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Galactic Civilizations II v1.3 BETA 1 change log

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Galactic Civilizations II v1.3 BETA 1 change log

Target availability: 7/27

from JoeUser Forums

The 1.3 builds of Galactic Civilizations II will be in beta for longer than some of the previous versions.  It's not so much that we think it's buggy but the fact that we don't want to do a 1.3, 1.31, 1.32, 1.33 and so on.  Plus, if there ARE bugs in these builds, we can say "Well it's a beta". After all, weaseling is what sets us apart from the animals...well...you know..except the weasel.

The 1.3 builds are designed to extend the playable lifespan of the game. To eliminate annoyances and pet peeves that players might have that would eventually turn them off.  That includes things like UI annoyances being eliminated based on player feedback, amping up the computer AI further, and adding more difficulty levels so that players can fine-tune things.

If I were a better game designer, I'd just have the difficulty levels be a slider with a 1 to 100.  Dark Avatar will have that (ironically the original OS/2 version of GalCiv back in 1993 had this but what did I know then?).  But for 1.3, we added 3 more difficulty levels and just generally cleaned up that area.

Below is the change log of BETA 1 of 1.3.  It will be available via Stardock Central tomorrow or Friday unless there's some disaster.

It should be fine to run.  Most of the embedded spyware, hard drive formatting, and other malicious code that all our software includes has been reduced by over 14%. Just ignore the hard drive crunching...

+ fixed first turn after load zero production behavior!

+ AI better at managing colonies

+ More difficulty levels: Dunce at the lower end, Godlike and Ultimate at the higher end.

+ AI intelligence levels above and below "Intelligent" adjusted in difficulty (so i.e. Normal will be tougher than it was because there's a new easier difficulty level and Incredible will be easier because there's two higher difficulty levels).

+ The overall difficulty levels have now bee tweaked to have a 1 to 1 relationshipo with the AI intelligence levels so "Challenging" means all AI intelligences set to "Bright" rather than a weighted overall value. Many higher level players would find that they set the difficultly level to Crippling only to find that 2 or 3 of the players would be set to "Fool" (and do very little) while the others played very well.

+ Difficulty setup screen tweaked to work better.

+ changed size of TriStrontium so that it's bigger than TriStrontium2; previously the definitions were identical.

+ fixed error in translation code for raceconfig (homeworld)

+ fixed error in translation code for UP issues.

+ fixed bug that reset the cheater's flag, allowing cheater games to be submitted normally.

+ fixed some exploits in raceconfigs for metaverse games

+ fixed missing image in Rename Ship dialog

+ fixed error in AbilitiesBonus.xml file that didn't show 20% bonus to Loyalty

+ reduced the Custom Race's default value of Loyalty to 15% so that it would not cause negative ability points

+ added code to clear the planet/shiplist between games so that it wouldn't keep old pointers (should prevent a memory leak and potential crashes due to bad pointers)

+ made it so that you can select a race by clicking on its icon on the Foreign Treaties screen

+ made it so that the seleted planet or ship in the planet/ship list is saved so that changing the sort variable or filters will still keep the selection.

+ added code to let you right click on a tech to bring up the tech description dialog when the tech tree window is maximized

+ fixed error where fleets of ships could still attack freighters protected by galactic privateer

+ Reversed direction of the moon revolution (yes, Earth's moon now rotates around the Earth the right way)

+ added a check in the Direct 3D code for vertex and pixel shader versions

+ added code to make foreign policy window try to select a non-dead civ

+ made sure that the civ manager only has to parse the entry definitions once

+ made planet screens refresh after removing or adding troops

+ fixed numerous typos and spelling errors in various files

+ changed it so that the difficulty on the OpponentWnd slider changes all of the selected races' intelligences

+ changed it so that when you enable a race, it automatically sets its intelligence to be at the level of the difficulty

+ Fixed bug where lines on Treaties screen would point off-screen if you were a custom race playing against 10 enemies

+ D and T buttons will now toggle the details and rally point screens on/off instead of queuing up multiple instances of them

+ Kills some battle related processes as soon as they are finished so they don’t stay in memory when no longer needed

+ When running in full screen mode (Release build), the mouse will be clipped to the game window to prevent accidentally clicking outside of the window.  You can still use ALT+TAB to activate other windows.

