GalCiv III v1.9 Changelog

Published on November 29, 2016 By Frogboy In GalCiv III Dev Journals

[[RELEASED]]

This is an opt-in patch:

To enable the patch, please do the following:

Select Galactic Civilization III in your Steam Library list
Right-click and select Properties
Select the BETAS tab
From the dropdown, select opt-in and click Close (if you don't see this option, restart Steam)
Steam should pull down the changed files; if you ever want to go back, do the same as above but select default

Please note: The opt-in is an early preview of the next update and you might experience bugs or other issues. We encourage players who try the opt-in to report any issues to the support forum or via support ticket so we can address them.

Optimization

Memory: introduced new texture compression for planetary and ship textures to greatly reduce memory usage and dramatically improve startup times.
Removed legacy stopwatch code from the sound system
Moved old profiling junk
Reduced CPU usage of the particles and main graphics threads
Removed redundant debug output
Multithreaded the texture loading at the start of game to improve performance.

AI builds scout ships later in the game to keep exploring very large galaxies
Dramatically reduced AI >normal economic bonuses (no longer needs them)
Re-designed the way the AI expands into the galaxy with colony ships so that its expansion no longer stalls on large maps
Dramatically reduced the amount of time an AI will interact with a player if they are not within ship range
AI doesn't try to bribe other players to go to war unless they and the other players have a decent military already
AI will no longer give tech gifts to players with a different ideology (i.e. no more Drengin giving you tech if you're a nice person)
AI now scales the number of similar ship projects based on number of colonies rather than a flat number
AI pumps up colony ship production priority if there are a lot of nice planets laying around
AI pumps out fewer Constructors in general
Re-designed the way the AI determines which planets should get a shipyard to be more (way more) intelligent
Updated AI's handling of adjacency bonuses to be more intelligent
AI values planet quality more when picking planets to colonize
AI somewhat more heuristic on tech research
AI somewhat quicker to war
Auto Surveying Survey Ships will now survey extra anomalies if the ship has extra movement points.

Balance

Starbase minimum distance reduced from 5 to 3 tiles.
AI tends to focus more on tech (generally) than previously.
AI will build survey ships late in game.
AI provided with a much wider variety of ship designs to choose from with the various strategies.
AI weights units much more closely than previously in order to not make one virtually impossible to build.
Opposing culture diplomatic penalty reduced from 1.25 to 1.1 if AI is benevolent.
Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is merciless.
Opposing culture diplomatic penalty increased from 1.25 to 2 if AI is cruel.
Close to victory diplomatic penalties increased from 1 to 5.
Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty reduced from 0.75 to 0.1 if AI is benevolent.
Ripe for conquest diplomacy penalty increased from 0.75 to 1.25 if AI is aggressive.
Minimum planet class to be a manufacturing world reduced from 7 to 4.
Max number of colony ships the AI will construct at once increased from 2 to 3.
Max slider focus reduced from 95% to 75% (to deal with coercion penalty).
Coercion forgiveness eliminated (there is always some coercion if you move off from center).
Maximum coercion reduced from 50% to 35%.
Colony Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
Civilization Capital production points reduced from 5 to 1.
Influence Radius root increased from 1.75 to 4 (i.e. influence ZOC will start out much much smaller now).
Tech inflation penalty significantly reduced.
Penalty for switching a constructor to a colony ship increased from 50% to 75% (yea, you know who you are).
Pirates moved further away from starting location.
Increased the variance for the various settings (minors, pirates, etc.).
Modified the governor script to provide a bit more flexibility based on planet bonuses when building improvements.
Colony capital maintenance eliminated.
Colony capital hub provides a 2 (was 1) level bonus to adjacent buildings if they are population or manufacturing or research.
Civ capital hub provides a 3 level bonus (was 1).
Reduced maint. slightly on research buildings.
Rare habitable planets decreased from 30% to 25%.
Nebula and black holes and anomalies made much less common on all settings.
Occasional planet frequency amount doubled from 1X to 2X.
Common stars modifier increased from 0.9 to 1.
Common planet frequency amount increased from 0.75X to 3X (this also fixes a bug where common was less than occasional).
Abundant stars increased from 1X to 1.5X.
Planet Frequency increased from 0.25X to 3.5X (also fixes bug).
Tiny map base objects increased from 32 to 120 (i.e. tiny maps will be a lot more filled).
Small map base object count increased from 64 to 150.
Medium map Base object count increased from 110 to 200.
Large map base object count increased from 155 to 300 (i.e. over twice as many stars/planets/etc. in a particular size).
Huge map base object count increased from 250 to 350.
INSANE map object count INCREASED from 1200 to 1400!
Sensor cost components reduced slightly.
Cargo module cost reduced from 27 to 10 (cheaper colony ships -- but remember, planets now rely more on population for their production).
Tiny hull cost reduced from 11 to 10.
Small hull cost reduced from 25 to 20.
Medium hull HP increased from 100 to 120.
Large hull cost increased from 128 to 300.
Large hull HP increased from 250 to 600.
Large hull storage increased from 100 to 120.
Large hull logistics cost increased from 7 to 10.
Huge hull cost increased from 432 to 500.
Huge hull HP increased from 500 to 800.
Huge hull storage increased from 250 to 300.
Huge hull logistics increased from 10 to 16.
Cargo hull cost reduced from 42 to 24.
Cargo hull HP reduced from 10 to 1.
Cargo hull logistics increased from 5 to 6.

