I'm a bit disappointed to see that the Thalans still have a conflict between their tech tree options for manufacturing and the Super Hive ability.

I don't have a strong opinion on which part I'd rather have changed, but the current combo is frustrating for this long-time Thalan player. The Thalan starbase situation is also still problematic, IMO.

I appreciate that the new Thalans were the most ambitious part of the unique trees effort, but I still hope we can get some substantial changes before the last major update is finished.

If you want my honest feedback, Twilight should've been pushed back two months. Numerous bugs that were never fixed from the beta that have been around for months, brand new game-stopping ones that showed up in the last couple weeks in that 'big crunch'...

While I'm sure that most of the bugs will be fixed in the upcoming week, I'm bit weirded out that they weren't caught before release. Maybe it's because of the lack of a CD/gold version and the multitude of files running around. I put it to the fact that Stardock is overworked and needs a holiday. However, because I trust them, I'm sure they will deliver.

Actually it's "usually" twice , sometimes 3 times and once had it 4 times

Yep. I thought I was stuck in a loop the first time it seemed to do it about 5 times.

I agree.

Stardock has the luxury of self-publishing and are therefore not at the mercy of another company's marketing department. GC2 also doesn't have any (current) direct competitors (Sins would be the closest I can think of but it's RTS and therefore very different). So getting this release out before another game/patch doesn't seem necessary (to me anyway). We're coming into summer so no xmas rush... Internal production schedules I'm guessing wouldn't change much (they have to deal with bugs whether the game is released or not).

So, my best guess is that they didn't want to dissapoint some addmittedly *very eager* fans with another significant delay. But, as they already have this *fantastic* policy of releasing the beta to those who pre-order, the eager fans can still get the game in it current state now anyway.

I could go on but won't as I'm sure my point is clear. The game is excellent! The expansion content is excellent! But, the actual release would have been better if polished to be more bug free.

Hungry or not, I for one would have been happy playing the beta until it was ready. Regardless, I'm sure they'll pop it back in the oven until it's golden brown, even more delicious and ready for consumption!   

Just my $0.02.

Honestly, the campaign could have had more thought put into it. Too many of the maps are just 'take a ship over there and/or take a single planet' then you win. Given the high cost of the 'supporting' ships, there's no other real option other than to do it really really fast, since you can't build an economic capital in most of the maps.

A better balance between the good/neutral/evil event options would be nice IMO. Some of the options don't make sense for the weightings. Ie, in one of the ship production events, the difference between neutral and evil is 1%. It would also be nice to see some events that benefit 'good' alignments. Or at least offer some balancing factor to not always choose the evil option. (like -%morale/production/something 'cause your population is noticing that you are willing to feed them to x thing for a small bonus)

A new Neutrality learning Center icon would be good.

Path planning needs some work. It shouldn't be that hard to flag the asteroids as 'don't go through here', unless one is directly chosen. This is mainly an issue for short paths. Too many troop transports became front line fodder in the fight for want of a trinket from the mines...

Otherwise overall I've seen much better AI responses to various tactics.

One exception though is that the AI seems willing to ignore/dodge a military base/extra strong ship that they normally couldn't defeat, unless a ship which they could defeat was also occupying the tile. It seems that the attack choice doesn't take the strongest ship/fleet/base of the tile into consideration.

Here's a question for you all. How do I increase the amount of planets that come up under "abundant"? I just got TA about 3 days ago and it does feel like "GalCiv3", I love it. Don't really have any major problems with it yet. Got one little crash when you start a game then get into menu and start a new one, it crashes right after you change the planet spacing then click next. But for the most part I just restart and its good to go. But the one thing that I notice (compared to DL and DA) is that there doesn't seem to be alot of planets when you select abundant (everything) and immence. Is it me or do you all notice it as well. I look at it this way, when I select "abundant" I want there to be so many planets that its hard to find an empty part of space. When I select "abundant" in DL or DA I get about the same amount of planets as I do with "Abundant" and "immence" with TA. Does it have anything to do with the list of avlbe planets? Can I just add more to the list to fix the issue?