+ added function IsProtectedMiniFreighter to check for valid target

+ added code to clear selected rallypoint from minimap to prevent crashing when the rallypoint is deleted

+ added code to clear rallypoint destination when rallypoint is destroyed

+ Added a debug assert if the required technology for a ship type is not found

+ Fixed bug where ships on auto-explore that were put in a planet would immediately start auto-exploring once launched from the planet

+ Fixed a graphical bug where if you had 1 ship with moves and it attacked a planet with a fleet manager, the fleet would remain on top of the planet if the attacking ship was killed.

+ fixed memory leak caused by too many references to ship design listbox entries

+ fixed possible crash when saving std::strings in save game

+ cleaned up code in PropertyBucket class to make it more efficient.

+ Fixed a crash in the scene graph

+ Added ref counts to scene nodes in battle processes to prevent “random battle crashes”

+ Kills some battle related processes as soon as they are finished so they don’t stay in memory when no longer needed  

134,848 views 91 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can I just ask about the annoying turn button bug. If you click in a certain area of the mini-map it thinks you've hit the turn button.

I don't see it listed as a fix and it's been present since the beginning.
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
As long as bugs like this....

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=114991

(the cost and effectiveness of the droid sentries) is addressed I will be haqppy
Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
Wonderful. AI improvements are always good and keep the game challanging. And with the zero production thing the most annoying bug is gone.

Now there is only one big issue left on my GC2 wishlist:
Please make a new system for the starting position. They are just TOO random. It happened that 7 races had their starting positions in the same quarter of the map with me in the corner. That is just unplayable. The races should be scattered around the whole map with a similar distance to each other and a similar number of star systems in reach. Its so annoying to CTRL+N until you find a balanced starting position. And it feels like I have to cheat to get a fair galaxy setup.
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
There are far worst issues with the weapons branch of the tech tree. For example, near the end of the beam weapons branch we have Subspace Blaster and Subspace Annihilator. The Subspace Blaster is inferior to the preceeding Disruptors and the Subspace Annihilator does not exist! Other players I'm sure can list all the issues with the weapons / defenses tech branches.


Yup, here they are. Very easy to find all the bugs with Galactopedia so I will have to thank Christoph Nahr for that excellent little program.

Mascrinthus mentioned the Subspace Blaster and Subspace Annihilator, both of which need to be looked at. Another oddity in the beam-branch is that Phasors IV is a little worse then Phasors III.
(component name, cost, size, sizemod, damage)
Phasors III,40, 5, 4, 3. 21 damage / 35 space
Phasors IV, 45, 7, 4, 4. 20 damage / 35 space

The last missile weapon has the in-game name BlackholeEruptor. Reads ugly.

There are lots of weird stuff in the gun-branch:

Technology Mass Drivers III gives both Railgun MK V and Railgun MK VI
(component name, cost, size, sizemod, damage)
"Railgun MK V", 22, 6, 5, 1
"Railgun MK VI",22, 5, 5, 1
This makes MK V completly pointless since it will never be built.

Quantum Driver follows Graviton Driver IV
(component name, cost, size, sizemod, damage)
"Graviton Driver IV", 33, 4, 4, 3.....6 damage / 8 space.....18 damage / 24 space.
"Quantum Driver", 37, 8, 4, 4.........4 damage / 8 space.
"Quantum Driver II", 37, 7, 4, 4......4 damage / 7 space.
"Quantum Driver III", 37, 6, 4, 4.....4 damage / 6 space.....16 damage / 24 space.
Quantum Driver I, II and III are all worse then Graviton Driver IV, their predecessor.


Now to the defences:

Missile defense-branch:
(component name, cost, size, sizemod, damage)
Droid Sentries I, 90, 3, 2, 5. 20 defence / 12 space
Droid Sentries II,100,4, 2, 6. 18 defence / 12 space

liveload also mentioned that Droid Sentries II and III is identical.


Lastly to the bugged buildings:

Civilisation Capital and Initial Colony has no descriptions. All the other buildings have descriptions.

