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Galactic Civilization III: Crusade v2.2 Change Log

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Galactic Civilization III: Crusade v2.2 Change Log

from GalCiv3 Forums

We are pleased to unveil the first major update to Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade (Crusade being based on version 2.1 of the base game, we now unveil version 2.2).

Release date: May 24, 2017.

Below is the change log:

New Map Size: Ludicrous

Map sizes made bigger.

  • Tiny: 18 to 20 hex sectors
  • Small: 32 to 36 hex sectors
  • Medium: 40 to 50 hex sectors
  • Large: 75 to 90 hex sectors
  • Huge: 95 to 120 hex sectors
  • Immense: 240 to 250 hex sectors
  • Excessive: 290 to 300 hex sectors
  • Insane renamed to Ludicrous 
  • Ludicrous: 500!

== AI ==

  • The AI will have harder time stealing techs from you if you have counter agents (e.g. unassigned agents).  
  • The AI no longer tries to bribe you to pick on minor factions.
  • AI now fully uses the new Crusade multicore engine in pathfinding, diplomacy, ship movement, tactical analysis, economic planning, planetary invasions, citizen assignments, etc. are all broken up into tiny jobs and sent out to your CPU cores drastically reducing turn times.
  • AI is much, MUCH smarter in what ships to build when (thanks to the GalCiv Discord community for rapid strategy testing responses) and how.
  • Substantial improvement in the general feel of AI intelligence when dealing with other civilizations diplomatically.
  • Improvements to AI trade intelligence based on the new multi-turn need analysis system.
  • AI more savvy on how to use spies as it now takes the consequences of retaliation into account before targeting someone.
  • Easy AI no longer rushes defensive units
  • Easy AI is no longer capable of rushing colony ships
  • AI no longer tries to reinforce planets with individual defender units if they are far away (this is the cause of lone ships streaming to their death in far off places)
  • The AI will have a harder time stealing techs from you if you have counter agents (e.g. unassigned agents).
  • The AI no longer tries to bribe you to pick on minor factions.
  • AI will no longer trade ships away on the cheap
  • Lots of new alien dialog based on more background data (what the galactic situation is).

== Gameplay ==

  • Ported more of the GalCiv III base game tech tree elements to the new Trait based system.  Crusade replaces the monolithic tech tree system with one that is procedural generated based on what traits you have for your civilization.  
  • First internal pass on getting ready to let players submit their own tech tree parts via Steamworks (i.e. create a bunch of techs, tie them to player traits, and have them just work).
  • Anomalies and Events from other DLC have had their rarity adjusted to be in line with Crusade's new rarities (basically, other DLC stuff was relatively rare).
  • AI is more chatty

== Multiplayer ==

  • General multiplayer performance improvements.  
  • Reduced multiplayer Checksum fragility to only deal with differences that are material.
  • First pass at networking layer upgrade to pave the way for fully customized civs playing each other (i.e. you play as your favorite sci fi civ vs. someone else's sci fi civ). The main challenge here is bandwidth on sharing what amounts to some pretty big assets.

== User Experience ==

  • Adjusted the Espionage screen to clarify that unassigned agents lower the chance the AI can steal techs from you.
  • Resource upgrades improvements are no longer flagged as one per planet.  
  • You can now select a fleet even if there's a non-selectable ship on the same tile. 
  • Decommissioned ships refund their administration points and legions.
  • Improved up the commander information on the citizen summary screen
    • Removed access debug error messages. This matters because modders could find themselves with a lot of debug output which on non SSD drives could slow framerate.
    • Reduced the number of event log entries displayed

