This is going to be a long post. I had time to play quite a bit of
GC2 Beta 5 over the holiday season and I have quite a few notes on
things.


1. When starting the game it consistently uses whatever political party
you chose the _last_ time you started a game and not whatever party you
chose _this_ time.

2. Random event: Polar Ice Caps / Stone-Age Lifeform choices are odd.
The "good" choice gets you a -7% production bonus, the "neutral" choice
gets you a -17% production bonus, and the "evil" choice gets you a +29%
production bonus.

3. Ship info remains in the display window on the main map even if a ship
has been consumed or otherwise used: colony ships, transports, constructors,
etc..

4. Pirates are vastly overpowered. All of a sudden there was an explosion of
pirates. More than 2 dozen pirate ships with almost 500 HP. The next time they
appeared they had another couple dozen ships with almost 1200 HP. The next time,
yet another couple dozen ships - this time with 1488 hitpoints. The next time they
showed up they had 1652 HP. Each time they proceeded to wipe out all non-pirate
ships in the galaxy and every starbase that didn't have the maximum number of
defense and attack modules. The player races can't build ships like this so why
can the pirates do so?

5. UP Trade routes expansion vote: text states that "...expanding the number
of trade routes by two" but the vote boxes range from zero to four routes.

6. UP Starbase module restriction: AI races voted to limit starbases to four
modules. This was just after Pirates had wiped out all ships and starbases in
the galaxy. It seems a bit odd to vote to make sure all starbases are undefendable
after such an event.

7. Make button that brings up the Ship / Production window on the main map a toggle.

8. The I-League is too powerful. I had multiple games where I won by default because
the I-League had wiped out or absorbed all the other AI races. The I-League also seems
very fond of invasion tactics that drastically reduce PQ. The I-League would regularly
end up with PQ 3 - 5 planets due to the chosen tactics. This is on planets that started
with PQ 10 - 20.

9. Starbase module: "Mining Barracks" is in the game twice, once with a +2% bonus
and once with a +3% bonus.

10. Having minor races show up in systems already colonized is a bit annoying.

11. Music volume creeps up down with beta 5. None of the prior beta releases had this
problem.

12. UP issue: "Complaints about exploiting native population". In the text just above
the vote boxes there are two errors: "Should [OtherLeaderName] be held financially
responcable" [OtherLeaderName] obviously shouldn't be there and "responsible" is misspelled.

13. "Extra" trade routes show up as open on the trade route screen.

14. Technologists lost an election with a 56% approval rating. That shouldn't be possible.

15. UP Issue: "Should starbases perminantly add all allied races" Permanently is misspelled.

16. Upon restoring from a saved game the Torian flagship was sitting next to Earth with
zero hitpoints and sat there forever. - Save game sent.

17. Espionage - level increase popups sometimes come up twice. Once when they should and
then once again in a subsequent turn.

18. Achieved and espionage level of "low" on three races at the same time and while the
diplomacy screen indicated the correct infiltration level for all three races only two
popup messages were seen.

19. It would be nice if the type of starbase built were somewhere in the base information
when one clicks on a starbase. The would be especially nice for determining, quickly, what
type of starbases an AI race is building in player territory.

20. All of a sudden the Arcean cultural influence, galaxy wide, exploded to cover the map.
I received popup warnings that my culture was being overwhelmed by their culture. The turn before
everything had been normal. - Save game sent.

21. Sometimes the hitpoint counter on a ship doesn't go all the way down to zero,
in the ship info window, on the battle screen, even though the ship was, in fact, destroyed.
The after action report does state that the HP count did go to zero.

22. After a "Pirates" random event one of their ships appeared on the map placed underneath a
PQ zero planet.

23. Building the Galactic Guidebook wonder was to have reduced the survey module size cost
to zero but it did not. The survey module stayed the same size it always had.

24. I received the "Ten turns until cultural conquest" popup but the Civilization Manager
window resolutely maintained that I was 0% of the way toward a cultural conquest all the way
to the end of the game.

25. Civilization Manager: - Victory Tab - Conquest Victory section - "achieve" is misspelled.

26. End game summary - Economy screen - "Cash lost on leases and tributes 1488 bc" I had no
leases during the game and paid no tribute.

27. The buttons on the main start screen of the game take a few seconds to populate. They come
in one by one.

28. Metaverse login screen - It would be nice if the tab key allowed you to move the cursor
between the username and password fields.

