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Galactic Civilizations III - Beta 6

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Galactic Civilizations III - Beta 6

from GalCiv3 Forums

–RELEASED 05/1/2015–


Galactic Civilizations III Beta 6 is now available! Read the huge patch notes list below for all the shiny details on massive AI and performance improvements, new resource-fueled colony buildings, the high dynamic range lighting update, and much more:

 

Features

Added a new lighting system (high dynamic ranges, bloom, strobe lights in Drengin discos, tone mapping).

Added the ability to Retire

Added new Improvements that require strategic resources (Durantium Refinery, Elerium Defense Shield, Promethion Pleasure Park, Thulium Data Archive, and a new Antimatter Power Plant)

Added engine support for engine effects fade in and out

 

Fixes

Fixed crashes

FIXED TEXT CLIPPING! (what a pain this was, so glad to have it fixed)

Fixes crashes and issues that were keeping the game from shutting down correctly

Fixed a crash when voting on a UP measure

Fixed a stuck turn issue when a survey ship visits a ship graveyard on auto-explore

Fixed the Explorers and Beacon ideology traits (they noe give the specified plant class instead of a random one)

Fixed an issue where planet rings weren't showing up in the battle viewer

Fixed an issue where Antimatter missiles weren't requires their resource

Fixed an issue where the population on shipyards was incorrect

Fixed an issue that kept mods from working if you have a space in your windows user name

Fixed lots of typos specifically in the Colonization and Galactic Events

Fixed bug that caused United Planets to look low res

Fixed an issue where an enemies ships can get stuck on a planet after that planet is captured

Fixed an issue where planet thumbnails would be lost after loading a game

Fixed the Farmers -2 ability so it now correctly applies a penalty instead of a bonus (shame on you for exploiting this!)

Fixed an issue where the Altarian Inherent Magic tech gave +1000% to Accuracy and Evasion instead of +10%

Fixed a big bug that would cause sounds to stop playing, especially on large maps

Fixed a problem where invasions were calculated incorrectly

Fixed an issue where planet icons would be lost when loading a game

Fixed an issue where ship icons would be lost when loading a game

Fixed the Slowdown Galactic Event to correctly impact the moves of ships

Fixed an issue keeping the accuracy bonus from the Ruthless Vision Ideological event from being applied

Fixed an issue keeping the sensor bonus from the Scout Ideological event form being applied

Fixed an issue where a single player had over 1,000 (yes that's one thousand!) separate fleets moving in one turn

Fixed an issue causing Goto and Details on your ships to become disabled if you ever selected an enemy ship

Fixed an issue where Opposing Ideologies was using the base ideology of that ai personality, not the active ideology

Fixed an issue keeping lines from not being destroyed when a starbase was destroyed

Fixed an issue with the Handy trait not correctly applying its ship maintenance modifer

Fixed an issue that could cause 2 icons to show up in some text strings

Fixed an issue where you could research into other tech ages even if you didn't have enough techs for that age

Fixed an issue where you could assign more than 5 sponsors to a shipyard

Fixed the crash in the diplomacy screen if you are playing with more than 40 players

Fixed an issue where treaty duration was broken when reloading a game

Fixed an issue where you might not see the sample ship on the custom faction screen if a game has already been played

 

Balance

Tech Specializations are now mutually exclusive (when you pick one specialization you can't pick the others) techs are rebalanced to support this

Rebalanced anomaly pirates (they are intended to be beatable by an undamaged Survey ship)

News now unlock more advanced UP resolutions

Rabalanced the Iconian tech tree

Added 4 new Iconian improvements

Added a new Precursor Defense System Component

Added/enabled Government techs for all factions

Updated balance to the game setups defs (number of minors)

Slightly fewer habitable planets on various map sedttings

Rebalanced planetary invasions, they were way to easy before

Rebalanced tech costs

Reduced the minimum requirement to win the up headquarters resolution to 0% (so the player with the most votes wins no matter what that percentage is)

Galaxy United resolution reduced from 10% taxes to 3% and the Approval boost reduced from +25 to +10

Reduced Trade Route income

Reduced Tourism base income

Ideology improvements now all grant points per turn instead of a flat amount when built (which created some exploit issues)

Weapons all significantly rebalanced

Pirates now spawn in unoccupied star systems instead of in nebula

Tweaked the falloff of influence

Invasions now grant some influence to keep the planet form flipping back to the original owners control

 

