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 ]
The game runs 4 different major AI personalities - some of which handle weapon & defense-research differently.
The Terrans, for example, lock into a single weaponsbranch and will keep researching this no matter how their game developes. They will also not research any defenses, ie. they run the tactic to better their military situation through weapons only. However, if you present defenses via techtrade they are going to use them, so the existance of Minors ingame (which usually oftentimes research defenses) is of great assistance to them.
Another example, the Altarians, will look upon other civs and try to follow their weapon progression. Now if you have multiple AIs researching different strains then this AIP will juggle between the branches, which is significantly handicapping their ability to build strong attack ships, since they mostly get Tier1 weapons. However, they are going to do an own research into defenses, and will actually examine what weapons hostile factions are using, and countering these.
That might be the direct result of Yor & Korath getting a -30 diplomacy penalty as compared to the vanilla game. The Drath now simply have a more easy way to manipulate them.
If that is supposed to mean that you've deleted the Advanced Charging Stalk from their tree then perhaps it's your own fault? Because this gives +30% moral per improvement, which is significantly more than in the vanilla game. The AI builds max 4 Stalks = 120% moral, which is the same as the approach from the generic tree 3*VLCs = 120% moral. Only Torians are better in that regard (if we solely count improvements for the moment...) while many others, Drath, Drengin, Korath, Thalans are far worse.
No, I used c/s-Z to delete the nascent stalks. I left several on a few planets to see what happened and so far so good. But as if mid-2230 the 'bots have made no move to research Advanced.
Next time I'll let them run and see what happens.
BTW, has anyone found a way to modify Super Abilities? The frikkin' Yor drop Influence Starbases all over the place, making navigation a RPITA. (The very dark interface color doesn't help at all.)
As for Drath manipulation, is there a reliable way to determine whether they are the cause of war? I presume that the "a third party paid us to do it" statement in the declaration is a pretty good indicator. But that wasn't in the Krynn declaration (first to pile on), nor the Korx declaration (second in while still Leaning Evil). Also, everyone immediately gave ships to Drath, most of which are still out of range.
Recently, Terran and Altarian declared war on Drath, which was a real surprise until I realized that Drath are no longer Good...
Actually, I'm glad to see that some of the old, now tired, patterns are no longer reliable. Makes play much more interesting.
u have to download... type download update GC 2 , version 2.20...
well if my improvements would show a tendency to magically disappear I wouldn't invest into upgradeing them either
that's easy, but you'll need to start another game then in order for it to be effective.
you need to change the <SuperAbility>-tag in RaceConfig.xml to another number, you can deduce from the other races' numbers which one you'll want to use. and, ofc, delete the old YorCollective.Raceconfigxml-file
you can't be sure if the Drath were responsible since every AI can ask other races to go to war against you - this message simply informs you that this took place and they got paid. increasing your own MMR will do a great deal in decreasing the chances that this happens. but usually it's the Drath, with them ingame you'll see a tremendous increase in these messages, as well as if you sue for peace, it might be reverted to war instantly. IIRC after 3 times making peace the AI will deny any further peacedeals so, if Drath are still ingame, it makes sometimes sense to stall peacetalks until you really desperate for it.
well I really hope that these ethical changes will be reverted since it is the Altarians which may regulate the OP state of Draths War Profiteering income. (they will throw them into their own wars and then, Profiteering doesn't work as effective).
btw I assume that the Draths are simply buying off the military from others because they may make more money which they can can spend. I've seen this behaviour alot, uber diplomacy + Profiteering and the AIs don't see a 8 week diplomacy lockout; does wonders...
That's a good point. Might account for some of the ships, but many were gifted very soon after I paid Drengin to attack Drath -- IOW before they got any war profits.
As for the alignment changes, I'm not against Drath as Neutral. But somehow making the Terran Good just isn't right. I didn't get an answer when I asked about why we need to keep the alignment count balanced. Anyone tried it with an unbalanced count?
On the Super Ability, that lets me change to a different SA, which may be a better solution than nothing. I was hoping for a way to change the attributes of ab SA. I.e. make the speed limit of Isolationist greater than 3.
One other bad tendency I noticed: many races build Research Coordinator as the only research improvement on a planet. (Yes, I realize that the Capitol produces a few RP.)
On this score, there is one aspect of Tolmekian's mod that you might consider taking up. The Super Project and One/Planet production improvements *also* produce some of what they are boosting. E.g. Tech Capitol produced 12 RP as well as the bonus. Thus a lone RC wouldn't be an issue...
I think the overall intent is to equalize the distribution of misaligned faction when starting a game against random enemies. You see, the whole diplomatic system revolves around giving causes for conflict, too much stuff to go into detail now, but there's alot of things there. Otherwise it might get boring on some game if you consider how much freedom is granted for the setup. You may start an all-uncommon huge galaxy against 2 factions, and when they all share your alignment then Wars may never break out. But the function of the AI is also to kind of stress the player, otherwise it's not challenging anymore.
But it could be done easily, what matters is the overall balancing. On that note, if we include Minors, Neutral is already in favour because most Minors are neutral. You could go with only 3 evil races, perhaps Korx or Yor, but then, the remaining evil races should see some love to compensate their relative strength.
I'm afraid that's not possible. SA are hardcoded, although some can be worked on via secondairy means, ie. Drengin Dominator Corvettes can be changed, Korath Spore Module, Trade/Spy/X-Col Techs could be changed, but many other things which directly interact with game mechanics are untouchable.
I also think that Isolator is a rather weak one, personally I'd actually increase it to 2. Although it is fun to play with it esp. if you build additional MSB in order to slow down ships to 1 speed. I remember I had to do that on my first Suicidal warfighting game as it was the only way to survive.
You can actually circumvent it a bit by using Fleet War Bubbles.
