[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.
One thing I can do for the Yor/Zylons is give them a unique line of research buildings.
They get the Research Co-ordination Centre from Research Academies, which unfortunately is a much less efficient use of a tile than their Cybernetic Matrix.
Yes, it does give an extra boost to their research, but they're already having problems with tile usage since I allowed them to use as many Collectives as they like. I want them to be more efficient.
The Drengin sure do slow down the end game with their military. In my test game they have 3248 attack ships, and they're paying out 18882bc per turn in ship maintenance.
In contrast, I'm fielding just 404 attack ships and paying out 2252bc per turn to keep them.
Just based on the numbers, it looks like the Drengin should be crushing.
Do you have sufficient tech superiority to offset their advantage in hulls?
I suppose I do, actually. I have Psyonic Missiles and Shredders. The Drengin? They're working on Particle Beams II.
Fortunately I don't have to worry about going to war with the Drengin, because they're my allies! Well for now anyway.
I was going to get someone to test out the mod but I guess I'll just throw it out there and see if you can break it, as usual.
I've just started playing the game, so I doubt I could give you meaningful feedback.
Fair enough.
The test game has been interesting tonight. First of all, the economic boom (which seems to have been going on for years) finally ended, which left the Drengin at a whopping -9000bc per turn deficit. They had to scrap a third of their ships to get out of the red.
I also finished absorbing the Altarian Resistance with my influence, and I've now got some serious firepower to go after the remaining empires with.
I've tested version 6A to check that the Zylon and Yor tech trees are okay, and I've posted the new version at the top.
Just so you know, running a test game with 6A and wow, things are very different.
For example, I'm joint lead with the Krynn on colonies at 31. These are the guys that remember, last game, didn't do much of anything except fill entire worlds with factories.
The Torians are far behind with just 13 colonies, and the Arceans (who I'm not playing this time around) have just 6 to their name.
Basically empires are a lot more contiguous now, because range is, to begin with, quite limited. This means that instead of trailing all the way across the map in one of those stupenously long-range colony ships, the AI has to hop from world to world extending range as it goes.
Of course, one way around this is to build starbases to extend range and gain access to more planets. I think that the AI does make use of starbases this way, but perhaps it does not plan ahead like the human player.
Anyway, it should be an interesting game to play out. If lack of early game range proves to be a game killer for some races, well I can get them earlier access to life support if need be.
I won't really know until I've played a few different maps... so if someone could play a game with 6A and report back on just how the different races are faring with expansion in the early game, that would be great!
Your removal of the Basic Life Support module reminds me of an idea I had a while ago.
I wanted to change the Yor so that the range of their ships entirely relies on bonuses to their Range ability, while the ships of the other races completely depend on Life Support modules (with the exception of the bonuses from the Hyperion Re-Supply Center and the Aquatic Transport Station).
However, I wasn't quite sure about this idea, so I didn't follow up on it. Mainly because I wasn't certain, if it would add anything to the game. Not to mention, if the AI could cope with the changes.
Maybe I should give it a try after all?
It's worth a try.
I certainly found that on an Immense galaxy with scattered stars, even with stars set to Uncommon I could still make good expansion progress with no life support modules on my ships at all. I think that it may lead to games which are more affected by starting position i.e. luck with having habitable planets nearby.
Hey guys.
Sorry to say but I think this may be the end of the line. Even though I've been taking anti-depressants, my depression has found a way to surface with a vengeance. I don't want to play anything any more, and I certainly don't feel like doing any modding.
Thanks for the support over the years.
Bye.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Depression can be a real bitch. I've been fighting it myself for almost two decades now. Anti-depressants never worked for me. A few months ago, I began a new therapy, which seems to have helped so far. Especially compared to the last one I had, which made matters only worse.
Well, I hope you get better soon.
Take care.
Thanks. I appreciate the support.
Things have been looking up a little bit. I'm starting to feel normal again, although I haven't picked up my game of GalCiv for some time now.
On the other hand there's a fresh new hell waiting for me in the new year so, I doubt I'm going to have time or the inclination to keep updating the mod.