29. Victory conditions - Even when you edit Prefs.ini to disable a given victory condition the
disbabled victory condition still shows up in the Galaxy Setup Screen - Ways to Win box. In the area
immediatly above that box the disabled conditions show up properly.

30. A way to edit the victory conditions from within the game would be nice. I assume this will
make it in at some point.

31. The AI races are consistently colonizing PQ 4 planets.

32. I received the "unbalanced budget" warning. Not when I went negative or at any
time while I was negative. It came up the turn I went from a negative balance to a positive balance.

33. When trading with the Vegans and the trade was complete - "When it comes to talking to the leader
of the mighty [YourEmpireName], the pleasure is all mine."

34. Player designed ships from prior games show up as "core" ships in later games and can not be
edited or updated.

35. A way to delete player designed ships from within the game would be nice.

36. UP issue: The Planet Wisp is available for colonization. The Terrans were voted the planet and I was,
in fact, given the planet. The only problem was that Wisp had been owned for some time by the Altarians and
subsequently conquered by the I-League. The I-League had reduced the PQ of the planet to a 3 by using very
destructive invasion tactics. I received a PQ 10 planet but it still had I-League ships in orbit and was merrily
building another I-League ship even though, after being given to the Terrans, the planet had no spaceport. - Save
game sent.

37. Metaverse: Error 7 received when trying to post a game.

38. There is still quite a bit of strangenes going on if you start a new game without exiting to the desktop. All
sorts of things can happen. The list is lengthy but includes: Homeworld with no spaceport, Major AI races sharing
home star systems - in one game the Terrans started on Earth and the Torians started on Sol 3, Terrans starting in the
Primus system, AI ships showing up in the player build list, etc..

39. When loading a save game, that had been saved just after the game started, both starting ships had auto-pilot
destinations set to the same point at the opposite edge of the galaxy. Needless to say that endpoint was far beyond the
range of the ships in question.

40. CTD when hitting the turn button. Save game sent.

When I got an alliance win as a custom race, I am labelled as human.

On the economic summary screen after a win, the average tax rate as BC as unit.

CTD accepting sue for peace from Arcean.

Stardock SmartException Logging Information
-------------------------------------------

OS Version : Windows XP
Video Card : Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
Application Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 0043A217 01:00039217 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming.net\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe

Processor Registers (x86):
EAX:00000001
EBX:00000000
ECX:0000010C
EDX:7C90EB94
ESI:0000010C
EDI:0000010C
CS:EIP:001B:0043A217
SS:ESP:0023:0012F998 EBP:0A200048
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00210246


Current Application Call Stack:

Addr Frame Logical addr Module Name
---------------------------------------------
0043A217 0A200048 0001:00039217 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming.net\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe


Debug information for each stardock app follows ....

Stardock SmartException Logging Information
-------------------------------------------

OS Version : Windows XP
Video Card : Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
Application Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 004128D0 01:000118D0 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming.net\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe

Processor Registers (x86):
EAX:00000001
EBX:0F000020
ECX:00000000
EDX:7C90EB94
ESI:0B353F20
EDI:0ECA0020
CS:EIP:001B:004128D0
SS:ESP:0023:0012F7F4 EBP:00000000
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00210202


Current Application Call Stack:

Addr Frame Logical addr Module Name
---------------------------------------------
004128D0 00000000 0001:000118D0 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming.net\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe


Debug information for each stardock app follows ....

When building small ships, they would have 15 hit points instead of 12 because of a bonus I received from exploring an anomaly and building the Xinathium Hull Plating project. On my planet with the Manufacting Captial, I built an Omega Shipyard which should provide a 50% hit point bonus to ships built there. I was expecting small ships with 21-23 hit points depending on whether the 50% applies to the base 12 or 15 and if it rounds up or down. However, the small ships still had only 15 hit points.

Also, when I restored a saved game, my tourist income was gone until the next turn.

Playing A gigantic game, (normal difficulty) in my first contact with a minor race, I asked for tribute of several techs. To my surprise they agreed to pay tribute but the techs were not delivered.