Banking Center's cost is a little extreme as you will see:
Trade Center, cost 90, do 20% economic bonus
Banking Center, cost 250, do 24% economic bonus
Stock Market, cost 150, do 30% economic bonus

Manufacturing Center is a worthless upgrade to Enhanced Factory.
Enhanced Factory, cost 100, do 11 production
Manufacturing Center, cost 200, do 12 production
Double the time it takes to build factories for a 1-production gain. Not smart. And it most likely messes things up for the AI who doesn't know better then to research it. Industrial Sector isn't much better.
Industrial Sector, cost 400, do 16 production

The super project Secret Police Center is completly worthless. It costs 1100% as much as an entertainment network (the initial morale building) to build but is actually worse then it is, it gives 20% compared to 25%.

Mind Control Center doesn't do what it's description says. "This Galactic Achievement ensures that alien worlds that are ripe for defection defect nearly instantly.". Instead it gives a 100% ability economy bonus which is extremly overpowered. I would like to either see it nerfed with a new appropriate description or to actually do what it says that it's doing.

Alright, as far as I know that's all of them.
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
The first and second quantum drivers are still useful if you want to cut down on the cost of the ship, but don't mind using up more space (a low-cost ship). For instance, three quantum drivers will give the same offensive punch as four graviton drivers, but will cost 21 bc less.
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
Still no "fresh shipyard per game" feature...
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
Considering how easy the Tech Tree is to mod (or any of the xml files really) why doesn't someone release a techtree mod that fixes those imbalances? Heck I would edit my own techtree to make the game better if someone gave me some balanced vaiables on what I should set those weapons/defences to.
Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top
Kudos to the developers for continuing to improve and tweak this already oustading game! Many companies don't see ongoing support and improvemetns as worth the return on investment. You're doing a great job to retain a loyal fanbase for years to come.

(Note, this post was autogenerated by the trojanware installed during Stardock updates and will cease to be generated once the 3.1 upgrade is applied).
Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top
Great stuff as always ! Is it planed to make the GC2_Conversations.xml file working in the data\mod directory ?
Reply #36 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for the kind words.

As for users who don't agree with the "balancing" of weapons and tech, that data is in an XML file.  Feel free to change them to whatever you want them to be.

In the \data\english\ directory. 

Reply #37 from Stardock Forums Top
Great work!

Can't resist throwing in some requests wether it's for this patch, future patches, or the expansion...

+ Autolaunch: I like gigantic galaxies and setting up all those rally points can get tedious.
+ In the planet/ship list, it'd be nice if you could bring down a sort list to choose from instead of scrolling through.
+ In the starbase list, make it sortable by race and actually show the race of the base w/o have to click on it to find out.
+ Make the starbase list show if it's still upgradeable or full at a glance.
+ During the news where it shows what was constructed during that turn, a tooltip or something showing what ships are in orbit would be good so I'd know if I wanted to change my shipbuilding there.
+ Fleet movement: add a hotkey to select all ships in a stack and move them together at the speed of the slowest ship in the stack.
+ In the fleet manager window, have health be shown at a glance so I can decide quickly which ships to move around.
+ In fleet combat, the track target option would be way better if my ship didn't almost constantly block the view of my target.
Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
Could you guys post when the 1.3 Beta is available? Or is my Stardock Central just not working right?
Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top
Mascrinthus - there will always be something. Every user has their own set of things they wish were changed or worked differently. Sometimes items are removed because of balance. We have literlaly an endless list of such tweaks but only some can be added at a given time.


Thanks for responding Brad! Being a developer with almost 2 decades experience, I understand about setting priorities and making trade offs. I would give priority fixing bugs that impact gameplay; I don't care about trivial matters such as which way the Moon rotates around the Earth or whether the cities on my planets are lite up at night.
I would have set priorities for 1.3 as such:
1) fix the save/load bug - this has been address, thanks!!!
2) resolve the issues in the XML for the tech tree - this is easy once they have been pointed out, see post #29 by ignuss
3) fix misleading descriptions - many new and veteran players rush to get the government techs thinking they will get the major bonuses to production, research, and their economy; I think the true bonuses of 10%, 20%, and 30% to economy are appropriate but the description needs correction

As for UI changes to allow "Dynamic Game Difficulty Level" and "Link the Techs in the Trade Window to the Tech Tree", they are probably beyond the scope of 1.3 but I hope they will be considered for the expansion pack. Players frequently complain that the late game is boring because if they survive until then they are way ahead of the AI. Having the difficulty level increase over time will help keep each game interesting until the end.
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
Considering how easy the Tech Tree is to mod (or any of the xml files really) why doesn't someone release a techtree mod that fixes those imbalances?