Improvements/Bugs Fixes

Added author fields for maps, factions and ships.
Starbases will now notify the you that they need to be upgraded after being initially built.
Fixed double counting of trade routes for AI diplomacy purposes.
Fixed late game crashes related to textures on large maps.
Fixed an infrequent crash on loading large maps.
Fixed bug that could cause the AI to see tiles in the opposite map position of where they were exploring.
Fixed a bug that could cause the AI to reduce the priority weighting on colony ship production based on the # of targetable planets.
If a player faction is set to random in the prefs.ini file, the quick-start tooltip will no longer display an invalid faction.
Fixed an issue where if you changed the planetary spending wheel, the displayed. manufacturing time for improvements wasn't being updated at the same time.
Clicking available projects tabs no longer resets the improvement cursor.
Add ESC to close Ship Designer and Diplomacy screens.
Starbases no longer incorrectly show the upgrade option when none avail.
Fixed a crash related to the AI defying the UP.\

If you want to read my Dev Diary full of me complaining and whining and how I worked on the update visit here: https://forums.galciv3.com/480761/ and here: https://forums.galciv3.com/480723

Comments (Page 6)

Seilore

on Dec 08, 2016

1.9+ patch feedback (bug)

One can not cancel projects once in the queue. (example research project)

Please take a look at this. Thanks

Edit: This seemed to clear up upon reloading the game I was able to cancel the project so I don't know the specific cause.

admiralWillyWilber

on Dec 09, 2016

My ships still skipping explored areas when traveling long distances. At least the survey ships do.

erischild

on Dec 09, 2016

Seilore

reply 76

1.9+ patch feedback (bug)

One can not cancel projects once in the queue. (example research project)

Please take a look at this. Thanks

Edit: This seemed to clear up upon reloading the game I was able to cancel the project so I don't know the specific cause.

If nothing else, I can confirm this behavior. I had a Military Subsidies I could not cancel. I gave up and worked with a few other tiles and it suddenly allowed me to select the project and cancel it. I did not have to reload the game or even exit the planet management screen, just fiddle around frustrated for a while.

peterh1979

on Dec 09, 2016

I can confirm the same behaviour as the previous 2 posts.

Larsenex

on Dec 09, 2016

erischild

reply 78

Quoting Seilore,

reply 76

1.9+ patch feedback (bug)

One can not cancel projects once in the queue. (example research project)

Please take a look at this. Thanks

Edit: This seemed to clear up upon reloading the game I was able to cancel the project so I don't know the specific cause.

^^^^ And that is how you got it to work. As soon as it sensed 'inner frustration' it relented and though to itself, my job here is done!

<lol>...JK.. I went into and out of the screen and that seemed to do the trick.

