Essentially, GalCiv III v2.61 is the last balance update for the base game.  From here on out, it's all Crusade.

There is a 2.62 in the works that improves loading time but there are not balance and AI changes.

And as I've said, the AI builds farms.   If it's not building as many as you want get to work on making some mods.

And unless you are planning to pay those one or two employees, then no, it is "too much to ask".  Your purchase of a video game does not entitle you to free labor.  The base game has been getting frequent, free updates for over two years.   We do this because we enjoy doing it. Not because you're owed it.  But as I've mentioned, with the recent reviews now at 53% (a hit we've taken in response to the most recent free updates) there's no incentive to keep updating the base game.

What will happen is that the game's review score will slowly go back up because new people will buy the game and like it for what it is rather than people with 800 hours giving it a negative review because they don't like us taking out some exploit or changing some game mechanic.

If you want more updates, you will need to go to Crusade. 

Yeah, I've seen the AI build farms and cities. If I may make a coupe of points:

1. I think what a couple of players have maybe tried to draw attention to is how they dedicate one or two planets entirely to farms, and then build out a bunch of mega-planets that have super population densities and thus tonnes of raw production. Probably more a player exploit and balancing problem then an AI issue. But hard to gauge without details on map settings, etc. I like the improvements 2.6 and 2.61 have made.

2. For Crusade, do you think the AI has trouble upgrading its weapon systems? I think Crusade is in a great overall spot, but in all my games with it since launch, I don't think I have often seen AI fleets with weapons beyond the first level of specialisation (ie. phaser => Disrupter => Plasma, etc). What do you think?

As I said before I can confirm that I didn't see a farm on an AI planet that was accessible to me without cheats in my last two games.

So since Frogboy and some other players sees farms and some don't  that means there are circumstances that allow or prevent the AI from building farms. It would be helpful if we knew what these circumstances were ...

GC III is a somewhat chaotic system in the sense that changing the start parameters in the slightest way may have dramatic effects on the way a single playthrough develops. That is a good thing as such, but if a good amount (? - no idea how many players see farms and how many not) of games are generated in a way that cripples the AI the something should be adjusted, not necessarily by the devs. But to mod the game properly we have to know what causes this effect. But I'm aware that because of the chaotic (in the above sense) nature of the different AI functions interacting with each other that may be difficult to tell even for the devs ...

Maybe. I play allways on gifted everyone, there the AI bonuses shouldn't be that high though.

I agree, but that can easily be modded (at least for those that like to fiddle with the xml files).

You are right, I very much could do that. I occasionally participate in modding threads here on the forum. But to me, that's not the fundamental argument to suggest changes here. I would like to raise several points about this:

1) a new player will not go through the text files and change everything until it is the game he likes. If he doesn't like what he sees, he leaves the game. For me it was well over 200 hours before I even touched the xmls. Most steam reviewers do not have this many hours to their name. If a player leaves the game too early he might not see its potential for modding at all. I don't know if mokus is still around, but he made a thread of having recently bought the base game and not getting it. You need to dig some in it, but I think it highlights part of the issue with current base game.

2) I like comparing how (well) I played to how others played. Every so often I get an epiphany though such comparisons on how to improve my play, which is fun to me. Such comparisons become moot if we play totally different games. Did I mention mokus's thread? I actually adviced both: changing a number or going to v2.33. People argued I shouldn't give such advice. This indicates to me, that I am not the only one enjoying to have a common basis in terms of balance.

3) at some point we have to talk about volume. Hypotheticly: If I understand the game mechanics, make a list of my preferences for it and come up with an estimated 10(/30/100) hours of work to change it, I either like the work and do it as a hobby, or I leave.

And on the basis of this:

Farms+cities are not a subjective personal preference, it is the mathematicly superior choice. If the the AI doesn't do farms and cities, it is not just an imbalance, it is essentially an exploit, since it trivializes the game.

The answer depends two things: What exactly is it you see as being unbalanced and whether I would also see it as being significantly unbalanced (ie bad enough to seriously undermine enjoyment in the game). If the inbalance/s can be cured by just changing a few digits in the XML file - and there's lots of free advice on the game's forum pages as to how to do that (as is the case with GalCiv3) - then yes I'd still buy the game. I would point out what I saw as being unbalanced that I absolutely had no way of modding out myself. And it might turn out that what bothers me only bothers a few other players so majority rules.

