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Galactic Civilizations III: 1.9 Mega Patch (Released 12/13)

Galactic Civilizations III: 1.9 Mega Patch (Released 12/13)

Hello,

We are happy to share our next update which has massive improvements in performance, more challenging AI, better balance, and lots of bug fixes.  Please review below!

If you have trouble running the game, please restart steam.

Launcher

Read below for the new launcher will allow us to communicate better with you, better settings support, and more.  

Introducing the Launcher

Capstone Techs

In the Age of Ascension, players can now research that provide large, temporary empire-wide bonuses.  These techs can be researched repeatedly with stacking bonuses.

Optimization

  • Memory: introduced new texture compression for planetary and ship textures to greatly reduce memory usage and dramatically improve startup times.
  • Removed legacy stopwatch code from the sound system
  • Moved old profiling junk
  • Reduced CPU usage of the particles and main graphics threads
  • Removed redundant debug output
  • Multithreaded the texture loading at the start of game to improve performance.

AI

  • AI builds scout ships later in the game to keep exploring very large galaxies
  • Dramatically reduced AI >normal economic bonuses (no longer needs them)
  • Re-designed the way the AI expands into the galaxy with colony ships so that its expansion no longer stalls on large maps
  • Dramatically reduced the amount of time an AI will interact with a player if they are not within ship range
  • AI doesn't try to bribe other players to go to war unless they and the other players have a decent military already
  • AI will no longer give tech gifts to players with a different ideology (i.e. no more Drengin giving you tech if you're a nice person)
  • AI now scales the number of similar ship projects based on number of colonies rather than a flat number
  • AI pumps up colony ship production priority if there are a lot of nice planets laying around
  • AI pumps out fewer Constructors in general
  • Re-designed the way the AI determines which planets should get a shipyard to be more (way more) intelligent
  • Updated AI's handling of adjacency bonuses to be more intelligent
  • AI values planet quality more when picking planets to colonize 
  • AI somewhat more heuristic on tech research
  • AI somewhat quicker to war
  • Auto Surveying Survey Ships will now survey extra anomalies if the ship has extra movement points.

