One of the most frustrating parts of the GalCiv AI for me has been the planetary improvements. It is the single biggest piece of the code I didn't write and to be honest, my C++ skills are relatively basic. I'm an algorithm guy, not a particularly good coder. The result is, I've always had a hard time working on the improvement code because it's hard for me to understand (it was implemented as a quasi-SQL database as opposed to say a linked list or an array). So anyway, while playing ...
I have the greatest job in the universe. And finding that out was no small feat. With the universe having a diameter of 14 billion or so light years, I had travel a lot in order to make that determination. So why is my job so awesome? Because I get to not just play games but as I find things that bug me, I get to change them right on the fly. My job today is to continue to walk through the different computer AIs and civilizations, making changes to them based on YOUR feed...
For updating the computer AI more fully for Twilight of the Arnor, I'm creating tournament maps. This way, I can help balance the different races while at the same time improving the AI plus creating more tournament maps. Today's example is the Drengin Gambit. I play as the Drengin Empire in a medium map. Ignore the quality of my screenshots as I'm running in the debugger. Drengin default tech tree I start out with a kick ass planet. A...
Altaria has the strategic fortune of being located in the outer rim. As a result, even its handful of colonies are relatively unimportant from a strategic standpoint. The Drengin Empire had largely ignored the Altarians during the Dread Lord war of 2225. But the Dread Lords tended to put specific effort to do harm to the Altarians. According to Altarian legend, the Dread Lords were involved on Altaria during the opening stages of the Precursor wars eons ago. The war between the Precurso...
This holiday weekend my plan is to get some serious AI coding on GalCiv. I've been looking forward to it and my new home PC box has arrived. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or if there just isn't as much benefit to upgrading as there used to be but the box it's replacing is over 3 years old. I used to upgrade every year and now it's 3 years. My new box is an Alienware machine. We do a lot of business with Alienware and in the past I haven't bought their machines because the...
Twilight of the Arnor has been a real treat to work on. This week, we're releasing Beta 6 of it and then, over the next week, I'll be dedicated to the computer AI in updating it and balancing the races. The plan is to do a game example for each race, documenting what things are working well and what things need to be balanced. As I post my own observations, I am hoping that fellow players will be chiming in their own ideas and input and I'll be looking forward to integrating...
Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion - if a high quality PC game doesn't sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy. Now, I don't like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales. But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well ma...
It is the time of the Twilight of the Arnor. Or, more specifically, time to start going through the AI for enhancements for the new expansion pack. Today, I'm going to play and show BUGS in our stuff as I play. Here we go. I'm playing a Tournament game for this. Now you all will be able to play Drengin-Human Wars. Bug 1 , the name provided should be based on the title of the campaign (Drengin Human Wars) not on file names. Drengin vs. Humans The Dre...
Beta 5 is now here! LOTS of changes. + NEW: Ascension Victory is now enabled! + To win by Ascension Victory, build starbases on the Ascension Crystals scattered throughout the galaxy to absorb their aura. + Each starbase on an Ascension Crystal will give you 1 point per turn towards the necessary 1000 points to win + AI will use specific ascension-based flavor text to describe why they are going to war with you if that is the reason. + AI will now list ascension as one of the reasons why ...
Every year it's the same thing. I get emails asking me if I'm going to have time at GDC to meet with them about some game, industry partnership, licensing opportunity, etc. And each year I respond "Sorry, I won't be at the GDC" (Game Developer's Conference). They're almost universally shocked that I don't attend. It's not that I'm boycotting it. I think the GDC is a great conference. I just don't see what particular benefit it would be to go. From a social aspect, I'm only ...
Lots of stuff going on at the office. We meant to get Beta 5 out this week, there's a ton of changes to Twilight that we're working through. Unfortunately, I have the flu which is slowing me down. But on a brighter note Scott (boogiebac) and his wife just had their first baby but that means he's been out this week. One of the new features we've put in is that players can choose to have the AI design ships for them. While most players choose to design their own ships, this gives new pl...
Warning: Spoilers below. The Thalan have the most unique technology tree in the game because they come from the future. Here are some of their unique technologies: Hyperion Domination (Evil Only) Hyperion Domination incorporates a number of various tweaks to ship design that results in a 10% bonus to ship hit points. Unfortunately, the work to do this is very dangerous. Luckily, the steady supply of slaves abducted across the galaxy to work on these special ship ...
Twilight of the Arnor raises the stakes. I really don't like the concept of nerfing. If someone is too powerful, then I tend to like to correct this by making everyone else subsequently more powerful. Those of you who have played the beta so far can attest that if the civilizations from Twilight were to go up against the same civs from Dread Lords that the Twilight civs would utterly destroy the Dark Avatar civs. But what we're working on right now is just going to be so much fun in ...
The Altarians do not call themselves Altarians. It is the term humans call the residents of the third planet orbiting Ara Centauri. Known as "The Altar", it has become simply known as Altaria since it is the only planet with intelligent life in that part of the galaxy. The evolutionary history of the Altarians is a story on its own. The Altarians name for their own planet is loosely translated as "Elemental". But how they evolved on this world is something of a mystery. Long ago, a sentien...