The crew here at Stardock cares a lot about our community and the games that we produce for you.
That's why we're pleased to announce that version 2.20 for Galactic Civilizations IIis available for you today!
Even when a title is "finished" and put out to market, there are always little things we find that could use a tweak or a change here and there. We also know what it's like to enjoy an old game so much that you keep going back to it, even when there are newer and "better" versions of it out there.
With help of some awesome community members, the Dev Team has taken all of the suggestions and implemented them into this update. You can find he entire change log (spoiler alert: it's long!) at the bottom of this post.
A few words from our CEO and President, Brad Wardell:
"It was awesome being able to work with the fans to integrate years of their own mods and tweaks into the base game. They also gave me a long list of areas where they thought I could improve the AI, which I used to dig into the now 10 year old AI source code base to implement."
We hope you enjoy the update. We have an awesome community here at Stardock and are so very happy that you're a part of it. Have a great holiday season!
Special Thanks
To Antonio "Mabus" Invernizzi, Gaunathor, SilasOfBorg, Kamil "OShee" Bober, DARCA1213, Sam "MarvinKosh" Edwards. Steffem "Maiden666" Jenter, MarvinKosh, Leiavoia, Frogboy and everyone else who helped out!
[ Gameplay ]
[ Graphics ]
[ AI ]
Do you own Dark Avatar and Arnor? If so, you'll have to work with Stardock to get them to acknowledge this to get the update. Otherwise, well, you missed your opportunity to get GalCiv2 Ultimate for $4 (which is beyond cheap if you don't own the expansions).
-HM
Thanks for the explanation. While I understand the thinking behind weakening SBs, seems to me that the real fix would be to remove the tumor from the AI's brain: de-prioritize SB attacks. Starbases are rarely determinate anyway. (Likely easier said than done if the AI doesn't distinguish Fleet from SB, though.) I haven't accounted the Repair effects, though I will note that even if they are effective, there will be a net change to the viability of remote SBs. Too bad I missed the discussion of this as there are several facets ...
Guanthor, I could swear I pushed past Point Defense and got no enabled module, but I'll check again.
--
Okay, a couple more checks:
* Thalan tree has NO tech that will increase the population that a world can support?
* Thalan must slog through Xeno Eng, Planetary Adaptation, Stellar Production, and the Adaptation techs before it gets any production improvement (other than the Hyperion Unit)? That's 4000 RPs to the first factory under Very Slow, and at a rough estimate would take two years or more! Is this a change from the 2.04 tree? If so, what is the rationale?\
BTW, contrary to the list of changes above, Thalan does not start with 12 Logistics, but 6 as previous.
The other changes are tough to check from within the game, but I don't recall that Trade research was unusually expensive. I do note that the Diplomacy penalty has had a major effect on Tech Trading.
If we could have done that, we would have. It's hard to change the AIs behaviour without access to the source-code. We are just glad that Frogboy was willing to fix some of the more serious bugs in the AI code.
That's how it always was. Okay, we added Xeno Engineering between Artificial Gravity and Planetary Adaptation, but that's the only difference as far as number of techs and tech-cost is concerned.
Did you previously play as the Thalan on this computer? That would have left a .raceconfigxml in the My Docs-folder, which is overwriting the new values. It's the only explanation I have for this. The Thalan definitely have a Logistics of 12 now. I've checked the files.
Ofc. But I suspect that this error will happen in alot of games since not many know to delete these files or do clear/save on any stockrace.
Boy (or whatever)! You can say that again! Yes, of course, I've played Thalan on this computer. I've played all the races and a couple of my own. I've played GC since the early OS/2 days and this is the first I've heard of .raceconfigxml. (Actually, it's existence may explain why I can't seem to get rid of my Yor-based custom race.)
You suggest that .raceconfigxml is not being overwritten. Do you mean that 2.20 installation did not overwrite the file because it already existed? If so, that is a big problem with the upgrade procedure! Either significant portions of the upgrade are not being applied, or (perhaps) some backward compatibility could be lost. Stardock really needs to address this. Heck, just Release Notes would be enough. But maybe $%&(# Steam can't work that way.
Anyway, what do I need to do? Delete some files? Which ones? Reinstall? Will it affect my existing game? Or should I just buy a new computer? Yeah, right.
No, it doesn't. You see, the game actually uses 2 folder: one for the installation itself, and a second for "personal"/constantly-changing data. The place of these folders might change in accordance with your OS.
On my rig, you'll find the personalized folder under User/MyDocuments/MyGames/GC2TwilightArnor
There you need to delete ALL *.raceconfigxml-files.
Ah yes. No effect on the current game, but a new game shows Logistics correctly. Tech tree is a little different too.
Really, this is something that should be done automagically at install.
Thanks for the help.
Stardock was made aware of this but chose to keep old races instead of removing them. Their reasoning is that some people are really attached to their customizations.
Oh how I wish that we could have done so! If you play your cards right you can still exploit the hell out of this behaviour.
I dream of the day Stardock releases the source code for this game to the public. It'll be the end of my social life for years to come because a) I'm a programmer, I friggin' love coding, c) I have always wanted to cut my teeth on game coding.