Balance

  • Diplomacy tech effect to Diplomacy ability increased from 0.5 to 1
  • Influence MinToClaim increased from 0.33 to 8
  • Influence Radius root reduced from 3.25 (^0.325) to square root (^0.5)
  • Eliminated the Influence Bell Curve target divisor.
  • Influence fall off is increased from -0.3 to –10
  • Capital Influence per turn increased from 1.5 to 3
  • Colony Influence per turn reduced from 2 to 1
  • Removed the faction ability bonus from the Diplomatic Office
  • Removed all faction ability bonuses from starbase modules
  • AI is much MUCH smarter about detecting cultural flipping strategies
  • AI is much better about detecting fast alliance strategies
  • Colonies now instantly update when you rush build to show the effect of the new building.
  • Adjusted tech cost to increase per tech age
  • New capstone technologies that can be researched repeatedly for galaxy wide bonuses
  • Minor races will now establish trade routes.
  • Tweaked influence such that growth is now slower in general, but influence improvements and modules are now much more powerful.
  • Increased starbase spacing to 4
  • Adjusted intensity on several strategic map icons and the grid.
  • AI tends to focus more on tech (generally) than previously.
  • AI will build survey ships late in-game.
  • AI provided with a much wider variety of ship designs to choose from with the various strategies.
  • AI weights units much more closely than previously in order to not make one virtually impossible to build.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty reduced from 1.25 to 1.1 if AI is benevolent.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is merciless.
  • Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is cruel.
  • Close to victory diplomatic penalties increased from 1 to 5.
  • Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty reduced from 0.75 to 0.1 if AI is benevolent.
  • Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty increased from 0.75 to 1.25 if AI is aggressive.
  • Minimum planet class to be a manufacturing world reduced from 7 to 4.
  • Max number of colony ships the AI will construct at once increased from 2 to 3.
  • Max slider focus reduced from 95% to 75% (to deal with coercion penalty).
  • Coercion forgiveness eliminated (there is always some coercion if you move off from center).
  • Maximum coercion reduced from 50% to 35%.
  • Colony Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
  • CivilizationCapital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Influence Radius root increased from 1.75 to 4 (i.e. influence ZOC will start out much much smaller now).
  • Tech inflation penalty significantly reduced.
  • Penalty for switching a constructor to a colony ship increased from 50% to 75% (yea, you know who you are).
  • Pirates moved further away from starting location.
  • Increased the variance for the various settings (minors, pirates, etc.).
  • Modified the governor script to provide a bit more flexibility based on planet bonuses when building improvements.
  • Colony capital maintenance eliminated.
  • Colony capital hub provides a 2 (was 1) level bonus to adjacent buildings if they are population or manufacturing or research.
  • Civ capital hub provides a 3 level bonus (was 1).
  • Reduced maint. slightly on research buildings.
  • Rare habitable planets decreased from 30% to 25%.
  • Nebula and black holes and anomalies made much less common on all settings.
  • Occasional planet frequency amount doubled from 1X to 2X.
  • Common stars modifier increased from 0.9 to 1.
  • Common planet frequency amount increased from 0.75X to 3X (this also fixes a bug where common was less than occasional).
  • Abundant stars increased from 1X to 1.5X.
  • Planet Frequency increased from 0.25X to 3.5X (also fixes bug).
  • Tiny map base objects increased from 32 to 120 (i.e. tiny maps will be a lot more filled).
  • Small map base object count increased from 64 to 150.
  • Medium map Base object count increased from 110 to 200.
  • Large map base object count increased from 155 to 300 (i.e. over twice as many stars/planets/etc. in a particular size).
  • Huge map base object count increased from 250 to 350.
  • INSANE map object count INCREASED from 1200 to 1400!
  • Sensor cost components reduced slightly.
  • Cargo module cost reduced from 27 to 10 (cheaper colony ships -- but remember, planets now rely more on population for their production).
  • Tiny hull cost reduced from 11 to 10.
  • Small hull cost reduced from 25 to 20.
  • Medium hull HP increased from 100 to 120.
  • Large hull cost increased from 128 to 300.
  • Large hull HP increased from 250 to 600.
  • Large hull storage increased from 100 to 120.
  • Large hull logistics cost increased from 7 to 10.
  • Huge hull cost increased from 432 to 500.
  • Huge hull HP increased from 500 to 800.
  • Huge hull storage increased from 250 to 300.
  • Huge hull logistics increased from 10 to 16.
  • Cargo hull cost reduced from 42 to 24.
  • Cargo hull HP reduced from 10 to 1.
  • Cargo hull logistics increased from 5 to 6.
  • Made low level factories cheaper, provide smaller bonuses.
  • Reduced the size of maps while keeping the same number of objects, effectively increasing the galactic density.
  • Increased the zoom distance.  
  • Lowered diplomacy bonus of the Diplomacy Techs.

