The Impulse idea sounds great, but no idea how feasible it is on a game with many many versions.

Kinda surprised the research "feature" was actually WAD. I turn tech trading off so I never had a problem with slow research.

Just hope out of this we get a couple more new features in the end that were originally planned. I want this game to run into GCIII is in production and I upgrade my laptop then (I can play GCII at work, so I bring laptop to work)

Ok, so it is like i thought - no technical issue. Maybe i am one of the few ones that like the new system. I do not want to have games where i can have the whole tree long before the game ends. Devs, please do not let yourself be offended by some players that are obviusly not good enough in the game to deal with this feature. (Instead complaining they should maybe improve their strategy, but its always easier to blame someone else than the own incapability.)

Brad, i really appreciate your work and in my opinion TA is very good. I have followed the course of development in this forum, so i know how much effort you spent in this. Too sad some just do not respect this. Maybe you could make this tech cost increase optional as i suggested before. I think it is playable, at least if you exactly know what to do. As players complained about mega-events, you could add a checkbox for tech cost increase as well (and a nice info text that explains it to those that do nnot visit the forums). That would be great, in my opinion you can not complain about a game being to hard, at least if it is adjustable.

btw just to throw in a word that in the course of this discussion may be forgotten already: "Mind Control Center"

Dude I am liking the new Shipyard! Thanks for the ongoing support! Also the Flame was uncalled for. DO YOU MAKE GAMES AND WORK OVERTIME WITH A SMALL CREW.... didn't think so. They are working as hard as they can on multiple projects plus overtime. SO SHUT YOUR MOUTH. Work 60-100 hour weeks and you might yes think before you speak next time.

Doobilly, blabilly, yigilly, what?
Gosh, i love these tiny mysteries for us to speculate about... not that i would need a **NEW** shipyard but if that means the actual current principles and features are being, somehow, improved or enhanced beyond the "call'of'duty" (including afterhours dedication and HARD-work) i guess the previous much-loved statement is indeed as solidly active as it truthful to its REAL (excluding the ranters, trollers, and other poisonous examples such as seen in ONE earlier post) fanbase.

Ooops, but just scrolling above - i just realized that he meant the *StarPort* 128pixy image for surface tiles!!

Now, -That's- what i call support. And, Love.

di55ec7ion:

You have made comments to this effect on several of the related threads, and while it is true that some players have been complaining about the research being too slow for them (and I would agree that their strategy requires adjustment), what you seem to be missing is that many of us (especially those of us that first reported the problem), are concerned not about our own research bogging down, but rather that the AI research bogs down. This results in AI players that become woefully easy to eliminate, removing some of the challenge of the game. Therefore, the adjustment to the algorithm that we are more concerned about is not so much a "nerfing" of the inflation, but adjustments that would allow the AI to "plan" for the inflation.

While you have been correct that it is a "feature" it is still a "bug" because the algorithm is having unintended negative effects for the AI. Therefore, it is not, as you put it, "like i thought - no technical issue." It is very much a technical issue.

Like you, I can look favorably at "tech inflation" adding a new element of challenge to the game, but not if it is too heavy handed or if it takes the "teeth" out of the AI.

At any rate, I am convinced that Stardock will very quickly have a solution that is amenable to (nearly) all.

There are some missing weapons for certain techs. The techs exist, but there is no corresponding weapon to go with it. I'll list those techs, and the civs that should get them.

-- Drengin/Korath --
Ion Beams (I to III)

-- Drath/Altarian --
Photonic Torpedo III
Disrupter IV

Hang in there BoogieBac

I've always found it remarkable - and a massive defacto Vote of Confidence in the Stardock Team - the lack of super-critical comment on the Forum re GC2. Those that are happy with a game (any game) rarely bother to come into the respective Game Forum specially to say so. Nature of the beast. Therefore critical comment always seems more than it actually is - Silent Majority Rules as always.

You guys got me in as a "Civ Refugee" originally - still love Sid's Civ Series, still play it once in a while - but I had a serious sense of humor failure over how support was dealt with, it got seriously crazy in my personal view after the fiasco of the initial CivIV release. However, for me, it opened the door to GalCiv, and I've not looked back. The game is very very good, there is no doubt, but what really did it for me was the clear genuine attention and effort all put into this over at your end. To know that when you pay your circa $20-$50 for a Stardock product, you are not going to get dumped as the Vendor runs for the next cash cow with no interest or serious attempt at bug fixing/updates/improvements, is HUGE from where I sit.

