–RELEASED 05/11/2015–
Galactic Civilizations III Beta 6.2 is now available. This patch makes enormous improvements to the AI and fixes the vast majority of the remaining crash reports we've been seeing. Since Friday, over 100 engineering hours have been put into finding and fixing the "black screen of doom" bug that was responsible for the bulk of the crashes players have experienced. Multiplayer is also rock-solid now thanks to a set of fixes in this patch.
Thanks for all your support!
Features
Added the Orphica Enclave minor faction to the game, the winner in the Design a Faction contest! This also adds a new (terrifying) model to the game that you can use to design your own custom factions.
Added the credits screen
Fixes
Fixed lots of crashes
Fixed "black screen of doom"
Fixed typos
Fixed a crash when you tried to go to the report screen for pirates
Star bases were not selectable on the diplomacy window (i bet you didn't even know that star bases showed up on the diplomacy window)
Fixed an issue where some ship model designs already had components attached
Fixed an issue where a players military power wasn't including stationed ships (this made for some wonky charts, but more importantly was hurting the AI who makes decisions based on military power)
Fixed an issue where particles from the prior battle flash when starting a new battle
Fixed an issue keeping star bases form showing the selection cursor when selected
Fixed a scrolling issue on the U.P. details screen
Fixed an issue that could cause edge scrolling to go the wrong direction
Fixed the broken hp slider in battle viewer
Fixed an issue causing the ship speed slider to always show in the top-left corner
Selecting an opponents ship will allow you to speak to that player or see a report on them
Fixed a crash invading planets
Fixed a crash razing a colony
Fixed multiplayer desyncs
Fixed a crash that can occur when loading a save game (a few of these, thanks for the saves!)
Fixed a stuck turn issue if the player saved after hitting end turn, but before the end turn actions had resolved
Fixed a stuck turn issue when attacking pirates
Fixed an issue that if you press Escape on the invasion screen the game goes to a black screen you can never escape from
Fixed an issue where if you are designing ships in game within a game the lights don't work
Fixed an issue where the resource and relics display area in the main game window may not size correctly
Fixed the missing improvement icon for planetary defense dome
Fixed a Tutorial issue where colonizing Precipice didn't clear the objective or the waypoint
Fixed a crash when using a mod that includes custom ships
Fixed the tooltip on map sizes o correctly state limits and memory requirements
Fixed a crash when clicking a command on a fleet of constructors
Fixed a bunch of stuck turn issues if you got simotaneous invasion, colonization and/or battle window popups at the same time
Fixed an issue where starting a new game would use the same seed (ie: you would get the same map)
Fixed a crash when attacking a ship without weapons
Fixed bugs accessing player classes that caused crashes
Fixed an issue keeping you from watching battles of AI players on the main map
Fixed an issue keeping the planets form showing as selected on the diplomacy window
Fixed an issue keeping selected ships/star bases/planets or ship yards from showing as selected on the strategic map
Fixed an issue causing the rebellion icon to stick around even after a planet stopped rebelling
Fixed an issue causing the ship yard and star base stats to not be shown in the confirm battle window (surprise there are a bunch of missiles heading toward you that you weren't expecting!)
Fixed Helios Ore (the bonus wasn't being applied)
Fixed an issue with improvements that modify ships built in shipyards they sponsor (fixed Hyperion Sensor System, Hyperion Logistics Farm, Hyperion Supply System and Hyperion Shipyard)
Fixed an adjacency problem on the Fighting Pits
Social Matrix now correctly gives a Research bonus instead of a manufacturing bonus twice (my archenemy copy/paste gets me again!)