AI

AI will discuss diplomatic issues with players

Series of relation based conversations added

Gifted difficulty provides fewer AI bonuses

AI discussion system adjusts how often the player can be contacted based on the number of opponents (1 on 1 the player can esxpect to be contacted once every dozen turns, but with 8 opponents that changes to once every 3 turns for example)

AI less cranky about military ships being in its ZOC -- still cares about transports

Lots of changes to the AIStrategyDefs

All tech trees now have the tags for weapon and defense categories

AI tweaks to AIdefs

AI cares more about the expense of a tech now than before

AI balancing to make it more likely to surrender

Battle Rating modifier for determining power increased from 0.1% to 0.2%

Economic income power now uses the production modifier instead of the treasury modifier

Added AI tags for bigger hulls to the tech tree (some some players may pursue big ships while others prefer large fleets)

New AI modifier called "HumanPlayerhasInvasiontech" added

AI will focus a bit more on targets that are near and in his territory

Planets cry out for defense if they are undefended and nearby opponents have invasion tech

AI determines if targets in its influence area are more worthy to attack than others.

New AI evaluation to determine whether planets are under threat

AI will not determine a victory objective until after 100 turns have been played

If the number of defenders is less than the number of colonies, the AI is more likely to build defenders

Shipyards now have a separate queue threshold (1 instead of 3) than colonies so that they can react quicker.

AI reevaluates its weapon and defense preferences after it gets a new tech

AI does a better job calculationg intelligent weapons and defense techs based on who their primary enemy is

Updated the surrender eval to modify based on the number of major players in the game

AI makes a distinction between potential military might and actual military might

AI no longer uses starbases and shipyards as part of the military might calculation

Military power diplomatic evaluations now uses military power instead of faction power

Gifted difficulty nerfed slightly

Fixed AI bug where it was looking at ships instead of fleets

Fixed bug where AI would not attack defenseless ships if they had a stronger military

AI cares more about map distance now than previous when determining targets

AI will tend to prefer ships that it can hit that turn

The AI won't declare peace with you for 20 turns after war is declared (to keep people from exploiting the AI by declaring war, attacking and then paying for peace)

Military and culture starbases are more offensive to the AI

AI is better about managing its money

AI much better at forming attack fleets (it won't be so defensive)

Peace Treaty value to AI increased by 10X

AIs that don't like you are less inclined to make peace

Planet threat distance reduced from 20 to 10 to prevent AI from being overly concerned with ships

Added new flavor text for peace treaty negotiations

Various modifications to the AI spending strategies

AI will no longer consider a player "Weak" if they have relatively little military

Effect of diplomacy ability is reduced at the start of the game

AI makes a distinction between survey ships and actual assault ships when determining whether to be annoyed

Minor races no longer evaluate freighters and constructors and transports of its own (As it no longer will build them)

AI boosts freighter priority if it has no licenses in use and is at peace

AI now looks at a given tech's intrinsic value to that player based on that particular player's preferences (military vs. culture vs. trade techs for example)

AI just generally smarter at trading in the diplomacy screen

AI makes a distinction when making peace if that player is NOT their primary opponent

AI evaluates both the player's potential military power AND their actual military power for determining courses of action

The AI will no longer produce its biggest, best ships for planetary defense, those are for going out and fighting wars

Checkin from Brad reads "ai stuff" (I'm sure all sorts of evilness was done here)

 

UI

Added end game screens

Added a search feature on the tech screen

Added filters to the shipyard and ship designer so that you can filter on the base designs, or on your own ship designs

Added lots of new race logos

Added lots of new icons

Shipyard tooltip now shows total manufacturing per turn

Placing a component in the ship designer doesn't deselect that component anymore (making it easier if you want to place multiple copies of it)

Added a conversation popup from your science advisor when an AI player is defeated (so you are notified)

Delete key now removes the selected ship from the queue on the shipyard screen

Tech screen mode now remembers your last setting

Added Military Power to graphs

Now showing the number of turns you have been at war with a player on the diplomacy report window

We continue to play with the relic and Strategic Resource icons

Adjusted all the starting battle distance so that the ships are little specks (you would be amazed at the tech going into the detail of those little specks) so it looks better now

Added descriptions for all of the ship roles to better to describe how that sort of ship will act in battle

Minimap overhaul to be more clear and functional

Added the strategic resources to the top of the shipyard screen (so you can see how many you have available when you are picking what ships to build)