I agree with your point about not being able to play multiplayer unless everyone's got the same mod. But why (asking as a non-multiplayer person) can't Person A mod various XML files, save his Mod - "Person A's Production Fix", provideg a link to that Mod and when playing a multiplayer game explicitly state the game condition: "Insane Map using Person A's Production Fix Mod"? Or is the multiplayer setup more complicated/too basic for that?

What a joke. Tell me what magazine your childish arse works for so I may avoid your triviality. I bet this dinkis works for a competing title if at all. Get out of mommies basement and get some perspective on the world.

Dang - 4 games all the way up to 150 turns each in one (presumably) 8 hour session. Is that even possible?

luceo non uro

I Use the <AI> command to let the computer play my civilization.

That way i can rapidly see how the computer play with my new modifications.

I can get to turn 50 in less than five minutes !

Frogboy,  you have done something awesome with this game.   I've had many many hours of fun playing it.   However, I as a player have limited time with which to play a game.    modding the game and adjusting balance is not something that has a return on time invested for me...  Gal Civ 3 has too many variables that I don't understand, will never understand, and won't be able to fully tweak to make work.

To this point...   back in the day Alpha Centari had ini files and txt files that drove everything in the game... there were only two files that one ever needed to modify to mod the game.    you wanted to change the range on a missle, you find the line that said Missle range and change it from 3 to 4

Modding xml files is not rocket science, but it is harder than modding a pure text file.   If you go over to the Modding forums there are a lot of places where people ask questions like  "how do I get the AI to build carriers?"   and the answer is change research, change ship building, change this change that add this do this other thing and then you might get an effect...     or you might have the game become unstable and crash.


I think some of the flustration that some of us longer time players (I've played every single Windows version of Gal Civ)  I recognize that GCII did not start with all the awesome it ended with... there was some huge changes in that game... just as there have been some huge changes in III... but back to my point

One of the things that flusters me is that while you have given us an impressive game and have made HUGE HUGE HUGE improvements in the AI and the fun of the game...

you've not really shared your vision as to what you are wanting to do with the AI tweaks you've done.


An example...   There have been multiple posts about balancing production and population.  The whole Farms thing right now is based on how population is far more important to end production than factories or research labs.

In the most recent patch Cities have become much more expensive to build.      Why?   What end balance are you the designer seeing with this, rather than changing the output of the factories, or the negatives/bonuses of  moral?

I think if you did a bit more explanation   "we saw this happening, so we chose to change this and this to get THIS outcome"  people would be a lot more understanding.


Beyond that, there are some things that seem simply broken...  The Pilgrims event for example does not do anything.  It says it gives you influence.  But where does that influence go?  Where is it supposed to go?

Moral and the Economy were both huge breaks on early colony rush in GCII  they worked well... if you built too fast you would go broke.. if you expanded too fast your people would revolt...     I'm curious why the revolt mechanic is not part of GCIII...   Good Moral gives bonuses but bad moral doesn't really seem to do much...    these seem to me to be natural cause effect balances that should be in the game... but are not...


GCIII has sooo soo soo much potential, and I think the majority of the posters on this forum see that.     It just feels like some of the design choices have been very abstract, or quick fix type rather than thought out.

I look forward to seeing where the game goes...  But back to your point... it is not as simple for laymen programmers such as I to mod as you would like to think... and so your comments do disappoint me.


However, you are not wrong on where you are coming from.

I also think that the base game should stay the base game.   DLC should be the only place there are mechanic changes other than small bug fixes...


I think you are feeling rightly burned because you have been "fixing" things  and in the knee jerk society and the way Steam works...  no good deed goes unpunished.

For those not seeing the AI build farms when Brad insists that they do and for those winning easily. I suggest to play nothing less than Incredible.

My issue on incredible is that I am quickly conquering the Yor and they aren't able to expand their synthetic population as they don't have the resources early to do so.

As for farms on AI worlds, I cannot tell this early and it will depend and whether I can take planets from someone else next.

I won on godlike and now theres nothing left to do. The AI is just too easy and when i look at the graphs a tthe end of the game I notice that the AI doesn't grow its' pop...so...

Agreed that 10 is far too high!