If you are playing a Metaverse game you can't use any Mods, so we are dependent on Stardock to fix them.
Reply #41 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Thanks for the kind words.

As for users who don't agree with the "balancing" of weapons and tech, that data is in an XML file. Feel free to change them to whatever you want them to be.

In the \data\english\ directory


Won't that pop the cheater flag on a metaverse game?
Reply #42 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Frogboy:
Thanks for the kind words.

As for users who don't agree with the "balancing" of weapons and tech, that data is in an XML file. Feel free to change them to whatever you want them to be.

In the \data\english\ directory.


That's no excuse. The few games I do have time to play are metaverse games. I can't fix it, you will have to do it. I could easily do a mod but then I wouldn't have any use for it myself. It will at most take a couple of hours to fix all the bugs in the xml-files so it's not as if it's gonna take a huge amount of time. I sincererly have no clue why this hasn't been done in either 1.1 or 1.2.
And I have to say that calling the things I and others have pointed out as "balancing" is bs. I don't think anyone enjoys researching stuff that's worse then the things that came before, for example. Which you have to do to get to later better things.

I too like what you have already done in the patch but as you said, "The 1.3 builds are designed to extend the playable lifespan of the game. To eliminate annoyances and pet peeves that players might have that would eventually turn them off."
Reply #43 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Now that the players have done the hard part of finding the problems in the tech tree's XML, it is trivial to correct the XML. Why would you address the issue of the Moon rotating around the Earth the wrong way before fixing this XML file? Playing Metaverse games restricts players to what Stardock thinks is appropriate, so it is our hope they will make the necessary adjustments. I think (ignuss and many others appear to agree) the values for the Manufacturing Center and Industrial Sector in v1.1 were more appropriate than v1.2 and the Banking Center should cost 1/2 its current price. Brad, please review the issues pointed out in my posts, ignuss's post #29, etc. GalCiv2 is a great game but could be made better, in some cases with trivial effort (i.e., editing an XML file).

Thank you for listening to the players and addressing most of their complaints/wishes in your quality updates. Other game companies should follow Stardocks lead!
Reply #45 from Stardock Forums Top
Can't wait. I just got a new laptop with the Quadro FX 2500M card. I can't wait to try the game out with Anti-Aliasing.
Reply #46 from Stardock Forums Top

Why is this particular problem not being looked at and fixed?

I am taking this question out of context, because everyone always wants to know why their pet peeve has not been 'fixed', assuming that is actually a bug and not just something that the person disagrees with the implementation.

First of all, if something is a cosmetic error and does not actually hinder playing the game, it is going to be low priority.  That includes typos, bad grammar, and general mangling of the English language.  I'm not responsible for the other languages, so talk to Paradox if you have an issue with any of the translations.  Crash bugs and other bugs that hinder playing the game are my top priority. These bugs are often difficult to track down and can take time.  So why, you ask, if it would be fairly quick to fix typos and stuff, don't you just rip through a bunch of those too?  A lot of that stuff is easy to miss because after you've seen the text a few times, you tend to skim through it to get the gist and then hit the done button.  I played the game in German while testing my translation code, despite the fact that I don't understand German, because I don't need to read most of the text.  And, when I'm getting e-mails with crash logs, etc, it just doesn't seem like it's worth it to go and fix a bunch of typos.

Second, everyone has a different idea of what should be top priority.  No matter in what order we fix things, a bunch of you are still going to complain. 