Added the strategic resource bar to the ship designer

Added hit points to the shipyard tooltip

Removed "Beam Weapon 1" and "Missile Weapon 1", etc stats on all the tooltips (they are internal stats used for tracking what modifiers apply to what)

Added Military Power to graphs

Additional info added to the ship, ship design and fleet tooltips

Fleet context window now has a tooltip for fleet size control

Faction tooltip added when you mouse over the faction logo

Planet class tooltip added if you mouseover the planet class

New minor faction color (the dark brown was really hard to read against the darkness of space)

Added a tooltip showing a players influence on any tile

Added an entry to planet tooltip stating if they are immune to culture flipping

Battle viewer doesn't reset you playback speed or camera selection if you replay anymore

Added scroll bars to the ship designer and desginer landing page inventory listboxes, so you have better mouse scroll behavior and you know when the list is full

Added a date display when your turn starts

 

Performance

Performance optimizations to eliminate evaluations if the player does not have relations with target player

Improved performance when scanning across the map, previously you could experience stuttering

Significant memory optimizations

 

398,453 views 127 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Larsenex, reply 50

Seilore, I have 5 or 6 extra AI that i created for the Larger maps. I cant imagine playing with 30 on anything smaller than Excessive. I see now why you are having performance issues.

That shouldn't matter as 42 players on large would be very close to 128 on insane...  either way I have the same issues with insane maps with 42 races...

Quoting Larsenex, reply 50

I am closing in on turn 200 last night. When I found some things that help prevent crashes. When I get ready to hit the turn button I center the map on where i want to look, this can be anywhere. I then hit 'turn' and as long as I have not 'idle' ships or shipyards it will 'process' data. I dont touch anything and it will take its sweet time using all four cores which are pumped up to 4.2 ghz as fast as it can. This is now taking a bit of time, last night with all factions and minors revealed and my ships all over the map, it took nearly 50 seconds before it clicked over to turn 198. Once the turn counter changes I can do whatever I want. I have seen issues where I will have multiple battle viewer fights with Pirates via survey ships. This will sometimes bug on me and Ill get a 'blank viewer'.

You shouldn't have to keep the screen stationary to prevent crashes though...  With that being said that seems long for 15 races on a large map between turns...

Quoting Larsenex, reply 50

In these cases I have been saving ever turn and again prior to hitting turn. I just reload and keep going. No hard crashes so far. The AI itself seems to be doing very well with diplomo and defending itself so far.

I have auto save enabled so my saves keep saving...

Reply #52 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Looking forward to specializations. Right now it's just techtree convolution for the sake of adding more time to research techs. However I hope it's actually ending in having to make a tough choice.

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Reply #53 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Stohrm, reply 8

Two out of three in the "Specializations" would work for me; but what I would suggest is making that set of selections researchable up to three times.  Thus, if you truly want to specialize in one out of the three you have truly done so.  If you want to specialize in one more than another, then that's an option as well; and if you choose not to truly specialize in any of them you do have all three (but at a third each of what could've been).

Anyway, that's how I would've approached this.

 

SK


I love this suggestion. It gives added breadth and depth to the specialization techs.  But I'm guessing it won't be added in the baseline game, just in the most popular mods. And then by the first expansion the feature will have become so popular that the devs will add it then.  Just thought I'd throw out my slightly pessimistic prognostication.

But am at least happier with the specialization being a choice rather than meaningless.  I was actually a bit disappointed the first time I completed a specialization tech and realized I still could "specialize" the heck out of that technology.  I would hope that you won't be able to trade specialization techs then?  Hopefully at all?  I feel like that makes tech specializations slightly more meaningful.  With the status quo, you'd have to be more careful about trading techs, as you don't want to accidentally trade for a specialization you later realize wasn't the one you truly wanted.

Reply #54 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

i apologize if this was asked here i havent read all 3 pages ... yet but 

can there be a minimum time before first up meeting? say 100 turns this way even if you havent met X% of all races yet you can actually start to get some of the up going?

i personally tend to play a bit of a turtle game on tight clusters so i colonize my cluster and then focus on colonizing the next if its occupied then i focus on sending invasion.
doing this however i tend to see few races other then the ones im eradicating 

Reply #56 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Are we seeing the Opt-in this week? I recall mention of the patch not being released till next week.

Reply #57 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Erghhh! Terrible! limited tech?

Having options to research this and the other not? I really hate this, first tech ages then this.. def a mod in order..

Reply #58 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting PickeringJ, reply 56

Are we seeing the Opt-in this week? I recall mention of the patch not being released till next week.

