Project origins
There was some discussion on the Steam forums as to how to get an update to GalCiv 2 out there.
Draginol popped in and suggested that an update incorporating the expertise of the fanbase would be the best way forward. A bugfixing update would soon be on the way.
I sent a message to the other tech tree modders, and luckily secured the assistance of Gaunathor, and later MabusAltarn, as well as some dedicated members of the community who posted some valuable feedback. They have been instrumental to the success of the community update, and I'm glad to have played a small part along the way.
Progress report
The community update has been released as part of a rollout of Stardock products on GOG.com and is also available as an opt-in beta on Steam!
Downloads and links
Issues which can't be fixed with XML manipulation.
The file archive folder, hosted by MabusAltarn.
The list of bugs which can't be fixed with XML manipulation.
The spreadsheet of data changes, hosted by MabusAltarn.
Initial discussion on Steam forums
Credits for community member and Stardock staff involvement
Gaunathor - Tech tree changes, descriptions and standardisation. AI value adjustment. Planetary improvement changes and fixes. Keeper of the change logs, spreadsheet and file archive.
MarvinKosh - Typo and description changes (English.str, Techtree.xml). Additional spreadsheet analysis.
DARCA1213 - Tech descriptions.
MabusAltarn - UI changes, tech tree changes, AI value adjustment, keeper of the file archive, spreadsheet and change logs.
Maiden666 - Suggestions for improvement (technology victory bonuses).
OShee - tech descriptions.
SiliasOfBorg - tech descriptions.
Frogboy - executable code changes.
[Ruminating]
Actually, that's not a bad idea... "Weapon Power Level: [X]"
Where X is:
( Tier Level - 1 ) * 3
plus:
[ 1 => worst of tier, 2 => average of tier, 3 => best of tier ]
This would produce "Power Levels" of 1 to 18.
examples:
Hmm.. I like that, but it's too clinical.
Lets say that there's this guide, we can call it Koenig's Intergalactic Lance Leaflet (homage to Walter Koenig, who I believe played a weapons officer in ST:TOS at one point, or maybe one of the movies, its been a while), and it publishes a ranking of all known weapons (much like Jane's). The player doesn't have to know exactly how a weapon gets its KILL rating, they only have to believe that someone knowledgable has taken all relevant factors into consideration.
We can present each weapons's "rating" in this ficticious-but-still-useful guide as part of the short weapons blurb, and sneak in a few references in the long blurbs to flesh it out. e.g. "Koenig's notes that, 'This is the loudest weapon in known space. It might be true that in a vacuum, nobody can hear you scream, but this one will leave your ears ringing for days!'"
Stuff like that. Sound good?
I just need something short that tells me, at a glance, "is this better or worse than [other weapon]?"
I disagree with some things about the yor in the vanilla game they were nerfed to much. Please make them stronger this time around. I would like to see a stronger ai. Probably the weakest on the game were the dominion of korx, arceans, drengin, and the yor. According to game lor the drengin should be the strongest. Maybe not tested against the krynn. Then the terrains. Then the yor. Then the altarians at least really good defensively.
One thingI never understood about the korath is if they were annilators why did they have slaves. Wouldn't they have regular researcnt foldersh and factories, or needed ones. Unlike the drengins who tried to anniliate every non drengin keep captives alive for slaves.
I noticed that there were a number of races that didn't have enough techs, super projects, galactic achievements, or one per planets. Let's try to make this more fair. The altarians are missing one of their one per planet speed techs I think. We should change the thalan star base tech tree. To multiple techs to make this more fair with all the other races. If you have one ai that doesn't like one kind of planetary invasion techs because of where they are located, and one that does. Why don't you make two paths and place them in two different places. Giving one to most people, and the other to the other ai. A one per planet bug that was mentioned is that if the ai builds it it doesn't destroy it, even when a better building becomes available. Here is my idea can you make it upgradeable, and can multiple buildings upgrade to one buildings. If the latter is possible then you could make a building, and a one per planet upgrade to a better building if you are able to skip a couple of upgrades with this one per planet building, otherwise you could make a special upgrade for the one per planet building.
I wouldn't like that, weapon choice is part of the fun, at least for me. If you like to have a clear indication of the value of a weapon, then this could be done in a stand-alone guide, but including it in the game interface would be a mistake, my opinion.
Well.. here's an easy test. Play a game against the vanilla Twilight AI, then play a game with the same settings against the most recent Community Mod AI (make sure you delete all the .raceconfigxml files when you switch!) If you find any deficiencies, let us know and we'll have a look. At this point the mod has been tested pretty thoroughly, and my personal experience is that it is light years more competetive.