So how do I decide what to work on?  The majority of the stuff that I fixed for 1.3 came out of the bug database, the place where e-mails sent to [email protected] goes.  Also, they were from reports that made it very easy for me to make the fixes.   The typos + other text errors that I fixed were from a report that told me EXACTLY what to fix, in what files, etc.  Another good way to get my attention is to hang out in the chat room like Marcathonas, who got the loyalty bug fixed because he told me about it.  I'd no idea that the second option for loyalty wasn't showing up.  Other bugs were fixed because people sent me save games and screenshots with detailed instructions for reproducing bugs.   I tend to leave things that would affect the balance or economy of the game to Brad, or I at least ask him about it.  Since he's the one who writes the AI, any changes to the economy, improvements, techs, etc, will affect his code the most. Mavx also was a big help by making me a list of various bugs and posting links to the forum threads in the council forum for me.  The moon bug was very simple to fix and it was something that people complained a lot about in the past. 

However, if you come in the chat room, do not ask me every 5-15 minutes if I've fixed a bug. That's a good way to get yourself kicked.  Also, this is somewhat petty, but if you post a thread on the forums demanding that something be fixed, that's going to annoy us, and if I'm annoyed, I don't like to help the person who annoyed me.  I have not deliberately ignored bug reports from people who have annoyed me, but I get more done when I'm not annoyed.  I don't care how frustrated you are, be polite when bringing bugs to our attention whatever medium you're using to report it.  You guys like it that we (generally) don't flame you when you make bug reports, that we actually listen to you, and often act on your feedback.  So do us the same courtesy and treat us with civility (and patience) also.  You may have bought our game, but that doesn't give you the right to abuse us. 

Reply #47 from Stardock Forums Top
I am still hoping for a sticky planet/ship list which I scroll through at the end of every turn.

It would be nice that if you make a change on a planet, the list wouldn't make you start
from the top again every time.
Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top
If you are playing a Metaverse game you can't use any Mods, so we are dependent on Stardock to fix them.


True but I don't play Metaverse games and I'm sure there are alot of users that don't . It would be nice to just list the correct values (I'm looking at you droid Sentry II and III) so that I can make the appropriate changes and fixes to my game and who knows maybe even post it on this site so others can benefit from it and if Stardock approves they can use those values in the next patch which saves them work.
Reply #49 from Stardock Forums Top

brycej:

+ made it so that the seleted planet or ship in the planet/ship list is saved so that changing the sort variable or filters will still keep the selection.

This should also be true if the window is closed.  It's also supposed to jump to the correct entry if it would otherwise be off the screen, but I did find one instance where it didn't do it.

Reply #50 from Stardock Forums Top
I am taking this question out of context, because everyone always wants to know why their pet peeve has not been 'fixed', assuming that is actually a bug and not just something that the person disagrees with the implementation.

When a later tech is inferior to a preceeding tech, I would say that is a bug. In some cases it is obvious, e.g., Subspace Blaster is clearly inferior to Disrupters and Subspace Annihilator doesn't exist. In other cases it is only clear after doing some number crunching, e.g., Phasor VI is inferior to Phaser III; in these cases it is understandable why they were missed. While playing I avoid the "Manufacturing Center" tech until a need it to further upgrade my starbases mining resources because an "Enhanced Factory" provides nearly the same output at half the cost! I also skip building "Banking Center" because they cost twice as much as they should and go straight to "Stock Market".

First of all, if something is a cosmetic error and does not actually hinder playing the game, it is going to be low priority. That includes typos, bad grammar, and general mangling of the English language.

I would not bother Stardock with something as petty as a typo (I blame them on the Universal Translator) or the Moon rotating the wrong way. The government description states each confers a 25%, 50%, or 75% bonus to production, research, and your economy. If true, these techs would be overpowered but they each only confer a 10%, 20%, or 30% bonus to your economy. Frogboy/Brad indicated they were only intended to provide an economic boost. The false description causes players to place too much importance on them. I have read many posts saying something to the effect of, "I rush to get all the government techs for the bonuses to production, research, and my economy."

Also, this is somewhat petty, but if you post a thread on the forums demanding that something be fixed, that's going to annoy us, and if I'm annoyed, I don't like to help the person who annoyed me.

Being a developer with nearly 2 decades professional experience I understand the demands and challenges developers face. I hope I have not offended any of the developers at Stardock, as I have great respect for the quality work you have done! Please consider ignuss and my humble change requests.

Paul D.