GalCiv II: v1.1 preview

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

GalCiv II: v1.1 preview

Here's what's in store..

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords v1.1 is in development. We've got a lot of new features planned. The list below is by no means comprehensive. It's just some of the things we're focusing on:

The ability to set a given planet as a technology, research, ship building or balanced planet, . NOT like the overall focus. It would literally add a 9% boost to a given type (or 3%, 3%, 3%).
Color coded the hammers/etc. based on whether they are bonus or not. Then on mouse over, which by then should be very nice, we can display where these numbers come from.
On game setup, have an option to simply set up how many players you want to play against and have it randomly pick who you’re playing with.
On game setup, have a checkbox that says "Randomize intelligence". The result would be that the game difficulty would be used to distribute the intelligence points. Example: I could select "Tough" and then have this checkbox selected and it would look at the # of players and the total number of intelligent points it takes to have tough and then distribute it out so that some are smarter than others (up to a 30% difference between intelligences).
Lots of tweaks to the context window UIs which we’ll be discussing how best to do it.
Fleet Manager screen.
An option to show auto pilot ships destinations on map with a very very faint line (dotted preferably if possible) where they are going. Ala the trade routes.
When selecting a constructor, have a very very faint circle that shows the area of effect a starbase would have.
MAJORLY updated AI (not to make it tougher, to make it smarter at higher levels and dumber -- i.e. poor strategies -- at lower levels)
Additional ship extras for more ship options
Bug fixes of various kinds
Approval Rating > 75% gives you a 5% boost to production. Approval rating < 40% has a -5% affect on production. Players won't be charged for this bonus production.
Ability to rotate ship components in the Ship Designer
Dynamic logo components - brand your ships with your insignia
Enhanced context menus for managing stacked ships and fleets
Starbase modules pruned/tweaked
Unused Social Spending routed to military spending (or back to treasury if nothing is being used)
New ship components
UI for selecting MODS/Total Conversions
Updated Scoring System
No Tech Trading option
New maps and scenarios
Various tweaks to economics, costs, etc.

Update: Free-form ship component rotation and resizing after being placed added. Very cool in action!

We expect to have this out by the end of the month. It'll be free for all customers of Galactic Civilizations II -- now at a store near you.

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Hey Brad,

I don't mean to bug you, but what about this suggestion for tech trading that was made by "erico" on the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic on 3/4/06:

> Put in a slider with which the player can specify what percentage of total
> research points may be acquired by trade. For example, assume that the
> total research points of all the techs an AI has is 10,000 points. If the
> player selected 50%, then at most 5000 of those points could have been
> acquired by trade. The other 5000 would have to have been researched by
> the AI. The same restriction applies to the player, of course. In this
> example, for every 1000 research points worth of techs a civilization acquired on
> its own, it could go out and trade for another 1000 research points worth of
> tech.

I'm sure that there are many many ideas and possibilities for how to put some granularity into tech trading; if you and the team are putting in a checkbox to turn it off completely for the meantime, then I understand that completely, I too have noticed several threads on the forum where people are screaming bloody murder about it. I would like to hear if a slider was going to be considered in the next dot release (1.2? 1.3?).

Thanks.

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> Put in a slider with which the player can specify what percentage of total
> research points may be acquired by trade. For example, assume that the
> total research points of all the techs an AI has is 10,000 points. If the
> player selected 50%, then at most 5000 of those points could have been
> acquired by trade. The other 5000 would have to have been researched by
> the AI. The same restriction applies to the player, of course. In this
> example, for every 1000 research points worth of techs a civilization acquired on
> its own, it could go out and trade for another 1000 research points worth of
> tech.

Yes, a slider would be cool.

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Cool, keep tweaking and adding to he game plase !

Also...why do the Yor need farms, and why do they reproduce? instead of farms they should build seomthing like (Yor factory) so they can increase their numbers...
Will de AI defend theur transports now?

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1.1. sounds quite good to me. Can't wait to get that update

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I agree with a couple of comments above (that I skimmed briefly).