As for your other suggestions, I agree that the Korath buildings don't quite match the lore; we generally left stuff like that alone though. The 1PP bug has frustrated the most experienced modders and we're pretty much stuck with what we've got for that.
Hmm. Perhaps a compromise is in order. It is true that the beginning CU/Weapon Cycle player is no worse off than the AI, which does not pick a specific weapon line based on an overall weapons analysis as far as we can tell. But if we give them hints that not all weapons nor tiers are equal, they may take it upon themselves to do a straight-up comparison and discover each tier and weapon line's strengths and weaknesses for themselves. If we don't give them hints, we are going to end up with a lot of hate and confusion over "unbalanced" weaponry. I'd prefer to nip that in the bud.
Will give this a day or two to sit; since it will only affect tech descriptions, it won't affect any testing. Anyone else have opinions on the subject? I'd love to hear 'em.
Here's a couple more ideas. The first one was inspired by the korath when I saw they had a fear tech giving them a diplomacy bonus when I realised how needed the your were. We could expand the fear tree to replace the diplomacy tree, and give it to the yor, drengin, korath, and maybe the krynn. Maybe include a influence penalty if you don't include the krynn. As far as diplomatic translator's goes it could be changed on the fear tree to brainwashing something, hypnotic..., or mind control... Because fewer people are researching this tech then instead of a trade good this could be changed to a galactic achievement. Do the diplomacy tree have another wonder is it a galactic achievement. Now can you make Tech's untraceable to certain races I think you can. If you can then you would make diplomacy techs untradeable to the fear races, and. Vice versa. If you can't then make fear Tech's and maybe diplomacy Tech's untradeable for balancing issues.
One way to make the korath to research spore techs is to either make it their planetary invasion tech,or to start the tree of planetary invasion off with spore technology. With the second option you may have to minus some invasion Tech's, so as to not nerf korath invasion Tech's.
WhenI play drath or domion of korx the starting economy was to hard.
Unless you make up for the economic problem some other way please don't slow down theyor population growth some other way please don't slow down the yor population growth. Stop trying to nerf already needed races. If you wan't to pick on someone go after one of the stronger races. All this yor hatred. What have they done to you.how about giving the yor a few more economic buildings, or making the efficiency center a building instead of one per planet, and making them upgradeable
I guess if you remove espionage from krynn's spy training center's then you should rename them, and move them to the research tree, or give them some other spy bonus. Well if I have to pick a penalty or slower research for the krynn for research then I would rather slower research. For the most part the tech's need to be more creative, or this is not a big deal, except to keep them from being overpowering. Which there not compared to the thalan's, torians, or humans.
AdmiralWillyWillber, we appreciate suggestions, but have you actually played the CU mod?
I don't think replacing whole diplomacy tree for Korath/Drengin/Yor is a good idea, as this would require all diplomacy techs to be made untradeable, and I think most of us would not want to reduce tech trading anymore. Only thing that could be changed is the name and descriptions for them (Basic Diplomacy and Alliances could be redone, I think rest of the techs should stay as they are), so feel free to write up some replacements, and if rest of the crew working on CU likes them I'm sure they will be implemented.
Yor and Korx mostly got buffed in CU, they are in good position and I do not think they need any additional techs or bonuses. We do not hate Yor, on the contrary, at least me and Maiden like Yor more then other races Not sure about Drath, as I don't play them, but they have been tested thoroughly when they had big changes in one of the earlier versions and no one noticed them being weaker compared to other races. They just rely on their Super Ability a bit more.
While there are still some civs that are stronger then others (Thalan for sure, probably Iconian and Torian), any nerfs to them could easily make them "coinflippy", playing very good in one and totally bad in another game. From my experience, Thalan are really hard to play early as they are, especially on galaxies with fewer worlds and slower research speed. Their economy is hard to handle initially, but they shine on larger galaxies with higher number of planets. Iconians are more or less the same. That's why I don't think anyone want to go down this road and fiddle with balance again
I guess if you remove espionage from krynn's spy training center's then you should rename them, and move them to the research tree, or give them some other spy bonus.Those techs only provide really small bonuses to research. Espionage bonus was removed because it has negative impact on AI economy management. Maybe it should be brought back in some way. Krynn's racial Espionage bonus can go down from 50 to 25, and the remaining 25 Espionage could be distributed between Superior Espionage and Master Spies (or the SPs/GAs provided by these techs). It will help AI with economy management, while at the same time make those techs do what description suggests.