    == Balance ==

    • Beam Weapon space usage reduced from 5% to 3%
    • Kinetic Weapons cost reduced substantially.
    • Entrepreneurs now provide a trade route to their civ as well
    • General comes with Xeno Combat techniques
    • Colonizer Ability changed such that every time they colonize a planet, they get their administrative point back.  
    • Xeno Combat Techniques now unlocks the General. Combined with Station Garrison, player can protect planets without having to research invasion.
    • Port of Call tourism improvement moved to only require Universal translator
    • Capital city now allows up to 16 population
    • Computer Core cost reduced from 35 to 16 so that players that don't want to rush it don't wait too long
    • Port of Call cost decreased from 150 to 32
    • Port of Call benefit changed from a 10% tourism income boost to a flat 1 with each level adding another 1
    • Starport now military production increased from 1 to 2
    • Space Elevator general production decreased from 2 to 1
    • City population cap increased from 8 to 16
    • Silicon city population cap increased from 8 to 9
    •  Military Academy improvement now requires planetary invasion to eliminate confusion in which players thought they had to train legions to invade.
    • Station Garrison cost reduced from 75 to 50
    • Influence specialization now provides a flat 1 influence to every colony instead of a 10% boost.
    • Majesty Tech now quires the diplomatic ability
    •  Master Trade now requires the entrepreneur ability
    • Other high-level biz/trade techs now require entrepreneur race ability
    • Robots can't have cruise lines
    • Improved AI conquest strategies
    • Slight balance tweak to opposing culture affect.
    • Mild balance pass on the weightings of faction power.
    • Hot Springs moved to require Planetology (for frog races)
    • Hot Springs benefit changed from 3 to 2.
    • Increased AI's guts by 25%. Basically, AIs tend to be a bit too careful in when to attack. This is partially because players think AIs are "dumb" if they make suicide attacks. But there is a time and place to use suicide attacks to wear down an opponent.  Cracking a turtler requires sacrifice.
    • New ship design method that lets us see how many ship designs are in the library.
    • General increase in late game tech costs.
    • Defenses now use less space but cost more
    • Carrier modules cost more but use less room
    • Eyes of Universe now requires "Interstellar Travel" instead of "Interstellar Survey"
    • Farming no longer requires "Xeno Adaptation" but comes sooner with Planetology
    • Cities now require Planetology (or "Torian Planetology")
    • Slight increase in cost for later improvements
    • Minor balance updates
    • Xenophobic tripled benefits at the cost of decreased "Ship Construction".  
    • Set default faction to Terran Alliance
    • Nerfed Renaissance event's research bonus

    == Performance ==

      • Continued improvement to turn times thanks to Crusade multicore
      • Improvement to speed of clearing out an old game so you can get back to the main menu.

      == Bug Fixing == 

      • On the starbase list, the "upgrade" icon isn't always enabled.  
      • Fix Virtual World improvement, now requires Promethean instead of Promethean Stones (which are no longer in the game)
      • Stuck turn fixes.  This issue is caused by the very delicate balance between turn speed and the difficulty of resyncronizing the threads quickly.
      • Various crash bugs fixed.
      • Fixed the Scientist Coerced Promotion which was giving 10x points
      • Fixed a bug where if food was ever >0 but then later became 0 that it would never update again.
      • Fixed strange bug that was causing pirates to not get to take a turn because the game thought they were dead. They're not dead!
      • Fixed bug where asteroids from dead players would become owned by pirates and unkillable. Mining bases are now autodestroyed when a player dies.
      • Fixed edge case bug where the player somehow allies with an event race which in turn causes a strange diplomacy flag to show up.
      • Fixed minor bug where planned destination of a virtual fleet wasn't being copied from the source fleet. This would sometimes cause the AI not to attack targets of opportunity.
      • Typo fixes. English isn't our first language. Our first language is Drengin which doesn't have vowels.
      • Graph power buttons now toggle properly
      • Updated the Entrepreneur Citizen text to better reflect its ability.
      • Ship designer window: removed a duplicate resource bar

      Have fun!

       

       

       

      373,766 views 86 replies
      Reply #26 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting Publius, reply 23

      Quoting curt2013,
      reply 22

      My interceptor drones are not working, they are out of range every time during view battle also the mouse over info shown for them is incorrect.

      That might explain why the interceptors from the merc Hivebase 1 are not showing up in the battle viewer.