Fixed the Farmers trait
Fixed several improvements that weren't correctly giving their food bonus
Fixed Diplomacy screen crashes
Fixed bug where custom ships were checking if ANY race could build it, not just the local player
Fixed even more mp crashes and desyncs
Fixed a crash that could occur when the AI surrenders
Fixed an issue where you could see multiple entries in the planet build list (most commonly seen with Cultural Festival)
Fixed an issue where the Information Warfare invasion type was being given out by the wrong tech
Fixed an issue where the Approval Relic wasn't showing its bonuses
Added other draw manager nodes to size calculation to prevent pool from casting a larger type than its nodes account for. (no, I don't know what this means either)
Fixed an MP crash when entering the lobby
Fixed the Research Matrix tech not unlocking the improvements and star base modules for Iconian, Iridium, Krynn and ThalanTechDefs.xml
Fixed the Hyperion Matrix unlock
Fixed the Universal Soil Adapter unlock
Fixed an issue where all players in a MP game would see the "You cannot Survey" message when anyone tried to explore an anomolly with a non-survey ship
Fixed an issue you could get a "Flavor Text Not Found" when the AI noticed you were readying yourself for war
Fixed an issue keeping colonization events from happening in MP games
Fixed an issue where you would see a black background on the united planets if you played with a custom faction with a non-video background
Fixed the Brutal +2 trait (it wasn't applying its bonus)
Fixed an issue causing Toxic worlds to be unlock by Radiation Mastery and vise versa
Fixed the Slaughtertorium improvement
Fixed the Skilled Ideology trait
Balance
Changed planetary projects to be % bonuses instead of flats. For example the project that produced credits used to give a credit per 4 production, now it gives a percentage boost to how many credits that planet produces (so you are better off producing research on research focused planets, etc)
Reduced the large empire approval penalty
Removed starbase maintenance form modules
Increased starting trade routes
Lowered the max trade routes
Durantium Refinery provides +3 (instead of +2) bonus to surrounding factories
Thulium Data Archive does +3 instead of +2 bonus to adjacent research tiles
Changed costs from 151 to 150 because I'm anal retentive (this is from Brad)
Rebalance of the mass driver weapons to make them competitive with the others
Missile cooldown increased from 7 to 8
Kinetic cooldown increased from 3 to 4
Yor population cap lowered from 16 to 12 by default
Decreased the default resistance of planets slightly
Unhappiness now has greater resistance
Ongoing Research, Cultural Festival, and birthing subdsidides, etc. now convert 10% instead of 5% of manufacturing to the goal
Carriers are now classified as capital ships instead of assault ships
Replaced the Curious ideology trait with a Loyal ideology trait
AI
Improved logic for when the AI keeps ships as planet defenders or ejects them to go chase down threats
If the sponsor is under threat, the AI will rush build (or try to if it can)
AI will reduce the weight priority of a ship project to build based on the number of turns it will take to build that ship
AI will tend to focus only on its primary opponents and is less likely to go after "that guy" (reduces spreading himself thin)
Rewrote the surrender code
AI much more likely to surrender if it is basically out of the game.
AI can now try to bribe other AI's to declare war on players
Lots of new checks to make sure the AI behaves as you would expect based on their relations with you and each other
AI checks relatiosn before trading with each other (no more tech trading with people they don't like)
Eliminated the use of the wealthslider setting in AIdefs in determining balanced budgets. Balanced budget request to AI supercedes its wealth slider preference (translation: the AI now has logic to control its spending and won't be constrained by the xml guidance values if it needs to do something extreme)
Shared borders is no longer a negative issue if they have an open borders treaty
AI won't suggest a player attack another player if that player is stronger militarily
If the AI is losing a war it will build ships even though it might go beyond the maint' cap
AI more prone to building scouts to explore early on
AI greatly reduces freighter building priority if it is losing a war
At higher difficulty levels the AI is more likely to aggressively rush build
AI determines how many ships it should have in orbit based on how good the planet is (instead of caring about the logistics)
Reduced the number of ships a planet thinks it needs in order to feel defended
Reduced some of the bonuses the gifted AI gets
Gave a range bonus to the higher difficulty levels
Rebalanced the defense importance modifications (how important a given object is to the AI)
Increased the valuation the AI gives to building assault shiups
AI takes into account the cost of a ship when deciding whether to build it
AI keeps track of enemy faction power
AI is made aware if it is starving its military of funding
AI is much less likely to defend starbases and shipyards with new units than preivously
Modified the rate at which the AI starts diplomacy with the player
AI is more sensitive to military buildups by players
AI doesn't demand tribute or tech unless it has a stronger military
AI now decommissions shipyards that it isn't sponsoring anymore (most likely because it lost the planet that was sponsoring it)