Hmm. Perhaps a compromise is in order. It is true that the beginning CU/Weapon Cycle player is no worse off than the AI, which does not pick a specific weapon line based on an overall weapons analysis as far as we can tell. But if we give them hints that not all weapons nor tiers are equal, they may take it upon themselves to do a straight-up comparison and discover each tier and weapon line's strengths and weaknesses for themselves. If we don't give them hints, we are going to end up with a lot of hate and confusion over "unbalanced" weaponry. I'd prefer to nip that in the bud.Mabus mentioned he is working on a new manual, so you can safely mention new weapon system there :>
Mabus mentioned he is working on a new manual, so you can safely mention new weapon system there :>
Yes, that would be perfect.
What's the deal with the premade combat ship templates? (Defender is the name of one of them). They all list components that aren't actually on the ship (and there wouldn't be room for them. This isn't a problem for a human player. They can avoid using those templates. The AI uses them though.
I'm about 20 months into a game and all the AI's have made fleets using those templates. Most of the AI's have no weapons on those ships. Only one or two have armed fleets using those templates. Another AI has half a fleet of unarmed template "Defender" ships and half a fleet of heavy fighters they made later that are armed. Hopefully they all will start making their own ships rather than use those templates but considering we keep getting more versions of those broken templates throughout the game it seems like it could be a real problem.
It seems like it would be a good thing if all those broken templates could be erased from the AI's so they have to make new versions that are armed. Is this possible?
Hi Tiokon,
Is this with the CU mod? If so, what game settings do you have?
20 months into my test games, the AI are almost universally fielding well armed heavy fighters, and they tend to make new versions (mk2, mk3, mk4 etc) every time they research a new weapons tech. Despite our best efforts we do sometimes see the AI make unarmed "Defenders" but this seems purely a stopgap measure to keep their worlds from being trivial invasion targets before they have any actual space weaponry.
Alright. I've already set up the tech descriptions to hint that certain weapon types have advantages at certain tiers, so I'll leave it as is. For example, T1 mass drivers get: "Despite their limitations, this form of mass driver can be devastating, certainly cheaper and more reliable than first generation missiles or lasers.". T2 Beams get "Huge leap forward in focused energy tech". T3 Missiles get "This is truly a revolutionary weapon.". etc.
Back to testing..
Isn't it better to avoid direct comparisons with different kind of weapons in the tech descriptions? The one for T1 mass drivers implies that you have knowledge of missiles and lasers, which is possibly (and probably) not true.
Umm... good point. I'll keep the ones that don't refer to other weapons branches.
Weapons Cycle V1.0.2 is now available.
It contains no functional changes, only changes to tech descriptions. So if you already have Weapons Cycle 1.0.1, you do not need to clear out any race configs or save files or ship designs. Just overwrite it with the new version.
One thing I noticed while reviewing weapons tech descriptions is that some of the racial techs were just cut&pasted. So I took some creative liberties with the racial specials, as well as smoothing out some of the rougher tech descriptions. I know enough physics to gag/wince/barf at some of the cheesier descriptions, which is not to say I gutted them entirely, just corrected some of the worst offenders.
SilasOfBorg, this was using CU 5.7.2 WC with all AI's set to Tough and map settings using the old formula for what helped the AI's to all expand best.
Only one AI had produced heavy fighters out of seven I was in contact with. Two were still working on getting weapons. The other four were purely using the core templates. Three of those had no weapons on them (I'm guessing because they learned a weapon type that wasn't native to that template). Even the one AI with heavy fighters had half their fleet composed of non armed template ships.
As I play forward I would expect them all to start getting heavy fighters at some point but having the galaxy totally safe from viable attack this far into the game is a game changer. Two of us already have Invasion capability. The AI using the core templates so much early makes it a concern that they will keep reverting to the updated core designs as the game progresses too since those designs keep getting updated in name but not in components.
Also several of the conservative expansionist races have ten colony ships sitting on their homeworld. That is a lot of wasted resource time holding them back.
On the bright side the Finance Management window's "Expense" column is reporting accurate info, which it wasn't doing in any of my plays with CU 5.7.0. No idea what could have been broken but something was off that is now working as intended.
Another CU 5.7.2 WC question: Were some of the starbase upgrades eliminated? Starbase Militarization isn't giving access to the two upgrades it lists as unlocking. I don't think I've seen a starbase defense upgrade anywhere in the Yor tech tree either.
I should amend "not seeing a starbase defense upgrade anywhere in the Yor tech tree" to "not seeing a defense upgrade that defends against all three weapon types." I see what looks like single weapon type defense upgrades half way up the defense trees but nothing that performs basic defense any time before that. Perhaps the overall defense upgrades I'm remembering were from a particular mod? I've played all the main ones and might be blending the memories together.
Nor should you. The generic defense upgrades have not featured prominently for some time. Same with the Thalan's Hyperion defense. Starbases are, by design, a little squishier than you're used to.