      I noticed the same thing with Hivebase 1.

      Reply #27 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Opt-in is updated!

      = Balance/Gameplay =

      • Hot springs nerfed from giving 3 morale to 1.
      • Xenophobes get twice the research and social construction but only half the military construction.
      • Beam weapon space usage reduced from 5% to 3%
      • Kinetic weapons cost reduced substantially.
      • Entrepreneurs now provide a trade route to their civ as well
      • General comes with Xeno Combat techniques
      • Colonizer Ability changed such that every time they colonize a planet, they get their administrative point back.  This will need a tooltip tweak for the admin resource tooltip.
      • Xeno Combat Techniques now unlocks the General. Combined with Station Garrison, player can protect  planets without having to research invasion.
      • Port of Call tourism improvement moved to only require Universal translator
      • Capital city now allows up to 16 population
      • Computer Core cost reduced from 35 to 16 so that players that don't want to rush it don't wait too long
      • Port of Call cost decreased from 150 to 32
      • Port of Call benefit changed from a 10% tourism income boost to a flat 3 with each level adding another 1
      • Starport now military production increased from 1 to 2
      • Space Elevator general production decreased from 2 to 1
      • City population cap increased from 8 to 16
      •  Silicon city population cap increased from 8 to 9
      •  Military Academy improvement now requires planetary invasion to eliminate confusion in which players thought they had to train legions to invade.
      •  Station Garrison cost reduced from 75 to 50
      • AI is more chatty
      • Easy AI no longer rushes defensive units
      • Easy AI is no longer capable of rushing colony ships
      • AI no longer tries to reinforce planets with individual defender units if they are far away (this is the cause of lone ships streaming to their death in far off places)
      • Influence specialization now provides a flat 1 influence to every colony instead of a 10% boost.
      • Majesty Tech now quires the diplomatic ability
      •  Master Trade now requires the entrepreneur ability
      • Other high-level biz/trade techs now require entrepreneur race ability
      • Robots can't have cruise lines

      = Bugs =

      •  Ship Icons on the Civ builder are no longer missing (fix from the previous opt-in)
      • Fix for some desyncs in MP
      TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
      Reply #28 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      "Xenophobes get twice the research and social construction but only half the military construction."

      My concern is that +100% tech and social might be OP?

      Reply #29 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      I think the Xenophobes might now be OP. I played a race with them on the previous settings, and they were damn good. Now they have been buffed (doubled their ship production!).

       

      Reply #30 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting pshaw, reply 27

      Robots can't have cruise lines

      No, but they really really want to.

      Reply #31 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      I feel like v2.14 is processing turns slower than release-day Crusade did.

      When i watch the turn processing messages in the lower right corner, it seems to hang up for several seconds on specific empires. It does this regardless of my zoom level.

      I have no quantifiable evidence to support that claim, so can anyone confirm or deny?

      Reply #32 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting leiavoia, reply 31

      When i watch the turn processing messages in the lower right corner, it seems to hang up for several seconds on specific empires. It does this regardless of my zoom level.

      I have no quantifiable evidence to support that claim, so can anyone confirm or deny?

      I have seen this also.  Sometimes I think the game has hung when it stops for 2 or 3 seconds, but it has always continued.  I think some of them were after that race either declared war or had war declared on them.  I thought that meant that it was doing more thinking about what to do and moving a lot more ships.  I don't know if that is right or not.

      Reply #33 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Another issue I have noticed is that the ai will absolutely refuse to trade even one resource with you, even if you offer them your entire empire on a platter. The "barter bar" won't move even a pixel if there a resource involved. 

      Reply #34 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting leiavoia, reply 33

      Another issue I have noticed is that the ai will absolutely refuse to trade even one resource with you, even if you offer them your entire empire on a platter. The "barter bar" won't move even a pixel if there a resource involved. 

      I was just able to trade an Open Borders treaty with an AI for 5 Promethium.  He had over 60 promethium, and no more than 10 of any other resources.  He refused to trade for any other resources, but apparently had enough promethium he was willing to trade.

