I have to pop in here.

A mistake. Not everyone plays their game while online. I always play in Offline Mode disconnected from Steam. I cannot be the only one. CA made the same error with their TW game and produced the rightly rubbish Rome 2. One could say it`s how they interpreted the Steam stats, but I`'ll bet they relied too much on them.

 

Seriously, guys, just make a poll. Or do one as well as your Steam stats, if you must. Go to the people, not the bloody program.

 

p.s. I have 16 gig of ram, though i realise I`m probably in the minority. And no, I will not put my details on Steam. but I will in a normal poll set up here.

 

Alright so there's Multiple Xml's that need to be changed to get the old star and planet size back?

Could you tell which xml's exactly? I can gather the lines I need to edit from this thread, but I didn't see the names of the specific xmls and what folder they're in. I want to play today but I don't want to start a new giant campaign with the limited star and planet count we have now.

I can make the edits. I just need to know what xml's to edit and where they're located.

 

 

all in galciv 3\data\games.

 

Mapsetupdefs.xml allows you to change the modifiers applied to the base. If you have enough stars and dead worlds, but want to increase the number of habitables without adding more stars/resources/asteroids etc, you'd change the numbers in here.

Mapsizedefs.xml allow you to alter the Base (which seems to be the constant used for most map features) and to change the maximum number of habitable planets allowed.

 

You'll want to change maximum habitables to some really high number and then mostly focus on fiddling with modifiers in the setup defs, imo.

Hey Ravenx. Hope this helps.

 

1. Open up your Gal Civ folder in steam and find the file MapSizeDefs.xml   It can be found by looking here----> (Steam/Steamapps//common/Galactic Civilizations III/data/game)

2. Copy that file to My Documents/My games/Gal Civ 3/Mods/New folder/game

2a. Inside the new folder make these new folders.  1.Campaigns 2.Core 3.Game 4.ParticleScriptDefs 5.Text

3. Edit the MapSizeDefs.xml file using notepad (Right click the file and choose the "open with" option and select notepad.

4. You can find the MapSetupDefs.xml file in the same folder as you found the other one. Just copy it to the same place and edit it the same way.

One last thing you may wish to play with. In the MapSizeDefs.xml file you will see.

<MapSize>
        <InternalName>Insane</InternalName>
        <HexSectorRadius>0</HexSectorRadius>
        <HexSectorSize>383</HexSectorSize>
        <Base>2600</Base>
        <RiftAppearanceChance>0.00</RiftAppearanceChance>
        <StarboxDef>DefaultStarbox</StarboxDef>
        <MinCameraZoom>100.0</MinCameraZoom>
        <MaxCameraZoom>22200.0</MaxCameraZoom>
        <MinMapBoundOffsetY>-2000</MinMapBoundOffsetY>
        <MapGenSectorSize>32</MapGenSectorSize>            <------------This line

Play around with that number a bit and see just how crowded your map can get. Ive used up to 3950.

 

WpKelly, 

 

In steam go to the gal civ game and select options.

 

go to browse files...

 

Hover your mouse over the GCIII exe, it shoudl say 1.0.2.4 (I think this is the latest).

Thank you Larsenex.

We have a poll. It's the Steam data.

Unless you're suggesting that a disporportionate percentage of people who play offline also play the largest maps.

Look, just change the XML if you want bigger maps than what we provide. 

I've said what I mean to say on this topic.  :)

 

Was wondering if you could provide a little insight on how to increase the size of the insane map.

 

<MapSize>
        <InternalName>Insane</InternalName>
        <HexSectorRadius>0</HexSectorRadius>
        <HexSectorSize>380</HexSectorSize>                   This line seems to be the one to increase the size of map but will crash on anything over 383 for me.
        <Base>1600</Base>                                            Base modifier for number of stars? or planets?
        <RiftAppearanceChance>0.00</RiftAppearanceChance>
        <StarboxDef>DefaultStarbox</StarboxDef>
        <MinCameraZoom>100.0</MinCameraZoom>
        <MaxCameraZoom>22200.0</MaxCameraZoom>
        <MinMapBoundOffsetY>-2000</MinMapBoundOffsetY>
        <MapGenSectorSize>16</MapGenSectorSize>       Not sure what this is exactly. But big numbers will make your map really crowded!
        <NumAscensionPointsForVictory>10000</NumAscensionPointsForVictory>

Well then I'm on par then. I just didn't understand that the game was designed such that once I hit the turn button I can't do anything until the AI is finished doing whatever it is doing. My thinking on the design or I guess past recollection of Gal Civ long ago was that the AI was cooking while you do your thing and then when you hit turn it executes its moves that it just spent time thinking about and turns were much quicker 2-3 seconds.

For me I would think if you have shit tons of RAM which I do, and plenty of cpu cores, that the game would play like a champ on even the largest galaxies. Maybe I just need to update.