AI less sensitive to maint costs on units (will build larger fleets and raise its taxes)
AI strategies take more into account if they're at war
General balance improvement to AI economics
General improvement to AI logistics handling
AI is less likely to reinforce starbases with units
AI more sensitive to trading lots of techs at once
Easy target threshold is now 1.5X instead of 2.0X
Rebalanced the open borders trade treaty value and when it'll be offered
Rewrote my buggy BribeOtherAI() function
Open borders treaty takes a lot more into account to determine its value
AI much better at reinforcing threatened planets
Fixed bug that caused the AI to value attacking a unit simply because they were close
AI more sensitive to not attacking fleets that are substantially stronger
Rebalanced the threat to planets based on the actual combat rating of units rather than a defined value
AI much MUCH smarter about what to research
AI is conscious of ship hull sizes at a technology goal
AI won't trade with civs it hasn't met (oops)
Opposing culture matters more over the course of the game
AI looks at military power instead of faction power for deciding whether a player is military weak
AI attackers will no longer attack stuff that is too strong for it
AI attacks will now ignore shipyards and starbases unless it's much stronger than it
AI defenders will now account for all the defenders when figuring out how to distribute the defenders
Defenders take distance into consideration when deciding which planet to reinforce
AI does a better job of using all available tiles on its planets
Updated AI strategies
Made a series of AI ships based on data from early access (using their designs against players)
Fix to AI in which the colony ship itself knows where the planets are
Trading with other players weight increased
AI strategies greatly improved for using the spending sliders
Drengin now Paranoid instead of religious zelaots
Drengin now unwavering instead of unrelenting
Krynn are now religious zelaots instead of Patriotoic
AI builds more scouts on larger maps
AI more likely to build defenders if it is feeling threatened
AI less likely to build transports if it is being crushed miltiarily
AI will try to build larger ships if it is trying to catch up militarily
AI better at jumpstarting new planet economies (with improvements()
Fixed bug that causd Yor not to increase their population readily
AI smarter in handling when and how to build a shipyard in a new star system
Fixed bug that caused AI to not get medium hull ships when it should have
AI will avoid declaring war on someone if they are already about to declare war on their primary opponent
Fixed bug that caused AI to not target starbases and planets when it should
UI
You can no longer cycle through all fleets if you are looking at another players ship
Shipyard no remembers the last tab you were on
We now grey out improvements you cant build because you don't have the resource they require
On the diplomacy screen the animated movie of the leader is now adjusted based on their mood towards you
Diplomacy screen filters friendlier aliens closer to you
Added the number of defending ships to the shipyard tooltip
Performance
Improved framerate performance when you are zoomed way out on large maps
Memory leak fixes (these are technically fixes, but the real impact is that the game uses less memory over time)
Fixed leaking starbox in battle viewerFixed leaking shipyard and starbase nodes in battle viewerFixed leaking node in battle when getting bound boxesFixed leaking node in battle viewer when positioning the fleetsFixed leaking ship node in battle viewer when creating ship nodesFixed leaking nodes in battle viewer when removing nodes from the sceneFixed leaking nodes in battle viewer when selecting/deselecting a ship node with the mouseFixed leaking node in battle viewer when target and untarget ship message is processedFixed leaking node in battle viewer when creating the FX sequenceFixed leaking node in battle viewer when resetting the damage fx on a shipFixed leaking node in fleet details when framing the cameraFixed leaking node in fleet details when getting the bound boxFixed leaking node in fleet details when centering ships and shifting themFixed leaking node in fleet details when cleaning up nodesFixed leaking node in invasion viewer when resetting damage fxFixed leaking nodes when playing a main map battleFixed leaking node in shipyard when showing hidden componentsFixed leaking nodes when unhiding star graphicsFixed leaking node when clearing ship FXFixed leaking node when getting battle bounds for cameraFixed leaking node when ship battle controllers are initializedFixed leaking node when ship battle position data is initializedFixed leaking beam nodes in battle animationsFixed leaking trail emitter nodes when pausing and unpausing the battle sceneFixed leaking weapon projectile nodesFixed leaking nodes in CFXSourceObject fx elementsFixed leaking nodes in CFXTargetObject fx elementsFixed leaking node in battle viewer update damage runnable elementFixed leaking nodes in CSceneDescription::CalcOrientationFromSourceToTargetFixed leaking nodes in creating death animation for shipsFixed leaking node in battle camera nodeFixed leaking nodes when cleaning up fleet gfxFixed leaking trail node in CSceneNodeUtil::CreateTrailEmitterNodeFixed leaking starbox in battle view windowFixed leaking nodes in DXSAS object view windows
Let's hope so! After all, it is due to be released in less than eight days...