For me, thats worth far more than anything I can think of. How thats done at Stardock, is, frankly, way way "above and beyond", putting other games houses to shame.

If a few dozen "Regulars" start yelling loud and long, yup time to worry. But the isolated one or two over issues that are known and fix in the pipeline? Nah, life's too short ...

Look back over the last two pages and tell me you are not supported or appreciated - then go get some well deserved sleep

Regards
Zy

Hallo,

lets face it: it works as designed and the design was flawed
It should not have happend outside the beta but it had ...

Good to see it will be fixed, because i felt it broke immersion and strategic planning.

But after all it was a GOOD thing to slow down the research at the 'leading edge'.
But after all there are two more ways to modify the play experience in research speed ... slowdown research by choosing very slow or modify the tech tree. So epic gameplay can be done already.

On the other hand i do like the idea of cost increase but i would introduce it as follows:

Let the 'normal' tech tree research speed unchanged and use the factor Z(N) only for techs NOBODY else has researched so far.

This would make special techs a bit more expensive (maybe adjustion needed) and being ahead in technology would be a bit more complicated.

Last but not least this option should be set at game setup as a checkbox ...

My 2 cents

LOL. OMG. some people really need to get over themselves. Sorry Flux, you don't get ice-cream for dinner (again). You have been told, not until you clean your plate of the really delicious food that was prepared for you.

To Frogboy and Boogiebac and all the rest, Gal Civ2 ToA is a fabulous expansion on top of an awesome game. And the effort you guys put in to make the release as bug-free as it was, not to mention the after market stuff you guys are doing, is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED. by us normal people.

Thanks and Kudos to you and all of your team. I am 100% secure in the fact that the remaining stuff you guys know about will be handled. I have actively supported other games in the past where the DEV team was MUCH less attentive. And I have played games where the DEV team were twice as proud with less than half the reason to be. So BE PROUD of your work here.

Also thanks for the clarification that THIS WAS NOT A BUG!   Personally I think that the reason Flux and others are so peeved is that they probably made fools of themselves in their righteous rage putting down StarDock for this "Game Breaking Bug", only it wasn't. Now they have to bluster just to save some face, because they made fools of themselves (again).

I have overseen that. If you are right and the AI is affected strongly, of course it should be corrected.

That's all well and good, but it's not unreasonable to expect such a patch wouldn't even be *necessary*, especially given the extensive beta testing. The research inflation may not *quite* be a game breaker, but it's pretty damn close and a patch definitely *is* necessary. Credit where it's due, and Stardock has deserved and received plenty in the past, but criticism where it's due too - you dropped the ball quite badly this time around. I hope you learn something useful from this experience (regarding the beta testing process, perhaps?) to reduce the chances of it happening again.

Aren't the Thalans missing the Starbase Fortification I tech as well?

I've been a long-time supporter since GC2 was released. I've gotten into Stardocks vibe and downloaded podcasts, caught you on tv interviews where possible, etc.


My only gripe has to do with the release around ToA. The release was buggy (or if it wasn't, it was perceived to be by a slice of the community). Two particular gray areas involve the research behavior, which you say is intentional, and the completeness or bugs with the tech trees (which there could easily be nothing wrong with).

Information about the game at release time was spare. You posted a great info post about the games features but I didn't think that that could be a replacement for an updated manual. Manual doesn't equal strategy guide, btw, as I was so keenly informed.

In my mind,
Lack of updated manual + forum topics on a few big questions (see above) + vague dev reply posts (because they were all working on PM2008) = not a good impression

Now, I'm not saying that it isn't warranted. We all know how hard everyone is working for PM2008. I still support Stardock and the way Stardock works. But at what cost? Did ToA really have to be released before PM2008? What if the team beta tested the unique tech trees for an extra 3-4 weeks? Then PM2008 would have been easily on time and ToA would have been released a raging stallion out of the gates.

Yes, in reality it was, and congratulations on Gamespy's PC Game of the Month! But its unfortunate that I feel coming out of this that alot of my trust bank has been used up.

