Looking forward to that gameplay example. That soothes the waiting a bit.

Personally I always liked GC2, but judging from comments of friends or found in other forums, the differences between the races were far too small for some people. And it is true: If you take away the background story - maybe you don't care or never even played the campaign - the only notable differences left are graphical ones (which aren't that decisive in the end) and the three moral alignments. Read: About the same strategy worked for most if not all races. A first step in the right direction was made with Dark Avatar and the super abilities, now another big step will be done with the race specific tech trees and planetary improvements of Twilight of the Arnor.

I guess that one of the few weak spots left is the economic model: It is unusual and needs time to get used to. It is logical in its own way, but is quite different from other games, at least from all that I know. Having to choose between research output, social production and military production and being able to make 0% to 100% switches and back in a glimpse - which are then more or less mandatory for every planet - is a little weird indeed. Maybe that's the only thing that stands in the way of GC2 becoming a real PC game classic - if there's one at all.

Sorry for the long post, and now: Keep up the great work and bring on the beta!

Thoughts after I read comment #39:

Will the Drengin tech tree still have slave pits and such if they choose good, or will they not be able to choose good? Or a third option?

The AI in GalCiv is not like AIs in other games. It will adapt automatically to custom tech trees.

The AI doesn't know anything about the tech trees in Dark Avatar. It has no hard coded paths to take.

It does look at the AI value to help pick when it has to make a blind pick. But otherwise, it uses the categories and branches (which are defined) to make intelligent choices.

Any decently made custom tech tree will adhere to calling manufacturing technologies manufacturing (as opposed to say cultural).

As for the argument as to why Micro Fusion was invented by humans - it has to do with intertia.  Why did some groups of humans remain hunter/gatherers while others invented rockets.

For 30,000 years, humans basically hung out in the jungle and in caves.

The premise of the Arcean and Drengin is that their worlds, long united, fell into a kind of technological inertia. There was little incentive to move forward with technology.

Incidentally, the technology in the Star Wars universe doesn't really change either. It's a common theme in both the real world and in fiction that some societies simply peak and then stay the same unless there is outside influence.

Perhaps. On the other hand, its a way to have both a backstory AND have the humans not at a horrible disadvantage to the other races. Consider Babylon 5, where the humans are usually not on an even footing with many of the alien races.


This way, Brad has the humans be an integral part of making the game universe possible, and yet there is still lots of "ancient history" to fill in the backstory of the other races.

Heh, interesting - so it sounds like the AI would certainly be able to cope with the player having this unusual tech tree idea I've proposed (although certainly it has been proposed before, if perhaps in not so much detail). My main concerns would probably be two-fold...

First, making sure that the AI who uses the tech tree are able to use the improvements in that tech tree to maximum effect, which could be tricky if you have a tech tree that is radically different depending on ethical alignment. Having the adaptive AI helps quite a lot, but it might still be a bit of a trick. And then of course there's the whole tech-trading dynamic, which could make for rather interesting situations if not handled right...although I think one step that could add a bit of depth is to allow you to set how willing a power is to trade a tech DEPENDING ON ALIGNMENT...so that if you want to trade an Evil tech, you're more likely to trade it to an Evil power than a Neutral one, and not at all to a Good power. Otherwise, one would probably need to restrict tech trading to techs outside of the Good/Neutral/Evil tech trees, which would probably be a good sized number of techs.

That last point actually segues nicely into my second concern - tech tree balance. Specifically, how to make sure that the player is not FORCED into an ethical decision early on, and can instead pursue it at their leisure. Part of the solution, of course, would be to allow a good number of techs to remain outside the ethical view - things like most weapons, defenses, engines, sensors, cultural, etc. Then the player is not excessively penalized for not choosing an ethical alignment early. But then you'd have a somewhat different problem - namely, how to ensure you don't have redundant or useless improvements involved. Again, part of the solution here is to allow a number of these alignment-sensitive buildings to have unique abilities and multiple bonuses - at, of course, great expense. (A bit like the Temples of

Um, I hate to point out a minor flaw, but there is one.

All other techs have the words starting with capitals, but the history one in the froglords screens shot does not. Othe then that...

[Goes off in massive speech praiseing all that is stardock]

I guess the AIs will do fine then... though an AI editor would still be fun to have.

The Terran Alliance tech tree is, naturally, the most familiar one.

By contrast, other civilizations are getting significant make overs.

The Drengin, who are still fairly similar to the humans, have some pretty disturbing technologies.

For instance: Artificial Slaves.

We have made great strides in our manufacturing capability by taking people and turning them into biological machines for labor through the use of genetic modification.

However, we have realized that there is an ultimate step we can take. We can grow pre-perfected organisms for use as slaves. We can grow in vast tanks biological machines that are specially designed to do the kind of slave labor that is needed.

We still need a steady influx of slavelings from conquered planets to act as the "CPU" for these creatures. Through a relatively simple surgery, the brain and spinal coord are removed from the previously inferior physical being and grafted into our artificial slaveling. This combination results in the perfect biological unit for our purposes.

Our only limit now is finding enough of these CPUs -- conquest awaits.

The Thalan tech tree will be, by far, the most alien.

 

Slavelings! Hell yeah! Put me down for three... let's see... ah, yes, three Jessica Alba models. Thanks!

I still wanna know about the XXX Torian tech tree. I also totally dig that the AI doesn't know about the tech tree other than in a general categoric sense. That makes the AI seem even sexier.

Maybe it's just me, but the quality of flavor text there seems a couple notches above the DL/DA norm. There were some complaints about the flavor text for techs in general being a bit bland (though some were pretty amusing, imo) -- have you given thought to giving the old techs a once-over with a bit more interesting flavor?