Early next week. :)

Reply #59 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I didn't see it mentioned, but I hope a balance pass was made for the Large Empire Size penalty on very large maps, as Paul mused on last weeks devstream.  Because right now it's going to be virtually impossible to keep approval high on any map with more than say, 700 planets on it.  Especially if anyone is going for a culture/conquest type victory.  Perhaps it'll be different if/when Approval Relics are fully fixed and/or all the techs in the tech tree are unlocked.  But right now it ain't a pretty picture as size gets large enough. :(

Reply #60 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ideology improvements now all grant points per turn instead of a flat amount when built (which created some exploit issues)

  Do they still produce the same number of points?

 

Reply #61 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Ex, reply 60

Ideology improvements now all grant points per turn instead of a flat amount when built (which created some exploit issues)

  Do they still produce the same number of points?

 

 

This current build they only grant 10 points per building one time and cannot be destroyed. Now its 1 point per turn indefinitely which is how it should be so that you get points whether or not you are colonizing. After 100 turns with 1 building nets you 100 points...fAR better. 

Reply #62 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting alphaprior, reply 57

Erghhh! Terrible! limited tech?

Having options to research this and the other not? I really hate this, first tech ages then this.. def a mod in order..

 

Alpha, while i agree with you I don't mind the limited specialization so much. It forces a choice and it could be  painful one. Its not too big a deal and will make diplomacy trading much more 'intriguing' as choices you did not take can in fact be traded/bought from other AI's as was stated in other posts by Devs. 

Reply #63 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Derek, reply 16


Quoting Surge72,
reply 13
Love the mutually exclusive specializations!




Quoting Casorian Emperor,
reply 14
Hate the mutually exclusive specializations!



There is certainly no right answer here. Being mutually exclusive means that there are effectively less techs to research, and less options to the player (since picking 1 pulls 2 other potential techs out of his list for next time).

On the other hand it provides 3 big benefits:

1. It makes the selection of which branch you are taking much more important. We like decisions that players stress over, you want A and you want B, which will you pick?

When I read about the game, I decided to buy it because you can choose whatever you like to choose. I'm not buying a game so I can stress over things. I can't make mods (well, I probably can but I simply do not have time time, really not), so I'm looking for a mod before I play with this stupid lock-out system, or I'm looking for a refund. The system is also very hypocritical. You can choose a government tortures people into submission but at the same time is a beacon of light and justice, by the clever use of the ideology system, but you're not allowed to develop more powerful production centres that are also cheaper to maintain? That's a complete joke.


2. It improves replayability. You may play the Terran every time, but different specialization picks can dramatically impact the way that game goes, and your abilities.

No, it adds nothing but annoyance about the same choice a second time you play it.

3. It allows us to make the picks bigger. We can do things like provide government type specializations that provide varied and powerful bonuses with the understanding that the player can only have one. Design your own government by the tech specializations you pick as you go up that tree, and design a new one next time.

With a large tech tree, the picks are already pretty big. No matter how much research you do, your civilization is going to slowly advance on all fields or become an expert in one and lack severely in the others. That's more than enough.


As I mentioned there is no right answer, but that was out thinking.

SO MAKE IT AN OPTION. My personal favourite would be to increase the research cost of specialization upgrades. If you go for beam weapons with less mass, then the more powerful beam weapon development will take twice as long. Do that too, and the cheaper beam weapons will be take 4 times as long to research. If it's easy to have a system where specializations are all available and a system where they're exclusive, it should be very easy to make a system where you can choose between the two, or have a third option.

On that trading tech idea: it's again reducing the options the player has. Want two things? Sucks to be you, you can only have one, and you're going to have to hope some other civilization has it so you can trade. Are you a player with a more isolated ideal? Too bad we're not allowing you to do that.

Reply #64 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I hope the "1 armor/shields/PD can soak an entire volley" bug gets fixed before this beta is released, because it really unbalances the game in favor of small ships currently ...

Reply #65 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Coming this week!

Reply #68 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Larsenex, reply 61


Quoting Ex Mudder,
reply 60

Ideology improvements now all grant points per turn instead of a flat amount when built (which created some exploit issues)

  Do they still produce the same number of points?


This current build they only grant 10 points per building one time and cannot be destroyed. Now its 1 point per turn indefinitely which is how it should be so that you get points whether or not you are colonizing. After 100 turns with 1 building nets you 100 points...fAR better. 

   err...  so 100 planets with 3 ideology buildings yields 100/ turn for all 3?  I hope they modified the cost of ideology picks based on map size and planet abundance.

