GalCiv 2 Ultimate Edition Community Update

screens.str: Buisiness to Business

The only instances of those I can find are reference points for the UI. I can't change them without screwing something up.

Quoting Spinorial,

TechTrees\Yor_TechTree.xml: How about "join together" to interface/link?

Link sounds good.

Quoting Spinorial,

We're back here. See, unless TotA knows to look into the DA Data for these, it's working with broken files.

It works like this: when you start TotA, the game first looks into the Twilight-folder for the data, then the DarkAvatar-folder, and finally the folders of the base-game. Only if can't find something in any of the folders, will the game through an error. This way, you don't need multiple copies of a file, if it remains unchanged.

Quoting Spinorial,

For the correction above, DA uses Invasion_Ground06.png, which is clearly appropriate for RedPlanet, but looks out of place for PerfectPlanet (Ground05 doesn't exist). I propose Ground01, instead.

That change would only affect DA (and only if the fixed file remains in the DA folder), because those graphics are only used by the old invasion interface. TotA uses a completely different UI for invasions.

Quoting Spinorial,

Also, the the scenarios and campaign in Twilight\Campaigns\DarkAvatar refer to loading screens in the main DA folder, and thus not accessible to TotA. These should be copied over to Twilight\Gfx\Loading.

As I explained above, they work fine from where they are.

Quoting Spinorial,

Note on homeworld: this one gives me a major headache. The use of "a major Arnor home world" implies several such. This makes the later use of "the Arnor homeworld" unclear. Is it a special, home-homeworld? Is it a contextual reference to Ixith (was the battle at Ixith)? And what about other references to "the Arnor homeworld", without that context? The situation is made no clearer from other uses, where home world and homeworld are used all over.

I think the home world in "a major Arnor home world" is actually meant as "core world". I.e., Ixith is a very important planet, but not the actual homeworld of the Arnor.

Quoting Spinorial,

I really hope I've no more occasion for these long posts... aaand I just remembered I still need to go over the quantum-,organic-, and other-based stuff

I know that feeling.

Anyway, here are the updated files and the new changelog.

I'm finished with updating the Starting/Restricted Techs of the DL and DA campaigns (still need to do TotA). I also undid the changes I've made to the DL mission Pathfinder, because I got the feeling that they made the mission too hard (i.e., the Altarians are back as team-members, the Yor no longer start with two planets).

While working on the campaigns, I noticed that, unlike Planetary Defenses, the Arcean tech Planetary Fortification still requires Planetary Invasion. This feels a bit inconsistent, and I'm wondering if we should change that.

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Spinorial, Gaunathor. I could not help but notice some very large posts with tons of small fixes, typo corrections even mission adjustments.

What exactly are the two of you doing? The CU went live.

Is this for a new mod? Or will there be another update in the near future?

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Quoting MabusAltarn,

What exactly are the two of you doing?

Polishing the CU. Mainly typos and grammar correction. However, there are also a few bugfixes for the FlavorText.xml.

Quoting MabusAltarn,

Or will there be another update in the near future?

Yes. The current CU implementation still has one issue left: the CU-version of the file AsteroidFieldMiningBaseModules.xml is located in the MetaverseData folder of the base-game instead of TotA. Last Tuesday, I contacted Yarlen about this. He replied that they won't be doing any further changes before the holidays. When I suggested to do it next year, along with anything else we might find in the meantime, he agreed.

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in the game there is an option "force AI to use max CPU", in the Community Update changelog there is a line "All AI opponents will now use the maximum amount of CPU possible". does the game option do anything now or is it obsolete?

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Quoting tekknej,

reply 1430

in the game there is an option "force AI to use max CPU", in the Community Update changelog there is a line "All AI opponents will now use the maximum amount of CPU possible". does the game option do anything now or is it obsolete?

It still works as advertized.

All we did was set every race's default CPU to a 100% but changing the game's difficultty changes CPU use.

I would check this option.

+1

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Quoting Gaunathor,

reply 1427

It works like this: when you start TotA, the game first looks into the Twilight-folder for the data, then the DarkAvatar-folder, and finally the folders of the base-game. Only if can't find something in any of the folders, will the game through an error. This way, you don't need multiple copies of a file, if it remains unchanged.

That actually explains a great many things. Thanks! And sorry for the bother. I did warn I'm new at this...

Quoting Gaunathor,

reply 1427

While working on the campaigns, I noticed that, unlike Planetary Defenses, the Arcean tech Planetary Fortification still requires Planetary Invasion. This feels a bit inconsistent, and I'm wondering if we should change that.

