GCII 2.0 - The Planetary Governors

- Never Play an Immense Map without 'Em -

from Stardock Forums

For the last few months the team has been toiling away on THREE seperate projects...Political Machine 2008, the unannounced fantasy strategy title, and GalCiv 2.0. And for those months we've kept players in the dark about 2.0...mostly because of the frantic, nose-to-the-grindstone pace we've maintained.

But now it's time....time to finally start talking about what will hopefully be the ultimate update to our little GC2 series :)

For those that don't know, GalCivII 2.0 is the final major update that we'll be producing. More updates are sure to trickle out, but in terms of huge new features being added, this will be our last huzzah :( Sad, but inevitable.

For this reason, we really wanted to pack it FULL with all the little features that were straightforward enough to keep the game balanced, but interesting/exciting enough to make 2.0 special.

The first of the new added features (and what's turned out to the the most suprisingly time-consuming) is the addition of Planetary Governors.

The necessity of this feature really came late in the testing of Immense galaxies in the Twilight gamma. There were just too many planets to deal with, and even queuing up planet improvements on initial colonization got cumbersome. Looking back, it's a feature that players have requested for a long time, so putting it in was a no-brainer. Also, for everyones future reference, the best way to get a feature added is to get the programmers annoyed by it's obmission :D

All you do is create a governor type (give it a name and short description) and fill that governors queue. As techs for better improvements are unlocked, the queue will automaticially update. Special tiles are searched for and properly utilized, and terriformed spots are filled as they become available.

The system is slick, and works well as a 'macromanagement' feature opposed to a 'let the AI handle my planet building'.

We hope to have all the new features in the beta (Thursday, September 25th), with a final release on Wedensday, October 8th.

Up Next Monday (Now Tuesday): Another Manager, and a Feature Requested Since Dreadlords 1.0...stay tuned! ;)

 

planetary governor galciv2 2.0 new features
218,713 views 56 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Dang, now I have to decide whether starting another immense game between now and then is worthwhile. :')

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Any chance we could get some screen shots?

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Booyah!  I can't wait.  :) 

 

 

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

All right! :thumbsup: This is one thing I will use immensely for big games. May even shave some time off my 6 week turnaround for a gigantic or bigger game.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Any chance we could get some screen shots?

That shot of the planetary governor queue is most of the feature :)  the only other UI change is in the 'Planetary Governor' dialog (accessable from the Planet Screen) from where you actually select the governor in use.

I'll have more screenshots as the features are revealed!

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

That shot of the planetary governor queue is most of the feature

 

I was going to ask you what shot, but I loaded up an IE based browser and see it. Seems FF won't show the pic, Maybe an adblock thing i'll have to look

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting DethAdder, reply 6

That shot of the planetary governor queue is most of the feature
 

I was going to ask you what shot, but I loaded up an IE based browser and see it. Seems FF won't show the pic, Maybe an adblock thing i'll have to look

 

Don't bother. :)

 

I'm pretty positive it's just due to his use of "\" in the url instead of "/".

 

This should show up in FF/Webkit browsers.

 

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Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hmm maybe i will have to start playing TA alot more than i have been.....Im especially curious about the "feature requested since DL 1.0"

:omg:

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Very Sexy. Are you sure your not confusing a patch with a Sins stye mini-expansion?

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Feature Requested Since Dreadlords 1.0...stay tuned!

 

Don't let the carrier people see this!

 

 

Anyway, I can't wait to see what the new stuff is.  I'm really excited about a new spy system.  Thanks for the time and effort.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Are you sure your not confusing a patch with a Sins stye mini-expansion?
We're actually shooting for something that resembles a free mini-expansion rather than your traditional update. I hope we can deliver :)

Don't let the carrier people see this!
Gah! You're right :(  Sorry carrier fans, that's not it.

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Sorry carrier fans, that's not it.

 

LMAO...i can just see a horde of users running for the tissues!!!

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

BoogieBac, will the released version of enable us to create new governors and delete ones we don't want any more?

I see only two in the screenshot, and I can imagine situations where having a few different governor styles would be really handy (e.g. Money Farmer, Bookworm, Breadbasket, & Industrialist vs. just "Production."

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Will the Planetary Governor allow for setting parameters?  For example, to move farms ahead in the queue if population reaches 5 billion (when max allowed is 6), etc?  Otherwise, we will still have to keep an eye and manually adjust the building queues of each planet.

