[Disclaimer: Stardock does not endorse or support this mod. This thread has merely been stickied so users can more easily direct comments or questions to the authors of this popular modification.]
Some time ago the modding community started poking around in the TA tech trees to see why the AI was reluctant to develop certain techs. We found that some weapons techs were categorised as PD, instead of Military, meaning that unless missile weapons were deployed, those techs would never be researched by the AI. Obviously, an AI that can't fight back isn't much of a challenge.
The idea behind this mod was originally just to get the TA AI on the right track as far as weapons are concerned. However as suggestions have been put forward by the community, more improvements have been made to the tech trees. Some features have been driven by my own need to fix annoyances.
For example there is the AI's passion for spamming factories or labs onto every tile, crashing their early economy. These basic improvements would get upgraded and then cost the AI even more in terms of miantenance and production cost, forcing the AI to run inefficiently with the production slider at far less than 100%.
So my approach has been to deprive human and AI alike of early structures that can cause economic meltdown, and in their place have Super Projects which allow for some single-planet focus.
N.B. Use the external link above or choose one of the versions below. The successive versions are not patches, they contain all the features of that version of the mod. Extract the ZIP folder to your mods folder - if one doesn't already exist, create it. If your mod select screen in-game is broken, see here to fix it.
For a video overview of mod installation, see here.
For gameplay examples, check the new YouTube channel here.
Recent versions
v5G:
v6:
v6A:
v6B:
For obvious reasons, updates to the mod are on hiatus until the community update is completed.
For a full version history of the mod, see here.
For download links of older versions, see here.
Funny thing I noticed today, first time playing GC2 in a while. Because minor races get that headstart in 5E, they build a military, and this means that right now the Carinoids are giving me a double minus for my lack of relative military strength.
When I open up negotiations to see if I can bribe them to go to war, they tell me that the Akilians are even stronger than they are. What? Who? Never heard of them. I expect they're extorting the Drengin or something equally funny though.
You haven't really played the game until you got extorted by a minor.
I experienced the same in my mod, after I made minors smart and able to colonise. Sometimes, they even manage to crush one of the major races. However, it doesn't happen as often as I'd like.
My latest test game (running 5E) is turning out well. Not so good for me, because there are a lot of wars being waged, and as usual I've been a bit slow on the research so I am just getting to the weapons. The good news is that when I do get my weapons I'll be able to start rocking this galaxy with my Arceans. Oh yeah.
I want thank all of you that have put the hours into trying to make a great game better. You probably look a the forums and see few posters commenting on your hard work but I myself have been lurking on this and Gaunathor and Tolmekian's threads since the beginning and have enjoyed what each of you have brought to the game. It is hard to pick just one mod since they are all a bit different in approach.
So thanks again for all that you all do to keep the game alive!
You're welcome.
Fear the wrath of the Carinoids...
The only snag is, minor races don't seem all that interested in propulsion - or they've had that rug pulled from under them because the major races already have Hyperdrive. So I will definitely need to look into that.
The test game stopped being fun when the Iconians pulled out the knife and stabbed me in the back. Considering I was basically already fighting a standstill war to the Zylons, it was the final nail in my coffin.
The Arceans have a few problems. Even though I've given them a speed buff, and it's easy enough to crank out low-tech fighters, the early-game weapons quickly get outmoded and other races quickly gain a better logistics score.
I found that I was struggling to get enough money coming in, and therefore I couldn't build as many research buildings that I wanted. I suppose I should have made a point of getting Trade, but I'm not sure it would have helped.
Weather Control? By the time I had that tech I was drowning in colony maintenance. Never mind that I could gain three tiles, I have to give one up and it costs maintenance.
So, I'll be adding a population growth bonus on tech to compensate for the lack of a Recruiting Centre. These guys are warriors, they are quite happy to go into battle.
Weather Control will compensate for taking up a tile by making some sort of contribution, and I suppose a cut in maintenance wouldn't hurt.
I will also look at reducing the cost of the Arcean early-game weapon techs so they are actually worth going for, and I think I will look at moving some techs around.
And I'll look at improving propulsion for minors so they can menace some more.
My test game shows that minors are now willing to research Hyperdrive, which is good news.
My test game crashed. Don't know why, but I have the feeling there were a shedload of ships in the game because turn processing was getting quite slow.
Resumed testing, had Dread Lords crash.
I'll pick it up again when I have time, I guess.
I've managed to get a little bit further with my test game today although I had another crash. Still no idea what's doing it, debug.err hasn't shown any obvious clues. I'll keep looking into it, anyway.
