective job of boxing one of ua in a corner. Something vicious will have be done about that.

Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top

 

Hi, 

As of 1.90 if you have a constructor in a starbase which you want to eject then it seems to demand that you upgrade the starbase even if you don't want to. I queued eject but it wouldn't let me proceed until i'd used up a rather useless upgrade.

 

Cheers,

 

Jon

 

 

 

+2 Loading…
Reply #22 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

My thoughts on 1.9 (in the MP game with erischild)...

  • Loading MP Games...
    • The game load time = about the same little if any difference.
    • MP start up process = same if not longer
    • MP loading factions = appears longer don't exactly no why as nothing changed here.
    • MP map building = same, nothing changed, however does Stardock cap data transfer to 1mbps?  It is getting more common for Internet service to have 2-5 mbps upload and this can be several minutes on larger maps maybe think about changing cap if there is one, could just be one of our connections as well...
  • MP Game Performance.
    • Game is working the processor more evenly and in turn cooler.  My AMD FX processor runs hot normally with the game and I noticed a big change in CPU temp in 1.9.
    • Memory difference noticed.  Don't normally play gigantic maps, usually larger so don't know the draw appears to be about a 10-20% difference, was running about 6.7-9 usage, If I remember correctly for that size map before was around 8.  (mind you that includes Windows overhead).
  • MP Game General Feedback.
    • Area of influence is way cut back, my feeling almost too far, maybe there is a happy medium between what it was and where it's at?  Hard to locate factions on the map especially on larger maps and prior to turn 100.
    • Drengin appear to be overpowered by far they have more planets, more military ships (to be expected), more technology then all other AI and the Human team (us), in fact the Drengin have about double what we and the other AI have.  (Mind you this was 1 game and could just be they got lucky in that game.

Otherwise good job so far... 

Reply #23 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I've posted some feedback on the steam forum. In my game the Drengin were far and away more powerful than anything else on the map in terms of the faction power number. When I won the game around turn 220 I was second with around 1000, and the Drengin doubling that. I think I may need to play a bit more, as I am not sure if it was luck of the drawn when it came to their spawn, but I personally think galaxy generation could use some tweaks to even out faction balance. I played on loose clusters Huge. as it gives the most even planet spread in my experience, but still leads to the kind of geography that creates islands and dead ends which really hampers other AI from expanding and challenging neighbors. Otherwise, I really like the extra war aggression and how the AI will do better with research and colony expansion -- these were all much needed to make the AI more interesting. 

 

I also agree, that it appears influence has been cut back a bit much -- how could anyone perform a influence victory and strategy focused on planet culture flip?

+1 Loading…
Reply #24 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting TheFunMachine, reply 23

I also agree, that it appears influence has been cut back a bit much -- how could anyone perform a influence victory and strategy focused on planet culture flip?

Yes, this is another great point on influence being cut back so far.

Reply #25 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I find the same thing very annoying.  I usually like keeping my "extra" construction points for the next level of mining, xeno archeology, or economic sector.

+1 Loading…