Seilore

on Dec 09, 2016

Larsenex

reply 80

...JK.. I went into and out of the screen and that seemed to do the trick.

I wish it was this easy for me, I tried that, adding other things to queue, going to other planets/ star bases. Nothing worked until I went back in later good to know I'm not alone.

Seilore

on Dec 09, 2016

1.9 Feedback on SP Game (normal AI, abundant everything, very slow tech rate and game pacing)

AI Behavior

Turn 140 (ish) I had 6 AI all declare on me of approx 25 factions that I have met, all stronger military than myself. However, I am ranked 1st by 4x the nearest faction.
Turn 155 (ish) All 6 AI requested peace after I've now doubled their military, however, I am still ranked 1st however, now only about double the nearest faction. (Only one battle, which I lost.)
Only 2 of the factions which declared war border my space.

Influence Feedback

Still appears slow, at turn 155 still very spotty around the map, nothings coming together as "my space"
One planet I have several influence buildings and it has a larger spot but, still nothing close I'd have to really, struggle to get a lot more influence.

Research Speed

Still broken more than 10x the research power of the next closest faction.

erischild

on Dec 16, 2016

Seilore

reply 81

Quoting Larsenex,

reply 80

...JK.. I went into and out of the screen and that seemed to do the trick.

I wish it was this easy for me, I tried that, adding other things to queue, going to other planets/ star bases. Nothing worked until I went back in later good to know I'm not alone.

This may be old news, but I found a definitive work around until they fix this Whenever you have issues selecting the planet project in the queue, click on the planet capitol on the map. This will defocus the selection mechanism. That will allow you to select the project in the queue. Then you can do whatever it was you wanted to do in the first place, which usually is turn the project off.

Syrkres

on Dec 19, 2016

Game seems much quicker on turns, though still only on game turn 134.

Syrkres

reply 84

Re-designed the way the AI determines which planets should get a shipyard to be more (way more) intelligent

A faction just gave me all it's planets and I feel they are still making too many shipyards as shown by this screenshot.

Larsenex

on Dec 19, 2016

What game speed is that Srykes? What size map? A winning strategy is to spam shipyards to build colonizers. While not optimum it will put pressure on the player to expand as the Ai will settle the planets.

erischild

on Dec 19, 2016

I don't claim to know all the winning strategies, but I spam shipyards to build colonizers and then later make a constant slow stream of upgrade constructors with the low producing shipyards and warships with the big shipyards, but every planet is connected to a local shipyard. Nobody gets to claim conscientious objector and avoid the war effort. Some people seem to think this detracts from building up your planets, but I have not found it to be an issue in my games so far.

Another way to look at it is that the economy supports the military and the military then supports the economy. Production, wealth, and research make bigger and better warships. Shipyards building upgrade constructors for econ starbases make bigger and better planet economies with more production, wealth, and research. Done right, it's a great big feedback loop. It can be glacier-like slow to set up, but once it gets going, nothing successfully stands in front of a glacier.

Syrkres

on Dec 19, 2016

This was the "AI" appearing to be spamming shipyards.

It was/is the largest size galaxy, with AI set on second to top setting.

dlapine1

on Dec 19, 2016

Hmmm, haven't tried spamming shipyards early on, but by turn 100 or so, most of my worlds are feeding a shipyard, shared or singly. Production on most worlds is at the point when each shipyard can build a basic constructor in 2-3 turns.

This is not an unreasonable strategy for the AI.

charon2112

on Dec 26, 2016

I'm not sure if it's a 1.9 problem, but galaxy generation seems to be much worse. Loose clusters results in a galaxy with almost perfect spaced, ordered looking stars, and tight clusters results in literally just a few spots with stars and an almost entirely empty galaxy.

Badbonez

on Dec 26, 2016

Seilore

reply 76

1.9+ patch feedback (bug)

One can not cancel projects once in the queue. (example research project)

Please take a look at this. Thanks

Edit: This seemed to clear up upon reloading the game I was able to cancel the project so I don't know the specific cause.

You don't need to reload the game, just leave the planet screen, re-enter the planet screen and delete the project (I use the delete key and it works.) Hope it helps. (But it is still a bug.)

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