The Korx, bizzarly, do not have the first market improvement or a technology for it.

Speaking of techs, the tech editor is a confusing mess that I can't figure the first thing about. I just want to switch some techs from the Iconians over to the Drath to create a Arnor-Worshipper themed race, but I can't figure out how to use the editor at all.

I have to sadly echo the sentiments of a few others here. Software is never perfect you should expect some bugs on release time. but, although I love the new features of TA it seems like it really needed a month or two of extra development to iron out.

First I'd like to congrat. stardock & ironclad on their SoaSE success, eventhough I'm not a fan of RTS the demo did prove to be appealing for a 4x strategy game fan. I also would like to propose some game development ideas 4 the future galcivIII. I always liked the ideas of total war franchise that is about the marriage of turn-based strategy and RTS, a good way to appeal to a wider spectrum of gamers who are in to action oriented stuff instead of sitting back and thiking their longterm strategy in term of turns. Therefore, my suggestion would be the good old 4x style in galcivIII with a pinch of optional RTS in the battle screen, and to take it further let's say planet invasions with a ground "with all it's varieties from plains, forests to mountains and volcanos... - sea - & air encounters together with the beloved fleet battles in space but with an optional control over the battle SoaSE style " now SoaSE is genere of it's own, hehe "

Oh Oh, I've got another Idea If GalcivIII were to develop in to the previous idea I had in mind multiplayer can be implemented for the battles part, man that will be way coooool :))

I've had time to play a few games and I do have some feedback.

The new victory condition feels a bit weird , basically it just keeps you at war with whoever is close to achieving it before the turn counter goes. You can win with only one crystal captured (it make take 1000 turns though) I thought the idea was if that if you controlled all 6 then the timer would count down.

The AI seems to be better at managing its planets but on one game I did find the Drengin filling entire planets with their unique moral building.

Some of the races tech trees do seem to have a few holes but that has been mentioned already.

The Torians turn into an economic powerhouse every single map cranking out colonys with ease and filling them with billions of taxpayers everyweek. Overall The balancing of the races isn't too bad but I think the Torians have far too much of an advantage on abundant large maps.

Even with the small problems , this is still an amazingly large expansion bringing huge improvements to a brilliant game. I just hope that you guys can get on top of the small problems. It really could have done with more time in the oven though.

finally, I have a little complaint about the speed of download from the stardock central, I know I'm way far in Egypt, Africa & it all downplays to the darn intercontinental connection but an overseas europian mirror would be nice. Thanks 4 GalCiv man it's really the closest game to a my dream genere that never came to life whether it's in a Sci-Fi, fantasy, history...etc setting

A small problem I found.  A resource starbase was damaged and I attempted to repair it.  No go.  The problem seems to be when you have a fully loaded starbase, ie no modules available, the game will not let you repair it.  however, if you have a regular module available, you can repair it just fine.  Save game available if needed.

 

BTW, I am enjoying the game a lot.  i've ben playing it a while now, and still discovering things.  Good job, bugs and all

 

 

Overall, a good expansion. Increased playability for sure.

A couple of notes:

Can we get a fix when you send a fleet of constructors to a resource/starbase? This seems buggy. For example, if there are 5 modules available, and you send a fleet of 5 cnst, everything works fine and you are prompted 5 times as to what modules you want to add. But if no modules are available, your constructors move into the starbase instead of being prompted that no modules are available. Then you have to click on starbase, reselect your ships and move them out of there. Sometimes, the fleet is disbanded and you need to select them individually. Also, when sending a fleet to a new resource, a new starbase is created, but the other cnst's in the fleet aren't prompted to add new modules. Building starbases is already annoying (IMO) and these features just add to the hassle.

I should've saved the game for more details, but in my last game (custom race using Arcean tech tree), all of the sudden I couldn't build any factories on my planets; the factory disappeared from the build list (under all three build list views - new, all, old). I was previously building these with no problem, but for some reason they all disappeared and there were no buildings in my build list that increased production. I researched mfg centers and those appeared with no problems, but my lower level factories never showed up again.

