Galactic Civilizations III - Beta 3 Changelog

Published on December 5, 2014 By DerekPaxton In GalCiv III Dev Journals

–RELEASED 12/11/2014–

Galactic Civilizations III Beta 3 is now available! See below for details on the mechanical Yor race, the first pass at combat animations, cinematics, and more:

Features

Added the Yor with their own line of spaceships, star bases, techs and general non-organic life weirdness. They aren’t exactly the best neighbors to run into when exploring space, but they do provide a fun opponent to go to war with.

Added the Sentient Machines faction ability for the Yor. The Yor have no need for food and traditional growth. Growth bonuses or penalties on planets do not affect them. They don’t need to use tiles for farms. Conversely they don’t have any natural growth. Instead the Yor have a planetary project that allows them to create new Yor, which they have to do in place of building planetary improvements. So rather than relying on natural growth the player has to decide between making that research lab or increasing her population.

Added a wide variety of weapons effects. Watch your fleets battle with whatever missiles, lasers and cannons you have outfitted them with.

Ships now have damage states so they look different based on how much damage they have taken. That smoke and flame shooting out of your warship is probably a bad thing, you may want to let it go through some repairs before starting the next battle.

Added the Likeable and Unlikeable race traits (modifies the starting attitude of other factions towards you).

New colors for the Iridium ships. We removed the purple because it was to easily confused with the Yor colors and just let the Iridium be that mirror-like silver and gold lights and it looks really good.

Added lots of new sound effects. Objects in space have 3d positional sounds (if you zoom in my a sun you can hear it), ships make sounds as the move and activate thrusters, UI sounds have been added for key events (such as notifying the player that it is their turn)

Fixes

Lots of Crash fixes

Fixed a render issue in the Altarian leader scene

Fixed an issue where the "act of war" popup doesn't come up if you right-click an object that you can't see anymore

Fixed some multi-player desync issues

Fixed bug where shipyards were not ejecting non-defender ships

Fixed bug where only ships with destinations waiting to fleet up would try to upgrade

Fixed bug where fleet that gets scared and tries to run away won't do it until the next turn if he has a pending move order

Fixed bug where defenders sometimes wouldn't defend planets

Fixed lots of events that weren't applying their bonuses correctly

If you don't have the Universal Translator you will still be told that another faction is declaring war on you (rather than simply having them come up and say garbled text to you and not realizing you are now at war)

Fixed an issue where a ship design wouldn't save if there was a tab in the ship name

Balance

All weapons, range, rate of fire, defenses all redone. Defense in particular were changed to a new system where they can run out (if you blast shields enough they will fall and your beam attack can start getting through).

Reduced Galactic Event frequency slightly

Faction trait rebalance. In general less, but more specific traits, every faction (except Terran) now have a negative trait)

Terran gain Likeable +1 and Productive +1, but lose Influential +2, Productive +2, Resilient +2 and Traders +1

Drengin gain Discontent -2 and Courageous +1 but lose Adventuresome +1, Courageous +2 and Fast +1

Altarians gain Content +2, Fast +1, Influential +1 and Fragile -2 but lose Content +1, Economical +2, Fast +2 and Influential +2

Iridium gain Adventuresome +1, Clever +1 and Productive +1 but lose Adventuresome +2, Clever +2, Influential +2 and Productive +2

Krynn gain Fast +1, Fertile +2, Unlikeable -1 and Militant -1 but lose Fertile +1, Handy +2, Militant +1 and Organized +2

Approval calculation changed to smooth out the steps

Increased the number of stars slightly on all maps

Reduced Maintenance slightly

Better distribution of Ascension Gates and Relics

Blackholes are distributed more evenly throughout the map

Changed the Open Borders treaty threshold to -4

Changed the amount of Goods and Services provided by Capital buildings

We now support color defines per faction, so your UI will be different if you are playing the Yor compared to the Terran

Tons of new icons (if you were on the fence about buying GC3 I know this will push you over the edge!)