Not sure why you're seeing this -- what are the exact parameters you're using to test? You mentioned "map settings using the old formula for what helped the AI's to all expand best" but I'm not sure what that means.
In my most recent test, for example, by 50 weeks (not months!) in, 7 of the 9 AI had built reasonable Heavy Fighters (ie ones with weapons). Only two hadn't, and it was because they hadn't grabbed Space Weapons yet. This was a Large map with ~120 habitable planets and 10 players, normal game speed.
Edit: Also, make sure you're using the new executable (found in the file archive). The CU has been adapted to work with the AI changes/fixes that Frogboy put into 2.042. I don't know what happens if you run it against 2.040, but I'm assuming it's not optimal.
SilasOfBorg, cool on the generic defenses. I wasn't sure if it was as intended since the upgrades listed for Starbase Militarization aren't present. Currently that tech gives a generic defense bonus but not the upgrades listed for it. That makes it meaningless as a starbase tech and maybe should have it's name changed since any form of starbase defense only appears to come from the defense lines now (assuming those listed upgrades are really avilable). The defenses listed in the tech descriptions that aren't really there might be worth taking out of the tech descriptions.
I'm playing in a Gigantic universe (the largest) with 10 of us in it. Normal game speed. I don't remember so many AI's making so many weaponless ships since unmodded vanilla so it stood out.
I'm not sure I've seen the executable you mention. Maybe not using that is the problem. Is it the GC2TwilightOfTheArnor-011515.zip found at the external link? If not where can I find it? My current game version is 2.04, not 2.042.
Update: The zip on the external link lists as 2.0.4.1. Is there somewhere else to get 2.0.4.2?
@AdmiralWillyWillber
The CU is feature frozen. If the Weapon Cycle mod is finished on time I will be integrated into the CU. The changes you suggested could be released in a separate mod.
I am and I haven't written anything about weapons yet. It depends on the completion of the weapon cycle mod.
It's the only one we have. That's the one you need.
Speaking of which, whats our target date for having the Weapon Cycle mod tested/tweaked to our communal satisfaction? I think everyone's been pretty busy lately and I know *I* haven't done anywhere near enough testing yet to call it "ready". My target is at least a few different map sizes all the way to endgame, trying each branch out myself to see how it feels, and spying on the AI every 25 turns or so to see what they're up to. I'm at around 10% of that so far.
On the bright side, the 10% is looking pretty good.
Give or take 2 to three weeks. I haven't studied up on the weapon cycle system either. I've been busy with work, family and getting enough sleep for a change.
Ok, thanks. I didn't phrase my question quite how I wanted, either -- I'm not expecting anyone aside from myself to test the thing (though it would be great and very helpful to have other peoples' input!), I just wanted to know what kind of deadline I'm working with. I do honestly think it's more interesting than what we've got in CU so far, but I also know I'm biased.
And, sleep is important.
@ Tiokon
Templates actually have no influence over how the internal AI shipdesigner builds its ships. Templates are for style only. They hold certain specific functional elements to tell the shipdesigner where to place this stuff, because otherwise everything would be placed at random (red) connectors. With colony ships, transports, freighters etc that would look awkward if the functional module would stick out of the engine etc (*)
The Starbase Militarization techs are also working. You need to unlock the first module by the first Battle Stations module, afterwards every Starbase Militarization module will be unlocked by its predecessor. Also note that these modules can only be placed at Military Starbases.
Edit(*):
to elaborate further, the innane elements you find on AI designs do stem from the templates, none of them uses any space. This is a known issue since forever. Not all designs hold them because if one or more of these elements are available to the designer and chosen in its build, it will replace the template-module and make it a true functional one (which uses space).
Some typos that might be corrected:
Tech "Communites":
weath --> wealth
intelect --> intellect
observation's --> observations
the last sentence sounds as if something is missing, maybe some native english speaker would be so nice to check it?
Tech "Cooperative Society"
appart --> apart
Tech "Decentralized Governing"
lose --> loose
politicials, is this a regular english word?
amoungst --> amongst
intrests --> interests
Tech "Egalitarian Principles"
dispite --> despite
Improvement "DreamConclaveII"
source source --> source
Improvement "Shrine of the Mithrilar"
the description is wrong
Improvement "Shrine of Tandis"
happyness --> happiness
Invasion technique "Intimidation"
propraganda --> propaganda
BTW Mabus I see you got the icon for new invasion techs working. Could you do so likewise on the Thalan/Yor invasions Mecha/TerrorD, because the icons don't show...
The Drengin tech "Slaveling Research" says it will "optimize research" but the tech doesn't do/give anything at all (?)
@Maiden
Thanks. I'll fix up the descriptions.
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