GalCiv II: May Roadmap

Stuff that's coming soon..

By Frogboy on May 7, 2006 9:54:11 AM from

GalCiv II Forums

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+1482

We're glad that people are liking what we've done with Galactic Civilizations II v1.1.

We plan to keep doing updates for quite awhile that add new features and functionality to the game.

The last poll showed >90% of users were happy with the changes we made. But around 8% said they were having some technical issues with it and the team investigated this and found that the extra use of memory to speed up performance on larger galaxies has had some negative side effects on stability for those users. This was especially true on (ironically) saving games where a huge memory allocation is made to speed up saving (which for some people resulted in massively longer save times and then it crashing).

So this week we plan to release a v1.11. The goal being to keep the speed ups but do it without using up extra memory which in turn will hopefully elminate the problems users with small swapfiles ran into.

There will be a full log of what's new in v1.11 before we make it available. We will take the opportunity to incorporate some new AI strategies based on our playing, er I mean, intense, professional analysis of the game's underlying mechanics.

It also has a new option that users can set to have the AI make use of more advanced algorithms that are more CPU intensive for users who are willing to wait a bit longer between turns. This won't be used in v1.11 yet since those new algorithms still have to be written (but I have a good idea of what they'll be).

Once v1.11 is out, we continue on our way to v1.2 which we still intend to get out this month (May). The main new feature of v1.2 has to do with modding. We want to make it trivially easy for users to make use of "total conversion" mods from within the game.

The other significant change to gameplay in v1.2 will be the combat system. Previously, the attacker took their shot and IF the defender survived, they could fire back. This turns out, in practice, to be very de-balancing. On paper (i.e. in the design) it seemed like a good idea.

In v1.2, we're going back to our original GalCiv combat mechanic -- attacker attacks and then defender gets to shoot back and then it looks to see who died. The attacker still has the advantage of being able to pick the time and place of battle but it's no longer quite so overwhelming an advantage and will encourage ships that have (gasp) defenses on it.

Once v1.2 is done, we will start on v1.3. The feature set of that hasn't been thought of. We just read on the forums and see what people would like added. I'm partial to a Galactic Encyclopedia feature. But we'll see what users want.

The point of these updates is to ensure that your hard-earned purchase results in a game that remains fresh and new for as long as we can.

Stay tuned.

Wow, that combat mechanic change is going to make a huge, HUGE difference to the game.

Can't wait

Full credit to you guys for being willing to make such an enormous change at this stage of the game. I think it's the right way to go, the first strike option was far too powerful. It is going to make maintain a planetary siege that much harder though, but then again the repair abilities will become more relevant as attacking fleets will actually start to take damage.

It's going to really make a difference in the campaign.

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I'm partial to a Galactic Encyclopedia feature

Agreed

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What about a hybrid combat mechanism. Say..the first round uses current system (attacker fires, then denfender fires back if he lives) ...then all subsequent rounds use original mechanics (both ships fire and defend same round).

It might give attacker the advantage and still maintain game balance. ( I haven't really thought about it beyond this).

Good work so far guys and gal.

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Focus more on the diplomacy aspect.

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I have the following suggestions for future versions:

1) Fix the escape key to close the topmost window, if there is one.

2) Make it impossible to start with. or trade for, any technology, without its prerequisites. Several races start with Ion Drive and Stellar Cartoography, without the previous technology. Additionaly it is contrary to the story line for any race to start with anything netter than the basic Hyperdrive

3) Make the individual components on core ships visible. When a core ship is upgraded, removing a component causes NO VISIBLE CHANGES. I would further suggest that the core ships be exactly replicable by using standard "extra" components,

4) Have each race start with ZERO available ability points in its default configuration.

5) Fix the (expletive deleted) line editor.

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The main one i can see at present is to get the 'make Homeworld' button actually work

At present selecting this button from your colony management screen does zip

My best guess is that it should transfer the civ capital to that planet, along with the bonuses this brings. However at the moment it does not work. I have submitted this as a bug on numerous occasions but have yet to see a fix for this! Please either get this feature working or remove the button from the colony management screen.

