Hello, I'd like to add to the other mentioned stuff the following (we discussed these changes on previous pages although we never made a list of them)

- Fill up the starting colony ship to its max value, currently 500 ppl. This will greatly and positively affect AI economy.

- Reduce the cap on espionage from 25% of the total income to ~18%, we can then remove the ugly racial espionage penalty.

 - Currently all AI's prioritize espionage spending over global production spending, this is no good. If a civ goes broke they'll instantly reduce their global spending to 20% while decrease espionage spending only by -5 per turn. It should be that once a civ goes broke it should instantly reduce espionage to 0% and try to keep production as high as possible.

- In that way it is also not helpful that the AI goes into debt by quickbuying stuff. He should only quickbuy stuff when it leaves him in a positive state, otherwise his production will be negatively affected (which actually hurts him more than if he would have not quickbought any stuff)

- [not really important] There are some minor bugs involoving techtrade where AIs are offering techtrade although the specific tech is already researched. Colonization techs that are granted by SuperAbilites are bugged in their value. 

- Arceans do not use their Construction Lite module

Hmmm I fear I forgot some stuff  , we should really begin to make a list with all issues we cannot resolve by xml manipulation

@OShee - as far as I know, you just need to use transparency. The PNG image format supports that. Um, obviously if you have the improvement image saved without the white background that would be great, otherwise you'll have white jaggies all around after taking out the white.

Guys, I got a message back from Gaunathor a week ago. For some reason I didn't see it until today.

Anyway, a couple of things that I think need clarification. The Hyperion naming change wasn't really about giving the Thalans that particular brand, it was because certain improvements changed from being Super Projects to being Galactic Achievements. Also, the changes to Minors (their duplicate versions of certain techs) were intended to help them keep researching regardless of the major race configuration.

I didn't mention those to start the discussion over, mind, just that it would be nice if you remember that there's 35 pages of discussion so if you don't see the reason for something, it's probably somewhere in there.

Anyway, he's not doing so great. I won't go into the details, but the poor guy could use a good night's sleep.

A friend of mine helped with the aura, I hope it's not too thick.

Edit: ok I see it, it's too thick. I'll see what I can do with it. Unless Maiden beats me to it  

Edit2: alright, here are 3 versions:

http://i.imgur.com/KUVOg5B.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kAZyfKs.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/oHsUreo.jpg

imo second one looks best.

I'll ask my buddy if he can do something about the query image. The ones above were easy enough with paint and a little bit of blending with gimp :> query is a whole new level.

Done. Linke to Google Doc. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vnoWVMjeMr3mLVjyUXD7slqV-z8KEK9pexNxtF68_8o/edit?usp=sharing

Marvin, could you put a link to this document in the original post so it's easier for everyone to find it? Thanks.

If you notice something missing post it here and I'll add it to the document.

Regards,

M

Empathic Tactical Center: it gives 20% bonus to weapons, but Good civs get access to better defenses. Bonus to defense would be more in line with what bonus components already establish: good - defenses, neutral - defenses/weapons, evil - weapons. Giving it back 20% bonus to defenses will play more to good civ strenghts. Besides, +20 weapon makes it good enough to actually choose good as an evil race.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

<Biology ID="ParadiseWorlds">

<Details>An amazing new technology that allows us to terraform worlds to a level that we never thought possible. Best of all, the way to do so is relatively easy, which means there is no additional effort needed. Our worlds are now all 10% better (meaning they needed to be class 10 or better to benefit).</Details>

<Details>An amazing new technology that allows us to terraform worlds to a level that we never thought possible. Best of all, the way to do so is relatively easy, which means there is no additional effort needed. Our planet quality improves by 10%.</Details>

Fixed as it may be misleading. If you have +10% from other tech, another +10% will push planets as low as PQ 5 up a notch. Besides, not specifically explaining how stuff works is one of the characteristics of descriptions in GalCiv.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

<Computing ID="CreativeGood">

<Details>Creativity allows civilizations to research technologies much more quickly by having creative leaps in research.</Details>

<Details>Be it fiction or reality, Good wins over Evil not with superior firepower, but with patience, planning and hard work. Creative Good is the epitome of this mindset. By putting our brains to work, we can come up with new ways of dealing with the villains of the galaxy quicker.</Details>

I find present description a bit bland

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Influence Ability

5% 5 1.0pp

10% 15 7.5pp

15% 35 0.42pp

25% 50 0.5pp

I suggest 3rd option to be same as with Diplomacy, 20% for 35 points. That's 0.57pp

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Repair Ability

Honestly, this is one of the weakest stats. Lets leave just 40% option for 10 points.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Balancing parties: party bonuses were changed after initial changing of ability bonuses/costs, but recently they changed again and some stuff was toned down (morale, influence, diplomacy for example). Parties stayed the same. So:

Pacifists: 20 Influence, 20 Diplomacy. This is 70 points worth of bonuses. Original bonus was 10 Social and 20 Influence. Anyway, this needs to be nerfed. Populists already give 10 Influence, so lets make it more Diplomacy oriented: 15 Diplomacy, 5 Influence or 20 Diplomacy, 5 Influence.

