In about a week Galactic Civilizations II v1.2 will be officially released. Besides having a bunch of cool new UI enhancements, improved computer players, and tons of tweaks and enhancements, the game will include advanced modding features. As part of this we are including an example mod that changes everything from who you play against, your technology tree, the actual game interface, and more. It's designed to give players an idea of just some of the things that are possible. Full documentation on the modding will be provided as well as a new library here on GalCiv2.com for people to submit their mods for other people to use.
For users, selecting a mod is very straight forward. From the options area, simply select the one you want.
And now for the change log..
Changes from 1.2 Beta 2 over Beta 1:
+ Fixed huge sun problem
+ Sphere model is now scaled in code so it scales to correct size regardless of size of sphere in model file
+ Fixed bug where fleets would be destroyed when attacking a mini-freighter (even if it had no weapons)
+ Drop down icons will not be created for war and peace if one of the civs is dead
+ Drop down icons will not be created for surrender if the victor civ is dead
+ Custom Race will not be selected as an opponent if “Randomize Players” is checked
+ Added “Simple Explosions” option: Some people were experiencing “stuttering” during explosion on older machines. This option will display 1 explosion billboard per explosion instead of the usual 8 – 15 billboards.
+ Fixed bug where ship would have parts in random places if it formerly belonged to a civ with a different hull style, then was traded to the player, and upgraded.
+ Disabled “Minor Race stole technologies and wants to trade” event if Disable Tech Trading option is ON
+ Made turn button glow image not hard-coded (can use mods folder)
+ Fixed bug if a ship was on auto-explore and passed into a tile with another ship the “Are you sure you want to declare war” message would keep popping up infinitely
+ If ship on auto-explore tries to enter tile with another ship, auto-explore is cancelled
+ Planet Details Screen: Set Homeworld button now sets the civ’s homeworld name property
+ Fixed up/down arrows in Election window so you can scroll through the political parties
+ Fixed typo on mods dialog “AUse this…” à “Use this….”
+ Added cheat key to force vote for political party (CTRL+SHIFT+V)
+ Fixed crash if NewShip fails to find ship design
+ Added new fleet formation ( double vee ) to Example mod
+ Capped max zoom in level in mini map to 500%
+ Fixed mislabeled tool tip in Civ Manager Colonies list
+ Added 2 fleet formations to example mod
+ Fixed bug where upgrading all ships of a type would cost more than upgrading them individually.
+ Fixed graphical glitch in auto pilot lines where at certain times the line would appear to have jagged pieces or sharp points
+ Fixed bug in fleet battle code where sometimes not all ships on a particular side would fire a shot
+ Added a line to debug.err to tell if mods are enabled or not
+ If mini map is zoomed in, it will now update its position if you move the camera (it updates once the camera stops moving)
+ Fixed crash when using the T key to try to set a rally point for an uninhabited planet
+ Fixed FogBugz 9632: Star port and ship yard windows would show an empty view if the ship config file for a design was missing.
+ Upgrading a ship from the ShipDetailsWnd or FleetManagerWnd will hide that window and unhide the UpgradeWnd (fixing the "Upgrade Screen appears beneith
FleetManagerWnd Bug")
+ Fixed bug where using the left and right arrow keys would distort the camera view after an arrow key press opened a window
+ added Paul's new screens to the sample mod
+ changed mods browse dialog to only list mods, not folders
+ fixed bug in save games that tripped cheater flag
+ added MODS parameter so that you can enable mods from the command line parameter
+ added Default folder to GalCiv2\mods directory to be the default mod
+ fixed bug where bink would show up in Alien Msg Window instead of the mod that's supposed to overrride it
+ hid pictures of ignored races on Race and Opponent windows
+ fixed bug where Customize Race Window brought up wrong data first time you load a game with mods enabled after they were disabled
+ made it so that you can put a TechTree.xml file in the Mods\Data folder and it reads that in instead of the one in the regular data folder.
+ tweaked (condensed) Example mod's Tech Tree