Galactic Civilizations III v3.5 and Retribution Change Log ( Released 2/21/2019)

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hey folks,

Today we are proud to be sharing Galactic Civilizations III v3.5 and our newest expansion pack, "Retribution" with you.  This build should go live around 1pm EST. Here are the changes you'll discover:

Retribution Expansion

New features

  • New Artifact Powers. Artifacts are scattered across planets in the galaxy. You research them similar to how you'd build an improvement. Researching creates "charges" that can be used to do a variety of large scale effects.
  • Hypergates / Hyperlanes: Building Hypergates allow you to build Hypergates or superhighways through the stars. Ships move substantially faster while traveling on Hyperlanes.
  • Supply Ships can send production between planets in your empire
  • Technology tree has been overhauled to adds depth and sharpens your strategic choice.
  • Two new factions (Drath and Korath)
  • New Retribution Campaign

Gameplay Changes

  • Nano-Fabricator provides adjacency bonuses.
  • Most improvements are now destructible.
  • Fusion Power plant removed (redundant)
  • Technology Capital cost reduced from 500 to 200
  • New Wonder: Dimensional Observatory (increases Hyperlane speed)
  • Aid Economy cost reduced from 200 to 75, benefit reduced from 50 to 25. Now available at the start of the game.
  • Supply Depot added. Improves early game morale.
  • Added ability to repeat Durational projects in the planet window.
  • Updated Improvement graphics
  • Military Academy is a player wonder (only 1 world can train your legions, was being abused by AI).
  • Big boosts to influence based improvements
  • Civilization Capital raw production bonus reduced from 2 to 1
  • Civilization Capital influence increased from 4 to 10
  • Civilization Capital population cap increased from 5 to 8
  • Civilization Capital sensor power increased from 12 to 16
  • Civilization Capital no longer provides free tourism
  • Space Elevators now requires Space Elevators tech
  • New Improvement: Colonization Center. Early game player achievement.
  • Xeno Medical Center and other related improvements now provide a % population growth increase rather than a flat one.
  • Default population growth is 0.01 per turn instead of 0.1
  • Supply Module given a manufacturing cost (100) and mass. Requires Space Elevators
  • Advanced Resource Mining moved from Age of Ascension to Age of War
  • Space Lab tech cost reduced from 200 to 120
  • First level techs increased from 24 cost to 36 cost
  • Removed Xeno Irrigation tech
  • New Techs:
    • Deep Field Inspection
    • Subatomic Organization
    • Beam Weapon Miniaturization
    • Warhead Miniaturization
    • Hyperfield Mass Launchers
    • Energy Defense Miniaturization
    • Counter-Targeting Computers
    • Armor Materials Science
    • Ministry of Alien Affairs
    • Department of Colonization
    • Spatial Manipulation
    • Space Elevators
  • Galactic Council influence per turn increased from 1 to 25
  • Changed the base repair rate for ships, starbases, and shipyards to 1/turn
  • Prolific trait reduced from +0.2 flat growth increased to +50% growth increase
  • Added the Arnorian Relic Study starbase module
  • Added the Precursor Observatory starbase module
  • Fixed an error in the text string for the ancient Ability trait
  • Drengin: now have Militant 1 and Brutal 1 instead of Influential 1 and Brutal 2
  • Iridium: now have Handy 2 and Adventuresome 2 instead of Influential 1
  • Onyx Hive: now have Adventuresome 2 instead of Influential 1
  • Personality traits on some factions have been adjusted
  • Fix for refreshing the stats of colonies when transferring a citizen to your home planet.
  • Strategic Command improves military production on the planet by 50%
  • General pass on ship design templates for AI and player to make for better designs.
  • Carrier modules cost more.
  • Show the planet class in the unit transfer screen
  • Drengin given Influential trait
  • Altarians lose Peaceful trait, given Aggressive trait
  • Iridium Corporation loses Handy trait and Adventuresome trait, given Cultural and Influential traits
  • Onyx loses Opportunistic trait and given Cultural trait
  • Onyx loses Adventuresome trait, given Influential trait
  • Arceans lose Trader and Diplomatic traits (because they're neither)
  • Map Sizes increased:
  • Thrusters cost increased from 7 to 30 while space used reduced from 8 to 1
  • Ion Thruster cost increased from 12 to 40 wile space reduced from 9 to 1
  • Field Thruster cost increased from 16 to 50 while space reduced from 10 to 1
  • Inertial Accelerator cost increased from 48 to 60 while space reduced from 12 to 1
  • Deflectors beam defense increased from 2 to 4
  • Shield beam defense increased from 3 to 6
  • Barrier beam defense increased from 5 to 8
  • Force field defense increased from 6 to 10
  • Invulnerability beam defense increased from 8 to 12
  • Armor and Point defenses get similar buffs
  • Generals now available with Militarization Tech