I asked for an updated manual (digital) which at least perhaps defined the tech trees and more background of each race since these new features were the linchpin of the entire expansion. We were told "soon". We understood because of the communicated pressure you all were under. But it still doesn't mean that it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth concerning the experience.

I'm trying not to be critical considering I'm in software development but this in turn, coupled with very vague answers back from Stardock, really left at least me, and I think others as well, scratching my head. Are there problems with the tech trees like people pointed out? Or are there not? Is there a research bug or is it just a feature?

I could be wrong, but I think Brad FINALLY gave a clear answer on that one less than a week ago, while it's been debated on the forums ever since release. Or what about the tech trees? Are there real issues in them like people over the forums have pointed out or is it designed as intended? Never really ever got a clear answer on that.

Overall, it just makes it feel like getting ToA released was a rushed job. Yes, the installer screwed up at least on my system and others who posted on the forum by making you go fish for the Launcher. Average joe user who doesn't read the forums I bet doesn't even know there IS a Launcher, let alone the editors. The manual that had just a cover page changed and the rest was from the gold edition. Big game play decisions based on the tech trees which had people scratching their heads (glad did I read a game review somewhere that mentioned you can right-click on techs to get their info)... I could list a few more.

I guess I've really made my point and I hope truly in a constructive manner. The past can't be changed but I hope lessons for the future can be learned.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for the next patch and maybe some updated game documentation before starting up my next big game.

Btw, It's really not my intention to flame. If I had a "comment card", that would be it, but on the front everything would still be 4's and 5's. I'm a big fan.

Yes. Because it was already very late and they had preorders to fill.

After all these responses and ofcourse almost only bad ones at my side, I still think I should add something.

I know I wouldnt be popular by posting the things, and it might have been a bit agressive. I dont care about my "karma points" so to speak. What I do care about, and this is actually the sole reason I posted my rants, is this game and actually the company making it.

The very first day I played galciv I was hooked on it. And I was really excited and impressed by the amount of support we got. All the small details and the communication to the public was amazing and seldomly seen by any gaming company.

Again, I love this game. The moment I saw the the TA changes, I wanted to play it badly and even played the beta. But this "bug" or however you want to call it, really screwed the fun up for me, mainly because the computer couldnt deal with it. I kept checking every day, for 2 weeks long the forums to check what was said about it, because I became used to the caring about the products Stardock gave in the past.

However, because of the "recent" anouncement of the merger Stardock has made, and also the post of Frogboy asking how we wanted to see the post-support for this game and future games, I became really afraid Stardock went downwards and into the wrong direction.

My previous statement that "you dont deserve it" was unjustified and wrong, and I do apologize for it. However if I look back I can't blame myself for my thoughtpatterns.

ps. Drish just posted before me, and he put all my concerns in a nice and orderly fashion, this is exactly how I felt.

Seconded. Up to date manual would be nice. Speaking of which, I think you need to stress the population = economy thing more, because judging by various exasperated comments online, I'm not the only one who didn't get it right away.

In the mean time though, drish311, the GalCivopedia (or whatever it's called) is up to date, and you can find almost anything in there very easily.

You are probably not in the best position to second guess their schedule, and either way; what's done is done.

I'm not an expert GalCiv player by any means, and I've only played a couple of TA games so far, but as far as I can tell, the answer is something like this:

No, there's no problem with the tech trees, at least no obvious ones.

The research cost thing is a tweak, and superficially, a very nice one. If you're a former "normal" difficulty player like me, you won't be able to research everything any more. Instead you'll have to decide what kind of victory you're trying for and do your research accordingly. The confused outcry made me try for a tech victory with slow research on a large map with cluster stars, rare everything, 5 random major and 3 random minor races. I won that easily (mostly because the AI is crippled, I think, but then, I'm not a very good player yet).

The bug is that the cost tweak has sabotaged the AI. The particulars differ because the race AIs differ, but generally speaking, they'll only do a fraction of the research they did pre-TA, and they tend to neglect their economies. If you've ever tried Space Empires 5, you'll have a rough idea of how broken the TA AIs are.

