promethium is easier to come by than duranthium wouldnt it make more sense to have 10 promethium 1 duranthium, not 10 duranthium 1 promethium.

it was already easier for synthetics to build cities instead of organics lets make organics job harder why. Missing when food was local, and simpler. 

Okay I played about 25 games of 2.6 and never saw even one AI farm. 

If the AI can't build farms/cities, the game is broken. You say you haven't changed the AI's farm building behaviour in 2.61 so I'm very doubtful this problem has been fixed, but I'll opt in and try out a game and see what the AI does, then report back. I'll post savegame files, too, if need be. 

Well, then! I am happy to report that the AI is at least building farms and the megalopolis, and I would expect it is also building cities as well. This makes me very happy. 

 

One problem, though. Did anyone else notice the Torians can't build the standard xeno farm? Or am I mistaken?

can you describe the circumstances under which you saw them build them?

I found some time to run two quick test, by turn 60 7 normal AIs hadn't build farms. By turn 75 7 incredible AIs hadn't either.

silicates built cities, which ist to be expected, since they are not limited by food. They Yor didn't not seem to build any population at all.

May that somehow be connected to map size? I play always ludicrous and see no AI farms, but Frogboy always prefers small maps as far as I know, perhaps there the AI builds farms? What map size did you two play?

@lyssailcor
Large, the suggested one for 8 players.

I was wondering if it was about how far one is into the game, maybe AI only starts building past turn 150 or something like that. the AI should start building these as soon as it has the tech in my opinion, turn 50 is enough for that.

My 2.6 game is in turn 290 right now. I checked a couple of planets of all caebon-based civs that I can see via espionage:

Krynn - no farms

Torians - a city, no farms

Domindrum (from Steam Workshop) - no farms

Hm, I just found a Farmer assigned to a invaded Krynn planet without any farm on it ...

I just opted in to the 2.61 patch and noticed the AI finally building cities and farms. I've never seen the AI build a farm or city previous to 2.61. 

I didn't bother playing out a full game but rather colonized 4 planets and set them all to auto govern. The governor built farms and the megalopolis. I tested this before, many times, and the governor never built any farms or cities, so something has apparently changed. 

Ah, but you didn't check if the AI civs built farms, correct?

Then this makes sence. You see, AI civs use different governors from the ones you can set for your planets. And these... lets call them player governors - yes they indeed have farms on their shopping lists.

Can you check via spying or cheating, whether the AI civs built farms?

Agreed. I often have x10 more Promethion as Duranthium simply due to the fact that as I try to get more Duranthium I always have two or three Promethion nearby and rarely use.

 

Well I don't have time to just "test" this out. I suppose I could fire up another game and see how it goes, but I'm quite busy atm. Maybe someone else can do this? 

However, as I said before, I ran the same test in 2.6. I colonized worlds and set them to autogovern, while I beelined farming technologies, and the governors did not build farms or cities. I tested this at least twice, but maybe it was just coincidence that they never built them before. So has nothing changed, then? 

Nah, you only need to use the autosave from the last game. How to enable the console is described here. then just use the cheats 'fow' and 'god' and you can just view all enemy planets and check if there are any farms. Including enabling the console this should be doable in under an hour.

What I was trying to say before: If the autogovernor builds farms, that does not mean that the AI civs build farms, because they use different governors, i.e. shopping lists.

Btw seeing AI planets with 9 pop does not let you conclude it built farms. On higher difficulties, the AI gets a higher popcap among other things.

I don't know. I don't really care about the autogovernor and checking the governorDefs.xml for farm type entries was just a hunch I had recently.

Does this refer to the Player's Governor AI or the Enemy AI?

 

Cool, thanks, I'll check it out when I get some time. 

Opt-in Updated 11/7

•  AI much better about prioritizing construction of transports if they have military dominance.
• Assassination event made more common
• Fixed issue where the AI move limit was being doubled multiplied.

Am playing 2.61 Incredible and quickly invading Yor worlds and they basically don't seem to have had the resources to make more population!

 

 

Does this mean the AI will no longer be moving 30 tiles on Godlike with its Colony ships at the start of the game? I think it used to be about 15 but I started a couple games recently and thought this is ridiculous with their 30 move limit. Definitely made it harder.

Yes, that's what we've addressed (the doubling wasn't intentional)

stupid question from this newb: how do I access the 2.6 patch and download it. I cannot seem to find the hotlink.

from the OP:

To enable the patch, please do the following:

• Select Galactic Civilizations III in your Steam Library list
• Right-click and select Properties
• Select the BETAS tab
• From the dropdown, select "opt-in"  and click Close (if you don't see this option, restart Steam)

Just as a head's up, as much as I enjoy seeing my work on balance and AI critiqued, you'll be happy to know I won't be working on GalCiv III for the near future.

I'll be checking in to see when the Steam review score gets over 70 for recent reviews as a cue to look at working on the AI and balance.

I don't see any reason for us to keep providing free updates when the reaction is so negative.  

The game is very moddable so go ahead and mod it to your liking from here on out.

If you DO want me to return to work on this, then the Steam review score will be the measure I use.

 

 

 

This seems to be an unjustified reaction...I don't think the reactions are so negative as a few players are raising what they consider their concerns. This is healthy in any organisation and if a minority say something which is negative  hear them out, disagree if you have to counter the criticism/suggestions/advice whatever with what you believe. Remember the creaky wheel is always loudest. 

There are a lot of players (I'm one and have stuck up for this game on other forums) very happy with the way the game is developing/changing and really admire how you keep on trying to get the game where you think it should be.

Don't pick up your bat and ball  and go home because  you don't like what somebody said. 

It's more of a sign that we are reaching the end of this version's lifespan.

The same thing happened with GalCiv II back in the day.  Eventually, a game reaches the point where the feature requests and complaints are very esoteric and the community, not seeing those demands met, begin to get very negative about the game (hence, a lot of the recent negative Steam reviews are from people with hundreds of hours in).

There are only two reasons for us to work on a game: Either (a) because we enjoy it or (b) because we're getting paid.

The endless criticism over things that, 10 years ago, a user would have just modified for themselves via XML, sucks the enjoyment out.  The negative steam reviews tank the game's sales and people castigate us for having a handful of DLC spread out over 3 years.

Given that Stellaris already has NINE DLC and an 85% review score, it sends the message to me that the turn-based market may simply not be a market worth targeting in the future.  Even Endless Space 2 (a fine turn based space strategy game with zero DLC) is struggling at a much lower review score.

RTS/continuous turn games seem to attract a demographic that is both numerous and more appreciative.  Sins of a Solar Empire, btw, has a 92% review score.

tl;dr: Turn-based 4X games are generally more niche and their user bases less willing to support continued development than real-time games.