GalCiv IV: Supernova Preview for May 11

from GalCiv4 Forums

GalCiv IV: Supernova: May 11

Lots of big updates coming the second week of May. Here’s some highlights:

Civ image re-rolling

Previously, to get more potential race images to choose from, you had to regenerate the entire civilization. Because of how taxing that is on the AlientGPT system, we had to limit that to 5 tries per civ and 25 per day.

But since most people just want to try out to see more images, we are separating the civ regen to the reroll of the images.

So just reroll until you get the image you want (based on the description of your civ).

The system returns 9. 3 of the picks are always totally random and the other 6 are it’s best guess of what goes with the description you gave.

For fun, guess what my civ’s description was!

More Civs Unlocked

The classic GalCiv civs plus the main GalCiv III civs plus the new GalCiv IV civs are now unlocked. The new Supernova civs are still locked for now as we are still working on them.

New Settings

We are starting to tweak the Civ traits.

What we want to do is make all of these quite interesting between now and release.

Updated visuals

We’ve done our first pass on the visual style of the map itself. Gone is the blah grays.

Also, you can set it so that you can see which tiles have been explored.

New Default strategic zoom settings

If you found the iconizing agonizing (I’ll show myself out) then you’re in for a treat. We’ve rebalanced when and how different icons show up as you zoom out.

One smooth zoom out:

(if you look closely, you can see the milky way slowly moving – not here, this is just a screenshot, I mean in the game, screenshot doesn’t do it justice).

AI to Supernova

Beta 1 of Supernova was focused on AlienGPT (would it work) and making sure it didn’t blow up on your computers. It mostly didn’t. Beta 1A brings the new AI over. Which isn’t to say the AI in Beta 1 didn’t work, it just hadn’t been updated yet to support all the changes to Supernova yet.

You will find it much more engaging as a result.

Diplomacy gets more sophisticated

The computer players have a lot more nuance now in how they deal with each other.

There are a lot more things that can happen in GalCiv IV: Supernova that affect relations. Sometimes you’ll have to pick who are your friends and who are not and live with that. It also means the other civilizations will be more likely to have diplomatic challenges with each other as well.

Major balance pass

Everything from how the galaxy gets generated to how much a pulse cannon costs has been looked at and adjusted. We’ve also brought back a lot of starbase upgrades that were previously only available to the Synthetic civs (By popular demand).

This list will be too big to cover here but it’s a big set of changes. We’ve been reading every forum post and every Discord talk.

Feedback addressed / Quality of Life

We are glad so many people are liking Supernova. The biggest complaint, by far, has been that it’s so different from GalCiv III that the game needs to do a better job at explaining how things work.

While we work on making sure the game explains things, one tip: In GalCiv IV you can hold down the SHIFT key to lock a tooltip and then you can mouse over the tooltip to get more information.

Experiments

We are going to try out a pretty big change this week: We are going to make it so that colonies can’t be conquered. Only the core worlds. If you take the core world, you automatically get all the colonies that sponsor them. We haven’t decided if that will be a permanent change but we want to see how that affects pacing. Let us know in the comments what you think.

Scratch that. That’s too immersion breaking. We’ll need to find some other way to ensure that conquest isn’t too much of a slog. Share your thoughts in the comments.

Bug Squashing

From typos to crashes, we’ve been squashing bugs to get this update ready for you guys. We’ve even brought in a veteran game industry editor to finally deal with the tipoes.

galciv iv news
117,202 views 27 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

<3  May 11 cannot come soon enough!!

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Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I like everything here, especially this.

We’ve even brought in a veteran game industry editor to finally deal with the tipoes.

Will that person be starting with your last sentance?

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Old-Spider, reply 2

I like everything here, especially this.


We’ve even brought in a veteran game industry editor to finally deal with the tipoes.



Will that person be starting with your last sentance?

Sorry I meant tipose.

Reply #4 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Please start with the combat mechanics! Its the thing that is both the most new AND the most obscure!

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Reply #5 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Great post. Some little feedback:

Culture flipping of low influence colonies should be pretty easy though. Else this could be frustrating / exploitable. Think about colonising worlds near somebody else's core world.

That Torian quest reward: you would get an absolut of 25 research. Maybe it would be good to add a percentage bonus? +1/2% to your overall research for 20 months? So this could be a nice reward at mid/late game as well.

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Reply #6 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 3


Quoting Old-Spider,
reply 2

I like everything here, especially this.




We’ve even brought in a veteran game industry editor to finally deal with the tipoes.



Will that person be starting with your last sentance?