      Reply #35 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting leiavoia, reply 31

      I feel like v2.14 is processing turns slower than release-day Crusade did.

      When i watch the turn processing messages in the lower right corner, it seems to hang up for several seconds on specific empires. It does this regardless of my zoom level.

      I have no quantifiable evidence to support that claim, so can anyone confirm or deny?

      What map size are you playing?  How many AIs?

      Reply #36 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting pshaw, reply 35


      Quoting leiavoia,
      reply 31

      I feel like v2.14 is processing turns slower than release-day Crusade did.

      When i watch the turn processing messages in the lower right corner, it seems to hang up for several seconds on specific empires. It does this regardless of my zoom level.

      I have no quantifiable evidence to support that claim, so can anyone confirm or deny?



      What map size are you playing?  How many AIs?

      large, tight clusters, 11 ai, uncommon stars. I started noticing this behavior early in the game, not a highly developed one. It feels like the game spends more time updating the more warlike races, for whatever that's worth.

      Reply #37 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting Publius, reply 34

      Quoting leiavoia,
      reply 33

      Another issue I have noticed is that the ai will absolutely refuse to trade even one resource with you, even if you offer them your entire empire on a platter. The "barter bar" won't move even a pixel if there a resource involved. 

      I was just able to trade an Open Borders treaty with an AI for 5 Promethium.  He had over 60 promethium, and no more than 10 of any other resources.  He refused to trade for any other resources, but apparently had enough promethium he was willing to trade.

      I figured this out. There is a magic number in the evaluation function (*tsk* *tsk* !). It isn't strictly a bug, but it's a bit hackish and feels sloppy for the player, even folks like myself who have not spent more than 10 hours playing yet.

      The code works like this when trading resources: if ( amount_requested / amount_total >= 0.25 ) { ai_valuation_of_resource += some_huge_number; }

      So 0.25 is the magic number.

      This seems to hold true regardless of the amount the AI has. Examples: If AI has 4 resources and you ask for 1, you won't get anything. If AI has 5 and you ask for 1, they will happily trade. If AI has 100 and you ask for 24, no problem. If you insist on 25, you get nothing.

      I have not tested to see if different resources are weighted differently, but it does not appear to be so.

      Reply #38 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      == updated 5/16 ==

      + fixed a problem where ships were firing the wrong projectiles.

      Reply #39 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting pshaw, reply 38

      == updated 5/16 ==

      + fixed a problem where ships were firing the wrong projectiles.

      Is that the thing where the ships shoot out more ships? It's hilarious to watch. If not, well, that's another issue and i'll get you some screenshots.

      Reply #40 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

       I just want to say to those on the fence about getting Crusade, that 2.14 is a major improvement to 2.13 and that the "Just one more turn feeling" is back and causing me to lose sleep.

      Reply #41 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting leiavoia, reply 39


      Quoting pshaw,
      reply 38

      == updated 5/16 ==

      + fixed a problem where ships were firing the wrong projectiles.



      Is that the thing where the ships shoot out more ships? It's hilarious to watch. If not, well, that's another issue and i'll get you some screenshots.

      I think it was, I was having that problem yesterday and after the patch I'm not having it today.

      Reply #42 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Ok so... When upgrading survey ships to another survey ship it consumes additional administrative point and you cannot get that second administrative point back by deleting or upgrading to different type of ship. So now I am spending 4 administrative points on survey ships and I have 0 survey ships...

      Also conquering planets and trading colony ships is a bit cheaty. You dont have to pay administrative points for them.

      Maybe implement mechanic into the game that checks begining of every turn how many: planets, starbases, colony ships, constructors, survey ships you have and count your used and available administrative points that way.

      Also: *City population cap increased from 8 to 16* Is a bit too much. If it need to be increased maybe 10-12 pop is reasonable.

      Reply #43 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting RReppu, reply 42

      Also: *City population cap increased from 8 to 16* Is a bit too much. If it need to be increased maybe 10-12 pop is reasonable.