Allas, it probably won't happen. But who knows.
i played a game where the AI just made 1 type of weapon and I was able to counter it by making just 1 type of shield and putting a 1 attack weapon on my ship.
am I missing something or is the game intentionally balanced so that the AI can never win a fight if I spam defenses?
The AI picks a gun and sticks with it. I have seen it switch to another weapon type when you build defenses against it. Spamming defenses will go a long way but their effectiveness diminishes as the game progresses.
Some AIs downright ignore defenses while others research them in correlation of what weapons are used for ships on the actual map.
So you can have different experiences, varying from game to game.
The value of defense mods have been approx. doubled. This makes them borderline OP at the beginning of a game, but their usefulness sinks incredibly when logistics/fleetsize begins to mount.
Quoting MabusAltarn, reply 108I dream of the day Stardock releases the source code for this game to the public. It'll be the end of my social life for years to come because a) I'm a programmer, I friggin' love coding, c) I have always wanted to cut my teeth on game coding.
Why don't you do it? Because I recall that you decompiled it previously, just for legal reasons you wouldn't dare publishing anything (which is understandable). The thing is that - there are SO MANY bugs still prevalent in the game - so which are gamebreaking. If those could be done, those fixes could be circled around from one hardcorefan to another. Just think about how many private/retro/hardcore fan-installed servers or editions there are even from popular games. The publishers actually like that. Better than if people move to other games....
We even had a list of bugs, and its far from a complete one...
Sorry about that! Communication error, I'll get you fixed up shortly.
https://store.stardock.com/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/myaccount/products
Sorry about that! Communication error, I'll get you fixed up shortly.https://store.stardock.com/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/myaccount/products
Thanks The_Gear! And sorry for the mix up Sto6612, we will get you hooked up!
Still can not update!! where do I get it? I click update it brings me to this webpage, Great no help.
http://download.stardock.com
The last install all the AI races built Beams. This time they all build Missiles. Nobody builds defenses.
Is it too much to ask that races behave differently?
s/ King of the Gun
You have the Steam version, so make sure to opt-in to the 2.20 build.
Right click GC2 in your Steam Library, select properties, select the Beta tab, and then from the drop down, 2.20. Click close and Steam will start downloading the necessary files.
Yeah I have a stream version NOW...... I did not. BTW Thanks for the upgrade. The one thing that is confusing me is Why all political parties have -25 espionage?
This prevents the Ai from spending to much on espionage. The Ai will otherwise spend to much on espionage and not on otherthings.
Good. So far I haven't played a full game without the old raceconfig files (so not the total experience of 2.20), but I have to say that the net effect of the tweaks you guys have made is excellent. E.g. another perversion - building way too many Farms - seems to have been compensated out too.
Well done!
[Never mind. I'll start a new thread for this.]
u have to download it on google,,,, u get into the stardock web page, automatic down load..
I take it back.
This game half the nine are building guns and the other half missiles. Some are even building defenses (though they are still notoriously unwilling to actually research defense).
I do see a couple issues.
1) Yor want to build Charging Stalks out the wazoo. I had to go in and delete the ridiculous ones. After the initial stalk rush, though, they settled down.
2) There's about nine wars going and the Drath are rolling in cash. But they still manage their loot like Scrooge: tax rate through the roof, social spending zero, and they won't purchase anything. (Makes me want to put them out of their grasping misery.
3) (problem?) Drengin declared war on neighbor Drath. All the other Evil races attacked Drengin within a couple months, shortly joined by the neutral raced. The Good races sat by and laughed. Huh??
4) Thalan is knobbled. NO production improvements for quite a while; worlds limited to 8 billion bugs; no planetary defense techs?? Was someone trying to fix a perceived problem with this tree?
Anyway, this new version is fun! Grab it and play it!
That could be because the AIValue for the defence techs is set very low (4). I've set it to 10 in my mod, and the AI is much more willing to research defences. Though the actual behaviour still depends on the individual AI.
Building lots of Charging Stalks is exactly what the Yor should be doing. They don't have spammable econ buildings, so their tax income depends on high population.
No, that's how their tech tree was in the vanilla game too. The way I understand their design is that they start out weak, and become more powerful the longer the game takes. The Thalan have access to some of the most powerful techs in the game, making them a real beast late game. However, the AI often doesn't take full advantage of this.
4-5 per planet? How are they supposed to keep morale up? The stalk bonuses don't seem sufficient.
As for Econ, the Efficiency studies bonuses are huge, if the AI ever decides to research them. Tolmekian also adds a really nice Econ improvement at ES4. Playing Yor under Tolmekian's mod without stalk morale bonuses and lower ES econ bonuses, I never suffered unduly for lack of bucks.
Such as? Hyperion Starbases is really nice. Without the production base to develop anomalies, though, it seems merely a counterbalance. (Until late, when they can quickly bring up destroyed bases.) Mechanical Warriors? Equivalent to two humanoid techs that they don't have, and about as expensive. What else?
Add:
5) Interface colors. Iconian ships are now all but invisible against most backgrounds. Makes me long for the Korath. What was wrong with white?
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