lack of planets/ habitable planets v1.8

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hello all,

I know there was a planet cap put into the maps now, of which I disagree with because to those people who don't like the slow down with the whole galaxy covered could just play on smaller galaxies, however that's not my call and even though I'm not happy with it I somewhat can understand it. Now every game I've started or tried to start I've seen a lack of panets near my location or a lack of habitable planets near my starting location.

Even though I've loaded numerous games I've only actually played a turn on three all three have have only a few planets that were habitable near me even though in my settings I have aboundant habitable planets selected. (I hate to see what it would look like the opposite way)

In my current game within on sector in the galaxy of my home planet there are 11 other systems of which only 1 is a three planet, 5 are four planet, and 6 are 5 planet systems, which sound promising. 3 though have no habitable planets, 6 have one habitable planets, however 1 of those is an aquatic world. The remaining two systems have 2 habitable planets of which 1 in each are either aquatic or radioactive worlds.

In the past I normally have near double the number of habitable planets with a set up like that if not more and I've noticed this now in at least 3 games since the v1.8 update. I don't recall this issue as much in beta version 1.7 beta 4, but then again I haven't started a new game since beta 2 or 3.

Please help thank you.
45,153 views 152 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
See my post. I agree... Glad others are seeing the same.

There probably should be a slider to control this, don't know what the minimum should be though. (the AIs do have to decide when/if to research the techs.)
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
See my post. I agree... Glad others are seeing the same.

There probably should be a slider to control this, don't know what the minimum should be though. (the AIs do have to decide when/if to research the techs.)

I started 2 games with 1.8, and I'm finding the planet mix to be very heavy on the un-inhabital side. I started the second game just for this reason, because I was so annoyed at how crappy my planet rush was.

Now, on the second game I'm seeing pretty much the same thing. Is this a side effect of the new planet limits?

It could be a good thing, I'm just wondering if it's intentional? I used to be able to pretty much not bother with the extreme colonization until the very end of the colony rush. (or not at all, just conqueor them and steal the techs)

Now that strategy doesn't seem nearly as viable. Is this what others are seing?
End of quote


I see, what is going on here, to me this has taken something from the game.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just started a new game but this time chose habitable planets to rare instead of abundant. The results where approx. the same which to my knowledge they shouldn't be. here is the overall results.

10 stars within 1 sector. 1 is a two planet system, 3 are three planet systems, 1 is a four planet, and 5 are five planet systems. 3 systems have no habitable systems, 4 have 1 habitable planet, and 3 have two habitable planets of which 1 system contains two heavy gravity and 1 system has one aquatic world.

If I add this all together with in close proximity to my homeworld I come up with exactly 10 habitable planets in both my abundant habitable planet galaxy and my rare habitable planet galaxy. I don't think this should happen am I right?
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, I don't care for this at all. I started a large map with only "common" habitable planets, hoping to get a faster game in, only to find it felt more like a "rare" planet map, and the few that were close to my world required colony tech to inhabit. I quit and jacked the settings back up to "abundant" to try and get some worlds I can colonize.

I'm glad we're getting a new game next week.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

We will take a look at this.  Some of the new tweaks may have had unintended consequences.

What size maps are you guys on again?

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I should mention that after beta 4 we *increased* the number of max planets from the previous beta.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have no idea if this is going to be readable, but at the bottom of this posting I've put a table of the systems, # of "habitable" planets in those systems, and the number of those "habitable" planets which were Extreme (this was a Medium galaxy with everything Abundant) in my first DA 1.8 game. Summarizing it, there were 39 systems with a total of 56 habitable planets. Twenty-six of those were Extreme planets. That's 46% Extreme. Also, there were an additional 97 uninhabitable planets. This information is from late in the game when everything is terraformed, so I can't give the initial Class of these planets. But, my impression is that most of them were not very good. Looking at the saved Endgame from my last identically-sized galaxy under the betas, I had 78 planets out of a total of 121 habitable ones. There were an additional 120 uninhabitable planets. That seems to be about what I remember it always was. Something changed from the Beta 4 to the production version.

System Habitable Planets Extreme Planets
Lentz 0 0
Altaris 2 0
Snathi 3 1
Sander 3 3
Cordelia 2 2
Weber 4 1
Kryseth 2 0
Iversonia 2 1
Skowbo 3 2
Florin 1 0
Wardell 2 0
Kerchen 0 0
Hatch 0 0
Alshain 1 1
Poseidon 1 1
Brindle 1 1
Gladstone 1 1
Xasica 1 1
Martzia 1 0
Thindor 0 0
Marshall 2 1
Kupe 1 0
Mormegil 2 0
Hestia 2 1
Cassius 1 0
Vesta 0 0
Thalis 1 0
Vizzard 1 1
Andersona 2 2
Epsilon 0 0
Patroklos 1 1
Rathra 1 0
Iconis 2 0
Dester 0 0
Bond 3 2
Russom 1 1
Nesro 1 0
Drathis 2 0
Nestor 3 2
Total 56 26
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just tried 1.8 & I don't like it at all! I've played every version since Gal Civ II was released and this is the first time the upgrade was actually a step backwards. I have an above average rig & like to play gigantic maps with all settings at abundant.
Why should I be punished if some people can't play the gigantic map because their computer can't handle it? Put this setting back to the way it was NOW!!!!!
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have to agree, 1.8 is definately not something i'm liking thus far. The amount of habitable planets is drastically cut, and this is not a good thing imo. There were barely 20 habitable plants in a game i just made. The same settings pre 1.8 would have produced a map with 3-4 times that. This is a BAD thing.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What size maps are you guys on again?

