Galactic Civilizations II v1.4 Change Log

Coming soon...

Published on October 19, 2006 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv Journals

Still testing but here are the changes:

+ Initial Colony buildings have less maintainence.

+ New colonies start out with a population cap of 6 instead of 5.

+ Farms provide less food.

+ Morale buildings have been increased in benefit but techs to get to them cost substantially more.

+ Stock market no longer gives morale bonus (wasn't supposed to in the first place)

+ Updated beam weapon model along with large hull models

+ Updated some of the planetary improvement icons to be prettier

+ Updated Achille's heel, Apocalypse, and Pathfinder missions in the campaign based on player feedback.

+ Tweaks to make money not too hard to get early on but not as easy to get ridiculous levels of money later on (though expert players will still be able to do this).

+ fixed bug where ships on auto-attack would try to attack ships they weren't at war with if the ship was in the way

+ fixed bug with auto attack where it was using the wrong function to check to see if a ship was hidden by the FOW.

+ fixed cheat key to force an AI player to surrender

+ added in code so that when using the CTRL+Z cheat to run the game in AI test mode, it will make the AI take over for the human player

+ fixed bug where ships that were being upgraded but were not selected tried to update the ShipContextWnd, resulting in a crash if the last ship to be selected was deleted

+ fixed a bug where a ship (under certain conditions) could fail to start moving even if it had a path calculated to its destination

+ added additional debug info for missing string in tradewnd, took precautions to avoid a crash

+ Tweaks to the AI code that handles planetary improvement so that they don't do stupid stuff by mistake

+ Fixed integer divide by zero crash

+ Fixed bug where if you upgrade a constructor and build a starbase while it is upgrading, the starbase will change into a ship when the upgrade is complete

+ If RAW file fails to load, a height field is generated randomly

+ Fixed crash in Quick Project Window

+ fixed a bug that could occur if you loaded a campaign save game and tried to continue after finishing that mission, instead of using the campaign screen.

New:
+ added option to save ship design to disk. If turned off, the ship design will not be saved to disk and will not show up the next time you start GalCiv2. Ship designs will still remain in memory until the data is reloaded (from a save game, from starting a metaverse game after having played a normal game, etc).

Comments (Page 3)

Ugleb

on Oct 21, 2006

You do need ridiculous amounts of money to upgrade ships. But money early is most important. So does that mean early money is harder, easier or the same?

He means that in the early[/B] game you will get more money to make keeping your economy stable easier (lots of new players go horribly broke and it can be annoying for the rest of us), but in the long run it will be harder to make very large amounts of money.

We should see less games ending early when the bailifs turn up to reposess your planet and less games ending with bank balances so mind boggling huge that they dont fit on screen.

Winning through sheer critical mass of cash should become harder.

[B]Losing because your economy is hemoraging cash after you colonises one planet too many before your neighbour got it and over extended yourself should happen less often.

Ugleb

on Oct 21, 2006

Note to self: dont use bold when you cant edit.

JVTruman

on Oct 21, 2006

+ Updated Achille's heel, Apocalypse, and Pathfinder missions in the campaign based on player feedback.

I'm currently playing Apocalypse. If I were to install the patch and try to load my save of it, what would happen?

CraigHB

on Oct 22, 2006

+ Stock market no longer gives morale bonus (wasn't supposed to in the first place)

Man, I've had it with this. Just when I get used to a change to the game, they do some other nerf that totally changes things. I really don't care if stock exchanges were not supposed to provide a morale bonus. They put it in the game and now they're taking it out almost a year after the game's initial release. And the reason is, "because it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place". Thats BS. I can't take these constant radical changes to the game anymore. It's just too irritating. Sorry, but you lost me on that one.

Mumblefratz

on Oct 22, 2006

Man, I've had it with this. Just when I get used to a change to the game, they do some other nerf that totally changes things.

I understand the feeling, but the way that I look at it, they're trying to evolve us all into uber players. In many ways I think it's working.

They can nerf anything they want, but the one thing they can't nerf is your mind. Consider it a challange.

Lord Reaper

on Oct 22, 2006

I agree, it is really beginning to annoy me. Lately it has driven me to play GalCiv less and to start playing some of my other games more, I am tired of having to relearn the same game over and over, and each change making it less enjoyable of an experience. I wanted them to just fix bugs and add more content, not keep changing how the game is played. I am beginning to wonder if I should even get Dark Avatar, most of the changes don't appeal to me.

I used to play chess a lot when I was younger, it would be like every time you play a couple games, someone tells you the rules have changed and now the bishop can only move one space. Then after a few more games, they tell you the rules have changed again and now you can only use one rook and replace the other one with a third knight, etc. It is getting rediculous.

Magnumaniac

on Oct 22, 2006

I am beginning to wonder if I should even get Dark Avatar, most of the changes don't appeal to me.