Sorry I meant tipose.

If he's dealing with your tiposes won't that take up his whole day?

Great to hear.

Reply #7 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

It's extraordinarily good to see this game get the dev attention it deserves. I truly believe that it will pay off for you guys in the long run.

 

Bravo!

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Reply #8 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Colonies are easier to take due to fewer defending citizens and no defensive buildings, so this means that invasions would be more go big or go home with less probing attacks and outmaneouvring.

 

If you wanted to focus profitable conquest goals on Core Worlds without completely removing the lower hanging fruits, you could set it up so that whenever a Colony changes which Core World it is attached to, the Colony takes a huge hit to output that slowly reverts back to normal. Ways to remove this output hit, or speed up its reversion to normality would include ensuring it switches to a newly established Core World (when a new Core World is established, it could wipe all the output hits to its new colonies immediately), and restoring it to its old Core World (whether that be because the Core World has been retaken, or because the colony has been taken too), as well as the possibility of policies, ship modules, planet upgrades or executive orders. This would put much more focus on the Core Worlds without removing the colonies as objects for conquest, which would be odd in terms of immersion and possibly result in some weird strategies involving buffer zones of invulnerable colonies combined with hive mind, engineers and other decay reduction strategies. 

 

Thank you so much for more tool-tips and the great way you're implementing them! I second the combat mechanics clarity point, and also ask that citizen expectations, why exactly they're satisfied or not, and what you could do to meet more expectations be added to the tooltips

Reply #9 from GalCiv4 Forums Top


We are going to try out a pretty big change this week: We are going to make it so that colonies can’t be conquered. Only the core worlds. If you take the core world, you automatically get all the colonies that sponsor them. We haven’t decided if that will be a permanent change but we want to see how that affects pacing. Let us know in the comments what you think.

 

It'll nerf the festron if nothing else.  I finished my last game with 30000 BC on a small map.

Reply #10 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting V3N0M2583, reply 9
 

It'll nerf the festron if nothing else.  I finished my last game with 30000 BC on a small map.

 

Well, getting 1k credits for a minor colony is also kinda op, isn't it? ;)

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Reply #11 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Experiments

We are going to try out a pretty big change this week: We are going to make it so that colonies can’t be conquered. Only the core worlds. If you take the core world, you automatically get all the colonies that sponsor them. We haven’t decided if that will be a permanent change but we want to see how that affects pacing. Let us know in the comments what you think.
Scratch that. That’s too immersion breaking. We’ll need to find some other way to ensure that conquest isn’t too much of a slog. Share your thoughts in the comments.

Here's an idea that came to mind while doing dishes. What if you made it so that in order to conquer a Core world, you could lower its defence by blockading its colonies ? Yes you could go straight for a core world with a strong enough fleet, but you could also station ships at each colonies and make it easier to conquer the core world. Your ship(s) would need to stay at each colonies, else if they leave the colonies would no longer be blockaded.

From a UI perspective, from the attacker point of view you could make it so that when you successfully blockage a colonies, a Red line is shown toward the associated core world (as long as you have explored its location already), and when you click on that core world, lines also appears towards the supporting colonies. Or something like that.

This could create a "siege" like requirement and force you and the AI to commit to an invasion.

Food for thoughts.

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Reply #12 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 3


Quoting Old-Spider,
reply 2

I like everything here, especially this.




We’ve even brought in a veteran game industry editor to finally deal with the tipoes.



Will that person be starting with your last sentance?



Sorry I meant tipose.

Actually, I think you meant typos, which is why they're so hard to eliminate }:)  

Reply #13 from GalCiv4 Forums Top



Experiments

We are going to try out a pretty big change this week: We are going to make it so that colonies can’t be conquered. Only the core worlds. If you take the core world, you automatically get all the colonies that sponsor them. We haven’t decided if that will be a permanent change but we want to see how that affects pacing. Let us know in the comments what you think.
Scratch that. That’s too immersion breaking. We’ll need to find some other way to ensure that conquest isn’t too much of a slog. Share your thoughts in the comments.


IMHO, a hex-based turn by turn ground combat system would add an immersion richness to Conquest strategies.  It would also open the door to additional technologies, unit-types, building-types, and even political ramifications (rebellions are a lot different when you have to actually fight them off on the ground).

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Reply #14 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Vehement26, reply 13

IMHO, a hex-based turn by turn ground combat system would add an immersion richness to Conquest strategies.  It would also open the door to additional technologies, unit-types, building-types, and even political ramifications (rebellions are a lot different when you have to actually fight them off on the ground).