 

Reply #69 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Plasma_Wolf_4X, reply 63

SO MAKE IT AN OPTION

man if they granted options for everything that was asked for an option they would need to change the name of the game to

OPTION SIMULATOR 2000 
make it an option to have the economy slider
make it an option to have multiple starbases
make it an option to have hot seat
make it an option to have shipyards on/off planet
make it an option to use old/new assembly project
make it an option to disable ideology tree
make it an option.....
make it an option.....

.....

.....

.....

 


the first 3 hours of the game would be customizing options id want an option to turn options off 

+2 Loading…
Reply #70 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

<double post>

Reply #71 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

" id want an option to turn options off"

KA-BOOM:  What you just did to my mind.

Reply #72 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Ex, reply 68


Quoting Larsenex,
reply 61






Quoting Ex Mudder,

reply 60


Ideology improvements now all grant points per turn instead of a flat amount when built (which created some exploit issues)

  Do they still produce the same number of points?


This current build they only grant 10 points per building one time and cannot be destroyed. Now its 1 point per turn indefinitely which is how it should be so that you get points whether or not you are colonizing. After 100 turns with 1 building nets you 100 points...fAR better. 



   err...  so 100 planets with 3 ideology buildings yields 100/ turn for all 3?  I hope they modified the cost of ideology picks based on map size and planet abundance.

 

 

Each building will now grant 1 Ideology point per turn. You can only have one building per planet but if you put one down on 100 planets you would get 100 points per turn. Granted this would likely be late game. Also keep in mind the cost now is corrected and properly scales up each purchase. This allows you to sill fill out the ideology tree and still grab some of others but at a much higher cost. I suspect you will need those 100 points per turn to get all traits in all trees near end game.

Reply #73 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

 

Quoting androshalforc, reply 69

 

Quoting Plasma_Wolf_4X,
reply 63

SO MAKE IT AN OPTION



man if they granted options for everything that was asked for an option they would need to change the name of the game to

OPTION SIMULATOR 2000 
make it an option to have the economy slider
make it an option to have multiple starbases
make it an option to have hot seat
make it an option to have shipyards on/off planet
make it an option to use old/new assembly project
make it an option to disable ideology tree
make it an option.....
make it an option.....

.....

.....

.....

 


the first 3 hours of the game would be customizing options id want an option to turn options off 

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

There has to come a point where the system says "Here's what you're given! Live with it!"

That's part of any game's challange. It's not ideal that this thing happens, or this compromise has to happen, maybe that thing seems a tad unfair...etc but it does so deal with it. For everyone bitching about how much "immersion" GalCiv3 has, compromise and making choice and not getting to make achoice are real-life hence they add to "immersion".

And if you can't optionise (new word score?!) everything, it gives you an excuse for when you lose, rather than have to admit that you'd set everything up perfect and somehow.... You. Still. Lost.

Simple solution: Make it an option to Auto-win every Campaign/Sandbox game on Turn 1. Done.

 

Reply #74 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting raelalt, reply 71

" id want an option to turn options off"

KA-BOOM:  What you just did to my mind.

 

Yep, the eternal loop.

"Would You Like To Turn All Optionmaking Off?"

Player Clicks "Yes" Button

"You've clicked Yes to Turn All Optionmaking Off. All Optionmaking Options Are Now Turned Off."

Blank Screen. Pause 10 seconds.

"Would You Like To Turn All Optionmaking Off?"

Sound of computer being smashed.

 

 

Reply #75 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Plasma_Wolf_4X, reply 63

When I read about the game, I decided to buy it because you can choose whatever you like to choose. I'm not buying a game so I can stress over things. I can't make mods (well, I probably can but I simply do not have time time, really not), so I'm looking for a mod before I play with this stupid lock-out system

If you consider that stress you've been very lucky to lead a life devoid of real stress. If this is your reason for not buying the game sounds like you don't want to play it very badly to start with.

For those who can be bothered to mod I can see a simple solution, edit the tech trees and make the specialisations techs in there own right rather than specialisations. Then you can avoid the "Stress" of having to choose one and research them all :&#39;(  , I'm sure some modders agree with you.

Personally I think forcing a choice here adds to the depth of the game I basicly agree with Star-dock on this, but some players will agree some will take your stance, over all it's a design decision that they had to make according to their own judgement. I haven't agreed with all their design decisions myself.