Galactic Civilizations II: Beta 1 Notes

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Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

Beta 1 Notes.

Introduction
The goal for this first beta is largely compatibility.  Galactic Civilizations II has a very new 3D engine that takes advantage of the latest features in 3D hardware. While we have attempted to test it on a wide range of video hardware, there will be video cards that it won't work on.

In addition, we are looking for general performance feedback. For most people, Galactic Civilizations II should play vastly faster than Galactic Civilizatiosn I did on the same hardware.  Our base test machine here is a Pentium II 600Mhz machine with a Geforce 2 MX card. And on that machine it was much faster than first game was.

We are also testing the content delivery system -- TotalGaming.net via the Stardock Central app.  THis beta will allow us to see how well the updated system works and force us to clean up what files we include (though there will probably be a lot of GalCiv 1 junk in there).

We will also be looking to see if beta testers will be able to successfully change the screens on their own.  In the GalCiv2\Screens directory there is this:

And in there are a bunch of .dxpacks.  These are read in by DesktopX which you can download at www.desktopx.net.   Next month we will be building up the Downloads are so that you guys can upload your own takes on various screens.

Special Screen Feedback
There are a few screens we do want to get some feedback on:

  • The Ship Design screen. We have struggled on this screen because we want it to be powerful but we don't want it to be hard to use.
  • The new technology screen. Same sort of thing.
  • The new colony screen.

 

Notes for Galactic Civilizations I players:
Currently we require planets to build a star-port in order to build ships.  We haven't decided whether we're going to keep this mechanic or not.

But it does have the effect that building ships is no longer an intregal part of the planet screen. Instead, ship building is its own screen. 

We will be working on finding ways to improve usability.  We don't want people to have to click too much on things so we will try to find ways of being able to quickly build things without having to click on various screens.

 

What Beta 1 is not about
This beta shouldn't be used to judge the "fun" ness of the game.  Or even the graphics of it.  For instance, we intentionally took out the textures on ships. 

Game balance isn't in there and there are lots of features not in.  Examples:

  •  The AI doesn't really function yet.
  • There's no star bases.
  • The technology tree is only at the very start
  • There's hardly any planetary improvements
  • There's no diplomacy or trade
  • The setup screens are not really hooked up yet or fully designed yet.

In short, the beta isn't really playable as a game yet. It's purely to see how we're doing in terms of compatibility, performance, and some of the UI concepts we're working with.

This game state is basically where we were 6 months before we shipped Galactic Civilizations I. Except this time we have 10 months to polish.  So those of you who were in the Galactic Civilizations I beta will hopefully be pleased with how far along things are given how much time is left.  Those of you who haven't been in one of our betas yet will likely be horrified at how much is left to do and that this would even be called a "beta" instead of an "alpha". ;)

We're very excited to hear what you guys think about it. We hope you like the direction we're going.

33,696 views 40 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
e the other way : "alpha" instead of "beta"?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alphas are for internal testing under the supervision of the developers. Betas are for users to test the program in the same environment where the finished application is going to be used.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
st me on this. My English skills tend to fool me much too often.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sounds great to me Brad! Look forward to testing the game.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Err. Umm. Kinda hard to test w/ continual CTDs. Despertly trying to test/play. After 5 attempts about 20 min is as long as it will go before dumping out.

There is also a discussion going on at http://www.diplomats-empire.com/new embassy/index
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On my machine everything work really great. But, I have a high end machine - 3.6GHz, 1 GB of memory, highend graphics card with 256 MB of memory on it.

I have the same prolbem that FC alluded to - about 20 minuts of play is all one can do before a CTD. Then, can't reload from autosave - system just sits there cycling on the disk, but the game never loads. Have to hard kill the computer and reboot.

I like the new colony screen. the tech screen is ok, but not sure how the techs relate in terms of predecessors, etc.
I have looked at the ship screen, but haven't builty or modded any ships yet.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

fuels cheif: Yeah, we're trying to get all the core issues worked out so you guys can get through a game.  Unfourtunatly, by going to 3d we opened up a big friggin' can of worms that has to be delt with   

But I think we made the right choice (ship design as we know it wouldn't have been possible) and I know the rest of the team appreciates all the crap you guys are wading through to get this thing properly running on all machines 

Are you and Weyleader playing the newest build (a second exe was posted late Thursday)?  If not, give that a go and see if it lets you play ongers (perhaps up to 24 minutes?) 

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Are you and Weyleader playing the newest build (a second exe was posted late Thursday)? If not, give that a go and see if it lets you play ongers (perhaps up to 24 minutes?)


Yes, I got the latest version and I played for over 30 minutes before crashing. I CTDed when I tried to invade an AI planet.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Unfourtunatly, by going to 3d we opened up a big friggin' can of worms that has to be delt with


It is always darkest before the dawn...

There is no doubt that going to 3D is the right decision. Keep pushing forward... we're on your side. Don't worry about all the crashes. - we understand that this was an early beta release... I think it is pretty cool that I could get involved at such an early stage.

3D is going to open up so many options... especially in GalCiv3
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
3D is going to open up so many options... especially in GalCiv3


I want to play GC2 first
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
3D is going to open up so many options... especially in GalCiv3


I want to play GC2 first


You said it! I might get on board for the second beta round, dunno yet. My understanding of programming or anything remotely technical with software is essentially zero, so I dont think I can give any really useful feedback other than "I think that will look nice once the textures are put back on it!"

I'm very encouraged to hear that GCII will run on a similar spec to GCI, perhaps with even better performance. To my ears that speaks of smart programming so very well done! Glad to hear that Stardock is on schedule with built in polishing time.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have the same issue where it runs for about 20 minutes then CTD and you can't reaload from a save.