Improvements/Bugs Fixes

  • Fixed a major late-game memory leak
  • Stuck Turn fix involving battle system in multiplayer
  • Increase the opacity of the alpha on the un-owned grid
  • Escape key now prompts the user if they are designing a ship, instead of instantly leaving the view.
  • Added an option skip the upgrade notification on the starbases window.
  • Fix some bad prerequisites some hidden minor race tech tree.
  • Fix bad tech description for Technological Outreach tech, in the Torian Tech Tree.
  • Added check in Galactic Events that prevent random crashes with event that pops up twice.  
  • Fix bad prerequisite for Xeno Geology in the Arcean techtree.
  • Fix bad prerequisite for Drengin Manufacturing Stimulus.
  • Removed normal map corrections and Lean Maps from game as they didn't look good and were taking up too much space.
  • Fixed false positive on culture flipping penalty in diplomacy window
  • Fixed  bad normal map for merc textures.
  • Fixed issue in Krynn tech tree causing the Coordination Temple to be hidden.
  • Fixed some issues that were causing some of the techs at end of the tree to have the wrong cost calculated.
  • Fix text wrapping on starbase window
  • Fix for capstone alerts showing up for non-local player and for tech victory alerts showing up for non-tech victory items
  • When vram is maxed out, the game will no longer generate a massive log file. 
  • Increased the halo size on non-colonized planets 
  • Added author fields for maps, factions and ships.
  • Starbases will now notify the you that they need to be upgraded after being initially built.  
  • Fixed double counting of trade routes for AI diplomacy purposes.
  • Fixed late game crashes related to textures on large maps.
  • Fixed an infrequent crash on loading large maps.
  • Fixed bug that could cause the AI to see tiles in the opposite map position of where they were exploring.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the AI to reduce the priority weighting on colony ship production based on the # of targetable planets.
  • If a player faction is set to random in the prefs.inifile, the quick-start tooltip will no longer display an invalid faction.
  • Fixed an issue where if you changed the planetary spending wheel, the displayed. manufacturing time for improvements wasn't being updated at the same time.
  • Clicking available projects tabs no longer resets the improvement cursor.
  • Add ESC to close Ship Designer and Diplomacy screens.
  • Starbases no longer incorrectly show the upgrade option when none avail.
  • Fixed a crash related to the AI defying the UP.
199,309 views 66 replies
Reply #26 Top

With the recent 190er version I get sometimes little gfx oddities:

In the diplo screen the selected planet displays as wrong civ in the top right corner. Pls. see pic linked to below - selected planet shows as Krynn, but the civ displayed is Torian (also worked vice versa when I klicked the "Torian" planet)

 

http://imgur.com/a/Z83hR

 

Reply #27 Top

Might be missing something here, but it looks like the Drengin DO NOT have the prerequisite techs Industrial Mastery 1 or Industrial Mastery 2 to allow them to get the capstone tech Manufacturing Stimulus.  It is however in their tech tree.  But it is pointing to non-existent (for them) techs.

(In the middle of slowly doing the massive conversion of my Generallized Tech Tree mod for 1.9, and if I find any other errors like this, I'll report them)

Reply #28 Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 27

Might be missing something here, but it looks like the Drengin DO NOT have the prerequisite techs Industrial Mastery 1 or Industrial Mastery 2 to allow them to get the capstone tech Manufacturing Stimulus.  It is however in their tech tree.  But it is pointing to non-existent (for them) techs.

(In the middle of slowly doing the massive conversion of my Generallized Tech Tree mod for 1.9, and if I find any other errors like this, I'll report them)

 

Looks like there is also an error in the Generic Tech Tree (TechDefs.xml).  There is a space inbetween Manfacturing and Stimulus in the tech block: 

<Tech>
<InternalName>GenericManufacturing Stimulus</InternalName>
<GenericName>Manufacturing Stimulus</GenericName>
<DisplayName>GenericManufacturing Stimulus_Name</DisplayName>
<TechTree>Generic_Tree</TechTree>
<ShortDescription>GenericManufacturing Stimulus_ShortDec</ShortDescription>
<Description>GenericManufacturing Stimulus_Dec</Description>

 

I'm not sure it terribly matters much, but still flagging it for attention. :)

Reply #29 Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 27

Might be missing something here, but it looks like the Drengin DO NOT have the prerequisite techs Industrial Mastery 1 or Industrial Mastery 2 to allow them to get the capstone tech Manufacturing Stimulus.  It is however in their tech tree.  But it is pointing to non-existent (for them) techs.


 

Can concur.

Using my Tech Tree Viewer to view the Drengin tree, Manufacturing Stimulus sits orphaned in the corner. Its prerequisites don't exist.

 

There is also a bug in the Arcean tree,

Weather control prerequisite 'XenoGeology' doesn't exist

Drive system Optimization is also orphaned.

 

It may be that these are deliberate and are omitted from the game, but it screws up my viewer.