Sounds like this patch will fix several of my issues and much more. I love the diplomacy stuff where the leaders video will be different based on relations, and the diplomacy screen planets will too. And thanks for getting that UP scroll bar to slide properly. Glad to hear that Open Borders will remove the Shared Borders penalty--great idea.
cheers! (deleting duplicate response)
Probably not, unless you have low memory.You could, however, look at the Fixes section to see that they have addressed those: "Fixed a crash invading planets"
THANK GOOOOODDDDD. I play a war-heavy faction, and it was crashing my game every other damn invasion.
I don't know if you have any history with SD but if you look at the patch history for Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes you can get the idea that this is no EA.
Oh I know that very well and have no doubt they will continue to fix, support, polish and add features to the game after release, it's one of the reasons I was willing to buy the founders edition which in my opinion is great value as I know I will get at least two expansions and some DLC as well. My worry was that people not familiar with stardock and their ethos would not be put off by the game being officially released while still not polished enough. As I say the 6.1 patch and the impending 6.2 patch are reassuring me this will hopefully not be the case.
Good job!! I know you are working hard!! Lots of caffeine, no doubt...
I would like to know the formula for this. The current model may be flawed, but it at least gives me a reason to build relatively balanced worlds as under the current model there are conditions in which balanced builds maximize a planet's output, and the current model's optimal slider settings are easy for single-output type worlds. The proposed model seems likely to remove any reason to build anything other than a fully-specialized world, and it seems likely to make the slider setting optimization problem much more difficult. I view this as a negative; playing with a slider to optimize output is not particularly interesting, choosing a build for the planet which optimizes its output can be.
Currently, if B is the bonus to the desired output type from structures and b is the bonus to desired output type from other sources that you can achieve on a fully specialized world, and m*B and x*B are the bonuses to manufacturing and to the desired output type from structures while bm and bx are the bonuses you can achieve to manufacturing and the desired output type on a mixed world, then a fully-specialized world will offer greater output than a mixed world if
B <= (4 - x*(1 + bm) - m*(1 + br) + sqrt((x*(1 + bm) + m*(1 + bx) - 4)^2 - 4*m*x*((1 + bm)*(1 + bx) - 4 - 4*b ))/(2*m*x)
Under the assumption that m = x = 0.5 (i.e. the total bonus you can get to all output types is constant) and bm = br = b = 0, B ~= 13 (i.e. a 1300% bonus). B = 0 if bm >= 3 (well, technically B is imaginary if bm > 3), but under the assumption that m = x = 0.5, even with bm = 2.9 and b = bx = 1, you still need to be able to achieve B = 438% or better for the generalized world to be superior to the specialized world.
If the problem which is supposed to be solved by this change is that generalized worlds are too often superior to fully-specialized worlds, it would appear to me that the appropriate fix is to adjust just how much of a bonus you can get from non-structure sources, not to prevent generalized worlds from ever being optimal outside of the "I want to have a bit of a manufacturing bonus on my research/purse worlds just in case I need it" situation.
Moreover, the proposed change shifts the problem from "what do I build to optimize output" to "where do I set the sliders to optimize output." Maximizing research output by building a pure-lab planet and then fiddling with the slider until whatever manufacturing bonus I have on the planet adds to the research multiplier in such a way that the research multiplier is maximized isn't an interesting problem.