I don't like the whole if you don't like that we lowered the habitable planets to ruffly the density of 40% of Galactic Civilizations II to satisfy the lowest of our players solution, if you don't like it mod it option. 

However, with that being said if that's the way it's going to be then we'll have to deal with it.  I do still appreciate all the time you, Frogboy, and the rest of the Galactic Civilizations III team does with work on the game, I do hope that eventually, this is turned back up to allow for more planets by design outside of modding as like Raven has said not everyone likes to mod.  As well as continued improvements on the game performance.

As said in my previous points it would be nice if there was something to see lower end specs and have the game force settings accordingly.

Well then I'm on par then. I just didn't understand that the game was designed such that once I hit the turn button I can't do anything until the AI is finished doing whatever it is doing. My thinking on the design or I guess past recollection of Gal Civ long ago was that the AI was cooking while you do your thing and then when you hit turn it executes its moves that it just spent time thinking about and turns were much quicker 2-3 seconds.

 

 

 

i could be very wrong but my understanding is that most software does not take advantage of more then one core. Seems its rather difficult to write code to use all the different cores at once. So for games especially the Ghz of your processor will usually mean a lot more then how many cores it has. Or so ive heard! Im sure others can expand on this.

My thoughts exactly oh well...

This game supports multiple cores.

 

On the other hand, I do appreciate the fact that Frogboy and Stardock pay attention to all of their users, not just the <1% vocal minority posters on this forum.  (and I count myself as one of the <1% )  It shows that they are a business, not a hobby.  It is one of the reasons I can be confident they will be around for a long time supporting and growing this game.  I also dislike the judgement implied in "the lowest of our players".  Last I looked, they were people, too, paying customer people.

As to the posters complaining they might have to learn modding...  No, you do not have to learn modding.  You just have to learn to ask some modder nicely to do it.  If it is really important to the community, it will happen.  I've seen it work that way plenty of times.  I have been playing with mods for years and have yet to write one line of code.  All it takes is friendliness and patience.

Never said they weren't paying customers, and the game should be playable by them just not at the extremes...  So why lower the extremes that others are able to play just because the lower few can't?

The modding thing is not a matter of me learning to do it or have someone do it for me.  I am capable of modding, if I don't know how right now I could learn it in no time, I pick that type of thing up quickly.  It's more of an issue of if a game is featured as such than why can't it do it without modding?  Plus I'm one that loves to play the game as it is and not mess the game up with bending the rules... 

Plus that way you know how the game is intended and qualify for their leaderboards and so on.  Now Paul, I believe it was him anyways, said in one of the dev streams that leaderboards (Metaverse) right now does not hold modding against you but, I don't see that remaining that way forever.

 

Appreciate that, bros. Thank you. I can make small edits with step-by-step instructions like this, but pretty much only like this with hand holding on the xml edits. This is why I'm an artist and do art for mods. I love editing pngs, any type of pic really, but I'm flat out lousy with xml editing. Even something this simple is a little complicated for me just because I have to change two xmls and mess with file/folder structures.

Valtek01, on the folder structure in the mods folder, do I make it "Gal Civ 3/Mods/New folder/game" and then when it comes to the structure within (step 2a) do all those other folders go in the already created "game" folder? Or do all the folders from step 2a go into Mods/New Folder/ then structure from 2a? If I'm only editing 2 xmls both in the same folder do the other folders need to be there if they'll be empty anyway?

Also, when editing if I set the Base to something like 6000, the MaxHabitablePlanets should be lower than 6000 correct? It wouldn't make sense in my head to have more habitable planets than the base number of total planets.

Thanks again for the help guys. A little nervous I'll get the folder structure wrong and it won't work because of that, in which case I'll make copies of the originals in the steam install and then just over-write them as it's easier for me to do that than worry about retaining folder structure and hitting conflicts because of that.

Hell I even made a shortcut from my main "Working on Mods" folder on my desktop straight to the steam install files so I can get to them easily without having to go browsing every time I need a asset.

While I see your point, I also have to agree with Seilore below. It's not about needing to learn to do it, most of us already know how. Even though my modding skills lie in art assets and programs I've had to do xml before and as you suggested I got help and formed a Team to do Elemental Mods. I'm advanced enough that I don't even use Notepad for my edits, I use either UltraEdit or Hexedit. The main complaint is dumbing it down for people with lower end machines when it was Advertised as being bigger and should of obviously had bigger running requirements.