[edit] Having checked the older journals, I see what you guys are going for.

In any case, wanted to chime in and say that SD is pretty much the only publisher that can manage to convince me that pre-ordering at (well, nearly) full price is a good idea. Kudos, guys - this is great stuff.

I've been updating many of those too. Just the ones that are really egregious anyway.

Wow, these evil boys sound even more evil than I thought they would be ...

So, I have two little things:
First: Can we get a text from a good technology, too? - Just to round it up and see that the universe isn't only evil.
Second: Can you put the additional 2 pictures from page 1 into the first post for thos people who don't look in here.




You guys really know, how to torture us with new information without telling too much.

How are weapons going to be handled? Something I long wished we had the power to mod, was the ability to make duel weapons/defenses. I'd like to make a Photon Torpedo that does both energy and kinetic damage for example. With the new tech trees will races still use the standard weapons? Or will there be duel type weapons?

There won't be any weapons that do multiple kinds of damage, that would kind of undermine the point of having multiple classes of attack and defense.

For the purposes of stock TA gameplay, I can completely agree. However, mods may be able to make use of the values even if the stock game does not.

I think i am going to like TA far more than DA...It seems that there is far more Evil in there!!!!

Metaverse League Round 4
"The Metaverse League"

Good Morning,

I just wanted to say great job on the GC series, I own both Dread Lords and Dark Avatar and just pre-ordered the upcomming Twilight expansion.

1) I was getting conflicting info on the release date, is it Oct, Nov, or Dec? I won't hold you too it, doing the game right is a great goal, I was just wondering.

2) How do I get access to the Beta once it is released...I've never actually been part of a Beta team before.

Any assistance you could give would be great, thanks!

I believe that once you pre-order you are entitled to access the beta. As long as you pre-order before Stardock release the beta.

If you have pre-ordered, Stardock will charge your credit card when they release the beta, after that it will show up in your Stardock Central as a pre release version....

Don't hate me if i'm wrong, i may have missed a point or two but that is the general jist of it all.

This is something that never made much sense to me. If the humans developed the FTL drive, and the other races aquired it from them, why is it that all of the other races start off as 'unknown' to the terrans. I mean, they always start out first contact by thanking the humans for the FTL drive, but that seems to imply that they've already had contact. What's up with this?

The way I figure, the Terrans should always start a game with at least one other race already discovered; the Altarians would be a good choice, especially if you see them as a kind of offshoot of the Terrans. Then you can simply hypothesize that the other races got it from the Altarians, without the Terrans needing to have discovered all of them.

Or, even better, let the Terrans be the only ones with FTL tech at the start of the game, and give all of the others the stargate tech. That could be interesting. Let the Terrans actually play out the passing of FTL tech to the rest of the galaxy.

Terror Stars. You can blow up an entire system of planets regardless of defenses and number of ships.

He who dies with the most toys...... still dies.


The higest quality, most fully upgraded planet with massive defenses........ can still be tossed aside into the depths of space like a piece of garbage in the wake of firery atomic destruction.

Any questions?

They had very rudimentary contact (no universal translator) during the time of the stargates, prior to hyperdrive's creation. As it was the Arceans that gave them the stargate plans to begin with though, that's the race they'd start with contact with, if any.

The other races have been around for thousands of years. The Drengin are quoted for saying that they have mastered fusion when mankind was still in caves. So that part makes sense.

What doesn't make sense to me is why the Drengin never discovered a way to create mini-fusion reactors which is the key to essentially creating a mini stargate or "warp drive" when they had thousands and thousands of years of a headstart over the humans.

Frogboy brought up a good point - look at our own history. Some tribes were still hunters and gatherers while others had gunpowder and powerful ships capable of transiting the high seas. Actually, a whole book has tried to explain that situation - essentially why Native Americans were conquered by the technologically superior Europeans and not the other way around. I mean, Native Americans were on North America at least as long as Europeans were on Europe right? Why indeed didn't Native Americans build powerful sailing ships with guns and enslave Europeans? Why didn't African Americans develop powerful technology and Enslave Whites? Could history have been rewritten? Could we be fighting for white rights instead of black rights if African Americans had managed to tame zebras, smith metal swords and guns, and led an assualt on Europe??? A major reason why Europeans developed advanced technology is because they were able to domesticate and use animal power much more so than in other civilizations. Horses are easier to tame than rhinos, lions, and zebras - plain and simple. Tamed armored rhinos would be infintely more dangerous in medevil warfare than tamed armored horse knights...... If only zebras or rhinos could have been tamed....

That book is called "Guns, Germs, and Steel". An excellent book.

I think our current society is so driven by innovation (in everything from iPhones to business strategies) that we are convinced that "progress" is the natural state of civilization. But it's true that throughout most of human history people just kept doing things the same way, generation after generation. Even in our own society, certain things are not necessarily "progressing." What about space flight - it's been almost 40 years since we've been to the moon, and it still looks like a massive undertaking to do it again. Without the desire to put money and resources into coming up with better ways to fly through space, nothing will change in that regard. Sure, somebody may come up with a fusion reactor to solve the energy crisis here on earth, and that may lead to better space flight, but what if (as Frogboy imagines happened for the Drengin and Arceans) the solution is something giant that works great on a planet but would be impossible to put on a spaceship? Why spend the money and resources on making it smaller if you've already unified your planet and set up an economy that sustains itself and keeps everyone more or less happy (or enslaved...). Heck, for all you know, a portable fusion reactor may be impossible, and the Great Emperor is more concerned about improving those death furnaces... not a lot of motivation to innovate.

Yeah, I guess it is possible. Still.... thousands of years is a really long time, and it took an innovative society to progress to fusion reactors...