      Not really. Been messing around with synthetic (aka Yor) and you get 100 cap at start. The difference is really all the big.

      Reply #44 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      == Opt-in Updated 5/19 ==

      = Balance/Gameplay =

      + New ship design method that lets us see how many ship designs are in the library.

      + Improved AI conquest strategies

      + Slight balance tweak to opposing culture affect.

      + Mild balance pass on the weightings of faction power.

      + AI is even more chatty

      + "Hot Springs moved to require Planetology (for frog races)

      + Hot Springs benefit increased from 3 to 2.

      + Increased AI's guts by 25%.

      + The AI will have a harder time stealing techs from you if you have counter agents (e.g. unassigned agents).

      + The AI no longer tries to bribe you to pick on minor factions.

      + AI will no longer  trade ships away for almost nothing

       

      = Bugs =

      + Numerous fixes/updates to the new master tech tree

      + Fixes for multiple MP desyncs

      + Precursor Anomaly and Lost World Colonization events work again

      + Adjusted the Espionage screen to clarify that unassigned agents lower the chance the AI can steal techs from you

      + Resource upgrades improvements are no longer flagged as one per planet.

      + You can now select a fleet even if there's a non-selectable ship on the same tile.

      + Decommissioned ships refund their administration points and legions.

      + Cleaned up the commander information on the citizen summary screen

      + On the starbase list, the "upgrade" icon isn't always enabled.

      + Fix Virtual World improvement, now requires Prometion instead of Promeous stones (which are no longer in the game)

      + Fixes for crashes and stuck turns

      + Fixed the Scientist Coerced Promotion which was giving 10x points

      + Improvement to speed from exiting a game to the main menu

      + Performance optimizations

      + Fix missing icon in the Approval leader focus.

       

      Reply #45 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Lol more changes to the Tech tree and Buildings - some of which seem good - it has taken me several days to plow through the combining old custom race techs into the "standard" tech tree (another numerous fixes / updates to tech tree note mentioned on 5/14 update note - 95% of which I am fine with) so maybe I can use my modded 2.13 XML files again lol.  I found some Farm techs that were deleted in 2.14 I missed earlier today.  Looks like some of the late game life support techs were also deleted on the 14th.  CAN NOT wait to see what else has changed.  Although looks mainly Improvements.  I have even reorganized the MasterTechDefs.XML file so it supports the more "in order" organization of the file in 2.14. 

      Now keep up the changes as you make this patch more like the Tech Tree that should been released with Crusade.  My only issue is lacking any detailed notes about these changes, it is frustrating to keep up with the technology tree changes but that is my problem.

       

      == Updates 5/19 ==

      = Balance/Gameplay =

      •  
      • Hot Springs moved to require Planetology (for frog races)
      • Hot Springs benefit increased from 3 to 2.

      Might still need to look at Morale buildings as they didn't line up completely with the "standard" morale buildings ie disable for now Amphibious ability and DeoutAbility races as noted in my latest notes.

       

      = Bugs =

      • Numerous fixes/updates to the new master tech tree

      Hopefully these changes are more clear than the over two dozen techs you either removed completely (old techs that were abandoned in 2.1 )  or deleted and moved the corresponding improvements into the "standard" tech tree in the 2.14 

               Resource upgrades improvements are no longer flagged as one per planet.

      Good fix for when you randomly get two of the same planetary special resource on the same planet.

      Reply #46 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Hey pshaw,  how's the remaining bug/balance list looking for 2.14?  

      Being a GOGgian (GOGgist?  GOGger?) I'm used to waiting for official patches to drop - color me curious,  not "git the fackin' thing done already!"

       

      Reply #48 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      For ancient races, the social matrix costs 4 arnorian spices. For what the improvement does and the point of the game it is available at, this feels out of proportion.

      I was wondering, could it be made so, that the tradable ressource on a planet can be chosen in the civ builder? Haven't put much thought into this, but this could be beneficial for ancient races for example, whose special building requires a certain ressource.

