Greetings!
The team is really excited to get Beta 1 of Galactic Civilizations III out there. The target date is one week away.
The Founder's Edition, which is what provided access to the Alpha builds along with a lifetime subscription to everything we make for Galactic Civilizations III (all expansions, DLC) will not be offered anymore once the beta comes out. On the other hand, the beta Early Access edition will be $5 off the list price of $49.95.
So what's up?
They got a major graphics overhaul to the ships in. It was non-trivial and I think players will agree when they see it that no game has ever had better looking ship visuals than what will be in Beta 1. A big part of the reason is that the graphics engine is 64-bit and we're requiring DirectX 10 or better and as a result the materials and lighting on ships is something we've never seen before in games (though I suspect as 64-bit becomes more common and DirectX 10+ becomes required in more games you'll see the generational leap in visuals from the legacy DirectX 9 era we're still largley stuck in).
The other thing they've been working a lot on is multiplayer. We have an Arena map in development that, believe it or not, should allow for 1 on 1 duels to be played in around half an hour. We still have a lot of work on the multiplayer front though. We need to make it easy for people to rejoin games so that friends can get together and play together on games that might take months to complete.
Design Challenges
One of our objectives is for people to have the option to play new "Immense" sized maps where there might be hundreds of empires playing. We have a lot of different ideas on how to make this work (few people are going to want to have to select 130 opponents to play against). We might use Steamworks Workshop to allow players to share their custom made players and once approved have automatically added as additional AI players into games where a player wants to play a game with a truly insanely large galaxy.
Fleet Battles
The marketing team is struggling in how to describe the fleet combat in GalCiv III. My suggestion has been to describe it in terms of Hearthstone. Your fleet is your desk and your ships are your minions that you crafted. However, where the analogy fails is that the actual "tactics" of fleet battles are handled AI vs. AI. So your skill is about how you design ships and assemble fleets. Looking closely at what your enemies are designing with their ships and organizing them and countering it will be crucial.
Diplomacy and AI
Beta 1 won't have diplomacy in. Some modder might figure out a way to turn it on but it's not ready to be shown yet. I am not scheduled to begin writing AI code until October.
In less than 1 week, these forums will likely get very very busy.
"We don't need someone crazy. But one step sort of crazy, what do you get?"
"Obsessed?"
"Passionate."
Great news!
I have to say, I'm not that excited about this - for me, 4X games lose a lot without diplomacy.
I feel similar. I am still excited to play it though.
Diplomacy will happen, just not this month.
<rant>
I gota say control makes TBS fun there is so much strategy that if it was real time you wouldn't be able to function or win.
The ideology, colonization, tech trees, and ship building are great. Diplomacy though is the very best thing in TBS gaming. for there is a different situation every game and anything can happen, its tactical combat of words. I actually love diplomacy more than a good TC battle. Although it would be nice to have it.
There is something about actually negotiating our nations Sovereignty to the Thalan that makes our empires seem real and immersive. Or talking with allies with about going to war with the Thalan.
</rant>
DARCA.
Oh, I know it's going to happen eventually. It's just hard for me to get enthusiastic about the release of a beta version that doesn't have it yet.
Hearthstone ? ? ? ? ? never heard of it let alone understand what it's supposed to explain.
Please do not rush diplomacy. I say the better the diplomacy the better the game. Please don't rush features just because someone wants them. As far as combat like endless space that is what i mean.i was thinking that sharing edited scenarios snd maps ships not just races is a good idea.
A good diplomacy system and ai is rather important for immersion, I agree.
Agreed.
Check out the thread "Suggestions re: Tactical Combat".
I suggest if you want TC 'in' GC III, lobby for that solution. ('cause I don't think it's going to get done any other way)
-David S.
Lobbying for it won't help either.
Check out my solution...
It wont mean ANY major change in galciv!
And if anyone on the design team thinks the concept is too heretical, they don't have participate in the extension dev...
At the end of the day, it will mean significant extra $$$ for Stardock...
Having $$$ at the end of the lobby rainbow ALWAYS helps
Don't suppose we could get some patch notes before the beta release? A little something to chew on while we wait?
Sooooo would the Beta be released at midnight tonight EDT or some other time Thursday? Curious (OCD) minds want to know!
With the beta's imminent launch, the Founders' program is no longer available.
Not cool. Not cool at all.
What's the point in saying you'll remove the founder's edition once the beta comes out, if you're going to remove it 2 days before it does?
Now I've missed my chance because I couldn't get a hold of the money until today, and I trusted your words. There was no announcement as to when exactly would the founder's edition be removed, and I found about it just today (even if I read about it yesterday, I couldn't have known beforehand).
It's a technical thing with Steam that you just can't remove one game and immediately replace it. There is a process that has to be done and it takes a day or so to get that goiong.
All that will be coming tomorrow.
And you couldn't have made a proper announcement beforehand? Was it that hard?
Well, they did in the Dev stream Friday, but they could have changed something in the announcement to make it more readily visible. It was mentioned in the forums in various threads. I knew it wasn't going to, but I kept up in the forums the last few days.
I have to agree that this was pretty poor communication by Stardock. They should have changed the Steam page, and made an announcement in the forums and on these forums that the Founders Edition was coming down on a specific day.
Oh well, I guess you snooze, you lose. Very unfortunate that it has to be this way, though. Life's a bitch and all . . .
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