Gigantic for me.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, something's defintiely not right. Or, since I don't know what your intention is, something's definitely "different". On a large map, abundant everything, loose clusters, using the map reveal cheat, the map is nowhere near as habitable as it was in 1.7b4. It gets better the farther away you get from my homeworld, (though still not like it was on my last Large/abundant map), but the sector around my homeworld is a wasteland...not even the token class 6 "gimme" planet.


So far, every map Ive started up has felt like it's set to the quanity setting below the one I actually set it at...with an especially harsh zone to start out in.

I can't be sure about planet mix of habitable /specialized...it seems it could just be random.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is a deal breaker for me. I'm glad I held off from updating this time.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

We will take a look at this.  Some of the new tweaks may have had unintended consequences.


What size maps are you guys on again?

End of quote


I was using Gigantic in my earlier posts. I have since started a large map game and I see the same lack of habitable planets in the large map as I did in the gigantic map.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I wonder if i can buy a keypad that has just the CNTRL, and N keys?
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well im glad i kept 1.7 archived...reloading now.

Sorry Stardock but the cap of planets seems to be a bad move, though understandable.

For the record, i started about 7 gig abundant all maps and had very few planets, by the looks of it the galaxy would not have had more than 300 planets....an estimate of course.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
gigantic map
abundant habitable planets
abundant number of planets
number of stars rare
star density lose clusters
out of 8 stars systems 1 planet habitable
i stop there did not look for any more
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

 

Sorry Stardock but the cap of planets seems to be a bad move
End of quote

That is strange since the changelog specify that the cap was put on stars not on planets

the galaxy would not have had more than 300 planets
End of quote

Well, that should be for the max number of stars ....

 

Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok you got me on wording, but the number of planets is proportional to the number of stars......same end result.

A cap on Stars...still results in less planets...

the galaxy would not have had more than 300 planets

Well, that should be for the max number of stars ....
End of quote


No. This is written how it should be.

Either way, regardless of my wording, the point is still made.

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To non-beta testers,

This is definitely a bug in the final release. Even under the last beta with the cap in place, there weren't these poor numbers of habitable planets. Provide all the detailed information you can and give them some time to find and fix it. You're talking about Stardock here: the best company on the face of the planet (make that "in the galaxy" (Medium, Abundant)).

The beta played wonderfully.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To non-beta testers,

This is definitely a bug in the final release. Even under the last beta with the cap in place, there weren't these poor numbers of habitable planets. Provide all the detailed information you can and give them some time to find and fix it. You're talking about Stardock here: the best company on the face of the planet (make that "in the galaxy" (Medium, Abundant)).

The beta played wonderfully.
End of quote


Did you try to start a game in beta 4, beta 3 seemed fine to me, I didn't start a game in beta 4?
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, let's not roast SD here with kneejerk reactions...this is something that's different from beta 1.7b4, so I don't think it's intentional. Although, I am giving SD a wag of my finger for not releasing 1.8 for testing, where this issue would have quickly been apparent, prior to making it official. I feel bad for all those people who bought the game yesterday.

As far as rolling back, 1.7b4 had broken A.I., so if youre able to rollback, you'll want to go farther than that.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes. I started new games in all the betas. I believe the game I have the Endgame for (noted, above, in my post with all the planet numbers) is the second game I started under beta 4. Beta 4 had the planet number caps and still had over twice as many habitable planets as 1.8 gives. Stardock will find and fix the problem.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, I'd say this is an option where a hard cap may not have been a good idea.

This is something easily fixable though- so no need to roast SD too hard over this- then again, constructive criticism like this is fine.

I'm going to have to tweak setting to compensate.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
gigantic map
abundant habitable planets
abundant number of planets
number of stars rare
star density lose clusters
out of 8 stars systems 1 planet habitable
i stop there did not look for any more
End of quote


I'm on the same and boy colonizable planets are thin on the ground.

also suggest a sliding scale for max stars/planets so those with quad core machines (not me yet ) can take advantage.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

As far as rolling back, 1.7b4 had broken A.I., so if youre able to rollback, you'll want to go farther than that.
End of quote


What was the last version with a decent A.I.?