I'd prefer to see a more restrained and logical version of tech trading rather than no tech trading. Maybe only have trading techs be good for a shortened research time on the given tech or something (and keep the computer from trading every tech with every other AI player).

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Sounds awesome! Would like to see what enhancements will be made to the AI once you guys get that nailed down (planet utilization, ship design).

Also, the specialized planet bonuses are interesting but you should have the net bonus be zero. ie, if you are specializing in research have +6% there but -3% in social and military. You should always have tradeoffs not just positives. That would also eliminate the need for the balanced planet category. Will these new categories be used by the sort function in the planet list window?????

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Whoa.

All I can say. Stardock RULES.

I do have a suggestion for 1.2 though.

You see I love when the aliens send me a message. When I get that "Your starbase is a little too close and is making us a bit worried. And congrats on the name, Military starbase 1023 is superb." or warning that they have heard rumors that I'm going to attack them, its a awesome feeling. Its things like that which make me forget completely that I'm fighting a well written code, I almost want to yell out "Curses! Foiled again!" when they send me a message explaining how they saw through me and now are going to crush me (and I actually have yelled that out … among various profanity when they follow through with that threat).

What I would love would be the ability to send messages like that. Click on an influence starbase the Terrans built in my space and have a button I can click that lets me send a message about that starbase. Give me three possible messages (one being the evil militarist message: get rid of it or we will remove it for you, the neutral: we see that and are not happy but wont rip out your throats yet, and the good: in the hopes of maintaining good relations we ask you to respect our borders) and let me see how the AI responds (Forget you, We'll think about it, Sorry about that). Could also have the same option when you click on an alien fleet that’s been near your border for a while and is practically drooling over your worlds.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

There are LOTs of cool ideas out there. But only so many can be done in a week.

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I have not played GC1 in a while but IF my memory doesnot betray me, I think we had the option to tell the AI to remove their starbases and ships from "OUR" territory or sphere of influence.

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Just read the features list for 1.1.

And I have just one thing to say:

We're not worthy!

You guys are just, like, totally amazing!

You spoil us. I know I'm going to be very depressed the next time I'm dealing with a dev who's basic response is usually "We released the game, it runs and doesn't CTD too much, what more do you want?"

I bow before your godly awesomeness and shall sacrifice my firstborn to you (right now in fact - Hey Timmy!)

(don't worry - no first born to sacrifice)

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Questions:

Will no tech trading mean that tech will not be able to change hands ever? (either by threats or by spying).

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What it means is that you cannot trade techs with the AI for money or other techs, but you can still get your hands in them by conquering planets or by spying (not sure about spying). Dunno about threats, any devs around?

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Awesome! Can't wait

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# When selecting a constructor, have a very very faint circle that shows the area of effect a starbase would have.

yes please!!

# Approval Rating > 75% gives you a 5% boost to production. Approval rating < 40% has a -5% affect on production. Players won't be charged for this bonus production.

is this when overall AR reaches 75% or for any planet?

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Awesome announcement! javascript:editor_insertHTML('PageTheme__Right__ctl0__ucCommentForm_comments_txtBody','

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nice changes.

its hard to learn for finals when all you can think about is playing "just a couple more turns".

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Ok so why aren't there many user created ships being shared or available for download ? I'm thinking it's probably because there isn't an easy way to do this or it isn't well published how to do this.

I don't know if this is feasible or possible but one idea that struck me as kind of obvious and that would galvanize a crazy ship building community that is already out there (just check out that ship threadLink ) is if there was a Custom Ship Manager that can be accessed from the Menu outside of loading a game.

This Custom Ship Manager should make it easy for us to load up custom designed ships and manage which ones we want to appear in a particular game (instead of having all the user ships available at one time which can be overwhelming in a game). It would give a point and click interface to a procedure that right now is a bit round about to install ships, which is extracting the files to particular folders etc. The Custom Ship Manager wouldn't have to be in the game but can be accessed through the main menu.