It makes some sense, developing a theory of invasions before developing one on how to counter them. Unless there's a serious balance consideration, I'd say it's fine.

Anyway, this should definitely be the last batch of fixes... I've simply run out of ideas on patterns to search for.

English.str: (I suspect a lot of this is dead weight, but I'm not sure what matters and what doesn't. Either way, sorry...) Automaticially to Automatically, "the rallypoint" to "the rally point", worshipped to worshiped, Archeologists to archeologists, Telananth to Telenanth, "Sanderons are a happy" to "Sanderians are a happy", assasins to assassins, dependant to dependent, decomission to decommission, Cancelling to Canceling, enterpreneurial to entrepreneurial, compatriotic to compatriot, abount to amount, starship's to starships', Thalans to Thalan, Allignment to Alignment, terminted to terminated, occoured to occurred, governemnt to government, agreeded to agreed, plee to plea, Strarbases to Starbases, Agressors to Aggressor's, Suceeded to Succeeded, sucessfully to successfully, recpricated to reciprocated, culturaly to culturally, parcec to parsec, Stabase to Starbase, commitee to committee, invesigated to investigated, techologies to technologies, allegience to allegiance, "Dreadlords AND" to "Dread Lords AND", "when it's ancestors" to "when its ancestors", "It's active value" to "Its active value", "of it's type" to "of its type"

FlavorText.xml: "it's citizens" to "its citizens", "it's borders" to "its borders", "it's max potential" to "its max potential", "it's charms" to "its charms", "it's might" to "its might"
GC2_Conversations.xml: "carbon based" to carbon-based, "organic based" to organic-based, "build up it's" to "build up its", "in sector coordinates" to "at sector coordinates", "in coordinates" to "at coordinates", "hard believe" to "hard to believe", "it's is" to "it is", "with it's" to "with its", "it's toll" to "its toll"
GC2Types.xml: "beam based" to beam-based, "Psionic based" to Psionic-based, "Anti-matter based" to Anti-matter, "Quantum based" to quantum-based, "shield based" to shield-based, "mass-driver based" to mass-driver (some just don't need "based")
PlanetImprovements.xml: "precursor based" to Precursor-based
PreGameFlavorText.xml: "it's place" to "its place"
StarbaseModules.xml: "projectile based" to projectile-based
TechTree.xml: "fusion based" to fusion-based, "organic based" to organic-based, "research based" to research-based, "energy based" to energy-based, "space based" to space-based, "missile based" to missile-based, "Stinger based" to Stinger-based, "projectile based" to projectile-based, "shield based" to shield-based, "Titanium based" to Titanium-based, "circle of life" to circle-of-life, "mind boggling" to mind-boggling, "Zarth eat Zarth" to Zarth-eat-Zarth, "Zarth eaters" to Zarth-eaters, "Cut Throat Trading" to "Cut-Throat Trading"

Campaigns\DarkAvatar\Dark Apocalypse.gc2scenario: Thalans to Thalan, "Lords ultimate goal" to "Lords' ultimate goal"
Campaigns\DarkAvatar\Return of the Dread Lords.GC2Map: observer to Observer
Campaigns\DreadLords\Mission1a_Text.xml: "it's toll" to "its toll"
Scenarios\Battle of the gods.gc2scenario: psyonic / pysonic to psionic

TechTrees\Drengin_TechTree.xml: "pain based" to pain-based, "form off bliss" to "form of bliss", Lot's to Lots
TechTrees\Korath_TechTree.xml: "pain based" to pain-based, "form off bliss" to "form of bliss", Lot's to Lots
TechTrees\Thalan_TechTree.xml: "mass based" to mass-based, "missile based" to missile-based
TechTrees\Yor_TechTree.xml: "carbon based" to carbon-based

That should be that. If you've any more suggestions for likely errors, pitch away. Otherwise, there's testing to do

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Quoting S,

reply 1429

Quoting MabusAltarn,

What exactly are the two of you doing?

Polishing the CU. Mainly typos and grammar correction. However, there are also a few bugfixes for the FlavorText.xml.

Quoting MabusAltarn,

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/galactic-civilizations-2/

Or will there be another update in the near future?

Yes. The current CU implementation still has one issue left: the CU-version of the file AsteroidFieldMiningBaseModules.xml is located in the MetaverseData folder of the base-game instead of TotA. Last Tuesday, I contacted Yarlen about this. He replied that they won't be doing any further changes before the holidays. When I suggested to do it next year, along with anything else we might find in the meantime, he agreed.