Populists: 20 Morale, 10 Population Growth, 10 Influence. 55 points worth. Used to be 10 Morale and 10 Diplomacy. But change to pop growth and influence is more fitting. So maybe 10 Morale, 10 Pop and 10 Influence? That's 40 points altogether.

Universalists: 10 Economy, 10 Defense, 25 Luck, 10 Population Growth. 50 points worth. Not really the point worth/cost is the problem, it's the abuse of Luck stat. 25 Universalists, 25 ability. That's 50 Luck right there. Let's take a ship with +10 attack. Average damage of that ship is 5. With 50 Luck, average damage is 7.5. That's 50% increase in average damage. It works on defenses as well, so by picking Universalists and Luck ability for 30 points, you end up with an average increase of 50% in both weapons and defenses. And this is huge. I would rather see it 10% across the board: 10 Economy, 10 Defense, 10 Luck, 10 Pop Growth. Notice Universalists already get half of the bonus of Federalists (it was 5% in vanilla), and on top of that gives you better ships and higher pop.

Technologists: 20 Research and +2 sensor range. Let's revert it back to +1 sensor, 20 Research is
already a big boost in the beginning.

Is there an updated spreadsheet?

Agreed, 25 sounds nice and thanks for correcting grammar.

Luck could also be renamed, I remember Darca saying it could be called Accuracy or Optimization. It also can stay as it is, as personally I don't mind it, but for a new player it will be clear what this stat does if we change the name.

4 ships with 3 attack each put in a fleet will dish out 12 max damage, 6 on average.

With 10% Weapons ability this does not change, as each ship's damage is individual when calculating fleet damage. 10% Luck on the other hand, is applied during the attack roll (at least I think it is, it makes sense), so it gives you 6.5 average damage.

Lets look at bigger numbers:

6 ships with 5 attack each, 30 max damage, 15 average.

With 20% weapons it changes to 36 max damage, 18 average.

With 20% luck it is 30 max damage, 18 average.

But the thing is, luck works also on defenses. The downside is that it doesn't boost your MMR, but otherwise this stat is very powerful.

So yeah, I like the idea of nerfing Luck stat a bit more. As it is now, you spend 40 points for 25 Weapon OR Defense, while you can get increase in both with single stat 25% for 30 points. 

I'm not sure if anyone else would agree with this, but personally I would make Defense/Weapon ability cost a bit less, while making Luck cost same, but give smaller bonus. So 25 Weapon for 35 points (0,71pp), Defenses 25 for 35 (0,71pp), Luck 20 for 30 (0,66pp).

And Universalists, maybe leave them at 5 Economy, 10 Pop Growth, 10 Defense, 20 Luck? Or just 10 across all 4. Both are still quite good picks with those numbers.

You mean improvement costs/power/maintenance etc? None that I'm aware of, but maybe Mabus has one done.

Greetings all,

I've been watching this thread since it started. Keep up the good work! I finally decided to give the mod a try now that it is firming up.

Setup:

CU v5 Beta 2A (You guys need to adopt a standard X.Y.Z numbering system!), Painful, Large, common planets, loose clusters. Played as Yor with +Moral and +Economics pics. 8 AIs, 5 minors. Tech trading ON. I took the difficulty down a few notches than normal to fairly evaluate.

Synopsis:

Much more competitive game overall. AI still has difficulty making use of a winning hand, but at least it tried this time. I almost quit several times but decided to push through to see if i could make it work. I stopped playing when i knew i had it wrapped up in my favor. (Most games on large don't take this long to play).

Mod Observations:

- The overall tech progression is different than vanilla TA, but reasonable and agreeable. It feels like there are fewer options than usual at the beginning of the game.

- Making the Yor 1PP buldings into GA's is a good idea. I didn't miss those.

- The Yor are very hard diplomatically now. I had trouble trading anybody for anything in the beginning. This is thematically correct. This is not a complaint.

- Did logistics always go this high? This is a the first game where i actually researched beyond ~32 points per fleet.

- I saw a lot of buildings i don't normally see. I'm not sure if that's from mod tinkering or because the AI never unlocks them.

- The Yor economy seems even harder to get going now. I don't have stats for that, it just seemed more difficult.

- RE: Psionic weapons: Please remember that in order to get these powerfull weapons, you have to be Evil. That means you'll be fighting more wars. I okay with having them skip two major generations instead of just one.

AAR:

I started in the center of the map with no useful bonus tiles and no accessible resources. I snagged (3) PQ 9-11 planets. In retrospect, that was as good as i could have done, given the situation.

My Yor economy was agonizingly slow to ramp up. Virtually every other race was off and running and I was quickly falling behind in research, econ, etc. Right about that point, the galaxy exploded into wars. I had to take immediate action to survive.

I pulled together everything i had with weak weapons and newly researched PI and kicked over two minors that were very close together. This gave me a population boost and two good planets to work with. I used these to churn out more troops.