The Krynn are getting hammered in this game. I haven't done much with their tech tree so that's probably the cause.
Anyway, I've gone through and changed some things in their tech tree but obviously I won't see the effects until next game.
Game has been stable for a couple of hours now. Huh. I know what might be causing the crash now but I dunno why or how it is even possible so, it cannot be!
I'll have to do a proper experiment when I have time.
That's excessively cryptic.
Well, basically there's a certain program which starts with S and ends with team.
When I closed it down the crashing stopped. But I haven't really established if it is doing anything or simply eating up memory that GC2 needs.
I've added a patch file up top for lower-output labs and research bonuses. Initial colonies will have a base research output of 0 and capitals will have an output of 16 instead of 24 if you use it. Make sure to make a backup of PlanetImprovements.xml in case you find it a bit too extreme.
Are you still working on upgrades to your mod MarvinKosh? I had thought you had stopped a while back. That would mean all four of the major public mod saviors have been active recently. I suspect this might be in part because this is a very good and cooperative mod community worth being a part of and partly because no other 4x space game has come out that is even close to the level a properly mod fixed GC2 is at. Some of the newer games are colorful but they just fall short on long term substance.
I am still trying to determine which of the big four mods might have a leg up on the others. From my perspective all four of you, plus your corps of helpful assistants, deserve billing for all four mods the way you guys have worked together to solve so many problems.
I'm trying to play through each several times to determine their key differences.
I'm not working on the mod at the moment, but I have done a few minor things with it this year.
Basically things are a bit crazy in real life right now. I'm hunting around for a job with enough hours to let me stay where I am instead of moving into a non-existent smaller place. It's stressful and not very productive, because government cuts have made it difficult for any employer to offer a decent wage, or even a crappy wage to be honest.
I've been playing my Arcean test game tonight. Been watching the Terrans lording their single alliance and massive fleet over the other races. Haven't got dragged into a war with them yet but it's looking inevitable.
I'm playing Neutral Arceans and I've got the Neutrality Learning Centres built up, with sector starbases in orbit boosting the research output. I'm managing to stay competitive on technology despite having only twenty-odd colonies in a galaxy where the leaders have close to or over a hundred.
Well that sucks. Unending turn bug, twice tonight.
Unfortunately I don't know if it's my mod that's at fault or the game just refusing to deal with an Immense galaxy end turn on turn 500 or so.
Unless someone knows why this is happening, there's nothing more I can do.
I doubt it's that. My longest game on an Immense map went until 2252, which is a little bit more than 500 turns.
For what it's worth, I also had the unending turn bug happen to me. Every time it was because of an error in my mod (upgrade-target for an improvement was set to itself, upgrade-target was set to two different improvements, one of which required a tech from a different tech tree (multiple targets for one improvement only work, if they are all within the same tech tree)).
Still, it really sucks when that happens.
Thanks for the advice. I'll look into it, I suspect it's because I have races in the game that haven't been looked over as thoroughly as I would like, so multiple upgrade targets is a possibility. I'll have to start a new test game to check that out.
Having looked the improvements over, there isn't anything that stands out at first glance, except for the Entertainment Network upgrading to both Multimedia Centre and Drathian Temple. I've removed the upgrade path, and given the Altarians a different starting tech so they do not get the Entertainment Network.
I've also given the chop to the Improved Colony upgrades, since those are also multiple path upgrades.
Still going with test games.
The Arceans are one of the races that don't have the Planetary Improvements tech divided up. I think that I may want to do that because I'm constantly struggling technologically in the early game and because I've got rid of the early labs for everyone the only way to improve things is to move through the tech tree as fast as I can. Unfortunately, this is difficult to do when I'm trying to get some colonies before everyone else.
Anyway, it's good to see that it works so well for the other races.
Latest test game is seriously annoying.
Basically, I'm trailing behind the other empires technologically by what, a few months or so. I can't build a military of my own but somehow one of the other empires decides that I'm waging 'a war of aggression' and I need to be wiped out.
What annoys me most is not that the annoying AI decides to declare war, it's that they put on that smug tone and make me out to be the bad guy in their declaration of war. Go kill the Terrans, you stupid sods.
Or as lord Vega would say, "You have no honour!"
Well, the test game was inevitably going to end up with defeat. Two empires hellbent on eradicating me with the vultures circling. Clearly I still have some work to do in making the Arceans fun to play against other empires. I don't mean giving them an 'I win' button though, just something to help with the early techs.
Okay, so in addition to making some changes to the Arcean tech tree, I've finally changed their Cathedral of Valor and added a new one. See the top post under version 5F for details. If it's bug-free I'll release immediately.
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