Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar 1.5X notes

Changes, fixes, tweaks

from JoeUser Forums

We're very pleased with the response Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar / Gold Edition have received.  Well over 95 out of 100 people appear to be glad they got it based on the poll.

We've also gotten some very good feedback from players that we have turned into the first of many free updates to the game.  There's a lot here to digest but some of the big changes are to how the AI plays (strategies updated are based on expert player feedback) as well as a new "garbage collection" function that goes through and removes unused AI ship designs (while crash reports have been few and far between, the one thing we've run into is the case where people have the new CPU options turned on and the AI will design new types of ships much more often which uses memory which, over time, can cause users with a relatively small amount of virtual memory to crash -- for reference, you should have at least 4X your RAM reserved as virtual memory on Windows XP or Windows Vista).

We also tweaked some of the startup settings as well as ship defense costs (which are now much cheaper).

1.5X is scheudled to be released in the next few days.

 

Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar
-1.5x Change Log-


+TWEAK: Nerfed both the Mega Pirate event and the regular Pirate event so that it picks a random AI player instead of the most powerful, and made sure that their fleet ability is not greater than 10 (which we did for the Mega event but not the normal random event).
 
+ FIX: Crash in diplomacy screen if the other race (like the Jagged Knife) did not have a homeworld.
 
+ FIX: Bug in combat code where the code that forces a winner in case of a tie was not considering if the defending ship was upgrading or not.
 
+ FIX:  Bug in improvement code that was interfering with projects that were not upgrades completing properly (including terraforming imps). This is something that a lot of people have been complaining about.
 
+ TWEAK: Changed it so that the option to save ship designs to disk does not affect templates; templates will always be saved to disk.
 
+ COSMETIC: updated xml data files that need to be translated with a node that says which fields to translate
 
+ FIX: Bug where AI ships would attack mining bases and not declare war.  Now AI ships will go around mining bases unless already at war with civ.
 
+ FIX: Bug where research from shared research treaties was not added to receiving civ’s tech research.
 
+ FIX: several alt-tab related crashes.
 
+ TWEAK: Activated code to display messages in debug.err if any ship templates or ship designs are missing.
 
+ TWEAK: fixed event text that had a period in the middle of a sentence.
 
+ TWEAK: fixed problem with a comment in PlanetImprovements.xml where having '--' in a comment was causing read errors for Galactopedia.
 
+ FIX: Old AI designed ships are removed from the ship design list and deleted when they are no longer in use by any civ (Should significantly neft high memory usage in late games).

+ TWEAK: Changed Superior Hulls description.

+ TWEAK: United Planets: now a higher chance of the 'Neutral Ground' issue being picked if it's not being enforced.

+ Decreased spacing between stars so that more stars can be fit on a given map (which means more planets as well)

+ Abundant setting produces more of whatever it is being specified for

+ Ship defenses use slightly less space and cost a lot less

+ Manufacturing capital now produces 33% bonus instead of 25%

+ Fusion, Anti-Matter and Quantum Power Plants are far less powerful (but still pretty powerful)

+ AI priorities on various technologies tweaked

+ AI more savvy at trading technologies

+ Ships are not quite as valuable in terms of tech trading at previous

+ Fixed AI bug where special treaties were valued extremely high if traded early on

+ AI evaluates value of special environment technologies based on whether they are useful to them or not

+ All AI players will tend to build more factories on planets

+ Some AI players are less likely to build orbital fleet managers depending on their defensive strategy

+ Last remaining AI personality will no longer build planetary improvements on special research/manufacturing tiles that don't match (previously it would sometimes override it if it felt it was for a good reason, all other AIs already avoided this)

+ Drengin aren't as aggressive at colonizing after the first couple game years unless it has a particular planet in mind

+ Drengin and Korath AI personalities now look at what their colonies are doing when deciding whether to research manufacturing or research technologies

+ Drengin and Korath AI personalities value propulsion techs far more than other players

+ Drengin and Korath AI personalities won't upgrade ships outside their sphere of influence

+ If AI determines it wants to go to war with someone, it will declare war even if relations are neutral

+ Improvements to the Altarian and Arcean AI personalities in making them research better

+ AI now keeps a better eye on planets defecting and why

+ AI will factor planet defections into its relations with a given player

+ AI will heavily factor influence starbases into relations with a given player if defections have occurred (tough or higher difficulty)

+ Torians now focus a lot more on manufacturing on planets than research

+ Torians no longer will build oribital fleet managers no matter what. They're living on the edge now.