 
 
That's interesting to hear! GalCiv2 had some ground combat animations. But we talk here about core worlds only, right?
Reply #15 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Haha adding ground combat ... might as well add the "Ashes of the Singularity" IP to Galciv XD  

Reply #16 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Is that ninth creature down left to right the cookie dough monster?

I really don't mind the conquest as it was in GC IV. I choose to not have surrender with surrender planets turned on. If it was on wouldn't civs just surrender their worlds to me when they feel defeated? Also, if actually working and properly wouldn't ships speed be allowed to increase as much as you want to research? If the current ships would upgrade as well?

Reply #17 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting Zuell, reply 16

Is that ninth creature down left to right the cookie dough monster?

I really don't mind the conquest as it was in GC IV. I choose to not have surrender with surrender planets turned on. If it was on wouldn't civs just surrender their worlds to me when they feel defeated? Also, if actually working and properly wouldn't ships speed be allowed to increase as much as you want to research? If the current ships would upgrade as well?

With surrender on and you about to capture their home world they could surrender to you but just as likely ro a third party they were not at war with.

Reply #18 from GalCiv4 Forums Top


Experiments
Scratch that. That’s too immersion breaking. We’ll need to find some other way to ensure that conquest isn’t too much of a slog. Share your thoughts in the comments.

I dont remember colonies being that much of a slog.  Late game they fold like lawn chairs in one turn and the real slog is getting transports to a some core world on the other side of the sector.  Maybe something to make island hopping more viable?  Like you take a core world during the war and after the war is over you get all the attached colonies.  Or maybe something like the peace conference system in HOI 4 so none of the catpured worlds actually belong to you until the war is over.

Reply #19 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting V3N0M2583, reply 18



Experiments
Scratch that. That’s too immersion breaking. We’ll need to find some other way to ensure that conquest isn’t too much of a slog. Share your thoughts in the comments.



I dont remember colonies being that much of a slog.  Late game they fold like lawn chairs in one turn and the real slog is getting transports to a some core world on the other side of the sector.  Maybe something to make island hopping more viable?  Like you take a core world during the war and after the war is over you get all the attached colonies.  Or maybe something like the peace conference system in HOI 4 so none of the catpured worlds actually belong to you until the war is over.

One biggest bigger mega change coming up is that we are bringing back the GalCiv II behavior of multiple attacks / invasions per turn.  So that's going to get pretty interesting.

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Reply #20 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting skywalkerhogie, reply 15

Haha adding ground combat ... might as well add the "Ashes of the Singularity" IP to Galciv XD  

Well, I was referring to keeping the turn-based mechanic.  Resolving ground unit moves, when necessary, would just be part of the turn progression.

 

Reply #21 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Is there a build # associated with the May 11 drop? What time on May 11 will it drop, I am on Epic?

is this May 11 drop an update to the main SuperNova edition or is it for the Insider edition. I just became aware of the Insider edition today and I’m a bit confused. I thought the SuperNova edition was a prerelease but now we have Insider edition as well 🤔

Reply #22 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

1.51. Should be live now.

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Reply #23 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting KarlEngler, reply 21

Is there a build # associated with the May 11 drop? What time on May 11 will it drop, I am on Epic?

is this May 11 drop an update to the main SuperNova edition or is it for the Insider edition. I just became aware of the Insider edition today and I’m a bit confused. I thought the SuperNova edition was a prerelease but now we have Insider edition as well 🤔

Insider release is just on Steam.  It's a prerelease of updates for players who want to test a rough draft with more potential issues than a normal release. 

Update - I see they've added the Insider addition to EPIC now.

Reply #25 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Not sure how I gave Draver 4 Karmas, because while his idea is a good one, it's not that good, Draver! :) Even if I do concur with your conquering mechanic.

Siege sounds like a good half-way point between the "You have to Conquer every Colony as well as every Core World" and "Conquer a Core World and it's Colonies Come For Free! And Instantly! Conquer Core Worlds Now As Colonies Are Standing By To Be Your Slaves!" mechanics.

You position ships around  SnowGoonLand 1, which you know "Feeds" Core World Zergville IV, Zergville IV becomes just that bit easier to invade. Seige SnowGoon Land 2 and it's a bit easier etc etc. You just wait as Zergville IV gets weaker and weaker.

You don't need to change anything/move anything unless your Seige Ships get attacked and you get a UI Notification every Turn from your Minister of War/Whoever does The Killing Of Enemies in your race about the chances of success in invading Zergville IV.