Hello,

2.5 is turning out to be a huge update.  We've made major improvements to turn times, the AI, and game balance. We have also merged the code base between Crusade and the base game to speed development.  Finally, the base game has received a major face lift.    

For owners of Crusade and base GalCiv, you will get: 

• Turn times are much faster
• The AI is much smarter
• Lots of bug fixes
• Massive improvements in game balance

For owners of just  base GalCiv, you will get: 

• Improved UI 
• Enhanced Diplomacy and trading changes
• Resource system
• Ship designer on the main menu
• Starbase upgrade system 
• Food / Cities 

For owners of Crusade and base GalCiv, you will get:  

• You can, with a command line param, jump between the base game and Crusade.  Use "-DisableDLC "Crusade" to disable Crusade.
• When you play campaigns originally made for the base game, the game can play it in base game mode for balance fixes.
• Crusade specific balance and fixes.

Please read more about the update here:

• Sneak preview of Galactic Civilizations-III v2.5 Part 1
• Sneak preview of Galactic Civilizations-III v2.5 Part 2

Full change notes below!

Important

Save games from earlier versions of the Galactic Civilizations III will not be supported. Yet, the previous 2.33 build is available as beta called "Galactic Civilizations III: Classic".  Mods will likely need to be updated as well.

 Mods will likely need to be updated as well.

Consolidation Detailed Changes

• Merged Crusade and "base" game code.  There is now only one exe for both products.  Most fixes and improvements will be shared between both games.  
• The following Crusade specific game play elements are disabled in base game: Citizens, Invasions, Promotions, Espionage.
• Base game players continue to have following:
  • Use the Production Wheel (instead of Citizens) to adjust your planetary and civilization economy.  Note that we've removed coercion from the game
  • Invasion system 1.0
  • Minor Civilizations 1.0
  • Administration points are tied to galaxy size rather than citizens.
• Base Game changes from Crusade
  • Crusade and Base game now share a common UI base.  Aside from elements tied to version specific features, the UI looks identical between the two versions.  For base players, this means a cleaner and more functional UI.  
  • Resources system overhaul. Resources accumulate over time, are required for more ships and improvements, and are more valuable in trading.  
  • Starbases are now upgraded using resources, not constructors.  
  • Updated the diplomacy screen window.
  • Improvements to the Diplomacy and trading system to use the new resource system; as well as more intelligent and fun to trade with.
  • Cities/ Food -- you now use food (a resource) to build cities, which determine your colony's population cap.  Food can be traded, just like any other resource.
  • Added "word on the street" -- quick feedback on the status of your planet.
  • Merged down some of the alerts from Crusade
• Crusade specific elements of civ builder are disabled in base game mode. 
  •  Race Type and Starting Fleet are hidden outside of Crusade
  •  Citizen portraits/names buttons hidden outside of Crusade
  •  Flavor Text portion replaced with customizing startup screen outside of Crusade
  •  Disabled Fleets tab outside of Crusade
  • Missions
• Ship designer is now on the main menu
• Moved game text down to base data files.  This will make future changes much easier.
• Merged many asset files (music, sounds, special fx)
• Merged over the improved Crusade version of icons, improvements, and planetary tile thumbnails.  
• Removed a lot of redundant game data from Crusade and the base game. 
• Updated the base ship design files to use their Crusade versions (which look nicer).  
• Updated Ship class defs and ship style set defs so that there is only one ship class defs file and the defs say which uses them.
• Made substantial improvements to the DLC data system that improves stability and speed. 
• Use "-DisableDLC "Crusade" to disable Crusade.  
• Moved custom data templates to the base game folder and renamed the files to be a little clearer. Changed the Conversation System to use the new location. (Modders!  This might affect you).
• Moved all the schema from Crusade down into the base schema folder. (Modders!  This will very likely affect you).  