@joaball,
your are right with the statement that under certain conditions a balanced world can (vastly) outproduce a specialized world and the formula is the reason why this is changed:
it is simply too complicated and unintuitive in a 4x where you are space emperor of a vast galactic empire.
i am not so sure if the changes will make for a better game (i'll reserve judgment until i can test it extensively), but the current conversion projects add too much complexity and micromanagement to the economic system in my opinion (i.e. feel free to disagree).
can't wait! Need more fixes please.
btw: my fansite/app has a release countdown if you want to count the seconds until release. what will happen when it reaches zero?
http://galciv3.bl4cksh33p.de
Anyone else get a certain satisfaction when a bug you found and posted gets fixed. Maybe I'm just being cynical hehe
They need to release this soon so we can find the bugs in this version so it will be stable for release. There is one thing people hate more than anything on steam and thats a fully released game they can't play because of bugs. Plus I am excited for this patch. I might be able to make it past turn 200 without crashing. I am a diehard galciv fan I can already see half of my life being dedicated to this game lol.
This is installing right now.
@frogboy any idea when the Campaign is coming or is it going to be a straight to release with no beta?
The 6.2 opt-in is available now.
Ooo time to start a new game!
OOOH YEEEES, WILL BE A LOOOOOONG NIGHT
In my current game, I traded for a starbase with an AI, but when I sent a constructor to improve it I discovered that there was an AI ship on the hex, and it would never leave - refusing me access to my new starbase. Has the AI upgrade fixed this bug?
Sweet! Guess I won't be getting much sleep tonight... Bummer the wife is going away for most of the weekend too, guess I'll just have to play, I mean, test my butt off then!
Amber, you should start a new game with each new patch until we get to release. Also I don't remember seeing this bug so you may want to do a ticket and upload on it.
Yes I noticed the distinction too. I guess we'll find out. : )
do any of these fixes help with planetary invasion and battle viewer freeze?
Yes.
"Reduced the large empire approval penalty"
Someone's been listening.
DARCA
These were very important to me in this patch:
I want to be challenged, please continue to up the AI.
The fourth one is also greatly appreciated as was the permanently delete ship design button in 6.1. I posted about it, wonder if it was my suggestion? : )
So looking forward to testing the patch, any word on being able to delete base ship designs(without equipment that we've created)?
My game now crashes every single time I launch it.
I tried everything short of uninstalling and re-installing. Trying that now.
Also, I have a system problem that may be affecting it some, but I was able to play b4. The issue will be corrected as soon as a part arrives, but.................
After downloading the opt-in, I did a bad thing. I loaded a save game from Beta 6.1 to check things out. It didn't take too long to crash. If you have a 6.1 game that is important to you, do not opt in to 6.2.
After that I started a new game. My observations so far
Good
When zoomed out on the map, whatever is selected has an obvious ring around it, making it a lot easier to find.
When trading with a minor race, the correct name for the minor is shown at the top of the screen. This is the first time I have seen it be correct.
Bugs
Ships are still sometimes visible in areas I have explored but can no longer see.
Still getting a brief flash of the previous screen when a new conversation with the AI occurs.
Still getting a minor to offer me open borders in a trade.
The bad one: I'm still getting a black screen in the battle viewer. The first battle works correctly; the second battle has a black screen. I have to use task manager to shut down GC3, restart it, load the last autosave and continue. The first battle again works correctly, and the second has a black screen. This has happened four times. A dump file is not created when this happens.
Maybe a bug; maybe not
In the diplomacy window, not all my friends were in the inner ring.
When using my survey ship to investigate and attack a ship graveyard protected by pirates, I got the results before the battle was displayed in the battle viewer. I won the battle.
The AI seemed to know where to send colony ships and constructors very early in the game, before they should have had time to explore that much. I followed one of each, and they actually seemed to be exploring like I do rather than going somewhere in particular. So maybe it is not a bug or the AI cheating but the AI taking a chance that it will find something worthwhile.
The 'last tab' effect for the ship designer is not working after you've created a ship design. It also does not work after you delete a ship design. Both go back to "all."
Also the U.P voting screen still does not have a scroll.
Did anyone else's custom ship designs from different factions get smooshed together and any of these designs ceasing to be one class, but placed in another?
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