GalCiv II v2.01 arrives

Dude THIS IS GREAT! Well time to go play more Gal Civ 2.

Thanks! And a happy Thanksgiving to you.

Nicer eye candy is always good, but I like the steady flow of AI behavior tweaks as much or more. (I don't buy new hardware that often, so I suppose "replayability" is more important for me than "future-proofing.")

Thanks for the update. This may even pull me back from playing HoMM5!

I have more AI enhancements in the works. I would expect to have another update ready before we go on Christmas break.

If you guys have anything in particular balance wise or AI wise, let me know (i.e. don't suggest some new UI or whatever because I can't do that, I work purely on the gameplay aspects).

Agreed Brad. I still watch the battles. I just never tire of it.

I'm STILL waiting for the option to have NO STARTING SHIPS. How hard would this be?

How about, if it doesn't find the name of starting ships in the XML, instead of crashing, just don't create them. Then we could create a MOD to pick and choose which ships to start with.

Isn't it a bug? Beam weapon theory now costs only 57 tp, while mass driver and missile weapon theory cost 357.

Edit: pardon, it costs 116.

Brad, could you look into this thread https://forums.galciv2.com/?aid=329764#comments and tell us what you think about population and morale?

Hey Frogboy,

There's a big bug where the Terrans and Altarians don't build warships in TA. I saw this in a post earlier. Could you look into that?

No - Beam weapons are cooler, and result in vastly better battles - accordingly time spent watching "Battlestar Galactica", "Star Wars" and "Bablyon Five" is counted against the 300 point Beam Weapons discount.

Due to the vast number of uber-babes seduced by Jim Kirk, Star Trek only counts for higher morale bonuses.

It's True - you've never caught me lying to you before have you - {G} - Jonnan

edit: No one appears to have mentioned that ship build bug to the Altairians in my current game.

And if the generals' intelligence was set to "really intelligent", they wouldn't declare war on me when I have one transport in their space . . . the one they gave me the previous turn

How do I go about getting Version 2.0 of Galciv 2?

Something I think is unbalancing, that it seems like could be updated would be "Eyes of the universe", and in general the AI not thinking sensors or engines are worth putting on a ship.

Assuming that the AI is as bound by the same sensor ranges I am (Having shadowed enemy ships before, it seems to be the case that you can see them and not have them see you.), and that only anomalies are trackable outside visual range, it seems to me that AI's *really* should value sensors a bit more, nor have I ever noticed their adding engines on ships, which frankly seems pretty obvious to me.

Of course, *I* hardly ever place sensors on ships either, once I have "Eyes of the universe". But I can't think of any good reason for that to be a galactic achievement - it's not like it would be irreproducible technology - {G}. But I have gotten so much tech traded over time for Sensors I - IV that it doesn't appear the AI ever uses that and I find it weird.

Jonnan

You know, I have to say, Brad, that despite having Fallout 3 at my house, Gears of War 2 a few Amazon clicks away, and countless other "new" games to play, that I've found myself, quite "by accident" simply playing GalCivII 2.0 for hours and hours and hours.  It's finally replaced MOO2 for me, which is no small achievement.  So, way to go, if you would make a GalCiv3 and take SOME of the ideas from the MOO series, I think you'd have the Game To End All Games. 

Does anybody else wish that the edge-scrolling scaled with the zoom level? On large maps when you zoom way out, scrolling moves like a turtle when using the edge of the screen. If you compensate for this by increasing the 'edge-scroll' speed in the options menu, then when you scroll while zoomed in it moves WAY too fast.

Thanks for the continued AI tweaks and updates, you guys rock. Is there any chance of getting some GC2 micro expansions ala Sins: Entrenchment?

I vote for no scaling. (always fixed speed)

Register your game in Impulse, go to the "My Games" tab, and hit the "Update" button.

If don't have Impulse for some reason, you can get it here http://impulsedriven.com/about.aspx

Also, it will be the GC2 expansion packs (Dark Avatar, Twilight of the Arnor) that are being updated to v2.0.  The base game (gc2: Dreadlords) has a latest version of 1.53 as of this writing.

~C

I don't have problems with the Eyes as they work, but I do agree that the AIs don't seem to value sensor tech & modules enough. I only play on Tough, so maybe things are different with the prod bonuses, but I think I've only seen an AI build the Eyes once in far, far too many games.

Re engines, I don't think lacking engines is a serious AI weakness, except perhaps rather late in the big-map games I like to play. Their real problems are still with where they send the ships more than with how fast they get where they're going. The speed bonuses you get with milestone engine techs slowly increase your warship speeds even if you put off adding engines to your designs. For some tech trees, like the Thalans, there are other speed bonuses as well that can make the space for an Impulse III look like a waste when you could add 2-3 more weapon mounts instead.

Yeah, really great...what about endless unvierse?...

As I understand it, Endless Universe = Dark Avatar + Twilight of the Arnor, so I think it should be supported for these updates.

EDIT: oops, I just noticed EU is being patched separately. Sorry. Mods, you can delete this if you like.

Once again you prove that GC2 & it's expansions are not only the best turn based stratergy game ever, but also the best value for money ever. You just keep on giving.

Thank you.

P.S. can't wait for elemental.

The only 2 things that I can think of that need changes are

1. The Arceans are just victims now without those engine upgrades. Every game that I have played they just get royally screwed over either by me or most the time the other AI... you really need to give them up to Ion tech for engines. They just can't compete with other races. If they don't get enough planets, which is always the case they can't get a good economy up to trade for engines and by then its too late cause all the planets are taken so they are just a big minor race.... This even applies to tight cluster settings in games where they have a patch for themselves even if its huge and very far away... seriously that bad...

2. The only other thing I can think of that is a problem is max population on planets, population penalties, 100% and even more on 300% farm tile bonuses. 300% bonus tiles should only appear on huge planets ie class 14+ and never in a pair, I have seen 2 300% farm tiles before. 100% farm tiles should only be found on class 8+. Also the 100% farm tiles should be more common ie pairs on bigger planets so again say class 14+. This should help out making those tiles being actually useful. Also no farm tiles on homeworlds... ever. This next part I dont care if you ignore but I am just putting it out there. this but on bigger planets raise the population penalty. So class 15- 20billion, class 25- 24 billion, class 35- 28 billion, and finally class 50- 32billion (no more cause of econ strategy and ect...). Huge planets can support big populations and yes this means you can milk them for money that how it works and it is fair.

Other than that loving the updates. Also I just got 6 class 16 planets on this playthrough for my first say 20 planets colonized. OH BOY!