Also, let's say we do have to manually adjust the queues.  Will this then remove the planet from the Planetary Governor's control, or will it be intelligent enough to realize that an improvement on the list has been completed and just continue with the next building on the agenda?

 

-Jonathan

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

...will the released version of enable us to create new governors and delete ones we don't want any more?
Cartainly :)  You can create as many governors as your strategies require.

Will the Planetary Governor allow for setting parameters?
No, we went for the simple solution on this one :)  I think you'll find the queue system works 99% of the time, and I'd rather the team puts the extra time into new features than over-tweaking this one.

...will it be intelligent enough to realize that an improvement on the list has been completed and just continue with the next building on the agenda?
Yes. Every time an imp is completed it basicially goes down the list until an unbuilt improvement is found. If you add some per-planet improvements early that are further down on the queue, they will get skipped when it's time for them to be built.

Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Thanks for the 'glimpse(s)'... if that's (Planetary Governor(s) --true-- control! Love it!!) any indication, we're in knee deep for yet another great *NEW* ride with this wonderful game.

I think everyone will agree, it's already worth the loooong wait.

I just hope CodeCritter fixed the surface tiles naming scrambler 'situation' so that i can finally detect my modded extremes tiles and produce a steady (and, "working" as it should) implementation of some third layer of colonization in X-Worlds.

 

It feels soooo strange - like i took a sneak peek over classified items from SD programmers' development workstations.

Bring it on - we enjoy being teased until the BIG day comes.

October 8th - calendar checked.

:digichet:

 

Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

As techs for better improvements are unlocked, the queue will automaticially update.

Will this replace existing improvements? For instance, if I was the Drengin and I got a hold of the techs for industrial sectors, can I do something with the governers so all my slave pits get replaced by industrial sectors?

Can you also stay low tech? Unfoturnately, many mining and planet assist starbase modules are tied in with the factory techs. As such, you can't get one without the other. Its annoying trying to deal with your factories trying to auto-upgrade to less cost effective versions. Its a serious problem with the Yor who lack the ability (without tech trading) to mass produce economic improvements to generate the money needed to offset the increased costs of production of their improved factories.

Special tiles are searched for and properly utilized, and terriformed spots are filled as they become available.

How well does this new governer handle planet populations? If I have a special food bonus tile on a planet and my governer has a farm on its list, will it try to place the farm on the food bonus tile? Can you tell it to do otherwise? As you should know, the closer you get to 25 bil, the more your morale drops on that planet.

Will it be smart enough to avoid that, or will we be needing a new planet management feature to restrict maximum population capacity?

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Will this be the only new feature in the first beta? Or will we get a glimpse at the new spionage in it too for example?

Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

sry, you wrote you hope to get all the new features in the beta, question answered

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I am german but i think "planetary governers" is wrong, am i right?

Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Right... nice feature but (as i don't play super large games, just medium...) i'm more interested whether the diplomacy and/or UP will be improved.

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I am german but i think "planetary governers" is wrong, am i right?

If I'm understanding how the feature will work, I'd agree that the name is a bit of an exaggeration; the term "governor" does imply that the thing would be making some choices on its own somehow, at least through a set of decision parameters that BoogieBac already says are too tall an order for 2.0.

But the more accurate alternatives might have just sounded to dull to the devs: "Custom Build Lists?" "Colony Development Plans?"

Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I'll probably call them Planet Templates anyways, so they can put it as whatever they like in the game ;) .

Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

will it be possible to tell your gov's to replace all discovery spheres with stock markets, for example?

don't supposed anyone's thought about an asteroid mining manager...? okay i realize it's late in the game to ask for this, and probably low priority anyway. but on immense maps, i've been able to get 5K industry on a single planet by directing all the asteroing mining there. it's just very, very time consuming, especially because asteroid mining bases don't have any hot keys (i know of). a while ago i was preparing a suggestion... i guess it at least couldn't hurt to recapitulate it here.

basically it boiled down to a new kind of rally point, a "mining destination." the option only comes up if you place a rally point on a planet. hook a couple hot keys to asteroid mining bases, one for the destination function, another for the rally points. throwing in a governer that'd allow you to re-assign the asteroid mining targets would be great as well.

but even just a hotkey would be helpful. either way thanks for all the hard work :)