GalCiv II v1.7 Beta 1 Changelog

What's new

Published on September 18, 2007 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

Unlike many of our change logs, this one isn't as exhaustive in length but instead focuses on have fewer much more significant items in it.

Here is what's new:

+ NEW: Lease and Maintenance tab on the Economy Screen to manage your finaces better
+ NEW: The CivManager now keeps a log of events that have happened during the game
+ NEW: Governor that changes the Ship a colony is building
+ NEW: Governor that sends all ships of a specified class, and the colonies building that ship class, to target a given rallypoint
+ VERY IMPORTANT CHANGE: Made debug.err always go in user defined data directory. This is to deal with problems encountered by people with limited user accounts and for consistency with Vista.

+ NEW: Hitting CTRL + PRTSCN (Printscreen key) will save a screenshot in My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar\Screenshots
+ NEW: Made it so that the saved scoring information also saves mod name + description if mods are enabled
+ NEW: Local High score list including default high scores; files are saved in My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar\SandboxGames
+ NEW: Anomalies Randomly Reappear over the course of the game

+ TWEAK: Terran Alliance more inclined to focus on building larger starships
+ TWEAK: Optimized AI sorting routines (performance)
+ TWEAK: Spore module more expensive
+ TWEAK: Spore Weapons technology more expensive
+ TWEAK: Morale buildings more powerful
+ TWEAK: New lightmap for planets courtesy of Stefan and i-mod productions

+ FIX: Bug where ignored races still could be chose in the Opponentwnd
+ FIX: Reduced lag when clicking on a star ship caused by a function that was looping through ALL the ships in the galaxy and setting them to not be selected whether or not they actually were selected
+ FIX: Changed it so that the stacked ships and fleet windows recycle their entries so that they aren't constantly allocating and deallocating. The stackedshipwnd will attempt to shrink the number of saved entries if it hasn't used the last max number in awhile - this may need tweaking if it affects memory usage
+ FIX: Bug where notification icons were not showing up
+ FIX: Bug where the turn button was always green even if there were ships with moves left
+ FIX: Crash where code was still trying to access destroyed ships; they are now removed from the main list the turn they are destroyed so that nothing can access them
+ FIX: Bug where ignored races still could be chose in the Opponentwnd
+ FIX: The distribution of planetary tile bonuses so that there is a good number of them and that they are likely to occur on the starting homeworlds, but no more than 3 on the starting home worlds.
+ FIX: Bug where planet thumbnails were not being reused even if the planet surfaces were identical
+ FIX: Bug that was causing unnecessary information to be saved
+ FIX: Bug in the Dread Lords campaign when playing from Dark Avatar where it was not possible to continue due to it not finding the location of the next mission's files
+ FIX: Bug in the Dread Lords campaign when playing from Dark Avatar where scenarios with the Dread Lords would never end because they had the incorrect race ID
+ FIX: Bug where the graphs did not scale properly and would end abruptly without taking up the entire graphwnd
+ FIX: Bug with activation code on Win98.
+ FIX: Changed code that writes out debug messages to be more threadsafe
+ FIX: Made it so that the dxpacks are kicked out of memory after the screen has been created if there are not multiple instances of the screen, like custom list box entries, thus reducing the amount of stuff kept in memory.
+ FIX: Changed screen code to make sure that the textures created for the screens do not create mip map chains, which are unnecessary in screens and just take up more memory
+ FIX: Crash caused by not being able to find strings in the flavor text files (text that appears when the AI talks to you)

It's available on Stardock Central as an update to the Dark Avatar module to Galactic Civilizations II. The "check for betas" check box must be selected to see.

Comments (Page 4)

DivineWrath

on Sep 20, 2007

Umm, could you describe exactly how you want this to work and e-mail it to carielf@stardock.com?

Sure thing. I'll start writing it right now. I can even show up on that stardock central chat tomorrow.

By the way, thanks for listening.

________________
Edit:
There... done... I hope I didn't write too much. If there is any more information you need, feel free to ask.

drrider

on Sep 21, 2007

I don't know if this is a feature that could make it to the full 1.7, but i'd really want to be able to force other races to break up alliances with each other(allied races don't show up in the "attack race" options..). It's really annoying when i'm allied with someone, and i get attacked by a race who is allied with my ally, and i can't tell him to assist me in any way. Infact, i think it is a bug.

I was allied with the Krynn who in turn were allied with the Terran Alliance, when the Terran Alliance declared war on me the Krynn did not declare war on the Terran Alliance, and i could not convince them to attack them since they were allied..and due to this i lost a game as my military couldn't stand against them alone..

You realize, I hope, that the only logical way to implement this would be to give a chance that the power currently staying OUT of the fight between two of their allies, would be insulted by a demand that they repudiate one for the sake of the other and would therefore ATTACK the whiner instead.

drrider

MnHebi

on Sep 21, 2007

Well its only fair the AI is forced either to choose to honor the alliance and declare war, or dissolve it as the human player has been when the human player is allied with both parties of the war.

ScottTykoski

on Sep 21, 2007

By the way, if you are looking at the Guard function code, do you think that we could get a "Fortify Location" or "Hold Position" (or however you want to word it) command? It would help to manage sensor ships, and fleets dedicated to starbase defense if they didn't wake up every time a hostile ship arrives. Please and thanks.