I'm afraid to say that I'm beginning to feel the same way.

v1.31 removed a lot of the options for planetary development, and these latest changes remove even more - making every game play the same way in that respect.

Meglobob

on Oct 22, 2006

Stardock/Brad/Frogboy

Can u please reconsider yr policy to updates since 1.2 which was great?

Since 1.3 onwards u have adopted a policy of removing the fun, enjoyable elements of the game. Stock exchanges is just the latest one. We all love updates for bug fixes, better AI and new features. However alot of your most loyal players hate the nerfing/destroying of elements of the game. Stock exchanges where alot of players most favourite building, losing it hurts. Also it makes sense to me that stock exchanges did give a +10% morale boost and +5% influence boost. They r a sign of a strong economy, wealth creation, this would give people a morale boost, more money in there pocket and places such as New York/London do exert alot of influence because they r financial centres.

Cetane

on Oct 22, 2006

Seems Stardock is starting to loose a bit of fan base.

Quit screwing up a good game. Fix the bugs but leave the game play alone.

Draginol

on Oct 22, 2006

Could some of you please try it before condemning it?

Nearly all the buildings got INCREASED in power, not decreased. The Stock Market provides a 25% boost to your economy all by itself. We increased the population cap of new colonies, morale buildings are a lot more powerful. Throw down a virtual reality center (which now provides a 35% bonus as opposed to 25%) and you're in good shape.

Like I said, wait till you've tried it to condemn it.

Given that the values of this data is in a text file, it's really hard to see how there can be so much angst. There will absolutely positively not be a Metaverse in any future Stardock game. It totally kills the game IMO (people won't change the values of buildings to suit their preferences because they want to compete on the Metaverse and then blame us if we decide that a certain default is too imbalanced).

As for Dark Avatar, it has a ton of new buildings from Power Plants which magnify production to fertility centers (which increaes population growth) to food distribution centers (which provide a % bonus to your overall farm production).

Draginol

on Oct 22, 2006

The idea on farms providing less food at low levels is so that newer players can increase their population without having morale issues. Later on, the better farms provide quite a bit of food increase but by then players will have the morale buildings to match.

Mumblefratz

on Oct 22, 2006

(which now provides a 35% bonus as opposed to 25%) and you're in good shape

I will try it before I criticize it, so please don't take this as criticism. However, the 35% bonus of a VRC is not 35% unless you've changed the buildings morale benefit so that it's not multiplied by base morale. The effect of the VRC at the critical 25B point is only 20% * 35% = 7%. If you're attempting to get a pop above 25B, that's really not much of a benefit, nor is it dramatically different than the effective 20% * 35% = 5% benefit that it was.

Jasamcarl

on Oct 22, 2006

It does seem as if some idiots in this thread don't remember their earlier complaints that there was no reason to build morale buildings because stock exchanges were too good, and that, post 1.31, stock exchanges were the essential building.

By boosting morale buidlings and nerfing exchanges, the changes add more options to the game not less. What is the real complaint here; that the game isn't as broken as it used to be? That the numbers simply aren't large enough. Pathetic.

Frogboy

on Oct 23, 2006

MumbleFratz - given how much spleen was vented about taking out a 10% morale bonus in the stock exchange I can't see how at the same time a +10% increase in morale bonus to the morale buildings is now insignificant.

Basically, the 10% from the stock exchange got moved to the proper morale building.

Lord Reaper

on Oct 23, 2006

No, the complaint was never that the stock exchanges were too good, but that morale buildings were so weakened after 1.2, that they provided no significant benefit. That stock exchanges then became a more viable option then using morale buildings. The stock exchange was always one of the most popular buildings in the game, now there will be no reason to make researching it a priority since it is only 5% better economic bonus then a bank, but now without any of it's other benefits that made it something to strive for.

By boosting morale buidlings and nerfing exchanges, the changes add more options to the game not less. What is the real complaint here; that the game isn't as broken as it used to be? That the numbers simply aren't large enough. Pathetic.

No, that the game was more enjoyable when it was 1.2. I don't agree that the new changes add more options to the game, but limits players from being able to use the stratigies that made the game fun for them. I believe the changes since 1.2 stifle creativity of the players so that eventually there will be only one viable way to develop a planet. Saying in effect: "Develop your planets the way we think you should, or else we will change things so you have to." If the game was so broken before then why did so many people buy it and rave about it and keep playing it? It seems to me that the game changes since 1.2 are what are turning players off.

It is like someone saying, we know you love the game of chess and have spent a lot of time learning the game and developing your strategies, but we have now decided we don't like the way people are playing and feel that the queen is too powerful and was never intended to be such a powerful chess piece so it can now only move one space at a time. Do you think, players would gladly accept the new change, and be eager to throw out everything they had learned about chess? I don't think so. If it was broken then we would not have all wanted to buy it and play it, and if it is not broken, don't fix it.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!