I didn't notice until way later that earlier in the thread Frogboy mentioned something about 4 Gigs of ram not being enough. Nothing against the boss man of course, but when I read that I nearly spit my coffee all over my monitor. Windows 7 Requires at least 4 Gigs of Ram just to run. Why would anyone in this day and age even try to make a game this size and even expect it to only need 4 Gigs of ram? Show me any other modern strategy game of this size and scope that only needs 4 Gigs of ram to run. What are people trying to play this on, pocket calculators? I didn't think it was even possible to buy a computer that only comes with 4 Gigs of ram these days, much less a Gaming Rig?!?! This is a PC game, not a Cell Phone Mobile Game/App. That's just flat out stupidity IMO to think Any Gaming Rig would only have or use 4 Gigs of Ram. Even thinking about making this game and saying it'll only need 4 Gigs of Ram to run is just messed up, especially when Windows by its-self wants that much Ram to run.

The whole point of moving over to native 64bit was to make a bigger and better game that worked with hyper threading using multiple cores. Now it seems like they're taking a Awesome PC game and trying to make it run on crappy mobile devices. It's like my FarCry 4 analogy earlier. If Ubisoft took FarCry 4 after release and then turned down all the options so it could run on systems below the running requirements it would be shelved in a heartbeat. Imagine taking FarCry 4, which was Designed to run on mid range to high end gaming rigs and then trying to make it run on Windows XP by taking out graphical options and that's what it feels like is happening here. We buy a big beefy 4x game because we have big beefy systems to run them on. That's not to exclude anyone with lesser systems, my system is 5 years old now minus a few new components, but that's why games have minimum running requirements. If you don't meet the requirements don't buy the game. Damn sure though don't expect the developer to dumb down the product.

If Notebooks and Cell Phones were the target audience from the start that's different, but that wasn't the case here.



That's a lot how I like things as well. When I mod I only want to make visual changes mostly. I don't want to mod the *mechanics* outside of vanilla. I don't mod for cheating purposes and I dislike doing so. I want the game play mechanics to be as intended for just about everything I play, with the exception of cases like this where I'm only editing map sizes or some other factor that doesn't effect how the game its-self works within it's own rules.

 

In your My games folder you need to find the "Gal Civ 3/Mods folder.

Create a "New Folder" inside of the mod folder. Name it anything you like.

Then create those 5 additional folders i listed inside of that "New folder" you just made. I really dont KNOW for sure if you need them but the instructions from SD says you do.

Then just place the 2 xml files inside of the "Game" folder you just created.

You want to only edit files that you place in this mod folder and not the original game files.

 

Also, when editing if I set the Base to something like 6000, the MaxHabitablePlanets should be lower than 6000 correct? It wouldn't make sense in my head to have more habitable planets than the base number of total planets.

 

Im not sure tbh. Do we know if the base refers to planets or to stars? Anyway ive played around a lot with the numbers there and it only takes a moment to make changed and start a new game to see what your tweaks to the numbers do.

2600 base was about the most i could create a map with. Anything above that would crash the game before it finished making the map.

 

 

GalCiv 3 well use all the cores you have be it 2,4,6,ect, ect, ect, !

Both Froggy and Paul have said this.!

 It looks like when you use the abundant setting for stars/planets you will get 1 star for each base number you set. And half of the stars will have planets and 40% of those planets will be Habitable. Not sure just how the new setting <MaxHabitablePlanets>16</MaxHabitablePlanets> interacts with the settings in the MapSetupDefs.xml folder

That actually sounds like it makes the map interesting.

I'm personally not a fan of when "the vast reaches of empty space" is cluttered with tons of objects.  Kind of makes it ... awkward.

Has anyone just gotten rid of <MaxHabitablePlanets>?  I don't see any particular reason why it NEEDS to be in a mod.  Just its presence might be affecting calculations.

I still have a copy of the XML folder from late April (and possibly one from early May [EDIT:  Yep.  I have the XMLs as of May 11th]) so I can use that if I need to.  But what I plan on doing today is downgrade to 1.01, copy the entire XML folder structure, reupgrade to 1.02 opt-in and then do a compare and contrast of the various XMLs that cover map generation.

Getting it back to 1.01 behavior shouldn't be that difficult.

Here's the problem:  Lack of choice.  What makes the game interesting for you might not make it so for others.   That's part of the whole reason to have different map settings in the first place.  Rare and Uncommon is for players exactly like you who don't want the map cluttered with tons of objects.  Abundant is for people who like to play with more and more toys.  And then it's possible to mix and match settings for those who have particular tastes.

Forcing so-called empty maps on people who don't want them can... well, lead to interesting discussions like this one.

I fully understand SD's stance on this and why/where they are coming from, even if I personally disagree.  Thankfully it appears that we are well on our way to finding out just what needs to be modded and where to get this back to what we were used to. I'd prefer it if I didn't have to do so, if only for Metaverse reasons, but c'est la vie.

Maybe this will be revisited as people get stronger and stronger machines.

 

I had to add it to my mod file for the game NOT to give me a xml error

Joy.  

*makes note to modify just acquired 1.01 XMLs*

Thanks.  I'll muck about with these post-devstream.