That's great news.

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Say, would you be able to look through the variable dump on the previous page (https://forums.galciv2.com/457944/get;3608768) and see if any of them strike you as possible errors. We've marked a couple already, but there's a lot of others that seem to do similar/identical things. Some extra experienced eyes would help...

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Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1434

Say, would you be able to look through the variable dump on the previous page (https://forums.galciv2.com/457944/get;3608768) and see if any of them strike you as possible errors. We've marked a couple already, but there's a lot of others that seem to do similar/identical things. Some extra experienced eyes would help...

I'll have a look.

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FlavorText Variables:

[leaderhisher] Found in EXE. Found once in FlavorText. Works in planetdescriptions. Found only once.

[leadergenderherhis] Not found in EXE. Found only once in FlavorText. Seems to be a typo

[leadergenderhisher] Found in EXE. Found three times in FlavorText. Only appears in World on the Street. Does not work in planet descriptions.

[leaderheshe] Not found in Exe. Used once in FlavorText. Seems to be a typo.

[leadergenderheshe] Found in EXE. Used in word on the street.

[empireshortname] Not found in EXE. Typp

[shortempirename] Found in EXE. Used a lot in FlavorText. Used in Word on the Street.

Conclusion

[leaderhisher] Works in planet descriptions. Do NOT replace with [leadergenderhisher]!

[leadergenderherhis] replace with [leadergenderhisher]

[leaderheshe] replace with [leadergenderheshe]

[empireshortname] replace with [shortempirename]

Hope this helps.

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GC2_Conversations.XML

Is [planet] supposed to be [planetname]? No. [planetname] doesn't even occur once in this file.

Is [playername] or [yourplayername] right? Or should they be [yourleadername]? Are all of these valid? All of them seem valid but whether or not all of them work in every topic is another question. Testing this will be difficult. I'd would be VERY careful altering these.

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Conclusion about [VARIABLES]

Please be very, very careful with altering these. Don't replace one for another unless you're 100% sure it works in the situation it is used. This means that if [YourName] appears in topic <Topic Name="MISC_FIRST_CONTACT"> it doesn't automatically work in <Topic Name="AI_GROVEL_RELATIONS_LOW">.

Testing this is hard and annoying. You'll have to use heavily modified files to trigger a very specific topic.

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We're in the news:

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/167699/galactic-civilizations-ii-patched

Not much at first glance but both of these sites see a lot of traffic. We definately got noticed.

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Quoting MabusAltarn,

reply 1438

Conclusion about [VARIABLES]

Please be very, very careful with altering these. Don't replace one for another unless you're 100% sure it works in the situation it is used. This means that if [YourName] appears in topic <Topic Name="MISC_FIRST_CONTACT"> it doesn't automatically work in <Topic Name="AI_GROVEL_RELATIONS_LOW">.

Testing this is hard and annoying. You'll have to use heavily modified files to trigger a very specific topic.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. I suppose I'll check to see if the rest of the variables are recognised by the exe, but the real problem will be confirming that the ones already in the files work as intended. Is there a command console or cheats/debug mode that allow custom event triggering? Gaunathor mentioned empty war declarations in Conversations, but I'm not sure which ones he means, and beyond that, I'm not aware of other reported event malfunctions. Besides making sure events work as intended, I've no desire to mess around with the variables.

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Quoting Gaunathor,

reply 1411

he campaigns all use the TotA tech trees. While it is weird that they still contain references to the old techs, it doesn't really hurt, because those references simply don't do anything.

Tech that's not in techtree isn't recoginized by the scenario editor and therefore not removed. They're not in the way and don't cause issues unless a technology is introduced baring their name.

Careful removing them, the format for scenario's is.... pretty terrible.

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@Gaunathor, Spinorial

Updated the files and used my version system to check for differences.

As mentioned. [LEADERGENDERHERHIS] does not replace [LEADERHERHIS] in FlavorText.xml
Lots and lots of spelling corrections but no dirty edits. Looks great!
Why is once great spelled now "once-great"?

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Quoting MabusAltarn,

reply 1442

Why is once great spelled now "once-great"?

It's an adverb-adjective compound before a noun (they're all the same reference to a "once-great civilization", I believe). The rules can get murky around these, but I'm pretty sure the correction is in order and adds a bit of clarity to the text, too.

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Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1443

(they're all the same reference to a "once-great civilization", I believe).

