Beta 2B of Twilight arrives

New goodies

from GalCiv2 Forums

In the classic RPG Baldur's Gate, I remember thinking at the end of the game that my character was really impressive.  Then I played Baldur's Gate II and realized just what real power meant.  That's the essence of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor.  The civilizations are getting more powerful.

This week, Beta 2B for Twilight of the Arnor was released. No new races have been added. But the existing races are much more powerful than previously.

For instance, the Arceans get the Stellar Forge Galactic Achievement. And they get it right away.  Once built, it increases the hitpoints of ships made on that planet by 25%.

The Terran Alliance, however, get their own initial Galactic Achievement they can build called the Innovation Complex which makes ships built on that planet go +1 in speed.

The Yor get some love too with some tweaks to their initial improvements and the Maintenance Coordinator which improves their morale.

There will still be balancing needing to be done, but the clear direction of Twilight of the Arnor is that the younger races are starting to become quite powerful in their own right.

19,516 views 22 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Got it downloaded and installed, got to run and start a new game!
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow, nice surprise. Just when I got home from work!
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Yor get some love too with some tweaks to their initial improvements and the Maintenance Coordinator which improves their morale.
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And here I was hoping that you guys would make the changes needed for the Yor to have no morale period. What I mean is, they wouldn't be affected by yellow resources and such.

Oh well, I'll check it out later.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hi everyone,

Do you have any ideas of the 'optimum' (NOT 'minimum') requirements for playing the GalCivII's trilogy (Dread, Dark, and Twilight), please ?
So far, there is no retailer in France, except for the Dread Lords issue, and the most valuables infos are for the "Dark Avatar" minimum configuration.
I am planning to change my PC and download the whole pack. Then, I am browsing some information of the PC config that should allow me playing conveniently.
By the way, do you know a retailer in Europe, please ?

Thanks for all,
Radar

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I run (and develop) with GalCiv on a nearly 3 year old PC.

I'd say a good machine is a PC with at least 1 GB of memory, 128MB of video memory.

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I actually play GalCiv (including Dark Avatar) on a 1.6 mhz 512 mb of RAM laptop with a 32 mb AGP video card. I had to play zoomed out to "tactical symbols" with no battle viewer at first, but ever since the 1.4 or 1.6 update that optimized the graphics, I can actually play with graphics on (low quality, of course). The game play still rocks, and is totally worth the money.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

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Whitout morale one could raise taxes to maximun. That would be... unbalanced.
And if they had no taxes there would have to be a whole new idea to generate money...

Your idea/point is really good, but I think it is hard to carry it out.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top




Whitout morale one could raise taxes to maximun. That would be... unbalanced.
And if they had no taxes there would have to be a whole new idea to generate money...

Your idea/point is really good, but I think it is hard to carry it out.

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Their low morale also inhibits their population growth, which the flavor text certainly implies they have trouble with. Still, I can't help but think they could be a little more... alien as well.

I had an idea where the collectives provided both food (1 food each) and either research or production (or, maybe both in different amounts, for a really different feel), while the charging stalks provided morale/population growth bonuses. From my limited testing, it worked out pretty nicely to distinguish them from the other races: most Yor worlds had high population, but it took a while to build it up.

I'll probably end up creating a mod that does this at some point after TA is released...
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Personally, I think it would be cool if the Yor had to choose between building improvements and starships or increasing population (by degrees, with sliders) since they literally build their population, too.

That being said, I recognize that having all races in the game subject to morale, taxation, and population restrictions is a factor of game balance - keeping all races on the same playing field. If one race were to play by an entirely different set of rules and were not subject to the same balancing factors, the whole focus of the game would have to shift toward dealing with that one race. The Yor would end up being like the Borg and the Dominion wrapped up in one unbeatable faction.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Whitout morale one could raise taxes to maximun. That would be... unbalanced.
And if they had no taxes there would have to be a whole new idea to generate money...

Your idea/point is really good, but I think it is hard to carry it out.
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I've talked about it more throughly in other posts. I'll do a quick recap here.

The idea I had was to replace the tax system with a resource production rate that got improved as the Yor researched certain techs (as in no tax slider). As for population, would be a maintaince cost attached to having large populations. It would make it difficult to have a few worlds with absurdly large populations.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Are people having problems with the new fleet icons? I invade a planet, fail to win, yet the transport still shows up graphically.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I actually play GalCiv (including Dark Avatar) on a 1.6mhz
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I play on my Tiger Handheld. Changing camera angles is a bit hard.

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Do you have any ideas of the 'optimum' (NOT 'minimum') requirements for playing the GalCivII's trilogy (Dread, Dark, and Twilight), please ?
So far, there is no retailer in France, except for the Dread Lords issue, and the most valuables infos are for the "Dark Avatar" minimum configuration.
I am planning to change my PC and download the whole pack. Then, I am browsing some information of the PC config that should allow me playing conveniently.
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I doubt I can give you a solid answer here, but from what I understand, TA will be a bit less resource-intensive than DA was, due to its use of more compressed graphics. So if you can get a good DA system, you should be great for TA.

Do as Frogboy says - 1GB RAM, 128MB video. But seriously consider a multiproc system (or a multi-core system) because GC2 actually makes good use of the extra power.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
(or a multi-core system) because GC2 actually makes good use of the extra power.
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It really does (speaking from experience)
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Are people having problems with the new fleet icons? I invade a planet, fail to win, yet the transport still shows up graphically.
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I've seen this. Also the numbering below the fleets indicating how many ships are there is inaccurate after a battle when one loses ships. Based on an email from the Devs, I believe this has been fixed for the next version.

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
did the tourism bonus change in the last beta, it doesn't seem as powerful as it was in the first beta.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes it has. Tourism was so powerful, that it could run a whole economy.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
they need to tune down ship maintance then... cause its killing me i have 3 economic anomilies @ 34%, tax @ 49% with 200b and i'm still in the red!
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
they need to tune down ship maintance then... cause its killing me i have 3 economic anomilies @ 34%, tax @ 49% with 200b and i'm still in the red!
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Yea, ship maintenance is one thing that should be reduced.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can't resist asking why oh WHY is the new victory condition in beta 4!! something that important should be out now to make sure it fits in well with the others and that it's not too easy to win with it!
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When will we get the scenario and tech editors?
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
JubJub ahh I think I remember somewhere that Stardock stated they won't put the scenario and tech editor in the beta. I think thats what they said but I could be wrong or they changed their minds on it recently and might add it in the beta.