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Galactic Civilizations II: 1.1 BETA released

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Galactic Civilizations II: 1.1 BETA released

Feeling dangerous?

http://stardock.cachefly.net/GalCiv2_110_beta_032406.exe
from GalCiv2 Forums

Feeling really dangerous tonight? We've got the BETA of v1.1 now available to download. Don't know what a beta is? Don't know if you should download this? Then don't. :)

To find out what we've added, tweaked, enhanced, fixed, etc. you can read the [full history here]. That history is just what's new in 1.1 beta over 1.0X.  If it's not listed in there, we didn't do it yet. We have other things we plan to do with 1.1 (such as the modding features) and then that'll be 1.1.  Other stuff will go into the next free update.

Some screenshots:

 

 

[What's New]

52,601 views 65 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In view of the slowing down of population increase, the initial colony ship should start out full instead of only 1/5 full.
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've also noticed that AIs are pretty darn aggressive in 1.1. I played on Painful, and after a year or so, 2 races declared war on me in the same turn (killing a few trade routes). Not to worry, I could easily fend off those two races - in fact, I had been about to declare war and assimilate the Altarians when they decided I was so weak that they would destroy me. Two turns later, a couple more AIs declared war on me. Now I was in trouble... I pumped out freighters and filled out my 7 trade routes with the single remaining major power, and hunkered down.

Ten turns later, I had killed the 150+ ships sent my way, with about 5 losses. Then the last major (Torians) decided my 7 trade routes were unimportant, and declared war on me also. Then the Andersonians (or whatever that minor race is named) declared war on me too, and sent a series of 8 fighters to attack and die on my nearby influence starbase, before suing for peace (I had never even threatened them...)

Essentially, I never bothered anyone (except for my starbase near Anders), I could have singlehandedly annihilated any other major (and indeed, I conquered 3/4 Altarian planets while under attack from 4 majors), and yet everyone in the universe gang-banged me, no matter how much trade they were doing with me, or how many ships everyone else smashed to bits on my impenetrable defenses.

Pretty annoying. Why don't they attack each other sometimes?

I also noticed the wierd freighter thing. 2 or 3 of the AIs clustered freighters all around my home system before finally deciding to attack. At which point I killed their freighters, but... why build freighters when you have enough trade routes?
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you're going to beat me senseless for asking this, please use puppies to do so (cutest available).

OK, now that I'm either safe and/or in the company of vicious sadists like myself, I'll ask, any prediction on a release date for the final 1.1 patch? I've done betas before but I'm wary. I'd rather see this patch in its final form so I can be totally wowwed instead of just mostly wowwed.
Reply #54 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Saber Cherry ,

Maybe the computers thought you were too strong. You were wiping out everyone afterall. So why not gang-up and attack? It was their only hope for survively apparently.

If you saw a strong computer attacking another computer, wouldn't you want to carve out a little piece of one of their empires?
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Re: the transfer of "empty" social production to military production, it is absolutely critical that the player be able to know how many build points will be put towards his ship when he hits the "turn" button. Knowing where it all comes from, while nice, isn't as important as knowing that you have 52 points per week going towards a ship that takes 101 points to build.

Ideally, your points per week, the total points put into a ship / improvement thus far, and the remaining points needed for completetion should all be visible together in the same place, next to the item being built. Hell, this is data that would be emminently useful even in the zoomed-out galactic view when a planet is selected.

It should be very easy to understand why this data is crucial: it's precisely what we need to know to avoid wasteful spending, the very issue that you're ever-so-kindly working hard to address.

As it stands now, this is very difficult to gauge. In the planetary screen, the build points listed under "military" simply do not update accurately as the variables are modified. Adding or removing items in the social que does nothing to this number, for example. The ship in the top right corner might have an eta of "2 weeks" listed, but will that number will often be innacurate, and you can't easily figure out how many points were put into it, or how many are yet needed for completion.

The underlying issue behind the forum outrcy on spending-waste was the desire for a system that allows for us to avoid wasteful behavior. Unless (and until) the UI allows us as players to easily and accurately set to spending a factor of the ship's total cost (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc), the issue underlying the forum outcry will not have been addressed.

Conservation of build points between turns (in the manner of research point conservation already employed) would be a great boon toward to players (and will hopefully be added at some point), but even that cannot substitute for a clean UI that addresses the issues laid out above.

I hope this post is taken as "productive" criticism, for I don't intend anything within it to be taken harshly.