Added 12 new cutscenes for first time events like the first time you colonize a world or invade a planet

Added lots of new art for colonization events

Added a new Battle Initiation window

Improved choose sponsor window for setting planets that are providing resources for a shipyard

Starbases, shipyards, and rally points now name themselves after the star system they are near

Changed ship drawing order in fleets so most important ship is shown first

All the trade categories in the diplomacy screen now start expanded, and made the height of the trade list area taller and dynamic to deal with very small and very large resolutions

Added a description field to the planet tooltips to add a flavorful description for the planet

Added an indicator for the turns remaining on the queue on the planet context screen, planet list entry, planet tooltip, shipyard tooltip, shipyard context screen and the shipyard list entry

Added some advice on the diplomacy screen letting players know they have to meet other players before they can start diplomacy (if they haven't met anyone else yet)

Added descriptions to the race traits tooltips explaining what they are

Added high level objective planning to the AI (so it knows what empire goals it is currently pursuing)

The AI now considers UP voting according to their personal agendas

Added personalities to all the AI factions. Personalities like Cruel or Scientific don’t give game bonuses but influence how that leader makes decisions. It means that Lord Kona won’t play the game like Akari Malara.

The AI now builds and Upgrades starbases

AI now does a better job of defending its empire (figuring out what is worth defending, and how much resources should be allocated to defending it)

In general the AI is slightly less conservative when attacking

Changed defender behavior to race towards planets and ignore everything else.

Changed fleetup behavior to wait for as many reinforcements as possible, but always attack if fleet is full.

War Endurance is now set per faction, so AI players have different thresholds for when they like to declare war (hint: the Drengin are bad neighbors)

Comments (Page 3)

mrblondini

on Dec 10, 2014

I must say I have a thing for things being optional.

Obviously within limits - the stupid extreme is selling a 4X game with an option that makes the game RPG or FPS.

Keep the core of a game that makes it fit it's genre - obviously 4X in this case so all the central game rules/concepts are fixed - but try and make as much of the peripheral or semi-peripheral stuff as optional as possible.

I've always said I'd rather good AI over fancy sounds and graphics so don't imagine I'd make the viewer a vital part of my GalCiv3 experience - might try it out when it comes available just to see what it's like, use it for a couple of battles, then turn it off kind of thing. And anyway I don't need to see my fleets getting smashed in close-up HD...Bad for Morale and so won't be screening in my Entertainment Centers.

Looking forward to Steam Update day.

jirkaesch

on Dec 10, 2014

Derek/Paul, when we´re going to get the political layer of the game (governments, elections)? Beta 4?

Tishers4U

on Dec 10, 2014

The game is a little klunky with space stations and constructors. If you send constructors to a space station you need to park them one square away so the game will prompt you that the ship is idle. If you send them directly to the space station they will go to the station and get added to "the bucket list" for that station. Then you need to periodically go through each station to find out if there are constructors that are there, just cooling their heels and not working to making improvements.

Also, with constructors, if you send them to a station and there are no more techs that you can apply (until you up your technology) the constructors will sit there, as if they are docked, there is no prompt that maybe you need to check up on things.

I also suggest adding another class of vessel. "Drones" that work within the area of influence of the station. These may be mining-bots, defense-bots, influence-bots (missionaries), (loan sharks for finance? <lol>).

Another one, when you upgrade a ship (like in deep space) it takes a certain number of turns (cost?). If your ship is within the zone of influence of a shipyard (or station) can that time/cost be decreased? Maybe for something like a shipyard, if they undertake repairs of nearby ships they can get a few more hit points? (kind of like experience gained when making an upgrade can help your own shipyard (or station).

Tishers4U

on Dec 10, 2014

Can planetary defenses work to extend a certain amount of coverage to a shipyard or station? You could offer a way to gradually increase the capabilities of a planetary defense system (creating force barriers around a planet, but it increases your energy consumption). Then the more military spending on a planet the radius of protected space may expand slightly (also, if you cut back on military spending it decreases in size or effectiveness (+HP).