Maybe it was a matter of AI settings, but the Altarians in the same game did not build any warships. They had about 5 planets or so, but late game they did not have any military (military timeline confirmed that they never built a ship with weapons). All other races were fine and built militaries as expected.

This may be hard to implement, but I would like the build list that shows only the best tech to be improved (I think it is called New). When you trade for obsolete alien techs, they still show up in the New list. E.g. even though I had discovery spheres, the puny 4 rp drengin slave lab was still showing up in my build list.

Good expansion, but too many bugs.

Basically, there seems to be some weirdness with models of custom ships when you delete them, overwrite them. I will try to post some savegames to GC2Bugs.

There are also too many CTDs on Vista.

So basically, looking to see Stardock fix the bugs and lots of post-release support.

I am really likely to buy their fantasy game, but only if I see lots of fixes for Twilight.

I posted this issue elsewhere but this looks like a good thread to repeat it...

I am playing my first official release game and noticed something strange. I am about mid-game, have some lasers, guns etc researched. The AI is autodesigning ships I reckon because I see things like Battle Axe M6 with a good mix of lasers and missles.

I decided to upgrade my Battle Axe M6 (option to remove components is not checked). When I do this I see something really strange....

It says that the ship has 85/67 components installed!? If I select and item to remove then select a new component to install the bar then turns red and and wont let me install the item even though its' size is less than the item I removed.

It seems as if the auto ship designer is being allowed to add more items to a design than I could.

Yup same here - not a drama, but might indicate other things lurking

Regards
Zy

I think much of the problem lies in the huge amount of content and such changes that were made for the final release but no the beta. The point of a beta is to test all the things in the software to ensure there are no bugs. If you then add tons of features/content/changes (or even just a few) after the beta period and then release it, you just wasted that beta testing phase. I usually beta test my software until no bugs can be found and then, when there are no more bugs, it becomes a release candidate (which is then the release).

Just a thought.

Sad to say but I agree. I am enjoying ToA but for the first time ever from StarDock I feel like I am buying a beta. Feels like I should let it cook on the shelf for a few more weeks for more patches to be released. I mean, the manual was exactly the same as for DA except with a different cover page. Releasing a product without any documentation except for a webpage? That sounds a little rushed to me. Anyways, I like where ToA is going, just feels a little unpolished.

If the auto-ship modelling bug is true where is places more modules on a ship than allowed if done manually, well, that sounds pretty major to me. Seems like other aspects Stardock is known for has been overlooked. The installer doesn't even create a shortcut to the Launcher (for Vista at least) which is why so many people don't even know where the modding tools are.

Some query images don't show up in the pop_general_warning_GNN box!

Krynn had just built the "super-spying project" and all there was is a big black emptiness... others didn't show up either, but can't remember exactly which right now. I'll try keeping track of this strange behavior and post some comprehensive list later.

All of these pictures are properly into their usual folder, btw.
32b, perhaps and its tricky alpha channels?

Hi!

Great expansion but still needs some work. Stardock hasn't let us down so far so I'm feeling they'll come through.

One thing: I've had the turn button grey out twice, so I can't continue the game without saving and restarting.

Thing Two: This one's a matter of taste, I guess. But for me I think the old planetary battle screen with its two opposing armies was much more expressive and exciting than the new one. I just liked it better now that I've seen both.

Still a great game!

Great feedback guys.

We're looking through the reports. Some people are reporting running into bugs. The thing is, as you all know, this wasn't rushed. We were playing it tons and tons before release and haven't run into the kinds of problems some of you have run into.

I think the main thing is that people are playing it differently than we are I think.  Also, we did release one update that took care of the various string issues that some of you ran into.

That said, as others have pointed out, Stardock's an indie. We can release updates to you essentially indefinitely. We are closely reading the forums.  The more specifics we get, the better.