 

The Brainy'AK tree is completely screwed in the viewer, previously it worked ok.

Reply #30 Top

Opt-in Updated (12/5)

  • Diplomacy tech effect to Diplomacy ability increased from 0.5 to 1
  • Influence MinToClaim increased from 0.33 to 8
  • Influence Radius root reduced from 3.25 (^0.325) to square root (^0.5)
  • Eliminated the Influence Bell Curve target divisor.
  • Influence fall off is increased from -0.3 to –10
  • Capital Influence per turn increased from 1.5 to 3
  • Colony Influence per turn reduced from 2 to 1
  • Removed the faction ability bonus from the Diplomatic Office
  • Removed all faction ability bonuses from starbase modules
  • AI is much MUCH smarter about detecting cultural flipping strategies
  • AI is much better about detecting fast alliance strategies
  • Colonies now instantly update when you rush build to show the effect of the new building.
Reply #31 Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 27

Might be missing something here, but it looks like the Drengin DO NOT have the prerequisite techs Industrial Mastery 1 or Industrial Mastery 2 to allow them to get the capstone tech Manufacturing Stimulus.  It is however in their tech tree.  But it is pointing to non-existent (for them) techs.

(In the middle of slowly doing the massive conversion of my Generallized Tech Tree mod for 1.9, and if I find any other errors like this, I'll report them)

This will be fixed in our next update.

Reply #32 Top

Quoting treborblue, reply 29
The Brainy'AK tree is completely screwed in the viewer, previously it worked ok.

 

This might be because one of their techs (along with the Peacekeepers) was duplicated. Namely PilgrimageTech is there THREE separate times:

<Tech>
<InternalName>BRAINY'AKPilgrimageTech</InternalName>
<GenericName>PilgrimageTech</GenericName>
<DisplayName>BRAINY'AKPilgrimageTech_Name</DisplayName>
<TechTree>BRAINY'AK_Tree</TechTree>
<ShortDescription>BRAINY'AKPilgrimageTech_ShortDec</ShortDescription>
<Description>BRAINY'AKPilgrimageTech_Dec</Description>
<ColorDef>TechPurple</ColorDef>
<ResearchCost>2268</ResearchCost>
<TechPoints>1</TechPoints>
<IsCapstone>true</IsCapstone>
<Duration>15</Duration>
<AICategoryWeight>
<Military>4</Military>
<Growth>18</Growth>
<Tech>6</Tech>
<Diplomacy>8</Diplomacy>
<Expansion>14</Expansion>
<Wealth>20</Wealth>
<Influence>16</Influence>
<Fortification>12</Fortification>
</AICategoryWeight>
<Stats>
<EffectType>Tourism</EffectType>
<Scope>Global</Scope>
<Target>
<TargetType>Colony</TargetType>
</Target>
<BonusType>Multiplier</BonusType>
<Value>0.15</Value>
</Stats>
<Prerequ>
<Techs>
<Option>WondersoftheGalaxy</Option>
</Techs>
<TechAge>
<Option>AgeOfAscension</Option>
</TechAge>
</Prerequ>
</Tech>

Those blocks start on lines 11541, 12018, and 12721 on the BRAINY'AK tech tree, FWIW. The sole difference between the one on line 12721 and on the first two, is that the one on 12721 doesn't have the Capstone feature.


FWIW, on the Peacekeeper tree the duplicate techs are on lines 11598, 12034, and 12737, and follow the same pattern of two capstones with one without.

Reply #33 Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 32

This might be because one of their techs (along with the Peacekeepers) was duplicated. Namely PilgrimageTech is there THREE separate times:

 

Yep that will do it. 

Its not causing a crash in the tree viewer, just thought I would point it out as logical errors in the xml are easy to spot!

 

by the way, when you look at the XML's do you see Blonde, Brunette?

+1 Loading…
Reply #34 Top

Quoting treborblue, reply 33
by the way, when you look at the XML's do you see Blonde, Brunette?