Base Game Improvements

Gameplay

• Major fix/improvement to turn times and stuck turn issue: Only battles on screen and zoomed in will be played out OR if it involves the player.
• Every unit of population now produces 1 raw production point.
• Eager bonus reduced from 1 per conquered planet to 0.25
• Rush cost multiplier increased from 10X to 20X
• Coercion penalty eliminated
• Base population growth reduced from 0.2 to 0.1
• Tech inflation increased from 0.01 to 0.02
• Asteroid base cost reduced from 500 to 100
• Base colony production points reduced from 5 to 1
• Capital world population cap reduced from 10 to 5
• Default colony population cap reduced from 5 to 3
• New Improvement: Space Elevator
• New Improvement: Computer Core
• New Improvement: City (consumes food to provide population)
• New Improvement: Administration Center (build to get more administrators, consumes food)
• General re-balance to planetary improvements to go with the new population model
• Improvements changed to support the new differentiation between military manufacturing and social manufacturing
• Various improvements are now set as indestructible to eliminate various cheese strategies
• Yor can increase population easier but it now costs a Durantium to do it.
• Improvement maint. generally reduced
• Eliminated Colonial Hospital Improvement.
• General balance update of improvements to deal with the new resource system.
• Economic Stimulus now doubles planet's economy rather than provide a 5% bonus
• Research Project doubles planet's research.
• Cultural Festival doubles planet's influence production.
• Birthing subsidies double planet's birth rate.
• Planet features (Cataract, etc.) updated to support new social/military manufacturing system.
• Weapon systems now use some resources: Antimatter for high-end missiles, Elerium for high-end beam and Thulium for high-end kinetic-weapons.
• General reduction of maint costs for weapons
• Updated balance of weapons based on feedback
• Hull costs increased to deal with inchard coded50 to 50
• Shipyard cost reduced
• Starbase defenses reduced from 10 to 5
• Influence starbase modules greatly increased in power.

UI

• The Production Wheel now dynamically resizes to its parent window
• Removed an ancient camera control window that no longer used.
• Updated the Title Window to work with both Crusade and Mercenaries.
• Fixed title of Load Transport Popup Window
• Removed text for obsolete ships that weren't being used.
• Reduced AI bonuses at higher difficulty levels since the AI itself is now much smarter.
• Added special popup message if the player tries to load an older save game
• Fixed display bug where the base administration displayed in the resource log tooltip wasn't matching the stat

Bugs

• Made the "can't build near starbase" constructor error message use the global defs distance instead of hard coded distance.
• Added ghosting to data compiler so that the game does not appear to be hung when starting up.  
• Fixed potential crash in movement phase from trying to using a null pointer.
• AI won't send colony ships off the map when intentionally missing a distant planet
• Changed the Influence and Diplomacy system updates to prevent checksum errors in MP.
• Fixed a GWG bug where the base game administrators didn't show up on the first turn
• Fixed issue where AI could build multiple starbases in a turn even if they only had one administrator left
• United Planets actions are now handled by the host (adds stability, and prevents checksum error)
• If you defy the UP and then go into a "new game", the Defy button will no longer be disabled until you restart GC3.  
• Updated the Title Window to work with both Crusade and Mercenaries.
• Fixed issue where Administration tooltip wasn't showing correct available administrators number in base game mode
• Fixed issue where "Report" button on ship context window did not actually bring up the faction report screen
• Fixed issue where the social/military manufacturing tokens were not clearing whenever manufacturing was at 0
• made it so that manufacturing is always split, whether the colony is sponsoring a shipyard or not
• Fixed issue where when you purchased a mercenary, the rest of the entries would no longer display their resource cost (you were still prevented from buying the merc, but it gave the illusion that all mercs lost their resource cost)
• On the ship context window, the "Report" button is now disabled for special players (like the Dread Lords)
• Added error code for transport having no population
• Re-implemented the error for "Not Enough Administrators" as it was sometimes not showing up at the right time.
• Added stability to the Influence Border System
• Fixed issue where the AI could set a ship's destination to a negative y value
• Fixed issue where using the Asteroid 1 material for your custom faction would cause the rally point to show up as pure black
• Added new material def for rally points (all rally points now use this material instead of the faction materials)
• Fixed issue where resource log was showing "shipyards" instead of "starbases" in base game for administrators used by starbases
• Fixed issue where starbase administration usage was being shown as an additive instead of a subtractor
• Message box errors on invalid starbases and civs are hidden unless it's running Crusade mode.
• Added null check to prevent crash when mousing over a fleet in the map editor
• Fleets are now named using the owning faction's full name, instead of the short name
• Added build version check between client and host when inviting to an MP lobby (player is now restricted from joining lobbies that have a different build version by invite to match behavior in lobby list)
• Fixed MP data loading to better handle mismatched DLC.
• Fixed display bug in mercenary window where it wouldn't properly disable mercenary entries if the player couldn't afford only the credits cost of the merc
• Fixed issue where mercenaries could be bought by a player when they didn't have enough credits, as long as they had enough of the remaining resources required

DLC 4 (Precursor Worlds)

• Production point bonus from one of the events reduced from 4 to 3
• Production point bonus from Precursor exploitation reduced from 30 to 3
• There's a bunch of the above. Insta-win if you got one of these.