It would probably amount to a bug if they did agree but shouldn't they refuse rather than agree and not deliver

I found some nasty bugs with the ship design and race selection:
I have played with Thalan and decided to change the political party and some color on the ship. And I have designed some ships, some being with the Thalan starting techs. One of those ships being a simple colony ship with only a colony module to speed up colonization of planets in the same system.
The following game, I played the same race, but it was appearing this time as a custom race. Not a real problem, I play it and found my ships.
In a next game, I decide to take Thalan (and not the custome race based on Thalan) and change political party and ship color. To my greatest astonishment, no user ship where available, even the one with only a colony module.
I decide then to start a new game. As the custom Thalan was available (corresponding to the modification I have made to the Thalan the previous game), I take them. And on the start of the game, my custom ships appear.

I decide then to start a new game with another race using the same kind of ship: the Drath. First game, nothing did appear. For the following game, I took the custom race that was a copy of the Drath from the previous game. And this time, the custom ships that were compatible with the Drath tech and miniaturization level: the simple colony ship (only a cargo hull + a colonization module).

I decide to try more fun: I restart a game with the custom race (based on Drath) and decide to change this time the ship kind. And then, the entry for the simple colony ship was here, with all correct stats but with nothing displayed since the cargo hull isn't the same.

To summarize:
- custom ships don't appear for a standard race even if they appear for a custom race that is the exact copy of this standard race
- something is missing to just create the missing look for custom ships that were designed based on other kind of ship appearance

The Torian have an incredible advantage: their ability of sensor + 30 is translated into colony ship having a sensor range of 32 parsec instead of 2 parsec like all other races. This means that their colony ships know exactly where to go since generally the sensor range is greater than the allowed range for ship movement.

Don't know wheter it's been already addressed, but almost every time I fiddle around with the ShipYard, trying to save my poorly designed ships, game ends up (no error msg, just thrown to desktop).

Galaxy Size: Large (8 x 8 - btw in the .pdf Guide large is 9x9)

HW: IBM Thinkpad T41 (2373TG5)
******************************* SYSTEM SUMMARY *******************************
OS information: Microsoft Windows XP
OS version: 5.10.2600 Service Pack 1
Processor: x86 Family 6 Model 9 Stepping 5
Memory: 1.047.472 kb
BIOS version: 3.03 (1RETC2WW)
Machine type-Model: 2373TG5

****************************** BIOS INFORMATION ******************************
BIOS version: 3.03 (1RETC2WW)
BIOS date : 2004-04-07
Embedded controller version: 3.00a
Machine type-Model: 2373TG5

***************************** DRIVE INFORMATION ******************************
Logical drive: C:\
Drive type: Fixed drive
Drive size: 58.605.088 kb
Drive free space: 28.148.100 kb

I have reconfirmed when I restore a saved game, my tourist income is gone until the next turn.

Also, I don't know if this is a bug or the result of some bonus. When I build a ship ship with G4P3A2 (G=guns,P=point defense,A=armor), it is shows up as having G5P4A2. Also, sometimes my star bases which should have G7P5 have instead G7P7. This may have been for star bases that successfully fought off attacks and possibly gained some experience bonus.

Also, I don't know if this is a bug or the result of some bonus. When I build a ship ship with G4P3A2 (G=guns,P=point defense,A=armor), it is shows up as having G5P4A2. Also, sometimes my star bases which should have G7P5 have instead G7P7. This may have been for star bases that successfully fought off attacks and possibly gained some experience bonus.

Do you have any weapons bonus in place maybe that causes this increase?

When you have stacked ships, and you are trying to create a fleet, it is possible to create a 1 ship fleet that won't be able to be merged with other ships to form a larger fleet. I don't know exactly what causes this problem, since forming the fleet works most of the time.

In my current game I have two ships stacked. I select the sector where the ships are to bring up the display of the stacked ships. I click on each so that it appears both are selected. I then click on "Create Fleet". As I said, most of the time this works. But several times now what it does is to leave one ship selected in the stacked ship display, but not to create a fleet. I'm left looking at the stacked ships display. If I select the other ship and hit "Create Fleet" again nothing happens. If I move one of the two ships I can select them each in turn and find that one is a fleet consisting of one ship. If I disband that fleet I can move the ships together again and try to create the fleet again.

I'll send a screen shot and a saved game in hopes it'll help fix this problem.

When playing in windowed mode: If a tooltip is up, and you mouse out of the window while the tooltip is still visible, it remains visible until the mouse is moved over another tooltip trigger. I tested this with the interface buttons at the bottom. Also, the tooltip triggered by the swap has the same visibility unless I go to one of the bottom buttons and slide horizontally onto an adjacent button. A vertical hop up then back down on another button merely swaps. When the tooltip is removed by the horizontal slide method, no new tooltip will trigger for the button over which the mouse now resides unless the mouse is moved slightly(even a pixel). If one has paused over this new button long enough, that slight move will then immediately trigger teh appropriate tooltip.

