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GalCiv II: v1.1 preview

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GalCiv II: v1.1 preview

Here's what's in store..

from GalCiv2 Forums

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.

115,245 views 223 replies
Reply #151 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Brad, any news on the "4 starbases per sector rule"? Is this one coming with 1.1?


BOOOO! DT no like caps on starbases. There is something beautiful about ringing a couple of planets with 6 or more econ starbases and being able to make any social improvement or ship in a couple of turns.

Although I wouldn't mind econ starbases somehow making planets produce more credits or costing less, you know help out the econ of the planet rather than production.
Reply #152 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great list of improvements.

the asyncronous hardpoints is annoying....

update terrorstar/starbase lingo in game (currently the tech says, allows starbases to become flagships... or somthing like that

any possibility of having habitable moons? or slightly more complex looking star systems as an option?

it would be interesting to build something like a drone fighter base on a moon that could boost ship attack and such, or even sensor outposts, they would have to be 'surveyed' to be detected by AI
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Reply #153 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
+ Sensor range capped at 15 tiles. Significant performance issues if it gets much bigger than that (> 1 sector)


sigh... if it's technical limitation, I suppose it can not be helped... guess i will have to live with fast ships on "autoretreat"

on the other hand, is it at least possible then, to indicate this in the game (especially ship designer?) - this is why I thought it was a bug: the ship designer says 32 but I only get 15 in the real world.

in any case, I havn't been singing enough praises: I have been putting too much time into this game to be coming up with such a long list, I think. Not sure if I should love or hate the dev team for this...
Reply #154 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Please, Please, Please, Fix the Main Window Scroll work when you push the Mouse into the corners of the screen.

Also, please consider making the Arrow Keys so they can be remapped for window movement.


I also vote for this one. Lots of great updates coming up but I must say I'm a bit worried not seeing "remappin of cursor keys" in it. This has been requested many times in this forum. I know that some of you have found the "dragging map with mouse" style to be usefull but having "remapping" feature for us woudn't hurt your gameplay at all... so it is pointless and waste of forum to post comments like this one:

toothless just click and drag its faster.


Dragging the main map with mouse is simply not working for me. Also hope that there is a fix for the function of enter/esc keys when it comes to the closing of windows.
Reply #155 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It'd be nice if the increased reproduction rate and aprohodisaic actually did something. Right now it's so easy to reach the cap there really isn't much of a point to it. Maybe if they just raised the cap or something? Or maybe there should be a disclaimer that the trait will make your morale go out of control due to overpopulation. Just something to think about.
Reply #156 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You're giving us the ability to "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. "
Will you also give us the option to disable the colour coded influence overlay on the mini map until we meet the randomly generated opponents. There's not much point in not knowing who you're fighting if you know who you're fighting on turn 1. Kind of ruins the surprise.
Reply #157 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It'd be nice if the increased reproduction rate and aprohodisaic actually did something. Right now it's so easy to reach the cap there really isn't much of a point to it. Maybe if they just raised the cap or something? Or maybe there should be a disclaimer that the trait will make your morale go out of control due to overpopulation. Just something to think about.


I remember frogboy saying that population growth bonuses were to be fixed applying the bonuses before implementing the cap instead of after.In this way we can play as Torians with population bomb strategy 30% bonus, 10% morale, aphrodisiac without implementation of the cap you will have really a crazy reproduction rate.
Reply #158 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Will you also give us the option to disable the colour coded influence overlay on the mini map until we meet the randomly generated opponents. There's not much point in not knowing who you're fighting if you know who you're fighting on turn 1. Kind of ruins the surprise


I agree with that.
Reply #159 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is my first stardock game - and I am impressed by the Stardock's desire to use the suggestions of the players - quickly and effectively. Agame developer with out an attitude of "We know best" is very cool. Can't wait.
Reply #160 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Will you also give us the option to disable the colour coded influence overlay on the mini map until we meet the randomly generated opponents. There's not much point in not knowing who you're fighting if you know who you're fighting on turn 1. Kind of ruins the surprise.



Good Point. Probably the most painless way to implement this surprise while leaving most of the code intact is to have the computer players have their colours randomized.

Dano
Reply #161 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can I agree with the two people a bit further up and third the suggestion to have the starship designer a seperate .exe?
it would be great to have the spaceship viewable in a bigger window whilst designing it!

cheers me dears
Guy
Reply #162 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No tech trading option? What is meant by this? I like trading technologies for cash and or giving them to my friends and foes.


It means that you can deactivate the trade tech option, you don't have to do it, if you don't want it is optional, heck no, I love to trade.
Reply #163 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Now is my time to complain, stop doing so many changes, by the end of the month this is going to look like GC 3, you are running out of options for next GC3, so no more changes!!!! (Just kidding.... ).
Reply #164 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very very faint this, very very faint that. Please, think of the people with bad eyesight
Reply #165 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I looked through 100 hundred comments and couldnt see this mentoined, apologies if i missed it:
I think the galactic news screen could use some improvement. it shouldnt be called a 'news' screen unless it shows things of interest that you might not be aware of such as the fact that 2 civilizations have just gone to war. Its good to keep track of things youve just made and destroyed etc so maybe this should type of info should have a separate screen.
I appreciate the popups that tell you a civ is paying another tributes to avoid war but more gossip would be nice. Gives you the feeling that things are going on around you!

