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.
Ah! I get what you're saying. All the raw output from factories and mines goes into a big pile then the bonuses are applied. So while the text of the description is literally true, it is misleading. Thanks.
Re: the 300% bonus Food tile effect. This game isn't a good example. The max pop in a couple of cases was unsustainably high, but we never got to see it because the Plague did something to the Altarian pop growth, and it remained very low on the planets he owned when plagued. For instance, the 40B planet never grew above 11B despite high morale. I think something's wrong there, but couldn't guess what.
On HS, why not go back the original with +25% HP and +25% ship Quality (what is that again)? The speed bonus really benefits only the player style where he builds a million super-cheap ships. Then there are enough to fleet from a single source. But that's not my style, nor, I wager, that of the large majority of players.
On HLS, that's a pretty weak rationale. If you're that successful then you don't need the extra points.^^ I suggest 12, which is still half the original.
I'd just lose the +10% Industry on the BM. Or maybe add +5 Morale for all those happy tree-huggers?
I'm not entirely sure that it should. It is, after all, a Trade Good and available to all via trade. In my particular game it just wasn't in any of the three tech trees. I'd be happy if you left it alone.
Not looking for backward compatibility. This is an issue that affects all versions and mods AFAICT. If you design a ship, then in a later game the game requires that you have ALL of the techs that you had at that point before it will enable that design, even if the ship doesn't use them. Just what techs this applies to I can't tell yet. It might argue for taking some (such as Amplified Weaponry) out of the Weapons category while retaining the prerequisites.
This will take some research, but if it can be affected by data changes, it might be worth doing. Let's table it for now.
Yeah, I hadn't realized that they were on. Murphy's Law.
I took a snap of the population curve, but don't have a hosting site.
At the time, the 40B planet was at 58% approval with 10.5B pop. Taxes were high (78%) but Altarian was trying to keep up and was just about to declare war. Cure shows complete. Korx had a similar result, but was already near max, so not so unusual.
I wasn't unhappy with the Drengin research abilities in the test game, though I did have to spend more on labs than I usually do.
Re: the production bonuses. I never went into the production-boosting branch; it just never seemed worth it. (The 20% boost rules out all worlds with 4 or fewer factories.) So I didn't have any population effects and can't judge those. I'd also like to see how the AI does with the package.
I do think that if the Drengin Pop Growth penalties are okay, then they should be applied to the Korath improvements.
Rather, I still hold open the question of balance. Guanthor seemed to favor the Terrans and Altarians. I want to play one of those before requesting substantial changes.
BTW, remember that you're still expecting the base Tech Tree from me. If you make changes to the released file, they will have to made again in the file I send you.
Feedback, please.
<DisplayName>Devil's Forge</DisplayName> <Description>Specialized manufacturing enhancement centers.</Description>
The Devil's Forge is a one-of-a-kind instrument of manufacturing by brutality and repression.
The Devil's Forge involves integrating every slaveling across the planet into a massive grid controlled by an artificial intelligence engine. The AI in this forge is able to induce pain in individual slavelings as necessary, thus significantly improving the work habits of the 'employees'
It will also decrease the growth rate of the population somewhat. Apparently the biologic units are too busy working to do what biologic units normally do.
The "explanation" for Divergent Evolution is totally bogus. It's interesting, but it has nothing to do with the technology.
Anyone care to offer a possible rationale for a tech that makes massive PQ improvements?
2 years ago buildcosts have been decreased in order to prevent the potential danger of these infinite-buildqueues. Gaunathor reverted some (not all) back to the vanilla values - I don't know why - but I was fine with that under the presumption that we pay a close look to testgames if the previous problem still occurs (much did get changed in between so it's prefectly reasonable that there is indeed a chance it won't occur anymore...) So that's why I asked - if the AIs -esp- AIP11 - Altarian, Arcean & Korx - face problems from it we may have to cut down buildcosts again.