They are. Thanks for the information.

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Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1432

That actually explains a great many things. Thanks! And sorry for the bother. I did warn I'm new at this...

Don't worry about it. We all have to start somewhere.

Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1432

It makes some sense, developing a theory of invasions before developing one on how to counter them. Unless there's a serious balance consideration, I'd say it's fine.

That's how it was originally. Mabus and the others decided to split Planetary Defense off from Planetary Invasion, and move both techs further down the tree. Planetary Fortification, however, still requires Planetary Invasion.

Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1432

"organic based" to organic-based

Is "based" really necessary for this? Wouldn't just "organic" be enough? Or am I completely misunderstanding this?

Quoting MabusAltarn,

reply 1436

[leaderhisher] Works in planet descriptions. Do NOT replace with [leadergenderhisher]!

Thanks, I'll change it back.

Quoting MabusAltarn,

reply 1436

Hope this helps.

It certainly does.

Quoting MabusAltarn,

reply 1439

We're in the news:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/galactic-civilizations-2/

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/167699/galactic-civilizations-ii-patched

Not much at first glance but both of these sites see a lot of traffic. We definately got noticed.

Did I just read my name in the news? I'm not sure, how to feel about this.

Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1440

Is there a command console or cheats/debug mode that allow custom event triggering?

There is one to trigger Mega Events (CTRL+Y) and one that triggers planet-based random events (CTRL+SHIFT+E), but there isn't one that triggers the other random events or AI conversations.

Quoting Spinorial,

reply 1440

Gaunathor mentioned empty war declarations in Conversations, but I'm not sure which ones he means, and beyond that, I'm not aware of other reported event malfunctions.

That's the thing. I don't know which conversation it is or what's wrong with it. Here is an example of what's happening: I'm playing as the Korx, and suddenly I get a message from the Arceans. The message is empty, but Lord Vega looks pissed. On the side, I get a notification that the Arceans declared war on me. That's all the information I got. I don't know why they declared war, or what cause this message to be empty when all the others work fine. I've checked all of the war declarations in the GC2Conversations.xml multiple times, and I can't find anything wrong with them.

Quoting MabusAltarn,

reply 1441

Tech that's not in techtree isn't recoginized by the scenario editor and therefore not removed. They're not in the way and don't cause issues unless a technology is introduced baring their name.

Careful removing them, the format for scenario's is.... pretty terrible.

Strangely enough, the files no longer contained entries for the old, obsolete techs after I went through them with the editor to adjust the starting/restricted techs. Well, except for the Dread Lords, because you can't adjust their techs with the editor.

Anyway, here are the updated files and the changelog. I'm done with the campaigns now. Well, at least for the CU. Still need to re-do them for Autumn Twilight.

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Quoting Gaunathor,

Quoting Spinorial, reply 1432

It makes some sense, developing a theory of invasions before developing one on how to counter them. Unless there's a serious balance consideration, I'd say it's fine.
That's how it was originally. Mabus and the others decided to split Planetary Defense off from Planetary Invasion, and move both techs further down the tree. Planetary Fortification, however, still requires Planetary Invasion.

Yeah you really don't want to redesign this. I still wake up at night screaming in frustration about dumb-ass AIs researching every frigging tech in the PI line before grabbing a weapon.

Or vice versa.

Quoting Gaunathor,

Did I just read my name in the news? I'm not sure, how to feel about this.

People will move on pretty quickly these days.

Quoting Gaunathor,

That's the thing. I don't know which conversation it is or what's wrong with it. Here is an example of what's happening: I'm playing as the Korx, and suddenly I get a message from the Arceans. The message is empty, but Lord Vega looks pissed. On the side, I get a notification that the Arceans declared war on me. That's all the information I got. I don't know why they declared war, or what cause this message to be empty when all the others work fine. I've checked all of the war declarations in the GC2Conversations.xml multiple times, and I can't find anything wrong with them.

I don't think its a bug in GC2Conversations, rather, it's a bug in the game's executable itself. If I recall correctly you've been hunting for this bug since the Roman era. Maybe its time to let it go.

Quoting Gaunathor,

Strangely enough, the files no longer contained entries for the old, obsolete techs after I went through them with the editor to adjust the starting/restricted techs. Well, except for the Dread Lords, because you can't adjust their techs with the editor.

Okey... now that is very weird because I vividly recall going through every mission/scenario and doing exactly that.

Oh well. So long as it works, right?

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Quoting Gaunathor,