Thanks DG

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I'd like to see some UI fixes too to make the game more fluent to play. Like when selecting and moving ships you don't always know what they're going to do, which ship actually is going to move. Also sometimes when I make a group of ships sometimes the game deselects the whole fleet, sometimes not. Also the rally point window seems to open with a delay. It might open after I close the screen where I pushed that button to set a rally point. Pretty hard to describe all this stuff, but to me it's fairly annoying.

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I guess I am still curious - what were the results of the multiplayer poll? Cuz I know *I* voted yes

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The main one i can see at present is to get the 'make Homeworld' button actually work

To prevent cheese, the conversion of initial colony to civ capital should consume social points as well, like how we upgrade other buildings.

One desired feature that I see frequently requested and I think won't need too much resource to do is to allow focusing to be done on the colony list screen. e.g., highlight the corresponding table entry of each planet that has focus on. To turn them on and off, can right click on that entry for each planet.

To carry the idea further, perhaps if we right click on any of the colony list's production header (mil, soc, res), it allows us to focus 100% into that area. i.e., a shortcut equivalent to going to the economy tab and pushing one of the production slider to 100%.

A branch-off from the above idea is to have the ability to control the production sliders IN the colony list interface. I always switch between F4 and F6 to tweak my productions to minimize overspendings.

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Somewhere a long time ago I read that one of the patches might include a way to actually place your race logo on your ships. Thats pretty much the only thing I would be excited about after the 1.1 patch. This extra creative option would be fantastic if used like jewelry, capable of resizing and rotating and mounted on hard points.

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2) Make it impossible to start with. or trade for, any technology, without its prerequisites. Several races start with Ion Drive and Stellar Cartoography, without the previous technology. Additionaly it is contrary to the story line for any race to start with anything netter than the basic Hyperdrive

Disagree. Ion Drive is just Hyperdrive with an added Iondrive. Allmost all races had space traveling for some thousend years before humanity invented the hyperdrive. They allready had iondrive, but it wasn't much use without the hyperdrive.

Also it would be even more unbalancing if everyone besides the Terrans would get Xeno Research.

Aahh! My favourite chees tactic removed... now, how should I win on Suicidal again?

Good choice, Stardock. This was one of the biggest obstacle for a harder AI enemy.

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Personally what I would like for the patch v1.2 would be an overall improvement on the UI part, which has some serious issues at the moment. There are several threads on the forum which talk about this and I would love if those suggestion would be incorporated.

As for a galactic encyclopedia.... W00t! as my researchers would say.

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Combat change sounds great, although i was thinking an initiative thing might be an idea eg total all the ships logistics value of a fleet eg 2 fighters and 2 heavy fighters would be logistics 10 devide by amount of ships in this case 4=2.5 vs 1 frigate and 1 heavy fighter =4+3=7 logistics/2 = 3.5. The lowest end value would attack first this would give advantage to fleets of lots of small ships signifying manaurvourbility. Anyway just an idea...

CPU thing sounds great and further upgrades to AI are the things I most want, also no stealing/trading tech through any means without pre-requisite techs.

Also adjustable difficulty levels would be very nice the currrent gap between crippling and maso is much to big in my opinion crippling should be much harder or a new level inserted.

Lenius.

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The most important new feature to add would be a decent editor like the previous version had.

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Hell yes! Finally, my wonderful defence ships and 50% defence bonus are going to be useful! Bwahahahaha, I shall crush you all!

...When I finally get off tough

But a serious question. If defences are now being made more valuable, will this bring about any changes to the Drath? I mean, they get the good defences and that big bonus. I can, very easily, already make single ships that take out entire navy's without losing more than 10% of my hitpoints. If my attackers now have less of an advantage, will this make the Drath bonus lowered?

And have you sorted out any of those pre-made mods yet?