BTW you can deduce which AIP runs each civ from the RaceConfig.xml file from this tag: <AIPersonality>
The only racial bias I know of is "lingering racial grudge" diplo-hit which usually the Torians have towards the Drengin. It will drag down their view of the Drengin but not affect values in techtrade.
They are currently free to be traded to anyone at best willingness.
Allright
It would be helpful if you just post the filenames of which specific files you want to have locked by me until I get their new version from you. I'll then make a future changelog for these explicit files which I can work down once I get these files from you.
I'll increase it to 9 but will half the buildocsts from 800 to 400. So that should raise some attractiveness there.
With +5 morale they'll consider it being a morale improvement and because of its high AI value will place it on any morale bonustiles that there is on a new planet - basically wasting alot of potential if no Temple gets to see these bonustiles. So if morale is considered, it has to be higher, at least +20%. Altarians already have worse morale than many other civs. The Arceans "SpaceGun"-thingy has actually the same problem and its even worse considering the Arceans have a access to the strong generic moral-branch...
Another, more easier to use stat would be population growth.
Only if the 2 races having it are actually included in your game. And then, they'll still have to firstly research these tech (it's midgame/lategame) and then, go on to finish the build of the improvement. So even if everything works out fine you won't have it for a long time.
But the thing that I find unbalanced the most is the approach that certain Trade Goods should be be exclusive to certain races. That's not fair. At least not until all races do have a certain TG also made exclusive to them. Just take a look at the Yor - they're locked out from everything on the Diplomatic, Influence & generic Morale branch (some other races as well) and be as it is these branches hold a boatload of GA/SP/TDs. And other races, like Terrans etc have it ALL, they lack none of it.
That's not true, you only need to have the modules which your past designs used to be unlocked in your techtree - it's even irrelevant how these techs cam eto you.
The only thing that can prevent a specific design to be avialable is missing Miniaturization - but the game will inform you about this.
Do you want a link to a german pic-host? Just do a google-search^^ there's plenty around
The only thing that comes to my mind is that if 2 sentient species evolve on a single planet they probably do so in different habitats and later on show each other techniques how to deal with an otherwise hostile terrain. They may also have to think about how to artificially manipualte the environment in order to establish grounds which could be used by both of them equally. So that's perhaps where a Biosphere Modulator comes in.
Go ahead and lock TechTree.xml and PlanetImprovements.xml. They will probably come to you together.
I can't get the pic to display from Google Drive. See if you can use the URL directly.
Here's the description from Cari's Guide:
S_UpgradeTarget
This is the internal name of the improvement that this improvement upgrades.
But it doesn't seem to actually do anything.
Neutrality Learning Center has the parameter
<S_UpgradeTarget>Discovery Sphere</S_UpgradeTarget>
This is the only difference in behavior that I can find: NLC will try to automatically update Research Center/Academy and Invention Matrix (from the tag description this should not be true). But not Discovery Sphere. But it should try to upgrade DS. Shouldn't it?
Feedback, please. Is this over the top?
Fertility AccelerationEnables construction of Fertility Clinics.
You think it's easy to reproduce on other planets? Do you find the stench of methane (and more) wafting against a green and purple sunset romantic?
While some of the environments on other planets are similar to our home world, the reality is that for a variety of reasons, most are not.
Fertility Clinics conduct Fertility Acceleration Programs (FAPs, for short) that explore sexual fantasies. If our FAPping is successful, we should be able to find ways to reproduce at a greater rate.
I'll be in my bunk.
"Phasor, which stands for Phased Octanganel Refraction" ...
A misspelling? Is there a "real" decomposition of the word "phasor"?
I see nothing unusual. Both Alt and Korx lines had only very little population growth even before the Plague hit, and it did return to normal after the initial hit. However, both factions did receive additional hits, and given how fast the red line increased exactly around these moments I'd say they lost worlds to the Drengin. But this is highly speculative, I really can't say what's going on without looking at all aspects of the game directly.