The Scerians (tech-oriented custom race) did not expand much and had neglected to research anything to help their soldering ability. So i research Terror Drones, took an ocean of troops next door and nabbed 3 good planets loaded with GA's i would have never been able to research or build myself.

I had so many troops left over, i just kept going and knocked over a half dozen more Torian worlds.

At this point, my weapons were getting outclassed by everyone else and i had no more tricks left. I was perpetually at war. The galaxy had roughly split between Good guys and Bad Guys. The Iconians had researched advanced weapons AND raced up the logistics branch. They built unstoppable fleets and razed all of my heavily fortified economy starbases and just about every ship i had. There was no hope.

That's about were i almost quit the first time.

The only thing i had going for me at this point was a big bag of money. I paid the other Evil races to go beat up on the Iconians and maybe distract them while i pick myself up off the floor. I am constantly paying off other races to not squash me. I noticed the Iconians would smash everything they could but wouldn't button down the situation by sending troops. So i just stopped building ships for a while.

I switched everything into research for about 30 turns and made my way up to Psionic Missile and started cranking out competitive ships AWAY from where the Iconians would bother me. Meanwhile, I'm still at war with half the galaxy and swatting down annoyances from Altarians (moderately threatening) and the Krynn (just annoying). Now with the upper hand, i launch a new invasion to pretty much wipe out the Altarians.

Then the Iconions show up again with fleets that have 200 attack and 100 defense while i'm still in double digits. They have logistics up the wazzou and i can't compete, even with psionic missile. Then i almost quit again.

Then something MAGICAL happened! A super event made every uninhabitbale planet in a 9-square area a PQ4 planet. I built about two dozen colony ships ASAP and nabbed almost all of them. Now my population, economy, and influence shoot through the roof. I gift my treasured Psionic Missle to the Drengin and pay them to keep the Iconians busy while i bulk up.

I plow all research into logistics for 20-30 turns while building a test fleet. It is strong enough to beat an Iconian fleet, but only one. Eventually i put together my own unstoppable fleet, leapfrog into uncharted territory to find the Iconian capital, and quickly smash everything.

I am now the dominant player and the rest is mopping up.

Review:

Iconians: They are usually pushovers, but got some teeth this time. They still don't go for the kill, though. That's more of a general AI issue, and my main complaint about GalCiv in general. They led the pack in research, easily.

Drengin: They did okay, but mostly because i levereged their Evilness and kept them busy with shiny new weapons to play with. They did not research well and did not make any attempts at invasion.

Altarian: They had pretty good weapons research and put up a good fight most of the game. They did attempt to invade a few times. They managed to steal their homeworld back when i wasn't looking.

Krynn: Mostly annoying. They had poor logistics and weapons most of the game. Towards the end however, they grew a spine and conquered a few undefended planets from minors and other opponants.

Torian: Pushovers. They usually are. Admittedly, I didn't give them a lot of chance. That's what you get for declaring war on me at the beginning of the game you slimy freaks.

Korx: Did pretty good at colonizing. They were my friends most of the game and were the only civ with enough gusto to fend off the iconians. Their tech progression was advanced and they were willing to launch invasions.

Drath: Mostly just sat there soaking up money. They dug in, but did not have much to fight the bigger civs with.

Overall: This was a more competitive game from start to finish. However, the game still fundamentally suffers from a timid AI. It does a good job of acquiring space superiority, but it is really bad at actually invading and taking over your planets. I've gotten tired of playing vanilla TA because it is usually a matter of building up your engine while avoiding fights, then steamrolling over opponants who basically just sit there and take it. This is true even on high difficulty.

PS: How to remove white backgrounds: http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/21685/replacing-whiteness-with-transparency-in-cs6

No. Logistics was doubled, as were logistic requirements. This was done to make starbases cheaper.

The Yor get no economic structure, just economy bonus and every powerful farms. In vanila you got a 1pp structure from Efficiency Studies III.

That seems a bit over the top to me. Keep in mind, neutral and good have to catch up and it's no fun researching 6 techs which give you weapons that are useless.

Logistics is low on the Krynn's AI's todo list. It's the same for the Terrans, Drath and Thalan.

Good to know.

Yeah they do that. This is something build into the AI and there's little I can do about that.

I don't completely agree. They do build military starbases so they might as well grab a few modules to put on them. The trick is making sure it stays just a few.

Hmmm, I was sure they had a 15% penalty now I see they don't. They should. SSTC and ToE give 5/10 research making up for their research deficiency. Of course they can lose these structures to invasion so the deficiency isn't exactly gone.

The true evil races get cheap industry, labs or both to push them into early wars and victory. If their empires fail to grow large they're eventually defeated due to lack of advanced tech. I've been on the receiving end when they manage it (wasn't pretty).

I don't completely agree. While it will take them a long, long time to grab these techs and worlds they allow them to catch up and then surpass their opponents.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. This is unacceptable. 3 years in they should always have Xeno Factories or higher. I'll see if I can fix this by tinkering with Categories.

I noticed a lot of discussion about the political parties and abilities. To me it seems like a partial roll back to the old political parties.

Could someone post a (very) condensed version of these suggestions listing what needs changing and why? Thanks.