+ Torians won't build farms on planets that have more than 12 food production

+ Torian researching significantly improved based on player suggestions/strategies

+ Improvements to Terran Alliance / Drath research based on player feedback

+ AI evaluates technologies for trading more individually regardless of player's diplomacy ability

+ AI slightly better at managing its economy

+ Fixed crash bug in which multiple new minors being created in a given game could cause a crash due to no available player slots being available

78,652 views 47 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looks like a great update. I'm very interested in the fact that the different AI's are being improved in different ways. Should add more variety to the game. Will you ever be able to post what the key differences between the AI's are? It think that will help players pick AI opponents that give them the kind of challenge they are looking for, and especially help them decided what "AI personality" to give to custom opponents.

Again, though, I'm definitely intrigued by this explicit differentiation between how the AI's are going to be improved - us players will have to pay attention to what AI is doing what before they make comments...

Also: you mention that "AI now keeps a better eye on planets defecting and why" - will the AI do more to stop the planets defecting now (i.e. countering your influence starbases with its own) or will it merely lower relations with you?

Looking forward to the update...
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Decreased spacing between stars so that more stars can be fit on a given map (which means more planets as well)


might cause problems on smaller maps where abundant stars is set, but we'll see.

Anyways, all those changes look great that pirates mega event did need to be toned down. I don't mind having a challenge with that mega event, but would like at least to have a decent chance of killing them even with the largest ships possible.



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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm, looks great overall. Tweaking the pirates down a bit isn't the end of the world, but I wish you'd do something to make the Dread Lords event matter. As it stands it's just a "free planet to the human player" event. Oh and

If AI determines it wants to go to war with someone, it will declare war even if relations are neutral


Thanks so much for that, it's one of the best tweaks I could imagine. Heck, thanks for the whole update and all the hard work while I'm at it, I really appreciate everything you guys put into this game!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
+ FIX: Bug in improvement code that was interfering with projects that were not upgrades completing properly (including terraforming imps). This is something that a lot of people have been complaining about.


ok cool, any idea how the heck that got there? it is a bit of a mystery how that got in because someone had said that it wasn't there in the last beta and apparently some people were and some weren't getting the bug.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Awesome!   
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
w00t!
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
SWEET!!! seriously. i'm stoked.

interesting that you made defenses smaller and cheaper. does this mean the AI will be more likely to use them?

+ FIX: Bug in improvement code that was interfering with projects that were not upgrades completing properly (including terraforming imps). This is something that a lot of people have been complaining about.


is this part of the hated PQ bug? the one where PQ, for the purpose of pop cap and morale, isn't going up correspondingly when tiles are terraformed (unless you're playing a neutral civ)? or is that intentional? i haven't been able to find a clear answer.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
w00t! I was starting to wonder about this, it had been a while since any thing had been said officially.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sounds great!

Torians no longer will build oribital fleet managers no matter what. They're living on the edge now
 


Can't wait to try out the new ai and see how defence/attack balances out.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
is this part of the hated PQ bug? the one where PQ, for the purpose of pop cap and morale, isn't going up correspondingly when tiles are terraformed (unless you're playing a neutral civ)? or is that intentional? i haven't been able to find a clear answer.


I don't think this is addressing this issue, but I'd really like to see something that does address this, moreso than the bulk of the other changes and fixes.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The update looks great...though I dont see any mention of the disappearing tiles on invasion bug. Any word on that?
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
+ FIX: Bug in improvement code that was interfering with projects that were not upgrades completing properly (including terraforming imps). This is something that a lot of people have been complaining about.


is this part of the hated PQ bug?