I just hit another CTD when trying to load a saved game. Since it's repeatable (at least I repeated it once) I sent both the saved game and the exception report to gc2bugs.

Got a freighter arriving from the Carinoids with a value to me of 0 per month. Hardly worth it, eh? I sent a screen shot to gc2bugs.

CTD attempting to destroy colony I culture flipped that did not have a capital. Screen shot sent to gc2bugs.

Stardock SmartException Logging Information
-------------------------------------------

OS Version : Windows XP
Video Card : Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller
Application Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 0056B024 01:0016A024 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming.net\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe

Processor Registers (x86):
EAX:00000000
EBX:FFFFFFFF
ECX:0A1F0048
EDX:006FEF24
ESI:00000000
EDI:00000012
CS:EIP:001B:0056B024
SS:ESP:0023:0012F404 EBP:00000000
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00210297


Current Application Call Stack:

Addr Frame Logical addr Module Name
---------------------------------------------
0056B024 00000000 0001:0016A024 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming.net\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe


Debug information for each stardock app follows ....

Have a new problem. I am unable to play again from my last saved game.
Reloading the game bounces back to desktop.

Tried to play from a previously saved one, but after a couple of turns, same story.

Submission will follow to gc2bugs -- with the SmartException.zip file.

Something I never saw before in beta 5:

I had the galactic prison event early in a game, and of course the prisoners escaped.
I then fought my first battle of the game, a single ship battle between the 70 HP prisoner ship with 1 MassDriver / 1 Armor and my puny 12HP ship with 2 Missile / 1 Armor. I expected to lose, but not in the way that occurred...
After exchanging a couple of shots, the prisoner ship suddenly fired a shot that did 5 damage.....FIVE ... as first shot of a double set of shots. This happened once more a bit later, which was the end of the fight.

According to what I know of the combat, a ship with a single 1 MD should not be able to inflict 5 HP of damage in a single shot. Is something wrong? Screenshots and savegame sent to GC2bugs.

Beta 5 (GalCiv2 0.80a[b].002) looks good and is proving to be much more stable than Beta 4 (0.79), which of course makes it much more fun to play. I have noticed that if I hibernate my computer (P4 512Mb WinXP SP2), often when I resume, GalCiv2 crashes.

My biggest compliant is GalGiv2's large memory footprint of about 600Mb total (counting both physical and virtual). Since my computer only has 512Mb and the game does not require the Internet, I disable networking and shutdown all the services that support/secure it, before running the game to save memory. Still saving/restoring the game takes about 5 minutes (probably because of swapping).

Those of you playing the gamma release 0.90, has GalGiv2's appetite for memory decreased? Will this be improved in the final release?

Stardock wants Windows 98, ME, and 2000 gamers to be able to play the game; however, older computers running those older OSes likely won't have the necessary memory and CPU power to play GalCiv2.

An extra civilization capital tile appears on conquered home worlds.

GalCiv2 0.80a[b].002
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Languages: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
System Model: Dimension 4600i
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A08
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)

Should bugs be e-mailed to [email protected] or [email protected]? Both are giving me errors!

Should bugs be e-mailed to [email protected] or [email protected]? Both are giving me errors!

I've used both. I've had a small percentage of my emails bounced from [email protected], nothing bounced (yet) from [email protected].

CariElf suggests using [email protected]. I consider that authoratative.

An extra civilization capital and starport appears on conquered minor race home world's.

I decommissioned one of the starports and then I was unable to build ships. In the planet list it was then reporting no starport eventough one still appears in the title map of the planet.

I'll try sending some screen shots and a saved game to [email protected].

GalCiv2 0.80a[b].002
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Languages: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
System Model: Dimension 4600i
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A08
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)

GalCiv2 crashes when resuming from a hibernation, reporting a problem in lib3d.dll.

GalCiv2 0.80a[b].002
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Languages: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
System Model: Dimension 4600i
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A08
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)

AppName: galciv2.exe
AppVer: 1.0.0.1
ModName: lib3d.dll
ModVer: 0.0.0.0
Offset: 00008c9f

p.s. I sent this and the other bug report via my HTTP yahoo account; all attempts to send via my Cable ISP Mail Server, Adelphia failed!