Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar 1.6 BETA 1

Change Log

Published on April 4, 2007 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

The first beta of 1.6 is purely fixes and performance improvements. The new features and game balance tweaks will come in subsequent betas.

That said, these changes are pretty significant.

First off, the defense handling has been changed which should have far-reaching consequences to how the game is played.

Secondly, the new ship stacking handling should increase performance as there's now much smarter drawing routines for ships which should greatly improve performance for players. This build should be faster than any version of GalCiv ever.

Here's what's new:

+ NEW: Stacked ships will only show one ship in the tile

+ The ship that is displayed is chosen like so:

     + If a ship is the galaxy’s selected ship it is always shown

     + Otherwise, the toughest selected ship is shown

     + If no ship in the stack is selected, the toughest ship is shown

    + An icon appears next to ships that are in a stack

    + when you move a ship off of a stack, it will show the next ship in that stack

    + This significantly increases performance in our tests. We had a stack of about 50 ships and no major hit to frame rate.

+ FIX: Fixed bug where non-optimal defenses were never decreased as the defenses absorbed damage during a battle round

+ FIX: Fixed end of turn crash that happened if you had the Force AI to use Max CPU option ON.

+ FIX: Made Build Menu update after a project is decomissioned. 1 per planet improvements like Orbital Terraformers will now show up in the build list again if you remove them from the queue or destroy an existing one. 1 per civ and 1 per galaxy improvements may not be destroyed and rebuilt - this is by design.

+ FIX: Fixed bug where if you changed the settings for a custom opponent's Natural Abilities and/or Financial Resources, the values would not remain the same after leaving the tab.

+ FIX: Fixed error where invalid information was being returned by the activation code in Win98 and Windows ME by adding alternate code if the first instance failed.

+ FIX: Fixed bug where save game was not saving the campaign file name and added code to fix save games currently exhibiting this bug (should fix problem with people continuing their campaigns)

+ FIX: Fixed crash bug where if the random event that creates a new minor race happened mulitple times, the minor races would end up with the same name and then delete each other's ship designs, causing a crash on the end of a turn

+ FIX: Fixed bug where the turn a ship was created was not saved/restored when loading a save game, which could cause a ship design to be deleted too early

+ FIX: Fixed bug with loading height maps for planet surfaces

+ FIX: Fixed bug where ending the game from the planet screen resulted in a crash because the planet screen was not hidden before the end game screen was unhidden

+ FIX: Added strings that were not being saved to scenario save game code

+ TWEAK : Turned off some debug strings to try and improve loading time

This beta will be up this week. Stay tuned.

Comments (Page 1)

Starstriker1

on Apr 04, 2007

Can't wait to give it a spin! Will later betas be doing more than the bug fixing that the first one is doing?

Also, how specifically is the defense being handled? Another Stardock employee posted something on it before, but his explanation wasn't too clear.

tetleytea

on Apr 04, 2007

I'm glad about the defense bug, but--nothing to tweak the tech trading?

Eytan Zweig

on Apr 04, 2007

tetleytea - It says that game balance tweaks will be added in subsequent betas.

Starstriker1

on Apr 04, 2007

Heh... missed that in the initial post. Sorry, Draginol!

Matthew Girard

on Apr 04, 2007

What about stacks of fleets?

Matthew Girard

on Apr 04, 2007

Will this new MOD also stack fleets? I've had games where fleets and fleets have attacked me and it's slowed down my framerate(no matter whether I have TNL and BM off or not).

Stanley Tarrant

on Apr 05, 2007

First off, the defense handling has been changed which should have far-reaching consequences to how the game is played.

How exactly has it been changed???

Stanley Tarrant

on Apr 05, 2007

+ FIX: Fixed bug where non-optimal defenses were never decreased as the defenses absorbed damage during a battle round

Is this the exact defense system change??

tetleytea

on Apr 05, 2007

Is this the exact defense system change??

That's a good question. It would be nice if we just knew from SD, so beta testers like me don't have to go in and test to see if they changed anything else.

Belanos

on Apr 07, 2007

Will this new MOD also stack fleets? I've had games where fleets and fleets have attacked me and it's slowed down my framerate(no matter whether I have TNL and BM off or not).

Geez guy, do some reading. It's the first item in the changes list!

TBS Gamer 01

on Apr 10, 2007

The new Beta is running smoothly, no end of turn crashes anymore. I have played 2 games on a large map, 8 opponents, full AI. The AI performed well, even adjusting weapon strategy midstream to counter my defenses.

The new single ship graphic display has some kinks to be worked out still. It does speed up the game, noticeably. However, in zoomed out "icon mode" any space with more than a single ship displays nothing, i.e. no icon. This is much like playing the game while looking through a hole punched card. You can't find your own ships easily, and trying to chase down ships that randomly stealth while in sight range because they happen to have landed on a trade line freighter can be annoying. I found myself scrupulously avoiding the use of rally points or any "ship gathering" at all.

The end verdict is that the Beta is excellent overall. Stable, loads faster, runs faster. I will continue to play on it for its crash fixes. I look forward to Beta 2, and the return of persistent ship icons again.

As always, thanks to you and all the folks at Stardock. Your company, in my mind, does many things the way they should be done. To that end, I try to push all the strategy gamers I can find into your sales que. Until EA buys you out anyway.

Stanley Tarrant

on Apr 10, 2007

Until EA buys you out anyway.

That would only happen if Stardock "sold out", which I don't see happening.

Frogboy, that shouldn't happen. You don't strike me as a typical CEO who is only in it for themselves and for the money. Most CEOs out there, like most politicians, deserve to be executed.

Evil Muppet

on Apr 11, 2007

What other suggestions are included in the patch that aren't on the list? That seems a bit shorter than the hundreds of posts on the suggestions thread, lol.

kryo

on Apr 11, 2007

What other suggestions are included in the patch that aren't on the list? That seems a bit shorter than the hundreds of posts on the suggestions thread, lol.

None. As Frogboy said in the first line of his post, the suggestions will start coming in in the following betas. This one is just bug fixes.

Stanley Tarrant

on Apr 11, 2007

+ FIX: Fixed bug where non-optimal defenses were never decreased as the defenses absorbed damage during a battle round

Is this the exact defense system change??

Kyro, can you answer my earlier question?

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