Cari says it is.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cari says it is.


the cries of elation that moments ago lept from my office and through the halls have, i think, permanently convinced my coworkers that i am indeed bonkers.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Tweaking the pirates down a bit isn't the end of the world, but I wish you'd do something to make the Dread Lords event matter.

I want that, too. I'm kinda surprised it wasn't listed - Vinrath and I are hardly the only ones who have complained about this.

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This all sounds fantastic. A little scary, some of it, but I will be very happy to have my tiles back when playing Neutral.

Torians no longer will build oribital fleet managers no matter what. They're living on the edge now.


We're wild and crrrrrazy guys!   
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tweaked the Dread Lords so that in the event they build their initial planetary improvements faster.

Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I tweaked the Dread Lords so that in the event they build their initial planetary improvements faster.




Ah, cool, hopefully that'll help. Thanks for doing that, and for letting us know.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cari says it is.


the cries of elation that moments ago lept from my office and through the halls have, i think, permanently convinced my coworkers that i am indeed bonkers.


I've been waiting for this fix also. In fact, I stopped playing until this has been fixed. Can't wait to start up again!
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
+ Ship defenses use slightly less space and cost a lot less


Thanks so much for this and thanks for listening! I can't wait to start testing out the new values.


+ If AI determines it wants to go to war with someone, it will declare war even if relations are neutral


Wow. I had never even thought of that as a fix. This could be the single biggest improvement to making the harder AIs a challenge - it won't be so easy to predict their actions! I love it. Anything that can make every turn kinda tense (like the old X-Com game was so good at).

I can't wait for this update. Thanks again for all the hard work guys.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
WOW - it's only been 3 weeks since you released DA...This is OUTSTANDING!!!!

Good to see the defense changes...rock on!!!

I have read in some threads of a possible bug where non-optimal defenses were not being degraded properly...is this a real bug, and has it been addressed, or is it a phantom?

And if the cheesy game engine bug where the aI will endlessly chase freighters that are protected by the Gal Privateer is eventually fixed....I'll be in heaven!


Great job StarDock.   

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You mentioned that relationships with AI will sour if you have influence starbases in their territory, or flip a planet ... hopefully this goes both ways right? Because the AI loves to stick in influence starbases all over my territory, and then not upgrade them. Same thing with economic starbases.

They're useless as far as I know, but they annoy the heck out of me, as they refuse to sell them and I have to go to war to get rid of them, and since it is usually more than one civ doing this, it's not always a viable option. This is something I'd love to see addressed. Maybe the super isolationist ability should provide an enhanced fee or some sort of penalty to any AI sticking a starbase in your territory? Or at least a diplomatic option for getting rid of starbases they do put into your territory, the same way they're able to tell you to remove yours.

Last game I had four unupgraded Drath economic starbases around my home planet, just sitting there doing nothing, and they were sticking them in at an insane pace, all over my territory. My relations with them were close too, so I didn't want to go to war, but there were too many to buy from them. This is really annoying to me, and I would love an option other than war or basically them blackmailing me to get rid of them, or only civs you have poor relations/are more powerful than you doing this.

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Same thing with economic starbases.

They're useless as far as I know


Actually, they do that to extend their range. IIRC they use economy bases since those are generally less objectionable (at least to other AIs).
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow, thats a very impressive change list that should improve DA massively. Although many changes are minor tweaks they collectively should have a big effect on how enjoyable and challenging DA is.

Still lots more to do though i'd like to see alignments and races more balanced to give a genuine decision to a more knowledgable players as to the best choice. For me an a Thalan neutral choice is currently the uber choice on most map settings. Probably the obvious choice for high scoring metaverse games imo. (this patch will have affected things I don't yet know about yet though so might have changed).

Anyway excellent update can't wait to give it a go.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Sounds great!

Torians no longer will build oribital fleet managers no matter what. They're living on the edge now
 


Can't wait to try out the new ai and see how defence/attack balances out.


actually does anyone know what the above fix actually fixes? its probably an inside joke that i didn't catch. i take hand-me-downs.