I don't know his mod, and it could be done, but the only way would then be to let this improvement have the maximum output (just like the Neutrality Center is designed) otherwise it will be placed also on bonustiles and that may be suboptimal if better labs become available.
I personally like all the research-boosting improvements, because they will also enhance production that comes via focus, ie. if you play a all-fac strat, or if you have a planet with alot of base industry output then building such an improvement there may be reasonable. Although, and especially at higher difficulty levels, the AI is usually better off by adding base RP/Ind to a planet, because he gets tremendous percentage increases to RP/Ind anyway from this setting....
That's understood. His Neutrality Learning Center is not One/Planet, provides no bonus, produces 16 RP (iirc) and is MUCH more expensive than a Discovery Sphere. If you put your Tech Capitol on a gold tile, it may not be the most productive use of that tile in the end. C'est la vie.
The Super Projects are generally at the normal max output; the One/Planet improvements are typically less. For instance, Research Coords produce 6 RP (again iirc). Manufacturing Vortex 4 (?). You don't want them on your bonus tiles, but having one as a single is not so bad. Interestingly, the AIs rarely plop them on bonus tiles. I wonder if it looks at the output when deciding what to build there?
You really ought to try playing Tolmekian's mod. It's not as polished as the CU and takes a different approach to some problems (like all food improvements are One/Planet) that the CU likely does better. But it does a couple things better than the CU, IMO. E.g. the production bonus improvements. And his mods to the Minors make them more interesting, acting differently and in some cases more like little majors. Some don't just sit there, but expand as best they can.
I have problems defeating evil races on harder levels, their military is very strong and they spread into other planets very quiquily..
Nope, but there's actually an easy way to see how the AIs internal logic is when playing buildings - just use the planetary governor. The AI can differ between base production & production enhancing. The former will be placed on bonus-tiles. The latter not. If combined, it qualifies as base prod.
You may still find all sorts of differences on AI planetary buildups because the AI is somewhat free in his choice of what he enqueues on a planet. Via the <AI> tag in PlanetImprovements.xml you can influence him on a global scale in this choice, but 1-per-planet improvements, esp. research or production enhancing ones, will always stay quite interesting for them.
Another way to remedy this problem without interfering into bonustiles, is either
- increasing the % modifiers to make it worthwile even if low industry is available, though this may be OP on bigger planets
- decrease the buildcosts of the 1pp improvements if their bonus is low to also low levels; that way the AI may not maximize its production, but instead get this production economically cheaper.
Yes, I'll give it a try
So I DL all 4 versions and took a look at them. I really like most of the stuff I'm seeing there, esp. new techs, and lots of details, and also the MoOII Minors.
Some stuff seems overpowered, esp. that there's alot of new GA or SuperProjects, with them and many old ones having been reduced in buildcost and granting even additional bonuses. That sort of would become an aim for me to rushbuild them and then simply overplay the AI by statoverkill. I found one instance where a smart Minor has a <speed>1</speed> tag which should be 10, but as this mod is huge I didn't cover everything or look out specifically for typos.
All his AIP are 11, and I assume that, because of this, he had to delete Annihilator from game, and Korx also lost their SA. Personally I think that AIP11 is the weakest one, they have a very erratic non-efficient way of researching weapons, and huge problems building up planets as their social slider is oftentimes kept at below 15%.
I'm also wondering if we were talking the same mod, since the farms are all spamable and ie. the RCC only holds a percentage modifier, not giving base research....?
My memory usually isn't that faulty. I'll load my copy into 2.20 and check in the next few days. Hope it works.
Also grabbed Autumn Twilight, but since it's essentially a reversion to vanilla I'll wait a bit before playing it.
Tolmekian's Mod does work with v2.20. It's not optimised for it, but that's to be expected. The mod hasn't seen an update in three years.
Also, your memory is working fine. Manufacturing/research boosters do provide base production/research in Tolmekian's Mod, while farms got replaced with the Planetary Infrastructure line of improvements (1pp, provides a percentage bonus to food and a pop-growth bonus).
While AT changes the game to be closer to the vanilla version, it's not identical to it. There are still several differences to the original game.
the version updated 2.20 of the GC2 is working right and is ok,, no big diference,, this game is cool..
My bad - I've been accidently downloading versions 3.0....
3. 0 version???? update??? can you give me the link,,,,??
I managed to down load the 2.2 , I thought the 2.2 was the latest,, this game is great..
send me the link for the 3. 0 update..
thanks...
i am a big fan of this game,,
you people play only on meta verse??? is there a way of playing on multiplayer??
Not for two. Three has that.
thanks, let me ask,, do you know any thing related to the galaxy map??
i play for years and I dont control not even 1 % of the galaxy..
is that related to metaverse??
is there a way I could control some part of the galaxy??
thanks
The 2.20 patch is NOT on my DL page. I have ultimate listed, but no dl button, but have the base game and both expansions, all with a dl button.
Any help?
Cheers
Bruce
Nothing to do with metaverse.
How many planets do you have? Are you in the zone of influence of another civilization?
Never mind, he's talking about metaverse, which I don't play.
IF u go on metaverse screen web site,,, on high scores, , the menu, galactic map..
i have 0 % control of the galaxy,,, but i played 60 times, and won most,,, i was wondering how many points or times i have to play to get a bit of my empire in the galactical map...
is on the menu,,, below game stats and forum stats..
u downloaded 2.2 patch???? all u have to do is download i think, is on stardock page or google..
is automatic.. the gam looks the same ,to be honest, ,
Once you download. You have to find the file in your downloads, and install it. Once you install it you have to figure out which directory it is, and find the install file, and make a shortcut of it.
The folder is galciv
Where do I get the 2.20 patch from? It is NOT on my stardock download page.
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