Tishers4U

on Dec 10, 2014

Rather than underflowing the value, force the player to do something with that money before that point is reached. That should be easier to deal with from a programming perspective than to deal with overflow/underflow values.

Edladner

on Dec 10, 2014

Tishers4U did you notice it happening shortly after loading a game. That's the only time I have seen it happen.

DARCA1213

on Dec 10, 2014

Tishers4U

reply 35

Oh, I did find a bug, I played a game to see if this would happen. If you accumulate LOTS of money it suddenly jumps negative and you have to save your way out of a negative balance before you can resume research or techs. It was a crazy-high number but it happens.

Rather than underflowing the value, force the player to do something with that money before that point is reached. That should be easier to deal with from a programming perspective than to deal with overflow/underflow values.

most games just have a cap were if you go over, all credits added just become void. So if 10$ is the limit and I have 9$ and I made 2$ only 1$ would get added and any money after it would be ignored.

dragoaskani

on Dec 10, 2014

So whens it come out? I want my robot overlords! We welcome them with open arms and stuff!

*edit: when did my avatar get so big, Brain looks distorted at this resolution, might need a new one...

ckhenson

on Dec 10, 2014

When??? I just had another crash to desktop!

Bamdorf

on Dec 10, 2014

Interesting. I have been playing quite a bit, and I have never had a CTD.

But I have had a problem with UI freezes, which is different. (The music still plays, sometimes you can hear a mouse click, etc.)

Oh well I am really hoping on the next release.

androshalforc

on Dec 10, 2014

Tishers4U

reply 35

yes ive received this bug as well i believe someone said something to the effect of (and since i only vaguely know what im talking about here i could just be spewing bull$#!t) an unsigned 32 bit variable

if i have any idea what im talking about that means when your cash flows over 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 it will flip to a negative value

Tishers4U

on Dec 10, 2014

Found two more annoyances. When you assign a planet to contribute to a shipyard (on the shipyard control panel) that list does not scroll. I assigned about 10 planets to one shipyard (sort of a neighborhood thing) and you only see the top 2-3 entries. If you decide to change that list later you need to un-assign everything on the shipyard and then to re-enter the list. Also, on the planetary summary page, it should show you that you are allocating those tech resources to a shipyard, and what one it is. You can follow the wavy graphics line on the screen (that shows the relationship) but there is no easy way to break into it. I had sent a bunch of constructors to a space station but did not have all of the necessary techs to build out things like mining or defensive or cultural. The constructors end up getting queued up to the station but you need to undock them from the station and then re-dock them for their constructor-like abilities to be able to be used by the station. If you do not know that this is sort of like touching your nose to your elbow you just continue to send constructors to a station and the list of things you can complete at the station never shows it. ------------------------- On terraforming, when you get to the ultimate level of terraforminig you cannot continue to build out sections of a planet. The ultimate terraformer will pop up with the grid on the planet surface but you can only select one section and then that's it. that ability goes away for good. One of the other intermediate terraforming steps allows you do do multiple selections (but not across the entire map). What I was trying to do was to terraform the entire surface of Mars, as we know, it is a pretty miserable little planet and you get four or five sections you can build on. With all of the terraforming steps you can get that up to around ten or fifteen, but never all the way. Also, on ultimate terraforming can we maybe have a terraforming ship that we can plant on an uninhabitable world to reform the planet (slowly and at great expense?). Maybe that terraforming effort requires the semi-regular restocking of constructors and maybe also a supporting space station (maybe terraforming can be an entire different class/ direction of a space station?).

MrStarTrek

on Dec 11, 2014

Please tell me Beta 3 wont break our custom designed ships..... Please?????

DARCA1213

on Dec 11, 2014

So many questions...and even a bug report, on a announcement post. Lol

Edladner

on Dec 11, 2014

DARCA1213 what do you expect? This a forum of people dedicated to taking over the galaxy, a mere thread on a forum is fair game.

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