 

No comment.  :-"

 

===

 

There looks to be at least one more error in the BRAINY'AK tree.  The tech PowerMatrixTech has the following three techs as prereques:

<Prerequ>
<Techs>
<Option>PowerSpecialization1</Option>
<Option>PowerSpecialization2</Option>
<Option>ResearchArrayTech</Option>
</Techs>

 

That last one almost certainly shouldn't be there (should be PowerSpecialization3).  As I check the archives, it looks like it's been in there for a LOOOOONG time (at least since 1.5).  It's a free tech AND an AI-only tech tree (and a minor race one at that), so it probably doesn't matter much at all.  But it could theoretically make a messy tree for the AI to deal with at some point along the line, so I thought I would mention it here as well.

 

Reply #35 Top

Has anyone else noticed that the game suddenly will not draw the grid inside their territory?

Reply #36 Top

Quoting General, reply 35

Has anyone else noticed that the game suddenly will not draw the grid inside their territory?

I have not seen this.  Does it repro when you load a save game?

Reply #37 Top

krynn is also missing it unique building. the labor temple i think it's called

Reply #38 Top

Bugs so far:

-Everyone thinks I am trying to culture flip them, even though I built 2 influence buildings and 2 influence star bases.  I only share boarders with one other civilization.   I have the -2 diplomacy modifier on every race, even minor factions (who are immune to culture flip), and even civilizations 100 tiles away from my borders.

-Game crashing at loading screen

Gameplay issues so far:

-You cannot disable or skip the "upgrade starbase" prompt.  This is annoying for everyone who uses 2 module constructor ships as sometimes you only wanted to upgrade 1 part.  I usually just let the ship sit there until the next upgrade is researched.  It is especially annoying as even the automated constructors from the "automatically upgrade starbase parts" will bring up this prompt.  Game quickly became hot potato passing constructors from one starbase to another.

Reply #39 Top

Opt-in updated (12/11)

  • Removed normal map corrections and Lean Maps from game as they didn't look good and were taking up too much space.  This should address the visual problems in the ship designer reported in earlier version of the opt-in 
  • Made low-level factories cheaper, provide smaller bonuses.
  • Reduced the size of maps while keeping the same number of objects, effectively increasing the galactic density.
  • Increased the zoom distance.  
  • Lowered diplomacy bonus of the Diplomacy Techs.
  • Stuck Turn fix involving battle system in multiplayer
  • When vram is maxed out, the game will no longer generate a massive log file.  
  • Fix for capstone alerts showing up for non-local player and for tech victory alerts showing up for non-tech victory items
  • Fix text wrapping on starbase window
  • Increase the opacity of the alpha on the un-owned grid
  • Escape key now prompts the user if they are designing a ship, instead of instantly leaving the view.
  • Added an option skip the upgrade notification on the starbases window.
  • Fix some bad prerequisites some hidden minor race tech tree.
  • Fix bad tech description for Technological Outreach tech, in the Torian Tech Tree.
  • Added check in Galactic Events that prevent random crashes with event that pops up twice.  
  • Fix bad prerequisite for Xeno Geology in the Arcean techtree.
  • Fix bad prerequisite for Drengin Manufacturing Stimulus.
  • Fixed a major late-game memory leak
  • Fixed false positive on culture flipping penalty in diplomacy window
  • Fixed  bad normal map for merc textures.
  • Fixed issue in Krynn tech tree causing the Coordination Temple to be hidden.
  • Fixed some issues that were causing some of the techs at end of the tree to have the wrong cost calculated.
Reply #40 Top

Pshaw, thanks for the update. The (false positive on culture) was the bug causing everyone to think you were culture flipping them correct?

Reply #41 Top

Yes, the AI should only think you are trying to flip them if you are actually doing so :)  

Reply #42 Top

Quoting Pirate_Ben, reply 38

Bugs so far:

-Everyone thinks I am trying to culture flip them, even though I built 2 influence buildings and 2 influence star bases.  I only share boarders with one other civilization.   I have the -2 diplomacy modifier on every race, even minor factions (who are immune to culture flip), and even civilizations 100 tiles away from my borders.