Base game

  • Gameplay
    • Recommended memory requirements for map sizes reduced based on memory savings.
    • AI manages tax rate with more focus on how it affects approval
    • AI uses tiny hulled ships to build defenders to help dissuade easy conquest.
    • Fixed bug that was preventing AI from stationing garrisons.
    • Cruel AI personalities are more focused on weapon tech
    • AI is more conscious of existing enemies before declaring war on more.
    • Going to war with most favorit-ish civ penalty changed from a 25% penalty to a flat 0.1 to goods and services.
    • Exterminators can now colonize toxic worlds
    • Changed it so that the bonuses will show a decimal place if the decimal value is greater than zero. E.g., +2.5% shows up as +2.5% but 5% does NOT show up as 5.0%.
    • "Defiant Civilizations" list in the UP details now scrolls correctly
    • Lighting update for battle viewer.
    • Added Commonwealth race trait that gives +5 diplomacy bonus to the Commonwealth
    • Updated the description for Corrosive worlds.
    • Fixed the icon of corrosive worlds in the base game.
    • AI is more likely to build transports
    • Shipyard size reduced slightly
    • AI is more aggressive towards shipyards and starbases
    • Added a defeat message when another player achieves an ascension victory.
    • Carrier modules use a bit more space.
    • Shipyards and Starbase base HP increased from 50 to 100.
    • Hull Changes
      • Tiny hull: Reduced manufacturing cost from 40 to 25
      • Small hull: Reduced manufacturing cost from 60 to 40
      • Medium hull: Reduced hp from 60 to 30, increased mass cap from 64 to 72
      • Large hull: Reduced hp from 100 to 80, increased the mass cap from 128 to 144, decreased tactical speed from -10% to -20%, decreased acceleration from -10% to -40%
      • Huge Hull: Increased manufacturing cost from 600 to 800, increased mass cap from 256 to 300, increased logistics cost from 18 to 24, decreased tactical speed from -20% to -50%, decreased acceleration from -20% to -80%
      • Cargo hull: decreased manufacturing cost from 24 to 16, removed maintenance, reduced hp from 10 to 3, increased tactical speed from -90% to -50%, increased acceleration from -80% to -20%
      • Starbase hull: increased hp from 50 to 250
    • Starbase Module changes
      • Starbase Defense Systems: Removed Durantium, Elerium, and Antimatter cost
      • Advanced Starbase Defense Systems: Reduced Durantium cost from 2 to 1, removed Elerium  cost, removed antimatter cost
      • Omega Starbase Defense System: increased Durantium cost from 3 to 5, removed Elerium  cost, removed antimatter cost
      • Economic Ring starbase module: removed maintenance
      • Starbase factory: tech prereq moved from Xeno Manufacturing to Orbital Manufacturing
      • Cultural Forum starbase module: tech prereq moved from Translator tech to Cultural Exchange
      • Information HUb starbase module: cost reduced from 200 to 100
      • Interstellar Exchange starbase module: cost reduced from 300 to 100, Promethion  cost reduced from 4 to 3
      • Interstellar Embassy starbase module: cost reduced from 400 to 100, Promethion  cost reduced from 8 to 4
      • Interstellar Ministry starbase module: cost reduced from 500 to 100, Promethion  cost reduced from 10 to 5
      • Added the Indoctrination Center starbase module
      • Added the Hive Mind Starbase module
      • Added maintenance cost to all the mining starbase modules
      • Removed Maintenance from all Starbase modules except rings.
  • UI
    • Starbase resource mining display now has a 0.n precision.
    • Removing"jitter" when basic UI controls unhide
    • Changed setup label from Galaxy Type to Galaxy Setting
    • You can now search for techs based on their searching for its flavor text name
    • Increased size of offer text in the Conversation window
    • Added Military stat to the Colony summary list screen.
    • Asteroid context window now shows hotkey to build a mining base
    • Taxes changed to "Tax rate"
  • Bugs
    • Carrier fighters are not accounted for in displaying ship battle stats outside of battle
    • Fixed starting event that gives you a scout when it's not supposed to
    • Fixed a common MP desync on starting a new MP game during map generation.
    • Fix for missing translation for Subspace Resonator B improvement.
    • Fixed crash related by spawning a new planet.
    • Fixing a couple of potential crashes from the AI getting awarded a starbase when it doesn't have a place to put it.
    • Prevent two planets being generated on the same tile. Gets awkward real fast. Fix for random crash using a destroyed object
    • Fixed a MP desync where diplomacy wasn't be calculated the same for all players.
    • MP crash fix (peer was looking for non-existent colony)
    • Fixed the bug that was allowing players to build multiple wonders. Hopefully, this bug is now dead forever.
    • Fixed the Neutral option of the Precursor Artifact starting event
    • Fixed error descriptions after game within a game (cannot build a starbase within %d bug)
    • Fix for MP shipyard crash
    • Deleting a starbase in scenario mode in the map editor no longer does bad things
    • Update arrows on the Headers in the Ship Design window.
    • Show the updated turns for the overflow from shipyard overflows
    • Changed Specialty ships to default to being unfiltered, not just when there are no favored ships
    • Improvement tool tip precision increased to show tiny population growth changes.
    • Fixed a typo on the Relic starting frequency dropdown (Precusor >> Precursor)
    • Added Divide by 0 check for production, preventing a crash

