One of the biggest challenges we have faced in developing Galactic Civilizations III has been map sizes and the memory they require. On a number of occasions, we have tried to reduce the the largest map sizes down to improve performance and shrink memory requirements.  And each time we have attempted to do that, we have ended up with a very vocal outcry of anger. But large map sizes come with a significant memory cost to be aware of. Galactic Civilizations, like its inspirati...

Farming I'm not liking the farming mechanic.  It seemed like a good idea on paper but in practice, it's just tedious and exploitive.  Here's how I'd like to see it work: Some planets would have a Arable land tile including all starting planets.  Building on these tiles produces food. The tech tree would have a path for players who want to get the most out of those resources to get a lot of food.  The arable land resource be destructable -- you can destroy i...

Humans vs. Drengin.  AI at NORMAL In September I played (and beat) a genius AI .  Let’s see how well we do now.  This is on the standard game, no CRUSADE. Version 2.8 (not released yet). A good start My first move Having rare earth metals next to Earth’s capital (heh, Siberia in this game) lets me start with a level 4 computer core. This means I get +1 research for the base core plus +4 research for being level 4.&...

In honor of the new forum feature that lets us drag and drop photos into the editor I present you with: The dog thread. Post a picture of your dog!

Happy new year! This month marks my one-year anniversary of returning to my beloved Galactic Civilizations as its lead designer.  And since then, we've made a lot of changes much to the joy and angst of many galactic conquerors. Unintended Consequences With the announcement of the third expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations III imminent, this serves as a good time to look at where we stand today. For the past year, I've been going through and weeding out improvements, event...

I just got my new PC set up.  First new one in 3 years and it's a monster. I mostly got it for the Core i9 which has 18 cores.  The reason for this is, basically, I compile a lot.  Most of my programming involves AI coding and that means doing lots of recompiling and running.  I highly recommend 18 cores for most people as it's wasted. The other reason I wanted so many cores is for Nitrous/Cider work which is Stardock's new engine.  I want to make sure that As...

PLYMOUTH, MI.  December 6, 2017 -- Stardock announced today that nearly 30 year Microsoft veteran Kevin Unangst has joined the company as Vice President to head Stardock's global marketing and partnership group. Mr. Unangst spent nearly three decades helping to lead Microsoft's Windows and Xbox marketing efforts, including leading Windows XP consumer marketing, head of marketing for Microsoft Studios, and most recently global director of Windows gaming marketing at Microsoft. "...

Sunday’s are strange. Do I have enough time to start a new book? Is the dog getting enough attention? She doesn’t seem to think so. i really want to play game X but shouldn’t I be working on Star Control? Or GalCiv? Or Ashes of the Singularity? My son has math homework. Shouldn’t I be helping? How much? People are mad at the Democrats/Republicans. Should I care? I don’t really care. its cold outside but the solar array inverter needs to be checked YouTube...

I have requested the new changes you now see on the site that make the forums cleaner visually. The next step is to have a lot more data presented when you mouse over an item. I know some people won't like the changes, but as someone who lives on these forums, I really need the site to be cleaner and quicker to navigate through.  

I have 3 children. I love them to pieces. But dogs? Obviously not in the same league but holy cow there is just something so touching in their unconditional devotion. Sometimes, especially with the smarter ones, their similarities to small children can be uncanny. For instance, my 6 year old Entlevucher brings her stuffed dinosaur to bed every night, she just sleeps with it. Who else here feels the same?

  This week, the first beta of the Star Control reboot is unleashed on an unsuspecting universe.  25 years ago, Accolade released Star Control II. Back in 1992, Accolade was a major game publisher.  Some of the best games of all time came from them, including Test Drive, Power at Sea, Hard Ball, Steel Thunder, and many, many other games.  During the late 80's and 90's, they were a match for Electronic Arts and Activision.  Eventually, Accolade was acquired by...

What features do you think the forums need to make them more compelling for you and for others to use?

Greetings! So the team is starting work on the next major expansion pack.  But we also want to keep an eye on the base game. Right now, the recent Steam reviews for GalCiv are pretty awful with most of the people reviewing it doing so because they don't like some of the changes in v2.5.  So if there are changes you would like in 2.7 and beyond, this would be the place to ask. The Steam review system is something I have and will continue to complain about because frankly,...

Please vote on this:   https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=http://www.strawpoll.me/13992658   Thanks!  

It's been a year since we posted the last big public update on the new Star Control. Last year, we began the Founders Program!  Thank you all that joined.  In the next two weeks, we will be ending the Founder's Program as we prepare for a public Beta program.  If you want to join the Founder's Program it's not too late yet . A new tier Right now, we have Founders and Lifetime Founders.  Both get access to our internal vault of stuff.  Lifetime Founders get ev...