I'm putting the game on the shelf and if it doesn't get fixed soon i'll let it stay there, permanently.

This really is a game killer...I can't believe that they haven't done something about this yet...

Yep, game shelved.
All the older games Ive had going when loaded with the new version become unplayable with the tech cost upgrade.

I left an old game with 3 turns left for a new tech. Loaded now at 30+

Just was playing a game, going pretty well. Playing as Torians with a lot of research, finally was ramping up weapon tech so I had ships with more than 2 attack. Harpoon 4 turns..... Harpoon 12 turns...

I played 3 more turns then just quit. I'm thinking this is why certain empires never build ships with guns, the tech bug messes them up.

Yeah... I've definitely noticed it myself. I barely won my metaverse game because of it. I was going for a military victory, but then the tech costs started racking up and planetary invasion was 70 turns long to research. F*ck that. I had to win with an alliance victory instead... barely won. I hope whatever this is gets fixed/changed soon. I love TA and the improvements it has brought to Gal Civ, I hope something gets done soon. As far as I'm concerned... the game is perfect (to me), just needs the research bug fixed.

I am at the half of my immense game and i did not notice an increase in tech cost that really bothers me - maybe it is just a question of playstyle and not really a bug?

It might be just luck that you haven't experienced it in your current game. However when laser IV takes 30 rounds and planet invasion takes 35, it's a bug.

The main problem is really for the AI. As the player, one realizes that one should research certainly absolutely necessary techs before the bug starts to take its toll. However for an AI who does not take this into account and wait to get planet invasion when it takes 35 turns, it becomes a big problem.

The author of this thread is complaining about research costs of 8000. My most expensive technology takes 24 weeks and costs about 56000 pts as you can see here:




But as i said my game has progressed very far, difficulty is tough, research speed normal i believe. I do not expect to lose, i am technologically over the edge, leaving my enemies with no chance left to keep up with me, look here:




Maybe this change just affects the way how to play - you now have to focus more on research (rendering the all factories strategy useless) and you really have to know what you need. At the moment i see no gamebreaker in this. Maybe it just got a bit harder and that is all.

The devs have indicated that it is a bug - both in forum posts and in PM's. Just because you don't see it, or don't mind it, doesn't mean that it functions as intended.

Either way, the devs owe it to us to tell us what is going to be done about it and when. If it is a choice, they should have said so by now and told us why and how to deal with it. If it is a bug, they should tell us when the customers can start playing the game again.

I say it again: Same on you Stardock. What is going on over there?

I am very dissapointed in Stardock. The game is unplayable.

Can't really see myself buying any of their games again after seeing how they handled this. I guess they got our money and then just forgot about the game and moved on to other projects. But maybe that is just how this business works. I have seen it so many times in the past.

I just have to add that above example with 24 wks is with 20% research. I get it in 5 wks with the slider set to 100%. My resaerch spending is 4800bc approx. when set to 100% This game definitely will come out well, i see no potential for getting stuck, at least if i do not do absolute b***sh*t with it.
Just for the case, it is intended the way it is - devs, notice my remark i do not share the opinion the game is unplayable, at least if i am right with this and not only lucky in not having this bug. If the devs tried to make the game more restrictive, requiring the player to balance planetary improvements more towards research and to be more target specific in choice of techs, i believe it is a good thing. Often in my DA games i had everything researched long before the game ends. If the new research cost limit the range of available techs per game, so you have to know what you need to reesearch and what not, it improves gameplay imho. Of course it is more difficult and hard for beginners, because those just do not have a clue what they need so they just research what sounds good and get stuck. Maybe this should be mildenend by a difficulty dependency of research costs but in essence i like the idea, that you just can not know everything in the end of the game. Just for the case you devs put this up intentionally and it is not a bug (means: error in the program, not a question of game balance)do not let yourself be irritated by a bunch of gamers that realize, their strategy x does not work anymore (building only factories - where is the point???) and now shout "bug" instead of just improving their style of play towards the new balancing. This thing you will have in every game that is changed in an update - a lot of players complaining that the changes are bad. If you do not update you have the problem with complaining gamers about things that dont work the way they expect to - it is a lose-lose-situation. ;D

As Brad has said already, TA will get an update this month, including looking at the tech scaling. The devs have been working 10-12 hour days, 7 days a week, for the past month or two, first to get TA done, then to get PM08 done. The TA update may be a bit slower in coming than we'd like, but we've only got so many devs to go around, and PM08 by its very nature can't be delayed like TA was.

kryo,

can you confirm it is a bug or is it just balanced too harsh?

Don't know if this helps or not. I've played 3 sandbox games and experienced this bug in all 3. However, I've played 2 of the tourney games and am almost finished a 3rd. In the tourney games I have not experienced this bug. Has anyone, to their knowledge, had this bug occur in a tourney game? If not, that might be something to get us through until this bug is fixed.

For the record, I don't think the game is unplayable. Frustrating in that it's hard to develop strategies with this bug in place, but certainly not unplayable. I'm using this period to learn the tech trees.