Crusade Expansion

  • Changed the base repair rate for ships, starbases, and shipyards to 1/turn
  • Prolific trait reduced from +0.2 flat growth increased to +50% growth increase
  • Added the Arnorian Relic Study starbase module
  • Added the Precursor Observatory starbase module
  • Fixed an error in the text string for the ancient Ability trait
  • Drengin: now have Militant 1 and Brutal 1 instead of Influential 1 and Brutal 2
  • Iridium: now have Handy 2 and Adventuresome 2 instead of Influential 1
  • Onyx Hive: now have Adventuresome 2 instead of Influential 1
  • Personality traits on some factions have been adjusted
  • Fix for refreshing the stats of colonies when transferring a citizen to your home planet.
  • Strategic Command improves military production on the planet by 50%
  • General pass on ship design templates for AI and player to make for better designs.
  • Carrier modules cost more.
  • Show the planet class in the unit transfer screen
  • Drengin given Influential trait
  • Altarians lose Peaceful trait, given Aggressive trait
  • Iridium Corporation loses Handy trait and Adventuresome trait, given Cultural and Influential traits
  • Onyx loses Opportunistic trait and given Cultural trait
  • Onyx loses Adventuresome trait, given Influential trait
  • Arceans lose Trader and Diplomatic traits (because they're neither)
  • Map Sizes increased:
    • Tiny: 28 to 32
    • Small: 40 to 50
    • Medium: 50 to 64
    • Large: 70 to 72
  • Thrusters cost increased from 7 to 30 while space used reduced from 8 to 1
  • Ion Thruster cost increased from 12 to 40 wile space reduced from 9 to 1
  • Field Thruster cost increased from 16 to 50 while space reduced from 10 to 1
  • Inertial Accelerator cost increased from 48 to 60 while space reduced from 12 to 1
  • Deflectors beam defense increased from 2 to 4
  • Shield beam defense increased from 3 to 6
  • Barrier beam defense increased from 5 to 8
  • Force field defense increased from 6 to 10
  • Invulnerability beam defense increased from 8 to 12
  • Armor and Point defenses get similar buffs
  • Generals now available with Militarization Tech
94,070 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Pshaw, can you tell us why we still have the saving and loading bug that ruin this game.  There is a post there where i tell that when you save a game and load a game many times ( 15 or 20) the loaded game gets a bug and after that, saving a game or loading a game takes minutes even more and after some turns the game crashes.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Can refresh my memory and provide a link to the issue you are referring to?

SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Hosttage, reply 3

https://forums.galciv3.com/490829/page/3/#3741514

Thanks Paul for your answer.

There is the link, it is an active Post and has been visited for thousands GC III players, I wrote a partial solution but not a real one solution to the true problem.


 

 

I asked an engineer to investigate.  

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Am I foolish to think this might actually be available on GOG today?

Enquiring minds would like to know (but aren't expecting an answer),  do you have to pay GOG a premium these days to have a game or expansion or patch show up at a particular date/time?   Or is the answer always just "it's up when we get to it"?

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Hosttage, reply 3

https://forums.galciv3.com/490829/page/3/#3741514

Thanks Paul for your answer.

There is the link, it is an active Post and has been visited for thousands GC III players, I wrote a partial solution but not a real one solution to the true problem.

Tell me about it.

Taking a hiatus from Stellaris due to its current incompetent AI and host of issues brought on by major changes in the last expansion, I thought it might be time to return to the GalCiv franchise due to fond memories of #1 and #2 in that regard - games that were to a certain extent, or so it seemed to me as a developer at the time I played them, developed with the AI in mind when choosing what to include and, as importantly, what not to include. So I got CalCiv3/Crusade and began playing yesterday the way I usually do when first examining game mechanics, frequently loading and saving from within game to test various outcomes. On a medium sized galaxy with default settings and gifted opponents. A nice little sandbox to learn the game, I thought. Can always add the other expansions if it kindles the old flame.

Within less than 30 turns of play, with plentiful saving and loading in-game, loading or saving the game took many minutes. Windows 10 allocated 16 GB to the swap file and 12 GB total memory to the application while trying, desperately, to load or save. (Not that I mind the swap file size or memory use, I've got plenty of space on the harddrive I run the game from, but it does seem a bit excessive given my 16 GB physical memory.)

So I looked at the save files and found that the initial binary soup turn 1 save file save.tmp was about 141 megabytes (compressed 8 megabytes), while a turn 18 was about 2.5 gigabytes (compressed GC3Crusade of 33 megabytes) and concluded that GalCiv 3 was shovelware like Elemental War of Magic, because adding datastructures of several gigabytes size to the state of the game after galaxy creation and game start is something that shouldn't happen save through incompetence and/or sloppy save routines spamming trash into the savefile.

Today, in a better mood, I remembered the lengths to which Brad Wardell went to address the disaster that was Elemental upon release, and returned to the forum because this just had to be a known bug, and probably a new one. I skimmed the relevant thread, read your workaround, ran some simple tests, and concluded that you were on to something. Finally I returned to yesterday's monster saves.

The first load after starting of yesterday's turn 18 save (the only I hadn't overwritten in today's tests) took about a minute or so (no precise timing), if I then immediately tried to load the same file again from within the game or after returning to the main menu (but NOT exiting the game entirely) loading took 12+ minutes, including occasionally grinding the loading animations and music to a slowdown and near halt and starving all other processes of resources.

Then I looked at the posts again and saw that Stardock had known about this issue for months without addressing it. Probably a mix of "cannot reproduce easily", "everybody busy making new stuff" and, possibly, "hey, I loaded a save provided and it worked on my SSD, what did you say, did you say I had to load several times for it to appear? Can't hear you, that takes way too long, next issue".

Whatever, the game was clearly not enjoyable in this state unless I  played it ironman style or ironman light, with infrequent saves and no loading without exiting the game entirely and restarting it as a workaround, so good riddance to bad rubbish, time to buy something else shiny to try out. I do so love to test and learn game mechanics, and I'd spent way too long looking at what is ultimately not an interesting problem in the first place (to anybody but the devteam). Then Steam began updating and I returned to the forum to see if there was a patch, and this is it...