Expansion 1 (Mercenaries)

• Mercenary costs increased substantially
• Mercenary ships that cost resources cost when you buy them rather than per turn
• Mercenary tag added to the mercenarydefs.xml

Crusade

Gameplay

• Major fix/improvement to turn times and stuck turn issue: Only battles on screen and zoomed in will be played out OR if it involves the player.
• Population to raw production now 1 to 1.
• Starting capital world population reduced from 10 to 5
• New improvement: Administration Center.  Provides an Administration point
• Basic laser renamed Enhanced laser as it requires Elerium
• Starbase default defenses nerfed somewhat
• Starting credits increased from 2500 to 3000
• Rush cost multiplier reduced from 25 to 20
• Tech inflation added. Now to the 1.02 power.
• Governors more friendly to synthetic populations
• General balance pass on planetary improvements to go with the new population model
• Unique planetary improvements can no longer be destroyed
• Planetary Invasion is now in the Age of Expansion (arrives earlier)
• Various tweaks to planet features for better pacing
• Slight reduction in cost for civilian ship components
• Substantial increase in the cost for military ship components
• Fixed issue where some improvements would switch their bonus when they upgraded which caused them to be inferior in some cases
• General balance pass on weapon values based on feedback
• Shipyard HP increased from 25 to 50
• Tweaking to various planetary resources to improve pacing.
• Calculation of player objects moved out of update AI to improve multi-core stability
• Fixed bug where the human could exploit the AI for free ships if the AI treasury was negative (ya bastards!)
• AI more risk taking with its colony ships
• AI now has its own fleet formation function to avoid ships not becoming fleets (safe)
• Fixed bug that would prevent transports from finding a destination in some cases
• AI much better about saving up its resources to use with ships
• AI much MUCH better at building up its planets, using farms, building cities, etc.
• Fixed issue where the Yor would not build up its planets because it was obsessed with reproducing.
• AI will replace existing weaker improvements with superior improvements late game.
• AI much more careful about rushing improvements and ships to keep a decent bank balance so that it can better build up asteroids, hire mercenaries, etc.
• AI functionality to determine tiles it should replace with newer improvements.
• AI better at fleet handling.
• Fixed bug where the AI didn't always recognize the human was trying to culture flip their Planet
• Default players per map size updated:
  • Tiny: 3 to 2
  • Small: 4 to 3
  • Medium: 8 to 6
  • Large: 12 to 8
  • Huge: 16 to 12
  • Gigantic: 20 to 16
  • Excessive: 30 to 32
• Crusade owners will now play the base game campaigns using the base game rule set (e.g. without Citizens, Espionage, etc.).  

UI

• Removed an ancient camera control window that no longer used.
• Updated the Title Window to work with both Crusade and Mercenaries.
• Removed text for obsolete ships that weren't being used.
• Made the Administration Center precluded by synthetic and silicon based life for Crusade
• Base game now has the same (substantially lower) ship maintenance values as Crusade.  
• Added special popup message if the player tries to load an older save game
• Fixed display bug where the base administration displayed in the resource log tooltip wasn't matching the stat

Bugs

• Major fix/improvement to turn times and stuck turn issue: Only battles on screen and zoomed in will be played out OR if it involves the player.
• Fixed issue where AI would destroy improvements that were indestructible.
• Fixed bug where the approval would get stuck at 100% if certain events triggered
• fixed Recruit Entrepreneur description text to not say it's recruiting a Scientist
• Various null pointer crash fixes.
• Added stability to the Influence Border System
• Fixed issue where the AI could set a ship's destination to a negative y value
• Fixed issue where using the Asteroid 1 material for your custom faction would cause the rally point to show up as pure black
• Added new material def for rally points (all rally points now use this material instead of the faction materials)
• Fixed issue where resource log was showing "shipyards" instead of "starbases" in base game for administrators used by starbases
• Fixed issue where starbase administration usage was being shown as an additive instead of a subtractor
• Fixed issue where AI could build multiple starbases in a turn even if they only had one administrator left
• United Planets actions are now handled by the host (adds stability, and prevents checksum error)
• If you defy the UP and then go into a "new game", the Defy button will no longer be disabled until you restart GC3.  
• Made the "can't build near starbase" constructor error message use the global defs distance instead of hard coded distance.
• Added ghosting to data compiler so that the game does not appear to be hung when starting up.  
• Fixed potential crash in movement phase from trying to using a null pointer.
• AI won't send colony ships off the map when intentionally missing a distant planet
• Changed the Influence and Diplomacy system updates to prevent checksum errors in MP.
• Added null check to prevent crash when mousing over a fleet in the map editor
• Fleets are now named using the owning faction's full name, instead of the short name
• Added build version check between client and host when inviting to an MP lobby (player is now restricted from joining lobbies that have a different build version by invite to match behavior in lobby list)
• Added Rally point material to Crusade material defs to so they don't sometimes disappear.  
• Fixed MP data loading to better handle mismatched DLC.
• Fixed display bug in mercenary window where it wouldn't properly disable mercenary entries if the player couldn't afford only the credits cost of the merc
• Fixed issue where mercenaries could be bought by a player when they didn't have enough credits, as long as they had enough of the remaining resources required