DivineWrath

on Sep 21, 2007

Yes, I want a guard command that stays in constant effect until I turn it off. Sentry is the opposite of what I want.

thehandofzarquon

on Sep 21, 2007

Yes, I want a guard command that stays in constant effect until I turn it off. Sentry is the opposite of what I want.

Kind of a hold-position command. Would be nice for starbase defense fleets (although I really wish you could just add the starbase to a fleet to accomplish that...) and sensor arrays.

Similarly, it would be nice for a command for Miners and Survey Ships to have them stay put and then start automatically mine/survey when new objects come into their range...

One other little request... how about a little icon for Earth-like planets like the Special planets get (only always green, since everyone can automatically inhabit them)? Seems like it make it consistent that habitable planets have an icon next to them, and inhabitable ones don't. Certainly would make scanning the map for habitable planets easier.

CariElf

on Sep 21, 2007

Well its only fair the AI is forced either to choose to honor the alliance and declare war, or dissolve it as the human player has been when the human player is allied with both parties of the war.

That's not true. You aren't asked to declare war on your allies. I checked the code.

DivineWrath

on Sep 21, 2007

Kind of a hold-position command. Would be nice for starbase defense fleets (although I really wish you could just add the starbase to a fleet to accomplish that...) and sensor arrays.

I don't care about the name, call it what you want, I just want the command. I was using the term fortify, because I grew up with the game Civilizations 2, a game which had a fortify command. I don't understand why you ever want a sentry command that causes ships to frequently "un-fortify" themselves.

One other little request... how about a little icon for Earth-like planets like the Special planets get (only always green, since everyone can automatically inhabit them)? Seems like it make it consistent that habitable planets have an icon next to them, and inhabitable ones don't. Certainly would make scanning the map for habitable planets easier.

It would. Class 1 planets are really difficult to find regardless of if you are zoomed out or not (they look like class 0).

drrider

on Sep 21, 2007

DivineWrath: Isn't the option you're looking for the 'sentry' command (wakes up on hostiles AND friendlies)...or are you requesting that the guard option stays in constant effect until the player turns it off...not just when the first unfriendly ship is sighted?

Yes, I want a guard command that stays in constant effect until I turn it off. Sentry is the opposite of what I want.

The version of this that I would like to see would leave the designated stack on guard when hostiles were in sensor range, but would include that position when cycling through ships with potential moves. Player wouldn't have to DO anything, just cycle to next stack. That way, you would be alerted to the situation, IN CASE you wanted to intercept or take other action. Also, it would be nice if ship focus only cycled to the top ship or fleet (or the one with the longest sensor range) in the stack under these circumstances, so you would not have to click past 40 ships in an assembly area stack when one enemy raider passed by at range 6. Call it "Alert" status, or "Overwatch".

Also, ships in orbit should provide this same form of early warning.

Also, there should be a way of giving planets themselves the highest sensor rating held by their civ ([ahem] without using a tile or an orbit position.) It could happen automatically upon achieving the sensor tech, or, more interestingly, player could be required to social build "Global Sensor Net" upgrades onto the colony tile. Consider making each Sensor Net upgrade fairly expensive, but worth +5% influence for the planet. This would make the whole Sensor tech branch more interesting and worthwhile.

drrider

Vilgan

on Sep 21, 2007

edit: removed old post, issue already addressed.

Really nice update. Looking forward to playing it!

Vilgan

Raknor

on Sep 21, 2007

What's the difference between ships doing nothing and ships on your style of guard then if they get cycled through?

Personally I'd very much like a fortify function like in Freeciv. Hit F key, unit holds said position until you cancel it or unit gets destroyed. Set'n'forget.

Similarly, it would be nice for a command for Miners and Survey Ships to have them stay put and then start automatically mine/survey when new objects come into their range...

Very much needed with 1.7. In my latest game I found myself to press the automate hotkey for survey ships on every single turn to check if there might be new anomalies.

thehandofzarquon

on Sep 21, 2007

That reminds me... Space Miners have an automate button on the little window at the bottom of the main interface in place of the Construct button... this button is grey-ed out for Survey Ships. Why not place an automate button there? That alone would save many keystrokes and the like for resetting the Survey Ships back to surveying...

jstarz01

on Sep 23, 2007

It sounds like not all your files got updated. You can try going into the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Stardock\Drengin.net\GalCiv2 and change the version for DarkAvatar to something earlier than 1.7 and then re-start Stardock Central. That should cause it to let you download the beta again. Try using US-1 if you're not using that server.

I tried this fix the other day and it didn't seem to work,I'm still getting "string not found message".Any other ideas or should I wait till the beta is updated again?

CariElf

on Sep 24, 2007

I'm still getting "string not found message".Any other ideas or should I wait till the beta is updated again?

Can you please go into your debug.err after you see a String Not Found and copy the error messages for string not found into an e-mail and send it to carielf@stardock.com ? Also please send the install log for Dark Avatar, and I'll see if I can figure out what's going on.

thetraviler

on Sep 25, 2007

forgive me if this has been gone over but i could only spare a quick skim over all 59 responces... but im very sadned that the space station upgrades were left out of 1.7 i was really looking fowerd to many more hours of exciting conquest, but i guess ill have to wait till TA comes out

i kinda out played GC2 untill some new features come out... but im psyched TA! not so about the wait

so all i gotta say is you beter make my waiting worth it (wich i have absolutly no doubt what so ever that it will be

)

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