I said (much) earlier in the thread that I was not going to post much more to this, but after following this thread and several others related to the topic I feel the need to say a few things:

1.) There have been a lot of complaints aimed toward Stardock about not releasing hot-fixes or posting enough information about the bug, etc. to the forum. If you read the forum threads carefully you will find several salient pieces of information. First, Stardock devs have indicated that they will be including fixes to this and other issues when the June v1.92 release comes out. They have stated that this release will be in "early June." Currently, Stardock is in a tight pressed situation to complete Political Machine 2008, which is slated for a June 17th release. (from what I have been able to gather reading about Political Machine 2008 the release schedule has been tight for Stardock - they weren't even able to have a public Beta for Political Machine 2008 as they had intended.) Remember that Stardock is a very small company in terms of total staff, so cut them some slack in terms of attention to Twilight and the forums while they try to meet their Political Machine release deadlines. I am certain that Stardock will be releasing the v1.92 updates soon after the release of Political Machine, but to expect anything before that is not reasonable.

I know that people have been saying that they are disappointed in Stardock, but given their track record for customer service and satisfaction in past, perhaps cutting them a break and granting some patience might be in order?

As far as an update - just forget about a hot-fix and wait until a few days after the release of Politcal Machine (June 17th or so). Even if you consider the game "unplayable" (as I in fact do), just shelve it for a week or so. Consider the break from GalCiv to be time to catch up on other activities in life. (You do have other activities, no? Perhaps try beekeeping.)

2.) I have noticed a tendency, in this and in other threads, that when somebody reports a "bug" there is inevitably someone who will jump on the opportunity to inform them that they have never seen such a thing, so such a "bug" must not exist and therefore the player reporting the bug must be mistaken and have poor playing style. Whereas there is often a tendency to jump right away on an issue as being a bug, and it is indeed worth determining the truth about it, once an issue has been acknowledged by the devs as a "bug" or otherwise unintended behavior, for other players to continue to refute the behavior and berate the playing style of others comes across as arrogant and rude. Please keep in mind that we all have different computer configurations and game conditions - therefore just because you have never seen an issue in your gameplaying, does not necessarily mean that it is impossible for someone else to have an issue.

The devs have indicated that they are aware of the issue with tech inflation and that they are looking at it. My advice at this point would be for everyone to cool it.

Complaining about the "poor customer service" of Stardock seems a bit unfair, and at any rate will accomplish nothing constructive. Fuming about hot-fixes will not speed up the process.

The devs are aware of the issue, so further posting about it will achieve little. The most helpful thing you can do is send game saves and debug files to Stardock to assist in "debugging."

Finally, sniping at fellow GalCiv players about "not having real 'bugs' just poor game playing" serves only to induce a flame-war. And if enough players are dissatisfied with a change, Stardock should change it back. Games are supposed to be enjoyable for players and if a change removes enjoyment, then it is a bad change. Be kind - we are all just here to have fun.

Above all - remember, it is just a game!

Either would be a "bug", it's just a question of whether it's in the code itself, or the weightings in the formula. Brad's comment can certainly be taken as acknowledgment that it's not working as intended, in any case.

If it were a problem with the inflation weights then then I think we would see a rapid but consistent increase. As I first reported in my May 2 post, Research Cost Bug? - ToA v1.91, I saw the research cost double after turn 2228-04-01. Thus this is more likely a bug in the code. May 2 I sent in a zip of my game immediately before and after the doubling.

Thanks for the clarification Kryo. Thats all I need to be satisfied. I appreciate you letting us know that this issue is begin dealt with and when in the tread where so many are reading about the issue. I'll happily wait patiently until you guys get a chance to update it. I probably have enough on my plate as it is getting ready for the arrival of my new son.

By the way, that beta thing really does need a second look.

Thanks for the update!

I haven't played in a while myself (since my last post) to create a specific set of save-game points, but my first 2 TA games were frustrating. The issue of inflation was that I'd researched many lines except planetary invasion techs. When it became necessary to research planetary invasion, tech inflation had run its course and to research planetary invasion took over a trillion weeks with tech maxed out.    OK, I exaggerate, but it was a ridiculous number close to or exceeding 100 weeks. Needless to say I lost those games as the AI had researched invasion early and I couldn't trade/buy them.

Therefore, if the inflation was part of a system to make it so each game would NOT allow 100% techs to be researched that is fine... but it has to start somewhere much further down the line as critical basic techs should not cost any player (human or AI) the entire game. If you have to plan out your research tech choices before the game even starts, this critically hurts the variability of each game.

HenrikF - did you even play the game or are you just piling on? Your post is overtly critical of an excellent company that's always listened to their customers. If you want to yell at someone for abandoning people, there's always companies like Atari, Frontier, EA Sports, and Mad Doc that truly deserve the criticisms of neglect.

Well, I get to eat some of my words...

Brad just announced (look under the "General" forum) that a small bug-fix update will be coming next week, prior to the v1.92 update. Which means that I was slightly wrong about saying to forget about any hot-fixes.

However...

It also means that everyone who has been screaming about how terrible Stardock is in terms of customer support, attention to bug fixes, etc. probably should reflect a bit on the harshness of their comments. I have never encountered a company that is as helpful, friendly or supportive of customers as Stardock. Certainly I have never dealt with a company where the CEO and founder himself "gets in the trenches" the way Brad does.

My general experience with them is that if you are polite and patient with Stardock, you will almost always get exactly what you want, often even earlier than you might expect. I have dealt with Stardock a long time (see member number), and for those of you that are newer, I think you will find that if you are nice to the Stardock people, the kindness will be returned.

Do Good, Avoid Evil (Unless you are Drengin). Peace!

This bug is game breaking. The news is good to hear if they are able to make it. ToA has become unplayable and the tech trees really make the game for me, I barely played DL. Still it's time to get out of doors in the summer and get on a roll and that makes up for this. I do grudgingly trust Stardock that they will not renege on their statement and the update will be handled in a timely enough manner.