Also i have a problem creating fleets sometimes, does anyone else?
Reply #166 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here another idea for the next version: create a starport upgrade path like other buildings have. you could combine the defense buildings like the orbital fleet manager with a advance version of the starport that way I won't have to waste a tile on building it.
Reply #167 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What I'd like to see;
More tooltips. At the moment there are very few tooltips so I'm making quite a lot of my decisions in the dark especially in the beginning. I think that a few more tooltips would help newer players get into the game and reduce the flaming due to people not understanding why certain things happen.
Ship design accessible from the menu with all techs available. Sometimes I love to design really cool ships without having to reasearch everything or start a new game specially.
Transferable ship designs. I think it would be really awesome if instead of having to make my own ships I could just download someone elses design or if you've just built a really cool ship it would be easier to show off. Maybe this is already possible, if so then could you advertise where to get the files (maybe create a thread with screenshots and files, no comments allowed).
Slightly more control over the battle sequence. Which ship to target first, different ship formations with bonuses or maybe even kamikaze/running away options.
Better ai. It's good but I doubt you'll ever get to the stage where every level is perfect. I've seen races that I'm at war with go the long way round my undefended transports which I accidentally parked next to them, also the ai cannot utilise or defend against fast ships effectively. I'd really love a game where the ai was a challenge even when not cheating so if you could keep on improving the ai that would be great.
Not to be able to see area of influene on the minimap until you've found that civilizations capital. I feel that it gives too much away but then again it does mean that you know immediately if you're stuck in a corner and need to take desperate measures.
Improve the UP. I'd like to see the UP voting on two treaties per year and also have more control over what they are (maybe you should be able to pay corruption money to try and have a certain treaty voted on, the highest payment decides which treaty is voted on) also to be able to see what treaties are beforehand and try to buy other civs votes would be good (with a high enough espionage).

That said I'm really looking forward to the social production not getting wasted any more so thanks for the changes so far.
Reply #168 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
hmmm....it would be nice to have some "starbase management" screen, so you know what bases got which modules, so its a bit easier to keep track of them.

anyways great work stardock - you're probably the most caring dev I've ever encountered in the gaming industry ...
Reply #169 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
These changes look really good. Excellent game and arguably the best after community support of any game developer out there right now.

As for an additional option, how about the ability to adjust the default starting funds on a Normal scenario? I like to play with a starting bc of 1000 instead of the default. The ability to adjust that to a custom setting would be great.
Reply #171 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As of this moment, just one minor request:

Alter the Dread Lords on Parade scenario to allow playing a race besides the Terrans.
Reply #172 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would REALLY like to see some kind of ship management option. The way it is right now things can get a bit messy. For example i want to be able to put all my prototypes (ships with nothing but cosmetics) in a single category so they don't appear when i want to build something else. Maybe you can create categories like fighters, battleships, unarmed ships etc.
Oh, and when i delete a ship i want it to dissapear from ALL my games FOREVER! Please make it so that getting rid of a ship isn't such a pain in the butt!
Reply #173 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
create a starport upgrade path like other buildings have. you could combine the defense buildings like the orbital fleet manager with a advance version of the starport that way I won't have to waste a tile on building it.


I like this idea ALOT. Looking at it from the human point of view, it saves us a tile. But I think that this would REALLY benefit the AI. Assuming the the AI's have the same sort of 'self-queing upgrades' as human do, then the orbital manager would get added to a planets build list as soon as it became available. Since the AI tends to concentrate ships at planets, this would make it much harder to clear the way for transports.
Reply #174 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I request a review of starting bonuses in hopes that you'll comment on or at least update the values. I'll list -

1) Population Growth Bonus - this is capped by the game rendering this pick not worthwhile

2) PQ bonus - only affects the homeworld. please apply that to the all the planets or at least say it only affects the homeworld.

3) Research bonus - is only half as effective as what's listed.. you think you're getting 50% but its only 25... again I'm asking for either you making it 50 or having the picks reflect what they really are.

Thanks.
Reply #175 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great patch.
I assume some buys is fixed in this patch that might not have been mentioned.

Some suggestions for the next one that I personally like:

More interactivity with the races, especially on the diplomacy screens - things like to 'stop building starbases in my star systems', or 'get your ships removed from my territory', or 'this (minor) race is under my protection' etc. As sometimes I can't convey my thoughts across without starting a war or them repeating the same mistake.

Trading via finance would be nice. I like it if a race could pay an initial desposit and then something every week for a year or something.