BTW if you wanna include a pic to this site you'll have to refer to a directlink to a pic - which is always going to end with one of the conventional picture file format endings .png .jpg etc; your link is to a folder. I doubt google does allow you that - they rather wanna nag their users to attract other users to their site so they can collect metadata to sell and make algorithms out of it (one reason I boycott google, it's neither userfriendly nor in your best interest)
Well it does. I just tested it.
And NLC does also automatically upgrade all the other labs which are tied into a causal chain by exactly this tag:
NLC-->DS-->IM-->RA-->RC-->XL.
I think the last part IS over the top^^
I think it would be best to keep the desc of FC as simple and unspecific as possible. Because we actually have no idea how different factions do replicate themselves, and may greatly differ from "fantasies" esp. on exotic races like Yor/Thalan.
There are a number of techs which have no description on their own just a copycat of predecessor techs, for instance SPace Mining; and some which are false (like Miniaturization) perhaps this oculd be worded less misleading...?
However, both factions did receive additional hits, and given how fast the red line increased exactly around these moments I'd say they lost worlds to the Drengin.
No, there was no war. Very few Transports launched, either. After the Plague, the Alt growth curve should have gone back to paralleling the Drengin - though at a lower level, but it did not.
Then your tests and my tests show opposite results.
Re: FAPping. This morning, that does read rather .. forced.
Re: Google. I keep my AdBlock on. Google is getting very damn little from me, and provides decent services. For free. Now, if you want to hate someone, hate Microsoft. They've earned it.
I was rather thinking about culture-flipped worlds. Conquest usually doesn't increase pop that extreme even for the victor because he will also loose soldiers.
Another explanation could be that both Korx/Alt jacked up taxes so high that some worlds fell below 20% approval and had some residents fled. I've seen this behaviour sometimes esp. in conjunction when there's too much morale discrepancy from one world to another.
Why don't you simply use cheats to examine the matter. I really can't deduce the truth from a single graph...
Check your PlanetImprovement.xml then, some code must be corrupt. If it works on my machine then it is in the nature of computers to work equally everywhere else, too.
Or tell me the exact steps what you take in order to get into the position where the supposed auto-upgrade doesn't work. In my case I've just researched to DS, build a single one on a world, then researched NLC and the one DS immediately showed the upgrade-arrow.
Much cheating used to examine the situation. How else would one run a test? No planet flipping, High taxes but no morale below 40%. That's why I say that something seems to be wrong.
I'm using CU 6.1.2 for the test. My file should be the same as yours, and I quoted the upgrade_target tag above.
I've just found that the TechTree descriptions do not track the re-working of the military trees. I'll have to go back over about half those descriptions, delaying the release of these files.
Also finding a few minor errors in GC2Types, but I'll do a changelog for those.
It's taking me forever, but I'm nearly done. I tell you, this prose is putting me off prose.
Playing through another CU 6.1.7z test game, this time mostly** on auto with 10 races, no Minors. Huge, Slow tech.
As Terran, tech trading is much easier than it was as Drengin in the last test. Generally okay, though.
Except that the AIs are trading like made among themselves. All the specialized races (except Drengin?) have the full standard Factory tree and most of the Research Lab tree. The Thalan, outside Thala has almost all standard improvements. They produce at the same level as his own, but of course have lower Maintenance than his level 1s.
Korx essentially suicided, declaring war on two other races while quite weak. Terran (me) took advantage of the situation to suck up his worlds. Drath should have, but never got around to researchin Transports. Now he's stuck in a small corner and irrelevant. I've got #1 fighting #2 and #3 fighting #4 .. and ignoring me. Which is good, which is good because Terran would be hard-pressed to beat any of them.
** I've had to help the Terran since as the initial player race at Suicidal his Economic rating is in the toilet.
Crap, the last couple hundred 'lines' of TechTree is the histories. Maybe I will just shoot myself.