P4 2.8ghz
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 meg
1 gig RAM

But man can I see great potential. Whoohoooo!
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And in there are a bunch of .dxpacks. These are read in by DesktopX which you can download at www.desktopx.net. Next month we will be building up the Downloads are so that you guys can upload your own takes on various screens.


Does that mean we have to by DesktopX or is the shareware version enough?
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Feedback so far based upon what you are looking for:

1) No problems running the game, no crashes like those previously reported

2) Tech screen has a problem. The number of turns left for completion is not updating. I was researching a topic and it stay ed at the same number of turns without changing - unless I clicked on another category, then it updated on the original category. I "think" it was keeping the correct count all along but I'm not sure - but for the longest time I thought I was doing something wrong.

3) I built a colony ship - or at least I tried to. It said that it should have only taken one week but it never built anything. On the main map screen where it says what is being built at a planet, it said colony ship but had a long number like 45688912 beside it - not sure what it meant but I thought maybe that was the true number of weeks and that I was trying to do something I couldn't.

4) I like something that would tell me the impact of what I am building/researching. Sometimes it gives that info, sometimes it doesn't it seems. I was researching research labs but it didn't tell me how much of an impact this would have on my research (+10%, or plus 10 research points, etc.)

5) Where is the map scoll? I've gotta have map scroll!

6) I'm not certain the research screen is clear enough - you are relying upon shades of color to tell me what is going on - what is being researched, what can be researched now, and what can't. The variations in shade don't jump out at me.

More feedback to follow tomorrow, just took a quick spin tonight after coming home from the holiday.

7) Ok, I too, cannot load a savegame.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Um, I can't even get a game to start. I get through all the loading screens, and then I click start game, and the game dies, and this message appears on my screen.


The instruction at "0x4fe7725b" referenced memory at "0x0c0646f0", The memory could not be "written"
Click on OK to terminate the program
Click on CANCEL to debug the program

And then I get the standard XP program close screen that you get when something it shut down from the taskmanager when the program has frozen up.

My machine
eMachine T3062
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor, 2.17 GHz
512 MB of DDR SDRAM
128 MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
3) I built a colony ship - or at least I tried to. It said that it should have only taken one week but it never built anything. On the main map screen where it says what is being built at a planet, it said colony ship but had a long number like 45688912 beside it - not sure what it meant but I thought maybe that was the true number of weeks and that I was trying to do something I couldn't.


The planet had shields in the military construction box? I've seen it give wacky numbers like that when I wasn't allocating any funding to military.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Um, I can't even get a game to start. I get through all the loading screens, and then I click start game, and the game dies

Have you installed the multimedia? I had that problem until I figured out that the multimedia game apearing right after GC2 in SDC was not a game but the multimedia for GC2. After instaling those files I was able to run the game.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with Grifman about the tech screen. The only way I could know what was "reserchable" was by clicking it and seeing if something changed in the description screen. I couldn't really see the different shades of one color. (a bit like in early altrian proohecy I think, when in te mini map several races had very similar colors).

Otherwise, so far I could start a game, however not save it or load it. think this is the more annoying problem, since without saving, it feels like I'm always testing the same things over and over...

Back to it again...
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
3) I built a colony ship - or at least I tried to. It said that it should have only taken one week but it never built anything. On the main map screen where it says what is being built at a planet, it said colony ship but had a long number like 45688912 beside it - not sure what it meant but I thought maybe that was the true number of weeks and that I was trying to do something I couldn't.


The planet had shields in the military construction box? I've seen it give wacky numbers like that when I wasn't allocating any funding to military.


if you have military spending at zero, and select a ship build. it'll say -1 weeks. if you go to the main screen this negative 1 week will convert to some six digit number of weeks remaining in planet ship build....
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, Evil Roy, went back and that was it. Thanks.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Add me to the group that is more then happy to take part in helping test this game... GC1 was great and from what I can see just from this early stage, GC2 may even knock MOOII off my most favorite space 4X game of all time.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Martin The Dane.
Thanks for the info on the Multimedia file.
I made the same mistake. There is no mention that this file has anything to do with GC2.

I have 50% of it now.
Only another two hours to go....unless I get cut off.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I realize that the UI is not done, but the planet build screen is painful (I presume this is "new colony screen"). Queueing up which buildings to place on a planet is time consuming (esp when class is high). To order an entire planet of class 20 can take 60 clicks (select square, select building, press build x # of squares). Suggestions of alternates:
1) Make the square ordering more sane. A square needing soil enrichment, once it gets to the top, remains at the top, forcing me to select another square each time.
2) Maybe get rid of square selection. I could imagine auto-square selection based on building, but that would cause problems if you wanted to build two "culture" buildings, with the second on the bonus square. I'm not sure here.
3) Select a building, and click on multiple squares. With the current stucture, I build factories, then farms, then labs. If I could click on "factor" and then click three places, that would be much nicer.
4) Some way to find open squares. I leave open squares for future tech buildings on bigger planets, but it's hard to find those later. Maybe a colony status table with an "open square" (or whatever they're called) would solve this.

The "I can see it coming" category:
5) The only building upgrade I've seen is starports. I presume they'll be more...Upgrading all my labs, factories, or labs would be extremely painful, even for small empires such as this beta gives. Some way to queue up upgrades everywhere (top or bottom of queue, preferrable) or all the structures on one planet would be helpful.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Did you ever play GC1? It had "governors" that handled the queing of social projects. During the GC1 beta the governors weren't put into the code until one of the later cycles. I assume (hope) the same will happen with GC2.