-Game crashing at loading screen

Gameplay issues so far:

-You cannot disable or skip the "upgrade starbase" prompt.  This is annoying for everyone who uses 2 module constructor ships as sometimes you only wanted to upgrade 1 part.  I usually just let the ship sit there until the next upgrade is researched.  It is especially annoying as even the automated constructors from the "automatically upgrade starbase parts" will bring up this prompt.  Game quickly became hot potato passing constructors from one starbase to another.

The culture flipping bug should be fixed now

We added a fix for loading screen crash.  Let us know if it still happens

We added a checkbox to the starbase window that allows you to disable the skip the upgrade prompt.  

 

Reply #43 Top

For people who care, and I know it'll at least be a few, the old map size settings will still load and work in 1.9 opt-in.  Just have to make a mod with the old values (MapSizeDefs.xml). 

How stable it is, I haven't tested yet. ;)

Reply #44 Top

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 43

For people who care, and I know it'll at least be a few, the old map size settings will still load and work in 1.9 opt-in.  Just have to make a mod with the old values (MapSizeDefs.xml). 

How stable it is, I haven't tested yet. ;)

BTW, if you have a custom map built with old sizes, it won't be affected by this change.

Reply #45 Top

Still no administration? Tsss >_>

Reply #46 Top

Greetings,

The removal of diplomacy bonuses from the Diplomatic Office, Diplomatic Outpost, and Starbase Embassy modules is a great idea  However, it had the unintended consequence of a making the last two modules redundant.  All three now give only a +100% influence bonus while increasing the maintenance from 0.3 to 1.0 and then 2.0 for Starbase Embassy.  Perhaps they should give +100%, +125%, and finally +150% influence bonus instead. (?)

Moser

Reply #47 Top

Umm... do starbases now culture flip? Did they always and I never saw it before? I just had a military starbase in foreign territory change to the territory owner's control. And then I heard the sound of a old phonograph record stopping abruptly...

Reply #48 Top

Quoting pshaw, reply 42


Quoting Pirate_Ben,

Bugs so far:

-Everyone thinks I am trying to culture flip them, even though I built 2 influence buildings and 2 influence star bases.  I only share boarders with one other civilization.   I have the -2 diplomacy modifier on every race, even minor factions (who are immune to culture flip), and even civilizations 100 tiles away from my borders.

-Game crashing at loading screen

Gameplay issues so far:

-You cannot disable or skip the "upgrade starbase" prompt.  This is annoying for everyone who uses 2 module constructor ships as sometimes you only wanted to upgrade 1 part.  I usually just let the ship sit there until the next upgrade is researched.  It is especially annoying as even the automated constructors from the "automatically upgrade starbase parts" will bring up this prompt.  Game quickly became hot potato passing constructors from one starbase to another.



The culture flipping bug should be fixed now

We added a fix for loading screen crash.  Let us know if it still happens

We added a checkbox to the starbase window that allows you to disable the skip the upgrade prompt.  

 

 

Just started a new game the culture flipping bug is fixed (culture flipping diplo penalty applied to all AI's).  However now the rebellion seems to be stuck at 0.  The AI colonized my second home home system planet and the rebellion counter hasnt gone past zero even when its at 2x foreign influence.      

Reply #49 Top


[updated 12/12] Reduced the size of maps while keeping the same number of objects, effectively increasing the galactic density.

Don't like this option making the game smaller this far after release is like a slap across the face.  I understand you are attempting to make the game work better and perform better but, isn't this something that should have been covered in the beta process not 18+ months after release?  Are we going to get the "insane map" back in it's now former size in the expansion?

Now with that being said I am still happy with the game and interested to see what the future holds, I hope you keep up the great work on the game while addressing our concerns.

Reply #50 Top

Quoting pshaw, reply 39

Opt-in updated (12/11)


After the update Monday, it became worse the increase in consumption of 800 MB memory. =((.