All the <SmallLogo>-tags in RaceConfig.xml are currently referring to a non-existant path; eg:
<SmallLogo>Gfx\Race\Small\RaceLogo0.png</SmallLogo>
(no such "Small"-folder exists in any iteration of the game...)
Apparantly that line seems to be non-functional, although I didn't do much testing on it. Setting it to the standard logo should be the most sure option.
Just posting this here as a reminder to work this in once DMF is through with his work...
Was it ever decided whether the Dread Lords should be sitting ducks for Agent attacks? I can make Dread Factories unable to host Agents.
<Improvement> <S_InternalName>ArtificialSlaveCenter</S_InternalName> <S_Name>Artificial Slave Center</S_Name> <AI>30</AI> <S_UpgradeTarget>None</S_UpgradeTarget> <S_Type>SuperProject</S_Type> <Maintenance>3</Maintenance> <Cost>800</Cost> <S_BriefDescription>Increases military production</S_BriefDescription> <S_Description>The Artificial Slave Center will give our military production a boost of 50%.</S_Description> <S_IconName>ArtificialSlaves.png</S_IconName> <S_QueryGraphicName>ArtificialSlaves.png</S_QueryGraphicName> <CanHaveAgents>1</CanHaveAgents> <S_TechRequirement>Concepts of Malice</S_TechRequirement> <F_AbilityFactor>0.500000</F_AbilityFactor> </Improvement>
I don't see an ability specification in this entry.
Likewise Galactic Bazaar, which I have long doubted does anything.
Both abilities are hardcoded and thus, tied 100% to its InternalName-tag. There are a number of other buildings which have this mechanism, amongst them NoMercy, SecretPolice, Re-Education, PropagandaCenter, CounterEspionage
The Bazaar works I tested this, the way it works is similar to the SuperDiplomat-SA, its bonus is shown nowhere ingame but it will multiply your techofferings and is thus, far stronger than ordinairy diplomacy-bonuses, esp. in a developed game when the builder already collected several mounting diplomacy-bonuses.
Maybe a good idea to also exemplify that it is indeed futile to try to steal technologies from them.
Finished PlanetImprovements last night, then spent 3 hours editing the wrong $%#* StarbaseModules file.
Have AbilityTypes above 30 been documented?
e.g. improvements Freighter Command, Mercenaries
Why does the Dark Energy Weapons Lab no longer have any effect on weapons ability? A typo in AbilityType ?
from english.str
[Ability30] Home Planet Quality[Ability31] Colonize Heavy Gravity Worlds[Ability32] Colonize Aquatic Worlds[Ability33] Colonize Toxic Worlds[Ability34] Colonize Barren Worlds[Ability35] Colonize Radioactive Worlds[Ability36] War Profiteering [Ability37] Persistent Trade Routes
30 doesn't work, Crime & Cabinet & Government don't seem to work either.
It does:
<Improvement> <S_InternalName>Dark Energy Weapons Lab</S_InternalName> <S_Name>Dark Energy Lab</S_Name> <AI>100</AI> <S_UpgradeTarget>None</S_UpgradeTarget> <S_Type>SuperProject</S_Type> <Maintenance>1</Maintenance> <Cost>100</Cost> <S_BriefDescription>Increases economy and manufacturing</S_BriefDescription> <S_Description>The Dark Energy Lab allows us to make use of dark energy as part of our economy and industry on this planet.</S_Description> <S_IconName>DarkEnergyLab.png</S_IconName> <S_QueryGraphicName>DarkEnergyLab.png</S_QueryGraphicName> <CanHaveAgents>0</CanHaveAgents> <S_TechRequirement>DarkEnergyResearch</S_TechRequirement> <ManufactureBonus>10</ManufactureBonus> <EconomicBonus>10</EconomicBonus> <AbilityType>1</AbilityType> <AbilityAmount>10</AbilityAmount> </Improvement>
Oops. Forgot that it's zero-based.
Thanks on the extended types. I'm sure I saw it as I went buy. Guess I should update my copy of Cari's Guide.
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