...and there's no mention of addressing any save game issues.

I've now started the updated 3.5 version of GalCiv3/Crusade and verified that nothing has changed in that regard. That turn 18 save takes some 70 second to load from the harddrive when loaded the first time after starting the game; and if I do nothing, nothing whatsoever, in the game when it has loaded save ask the game to load the same save file again, it loads in... who's counting? At the 10 minute count I ordered the task manager brought up with ctrl+alt+del and when it appeared some 20-30 seconds later I terminated the process.

I guess I'll hie me to the bug forum (EDIT: after dinner. HUNGRY.) and supply that turn 18 savefile in case it is of use to the team as my gift to the devteam along with this wall of text, in the hope that it'll be of help to others who actually like the game, and check in next time I get a hankering for a Wardell game in a year or two. RIP GalCiv3: 20/2/2019-21/2/2019.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Will elite founders receive this expansion ? (Then again I definitively got my moneys worth of being a founder and happy with my Galciv3 purchase just curious if this is the case or not.) 

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting EMH2006, reply 7

Will elite founders receive this expansion ? (Then again I definitively got my moneys worth of being a founder and happy with my Galciv3 purchase just curious if this is the case or not.) 

Elite founders get it.  I already have.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Peter, reply 6


Quoting Hosttage,
reply 3

https://forums.galciv3.com/490829/page/3/#3741514

Thanks Paul for your answer.

There is the link, it is an active Post and has been visited for thousands GC III players, I wrote a partial solution but not a real one solution to the true problem
 
...

Within less than 30 turns of play, with plentiful saving and loading in-game, loading or saving the game took many minutes. Windows 10 allocated 16 GB to the swap file and 12 GB total memory to the application while trying, desperately, to load or save. (Not that I mind the swap file size or memory use, I've got plenty of space on the harddrive I run the game from, but it does seem a bit excessive given my 16 GB physical memory.)

So I looked at the save files and found that the initial binary soup turn 1 save file save.tmp was about 141 megabytes (compressed 8 megabytes), while a turn 18 was about 2.5 gigabytes (compressed GC3Crusade of 33 megabytes) and concluded that GalCiv 3 was shovelware like Elemental War of Magic, because adding datastructures of several gigabytes size to the state of the game after galaxy creation and game start is something that shouldn't happen save through incompetence and/or sloppy save routines spamming trash into the savefile.

Today, in a better mood, I remembered the lengths to which Brad Wardell went to address the disaster that was Elemental upon release, and returned to the forum because this just had to be a known bug, and probably a new one. I skimmed the relevant thread, read your workaround, ran some simple tests, and concluded that you were on to something. Finally I returned to yesterday's monster saves.

The first load after starting of yesterday's turn 18 save (the only I hadn't overwritten in today's tests) took about a minute or so (no precise timing), if I then immediately tried to load the same file again from within the game or after returning to the main menu (but NOT exiting the game entirely) loading took 12+ minutes, including occasionally grinding the loading animations and music to a slowdown and near halt and starving all other processes of resources.

Then I looked at the posts again and saw that Stardock had known about this issue for months without addressing it. Probably a mix of "cannot reproduce easily", "everybody busy making new stuff" and, possibly, "hey, I loaded a save provided and it worked on my SDD, what did you say, did you say I had to load several times for it to appear? Can't hear you, that takes way too long, next issue".

Whatever, the game was clearly not enjoyable in this state unless I  played it ironman style or ironman light, with infrequent saves and no loading without exiting the game entirely and restarting it as a workaround, so good riddance to bad rubbish, time to buy something else shiny to try out. I do so love to test and learn game mechanics, and I'd spent way too long looking at what is ultimately not an interesting problem in the first place (to anybody but the devteam). Then Steam began updating and I returned to the forum to see if there was a patch, and this is it...

...and there's no mention of addressing any save game issues.