EDIT: Another thing that came to me afterwards were a few more ideas for the UP (I don't claim to have come up with them, I'm sure I've read them before), things like a voted economic sanction, perhaps forced expulsions (It happened in the league of nations) or a galactic state of war. Say a vote is taken, and you choose to ally yourself against the "criminal" race, or go with the the persucted race, get an automatic alliance, and begin war (Like the Serbian-Austrian conflict which sparked WW1). It's a shame that there aren't really many issues with the UP, and galaxy-changing issues really should be in their somewhere.

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Hey, aren't you supposed to be on holiday Frogboy?

Would it be possible to have an "official 1.3 wanted features" thread? It would make sure everybody's requests, ideas and opinions are seen, and prevent the forums getting cluttered.

Since it doesn't exist yet, you won't mind me mentioning my top request...

Can we please have an option to prevent ship designs carrying over from one game to the next? Clearing out the folder is a work around, but only if you don't want to go back to an older save.

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Galactic Encyclopeadia all the way and then make the dicovery screen pop-up more discrete, something like civ4. In my opinion it kind of disrupts gameplay especially if you have discoveries every 4 turns

. Thanks Frogboy and team

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Achronus, try 2 discoveries per turn. That gets to be annoying

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This is a pretty good idea as it maitains the tactical element of battle rather than just creating lots of huge fleets knowing they will survive even if attacked first. It also means that small vessels ambushed by other fleets will have a harder time than bigger ships which makes sense.

This is also a good idea and (it would seem) a more balanced alternative to the above. Although, what happens if initiative is the same for both fleets?

In one of the stinger tech blurbs it talks about range being improved. Should this be included. That would replace both of the above issues. The higher ranged weapon would get to fire first meaning ships from both sides might have a mixed order if each were differently armed.

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I'm partial to a Galactic Encyclopedia feature. But we'll see what users want.

That would be a very nice addition ! It is kind of missing. Please do.

Suggestions:

This feature can also be used to "flesh out" a lot of things.
I would very much like to see some kind of a (long?)"future history" of
the different races/universe, maybe some pages of text and some timeline
or else.

Likewise all technologies could be fleshed out with this feature.
(Like the robot but possibly more elaborate, some added artwork
to illistrate the event, b/w scetches.....)

Possibly not all viewable at once but as research progresses
more and more is revealed.

Style (good/neutral/evil or per race) in Interfaceart, font and wording(one can wish)

As an idea, it may also be utilized for more (text)bonusmaterial in future patches.
e.g.
-derelict ship discovered with full databanks revealing history of the dreadlords
or anything else. (can be added in as soon as textmaterial is available)
-history of great battles (based on player aar ?)
-kind of short stories (player submitted), during research some incredible things happened,

Once v1.2 is done, we will start on v1.3. The feature set of that hasn't been thought of.

humble suggestions...

-more events (also more of the nice artwork illustrating them)
-invasion combat screen more interesting

Could not resist....

Otherwise,...carry on

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Its been said before, but I would definitely like more interactivity with the UP. Half the time it seems like the proposals put out are just to screw with the player.

Another thing mentioned before that would be nice is more interactive diplomacy. All its good for now is basically trading. It would be nice if we could send hate or love messages like the AI does to us, and they actually responded to it somehow. The old get out of my space messages, or your momma smells like an ancient Arcean kinda of thing. It would be fun to taunt the AI to make them angry with you (especially if you can squash them like a bug). Maybe you could offer your first born son to avoid war. Something more than the bland old trading. As it is now, there just isn't much character to the galaxy and it would be nice if there were a bit more.

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cant wait for the mod-folder to fully work. the combat-system changes are interesting.

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Noes, youll be nerfing my uber dreadnought-battlewagon fleet of grand-ganking doom!

O well, I'm sure its for the best... still it was fun conquering planets like toppling so many bowling pins

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Lol, 2 discoveries per turn, the bane of my existence Marcathonas

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I know you are planning on fixing the Mouse "pushing" into the corners of the screen to work properly, but I just wanted to remind you so it does not get lost in process.

Thanks for listening to your users and fans.

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You could incorporate some MTG (magic the gathering) type combat modifiers: First Strike, and Double Strike. First strike would be a bonus of small and tiny hulls vs large and huge hulls (with proper component) double strike would be a medium component.

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