After two years on the work programme with not even a sniff of a job, the latest fad at the jobcentres is getting jobseekers to spend 35 hours a week on jobsearch-related activities and training.
Looking through the obligatory photocopied documentation, it's pretty obvious that this is a rehash of exactly what the work programme providers were doing. In other words, the Jobcentre has no originality.
Sorry for the off-topic rant. It's just frustrating having skills and not having anyone willing to take me on. I might as well apply to be a headstone carver, this is such a dead-end country for anyone who doesn't have money to burn on private education.
Oh hey there. I recorded a mod installation video, uploaded and linked to it on the top post. Sorry about the little hesitations here and there, I had to do it three times before I got it right, and by the end my throat was getting a bit dry!
So I decided that to have a little bit of fun I'm going to do a few Let's Play videos with the mod as time permits. Not so much an AAR as an over-the-shoulder look at me playing GC2 and screwing up hilariously somehow. The first episode, which runs at over an hour long, has been uploaded but it is still awaiting processing (grr).
Feel free to leave some informal comments here or there.
Also, humble thanks for the sticky, whoever that was.
Congratulations on the sticky! It was about time really.
Although, it may not be so good a thing after all, because stickies usually have the strange habit of turning "invisible" for most forum-goers.
That is true, however I would guess that many people who visit the modding section of the forum are looking for a particular mod anyway, so this way they don't have to scroll down at all.
Edit: So yesterday I did three episodes of The Rise of the Zylons. I will try and do another few today.
As it turned out I only managed a half-hour episode but I will pick it up today in a bit.
Also thinking of a few little mod changes. For example, Neutrality Learning Centres. I'm going to shift them along the tech tree so that they become available after Discovery Spheres and upgrade those - which was already suggested, but I couldn't be sure if the AI would upgrade without having all the in-between buildings. Besides that, it is a major leap in research capability from the Research Academy, as well as maintenance.
Sorry for not posting a follow-up to the first five episodes. One of the off-putting things about them is that they go on for an hour or more, usually with me doing planet maintenance, setting ship building orders, and so on.
I'm not sure what players get out of me saying 'nope, let's leave those tiles empty for now,' choosing from lots of ship designs, and the endless fleeting of transports with escorts.
So I think that the next episode I'm going to edit out or just not record the normal turn-to-turn tediousness. What do you guys think?
Also, I caught a couple of bugs in the Krynn tech tree. I think. Strangely wrong categories for things.
I did the first half of Episode 6 tonight. Instead of recording one long playthrough, I started and stopped when I felt there was something worth commenting on or looking at. I'm using Lightworks to bring all the video together, and with all the edits so far I've only got ten minutes of episode. But hey, I did complain that it was dragging a bit.
I'll do the second half of the episode this afternoon (right now it's early morning) and hopefully it won't go on for more than twenty minutes, while keeping much of the important gameplay.
There's another thing I want to try, based on my attempt at creating a new ship class (Support). I think that I will replace Small with the Support stats and stagger the cost, size, capacity, hitpoints and logistics requirement of the larger ships a bit more. This is what I have in mind:
What this does is increase the maintenance on those larger ships, especially once they're filled out with weapons and defence modules, but makes them a bit tougher to kill.
When those ships roll off the production line they will increase military rating by a lot more, hopefully enough that the AI can focus on something apart from building lots of ships to keep up with the Joneses. It will take longer for each ship to be made, and each additional one will affect the maintenance bill a lot more. So perhaps it will tune the military feedback loop a bit better.
This does change the game balance quite a bit, and I will need to tweak the research costs to be fair. Large and Huge hulls will probably be branch techs rather than core afterwards, because a substantial tech cost increase could create a roadblock on the tech tree.
Logistics bonuses from tech will be improved. The Hyperion Logistics Centre though, that's going to be turned into a Galactic Achievement because otherwise there will be even more temptation to farm them for extra logistics ability points.
So, I've recorded 46 more minutes of Episode 6 (some of it will be cut, obviously). It does go quite well for the Zylons but I'm not giving away any spoilers. I wish all my games went like this one does!
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