      Reply #49 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Quoting treborblue, reply 47

      @barrybeal have you tried my Tech Tree Viewer / Editor

      https://forums.galciv3.com/477456/

      It may be of use to you.

      The problem with the 2.14 Patch is that there are a lot of numerous fixes and updates in the 5/14 update.  And from 2.13 they rearranged the flow of techs in MasterTechDefs.XML so they are now more organized in order (generally a good thing for parsing the game code depending how they build the research tree internally.  So unless you rearrange your version of  the 2.13 XML file you can't just compare side by side the 2.14 and 2.13 versions.  Later I did eventually to help with the secondary passes of checking the differences.  Firstly there are a lot o changes to 2.14 that are not entirely obviously and since they deleted Specialization techs the old version of the MasterTechDefs.XML won't even run now - Tech tree creation crashes due to not being able to handle the abandoned Tech Specializations because I didn't keep a copy of the old MasterTechSpecializationsDef.XML file in my mod.  Then there is that in additional to deleting three dozen or more tech definitions - some abandoned - they removed some and then changed the previous functioning definitions in ImprovementDefs.XML so that custom races now use the equivalent "standard" techs (not necessarily a bad thing with possibility that you loose ability to change the AI research weighting system differences between those races).

       

      I have found all the deletions now which for 2.14 are the following:

      Slaver (ZealotsAbility) manufacturing, research, and morale techs were deleted and the improvements associated with each with converted to use the existing equivalent "standard" techs in the tech tree.  Note that the "standard" tech tree has some inconsistency in how it works in Crusade verses how it used to work before Crusade.

      Synthetic manufacturing and research techs were deleted and the improvements associated with each with converted to use the existing equivalent "standard" techs in the tech tree.

      Amphibious (Aquatic) Ability research (missing from Crusade) and morale techs (were in Crusasde)  were deleted and the improvements associated with each with converted to use the existing equivalent "standard" techs in the tech tree.

      Certain Ability (Altarian) morale techs  (were in Crusasde)  were deleted and the improvements associated with each with converted to use the existing equivalent "standard" techs in the tech tree.

      I think it is three of the late game Life Support Specialization techs were deleted and the "base" Life Support techs reconnected to each other.

      One farming tech XenoAgricultureTech and its associated Specialization techs AgriculturalOptimization1/2/3 were deleted and the tech tree rearranged.

       

      Then there is about dozen "abandoned" techs that were deleted and I had to research whether that was good or bad since there was no explanation of why they were gone.

       

      So mostly my post was me "Venting" about all the changes Stardock keeps making.  A lot of which is good but some apparently just to "make the game easier and simpler" by removing techs that originally had some purpose.  Along with the general difference in gaming philosophy, Crusade introduces a lot of changes to the way things work before.  Some of that discovery of "what is different" is good in that it brings new challenges to the users familiar with the previous game design.  Other changes seem haphazard and poorly thought out and implemented.  We already have to spend considerable time learning or figuring out how the old technology tree is now split up and given piece meal to Races based on chosen Racial Abilities and Life Style choices.  Again without explanation of the differences and in some cases finding that they are implemented wrong or poorly.  I was hoping for a somewhat more detailed explanation of what is changing - probably hoping that Stardock might make general statements like above about what was deleted or changed to help learn how Crusade is evolving.  Certainly most people including me look at CHANGE as not something that you rush to embrace or enjoy experiencing.  It would help my frustrations at least to attempt to lessen the impact by Explaining and PROACTIVELY justifying the changes so I understand that there is a plan and that the change is not necessarily bad for me in the long run.

      Aren't you so glad that I responded I know I feel better already !!!!  Must be a woman thing lol.   I don't need you to reply just listen to what I wrote.  b)


      Now I have come back to mention that I appreciate you trying to help by posting the above but it doesn't help directly address the intent for the post.

      Reply #50 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

      Hi folks, quick question...

      Do the opt in patch changes affect a saved game or will it only be for games started after the patch?