Keep up the good work.
Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Crash report for what it's worth: The Instruction at 0x0076c9a8 referenced memory at 0x0606c8a0. The memory could not be written. Second Crash today. Gonna go back to 1.09.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The beta crashes if you select a variable number of opposing races.
Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
AI gangs up on player character.

AI should attack 1-2 civs at once not 3-4.

If there is an AI weaker than the player the AI should declare war on said weaker AI. (instead of just decalring war on the player just for being the player which is what it seems to do now.)

I agree on alot of what the others have said posted here. ^
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
AI gangs up on player character.

AI should attack 1-2 civs at once not 3-4.

If there is an AI weaker than the player the AI should declare war on said weaker AI. (instead of just decalring war on the player just for being the player which is what it seems to do now.)

I agree on alot of what the others have said posted here. ^


The AI doesn't know who is "the player" and who are "other AI". So it can't gang up on you, that is pretty much guaranteed.

What is happening is that the AI are much more sensitive now to certain strategies. It will check for ships being near its borders and away from your planets, it will decide that your military is weak (even if only a little bit), it will see your influence as a bigger threat, etc. Basically, all of the things that it did before, but now it thinks of it as being a much bigger deal. As a result, it hates you, and virtually everyone else more than ever. This is why it will get into 3-4 ways wars, not that it is any more aggressive, and is also why you will see a lot of AIs declaring war on you. Granted, it should try to prioritize a little more, and take into accout that it is too busy to start yet another war with someone it hates a little better and try to negotiate with those he hates less, but it's just a beta, so tweaking this is probably happening right now.

Personally, I think it's kind of fun, all the chaos is pretty sweet, no longer can you just sit there and make everyone happy with you by sending a trade route their way. You don't have to ally with a minor race just to get into random wars any more. It does make diplomatic victory pretty much hell, and culture victory only possible when you have clean up most of the galaxy. Otherwise though, it's actually pretty fun.
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You don't have to ally with a minor race just to get into random wars any more

What minor races? On the diffculty i'm playing on they don't last very long.
Reply #61 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

AI makes no distinction between human and computer. It doesn't "gang up" on someone because they're sentient.

Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Anyone having a problem with trying to quick buy a building? I try to buy a building and it says 0 weeks remaining in the build queue. It stays like that forever...doesn't leave the queue and sometimes doesn't give me the benefit of the building.

Is this fixed in the 1.1 beta? What to do...what to do.
Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I see alot of people post on being gang banged by the computer. Simple fact is your probably not watching your charts. Every race has a report page that shows the +'s and -'s in your relationships. Your all being attacked most likely early on for having very few military ships built. The A.I. assumes with no fleet to defend your a cakewalk and the fact you are at war with someone else who shows as stronger than you makes others join in the fun.
Your whiping the A.I brutally with only 1 fleet of ships? Your military still shows weak so he bribes others to help him. The A.I isnt warmonger your apparent weakness is simply chumming the waters for attack. If your pounding the A.I on painful play higher A.I. difficulties and change up the galaxy options. Have an ironclad method to win mining resources? make them ultra rare. I am not saying the A.I. doesnt need a little tweeking but I think alot of you need to look at all the information available and see if the why of something is being shown to you. It makes A.I. tweeking easier too. It is possible the A.I isnt seeing your production ability, Military starbases and tech lvl as big enough threats when deciding to attack or not. I do suggest though providing more information than "everyone attacks me for no reason".
Reply #64 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Has anyone else noticed that the social production race pick isn't working anymore?
Reply #65 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, from the sound of things, I'm a little worried about the 1.1 version. I agree, the fact that it's BETA means that there will be bugs for now...that's neither here nor there...they'll be fixed by these folks I'm sure. My biggest concerns are "slow performance" and the tweaked population algorithm.
Slow speed is just a killer (let's face it, that's one of the knocks about MULTIPLAYER). If the performance is going to suffer, you can imagine what would happen on marginal machines - and that is a group they tried to address with the fairly low-level system requirements originally.
The population tweak it seems was intended to eliminate the "colony rush" issue. Well, now it seems that it's not really fixed, it just sucks in a different way altogether! Apparently, SOME civilizations can still populate at high enough rates that THEY can bum-rush to the stars, but not the Terans. I really think that having a population growth slider as one of the early options would allow players to adjust the population algorithm in a way that they were comfortable with...you know, just like those players that would rather play without TECH TRADING.
The way things are, and they way GALCIV players are posting right now, I think I'll just stay with my 1.0X version. I just don't think an improved ship designer is worth all of this grief.