I've now started the updated 3.5 version of GalCiv3/Crusade and verified that nothing has changed in that regard. That turn 18 save takes some 70 second to load from the harddrive when loaded the first time after starting the game; and if I do nothing, nothing whatsoever, in the game when it has loaded save ask the game to load the same save file again, it loads in... who's counting? At the 10 minute count I ordered the task manager brought up with ctrl+alt+del and when it appeared some 20-30 seconds later I terminated the process.

I guess I'll hie me to the bug forum (EDIT: after dinner. HUNGRY.) and supply that turn 18 savefile in case it is of use to the team as my gift to the devteam along with this wall of text, in the hope that it'll be of help to others who actually like the game, and check in next time I get a hankering for a Wardell game in a year or two. RIP GalCiv3: 20/2/2019-21/2/2019.

 

Paul,

Are you seeing the same issues if you start a new game using 3.5 with the same settings? Given that each game is "fixed" at start time with the xml in place for the version at the time, it would be nice to verify if a newly started game using the current 3.5 config also sees the same issues.I

Being able to load old save games from older versions may not be a high priority for the debug team. 

I don't notice the load times as I have an exceptional PC (NVME, 8 cores 32GB...), but 3.2 does have long loading times, even for my rig.

If you've already reproduced the issue with new game from 3.5, feel free to ignore me.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

We're looking it at save load times now.  I'll give an update soon.  

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Save files provided in the proper bug thread. Sorry if I came across as excessively grumpy in my post above, but, right now and for another day or two, that's how I feel about the whole situation after having anticipated spending a few hours a day for a week or so mastering a new game in my copious spare time and being sidetracking into bughunting instead, something I have plenty of opportunities to do elsewhere. That feeling too shall pass.

 

Good luck, pshaw.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Peter, reply 11

Save files provided in the proper bug thread. Sorry if I came across as excessively grumpy in my post above, but, right now and for another day or two, that's how I feel about the whole situation after having anticipated spending a few hours a day for a week or so mastering a new game in my copious spare time and being sidetracking into bughunting instead, something I have plenty of opportunities to do elsewhere. That feeling too shall pass.

 

Good luck, pshaw.

 

No worries.  We think we found the cause.  We're working a fix.  With luck, we put it in the optin soon. 

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Only one Military Academy?! Yikes!

luceo non uro

 

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

33 seconds to load a game.

Reply #15 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Old-Spider, reply 8


Quoting EMH2006,
reply 7

Will elite founders receive this expansion ? (Then again I definitively got my moneys worth of being a founder and happy with my Galciv3 purchase just curious if this is the case or not.) 



Elite founders get it.  I already have.

Edit nm it is there now. Happy me :)

Reply #16 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting pshaw, reply 12


Quoting Peter Ebbesen,
reply 11

Save files provided in the proper bug thread. Sorry if I came across as excessively grumpy in my post above, but, right now and for another day or two, that's how I feel about the whole situation after having anticipated spending a few hours a day for a week or so mastering a new game in my copious spare time and being sidetracking into bughunting instead, something I have plenty of opportunities to do elsewhere. That feeling too shall pass.

Good luck, pshaw.

No worries.  We think we found the cause.  We're working a fix.  With luck, we put it in the optin soon. 

We think we have it nailed.   We've put a fix in the opt-in that prevents the issue.

https://forums.galciv3.com/493612

 

Reply #17 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

How often do the artifacts generate their rewards?  I've noticed one almost right away after built then another appeared later.  Or is it only after you upgrade the building?  Does this mean once fully upgraded that tile is worthless?  Why don't the tiles combine instead of adding duplicates upon duplicates?  I don't see the value on keeping the tiles separate.  You could just have it show you the planet(s) that is producing said artifact.

I would have asked the last question during beta, however, even though I was a founder and asked to be included on discord I was not included in the beta.

Edit:  Another question as I'm playing it appears many artifacts can be upgraded continually at the end of them, so answering my above question, giving the player additional charges, however, the Chimirac Biomass (which terriforms an additional tile) doesn't provide that option.  is this a bug (broken) or working as intended.  Maybe the others that allow continued upgrades are a bug but I wanted to make sure.