Another useful feature might be some type of checking utility that would tell the player what files they are missing if they're trying to install a custom ship.
Ability to access the Shipyard or a Shipyard like Utility with full library of hulls, jewels, etc outside of the game IE not having to create a map and game to do this.
Error-checking mechanism so that we can check to see if our designs will show up in the game and at what stage (required hulls/weapons).

Deleting unwanted Mods and custom ship downloads.

Perhaps another feature would be it could connect to the web and right into the downloads section of the website's Library and players could upload and download easily. Right now all I see is 3 downloads in the "Ship" section of the library which is funny because I know for sure there are so many ships out there that really creative and artistic users have created that a bunch of people would love to download and use in the game but don't know how or can't get access to it (b/c the creators don't know how to upload their creations).

I think the long-term benefits of making it easier for the ship building community would be tremondous not only in adding more value and enjoyment but also increasing customer loyalty. I hate bringing up other game's as an example but I must say the Skin and objects community of the Sims is really strong and I think that's because they provided the community with really easy to use utilities that made integrating user created works into the game very easy to do.

-my 2 cents,
ehnProdigy

*This was a repost from the forums that didn't get any replies and I thought it'd be applicable here* Looks like a lot of the changes in 1.1 is heading towards this direction which is great!

p.s. I apologize in advance if some or all of these features are already in the game and I just happen to not know about it.

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Cool, keep tweaking and adding to he game plase !
Also...why do the Yor need farms, and why do they reproduce? instead of farms they should build seomthing like (Yor factory) so they can increase their numbers...
Will de AI defend theur transports now?

Haven't you read the description of the Yor they were designed to have their energy from foods and yordont necessarly reproduce mabye there's a Yor building facility in the homeworld/colony capitals.

Here is a suggestion make democratic forms of governement reduce the cost of maintenance of colony capitals (the more you advance in that the lower is the cost), because they're less dependant of the homeworld.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

I hate to nitpick, and I like the no tech trading option, but I'd like to see a middle ground option as well

How about each time you tech trade, you lose 1% of your research bonus pernamently? (simulating lack of innovation)
Or maybe, how about each time you tech trade, you have to pay a transfer cost of tech value in weeks it would take you to research*100 bc to "integrate the tech into your infrastructure". I think that alone would be enough to slow down rampant trading. Have the AI figure the cost into its trading algorithm, and you're set.

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Add something with spying to steal tech the more you invest the higher the chances to get a tech and add how much tech you can steal from that civilization so you won't waste money on a no tech avaible civi;ization.

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Bug fixes of various kinds

I'd sure like to see this bullet expanded. What fixes can we expect? Don't need to detail every minor fix, but it would be nice to see what bugs you are working on.

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How about replacing the spending slider and 3 sliders to allocate the spending with:
1) 1 slider to set the research output
2) 1 slider to set the factory output
3) 1 slider to allocate the factory output between ship and planetary improvements
Brad suggested diverting unused social production to ship building if not building planetary improvements but what about the reverse, diverting ununsed military production to social production if not building ships. If not building ships or planetary improvements then the money goes back to the treasury.

What about these shipyard UI suggestions: Link

"Additional ship extras for more ship options"

What do you mean by ship extras?

"Starbase modules pruned/tweaked"

Please, when upgrading starbases mining resources go +5, +7, +10, +13 ... instead of +2, +3, +5, +10 ...

"Updated Scoring System"

Would you please document how scores are calculated?

Some nice new features!

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Military points if not used are automaticaly sended back to treasury

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You may want to put "Randomnize Intelligence Spread" (i.e. add the Spread word) so that its less confusing. My first take on seeing something titled "Randomize Intelligence" would be that I would get 100% random opponents from the worst to the best. Which some poeple would probably like, but its the behavior you described for that option

BTW, I love galciv2. So much good stuff.

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YO BRAD.. How bout the captain idea. Since we can already name our ships, give us some extra space so we can put a captain's name in there, say at the bottom of a ship name. i don't know about you all, but I like making my ship personal.

SINCE I am the God and Overlord of my entire Empire, I would like to know the guy who's in charge of my ships so I know what family to hang if he dare loses a battle.

(makes for an immersive rp experience)

SO Watayasay?!?

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