Same here. And I have a few suggestions for stuff I'd like to see in the patch:

1. Dynamic, zoom-dependent edge-of-screen scrolling. Yes, Brad Wardell, I'm aware you think click-dragging is great interface design. However, you're just one guy & unlike the rest of us, you aren't paying you to design a good interface. And just like it's clear to the rest of humanity that you have strange UI ideas, it should be clear to you by now, that the rest of us don't hold to those ideas. Not saying you have to take out the click-dragging, just try to accommodate the rest of us, will you? Thanks.

2. The infinite zoom thing is still broken. Yes, it's a great feature. No, it's not useful if it doesn't have zoom-to-cursor. I know people have explained this a hundred times or more already, but it 2 expansions & a million patches later and it still isn't fixed, so.. Just fix it. Pretty please.

3. That we can play windowed in native resolution does not make the alt+tab = Glorious CTD any less of a bug. Fix it, please.

4. Since the bug has been around since day 1, and you apparently love holding down a mouse button while you scroll, I'm guessing it has escaped your notice. Still, there's an infrequent & seemingly random bug associated with edge-of-screen scrolling, that makes the game get stuck scrolling in some direction or other. It doesn't get saved with the game, fortunately, and restarting the game solves it. Still, it's almost as annoying as the edge-of-screen dysfunctionality. So.. Fix it, please. Thanks.

5. Nah, I'm guessing I don't have to say something about the research tweak = imploded AI.

Finally, the obligatory: I love GalCiv2 & want Brad's babies. OK, maybe not the last bit, but "Get it fixed, dammit!"'s aside, your game, attention to players, frequent updates and general attitude is really appreciated.

Merger? There's been no such thing. If you're talking about GPG, we're publishing Demigod for them in a similar arrangement to that we have with Ironclad for Sins, and we're all going to be working together on some stuff. But Stardock is still Stardock and GPG is still GPG.

K, thats good to know.

As far as the Tech Trees go...

The only problem I have is that some of the techs are missing the wonderful flavor text... when you're used to getting a block of sometimes highly amusing text, it's odd to get "LaserTech III: A more superior type of laser."

Some races are missing things like starbase upgrades, but that may be INTENTIONAL based on the differing tech trees, not a "forgot to give them starbase techs."

As far as research goes -

My biggest problem was that because of it, I couldn't set a good baseline for techs to be available at as a modder because it'd be constantly changing. Something I expected a race to be able to grab as a gateway tech on thiner way through after setting up infrastructure would be 30 weeks of research if they bug hit and they had to handle economics or warship production first.

Also it seemed like as RP went up, AIs would become progressively more stingy about relatively low-class techs, just because they cost more, but seemed to value mine at base value, so I'd have to give up six-seven techs to get one, even when I the notifier they thought I was a diplomatic god. That may have been mostly in my head though, as the AI has always been a real you-know-what about giving you anything close to a fair trade.

Lastly, when you secured an early weapons-tech lead you could go rampaging through the AIs because research took so long for them to get near you, you'd win before they got anything close. Killing hordes of 2attack/1defense smalls with a Large Hulled ship armed to the teeth isn't really challenging, just tedious.

(As a sidenote, when the AI can't make anything with decent tech levels as far as ships goes, but still has a horde of planets, they do nothing but turn out absolute SWARMS of tiny and small hulled ships, which take forever for the AI to decide where to move them.)


Brad, I appreciate the fix that you're giving us, and I hope you can make the scaling techs work how you want, though please, when you do, make it a checkbox option so I can play some games with it on, and most with it off, much like I do MegaEvents.

The sign of a good game developer. One who can sit back and evaluate their own work with both their and the community's responses in mind.

PS: That's a nice Starport you got going there BoogieBac!

Bonza,

thx for the heads up Stardock, I look forward to the update

Agreed. You guys make fun games.

Somebody tell us more about the pending SD 'fantasy game'...

It sounds like a good idea in principle. The last game I played I was pretty evenly matched against the Torians and it got to the point where we were researching similar technologies simply to stay neck-and-neck. I don't know if at the time we were feeling the bite of increased research time, but if one of us had crossed the threshold then the other would have had the chance to make a tactical research decision rather than simply keeping up with the Joneses.

The problem though is that there isn't any way to combat this form of inflation - for example by researching along the technology victory tree or building a project or improvement which allows you to disregard a certain number of base research points when making the inflation calculation. This would essentially keep the cheaper technologies cheap, and at the same time your race gets the cool factor of transcending the limits of what is knowable.