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.
Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy the Community Update.
Cheers,
Alt.
To everyone involved in making this mod (and hopefully soon a patch!) happen, thank you! As a long-time GalCiv2 player who just stumbled across this today, I cannot express my excitement that the community is still alive and my appreciation for all of your hard work. Thank you all!
I do have one question - back in the day, I used to be plagued by the "Out of Memory" error and game crash on large games. This was due to the game's 32-bit nature and its inability to use more than 2.4 GB of RAM. (See here and here for examples.) To get around it, I ended up patching the .exe using the 4 GB Patch utility. I am curious whether or not that needs to be applied to the updated GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe, or if that problem is no longer a concern. Has anyone had any experience with this issue and the Community Update?
Thanks in advance, and thank you again for your hard work!
If you're having RAM issues you could always dumb down video options a bit. On minimal settings in a gigantic all-abundant galaxy you can have up to 95.000 ships before the RAM limitation kicks in.
It was never an issue with insufficient RAM; as the examples cite, the application was limited to less than the available RAM. In my case, my computer has 12 GB of RAM, yet the program was only using 2 and crashing if it wanted more - the computer never approached its RAM limit.
It sounds like you are unfamiliar with that particular issue and have not experienced it yourself - I'll take that as a sign that the 4GB patch isn't needed, unless I have any issues.
Next question - regarding the AltarnizedUI, does that only affect the modifications to the trade screen, e.g., preventing the player from requesting planets from the AI, or are there other changes?
I know full well what you're intended to say, that the game cannot utulize more than +2GB RAM. And it was me who tested it out by trying to produce as many ships as possible. But no normal game will see that many ships, that means that you'll never encounter any RAM issues when playing a normal unless you are using a high gfx mod when playing zoomed in.
In other words, to patch the .exe is most likely unnecessary...
Next question - regarding the AltarnizedUI, does that only affect the modifications to the trade screen, e.g., preventing the player from requesting planets from the AI, or arethere other changes?
No. The AltarnizedUI features many changes to te UI all aimed to reduce mouse movement and speed up play. I included it in APT2.0 and adapted it for the CU. It is not an official part of the CU but an add-in.
Thanks for the clarification, MabusAltarn.
I've used APT2.0 heavily (it was how I played ToA until realizing this existed; thanks for that, too!), but I never realized there were any UI differences. I suppose adding your UI here will make it more familiar to me, heh.
Is there a place that outlines all the UI changes included in the AltarnizedUI for reference?
No, but to summarize. All the "Done" buttons are as large as possible. This way you can always move the mouse down to close a screen. Pop-up screens appear over the button that calls them and their "Done" button appear directly below the cursor.
The Rally Point screen shows more rally points and text entry screens are larger to fit more text. Tabs have been moved to the bottom when appropriate because when you click on a button on the main menu it reduces the amount of travel space the cursor has to move.
That's really it in a nutshell.
Hi all.
I just wanted to pop in and say i'm still playing and enjoying the final CU. (My machine can just barely run GC3, so i end up just playing GC2).
I actually lost a game the other day! I was trying to play a difficult corner position on a mostly-empty Huge galaxy and just couldn't scrape enough together to compete. The Iconians out-teched everybody and it soon became undefendable.
The game i'm playing now is also interesting. In a Gigantic galaxy with rare planets, most empires came out with at most 5 planets. Interestingly, the Korx have run away with the game and i'm trying to figure out how to out-manouvre their 5x larger military without getting noticed as their "ripe for conquest" next door neighbor.
Thanks to all y'all modders for putting this together.
Heyho,
Found 3 typos in InvTactics.xml:
<InvTactic InternalName="TerrorDrones"> <DisplayName>Terror Drones</DisplayName> <Description>Terror Drones are nearly sentient machines that patrol alongside our soldiers. They greatly magnify the combat strength of our troops. We estimate an increase in 20% soldier effieciency and 25% colleteral dammage.
Besides, I've found out why the icons of the new Invasion Tactics (like Terror Drones or Mechanized Warriors) don't show up - because they are attributed to individualised techs which not all TechTrees possess. Just a guess but I think this might be related to the bug which causes the AI to be able to use any invasion tactics regardless if researched or not.
Best wishes.
Well, it's been a little over a year since this project started (and a little over 10 months since I've left it), so what's the current status? As far as I've heard the CU is finished, but what's the progress on integrating it into the game? That was the intended plan for the CU after all. So, have there been any news from Stardock? I'm primarily asking, because I want to finish up Autumn Twilight 2.0. The only thing left for me to do is to remove all the files from AT 2.0 that are identical with the ones from the CU, but I can't do that as long as the CU hasn't been integrated.
Speaking of AT 2.0, I'm not sure if any of you have been following my progress with it, but I've made same discoveries which might be interesting to include into the CU:
The Campaigns work from the Mod-folderAs we have already established, if you place the Campaigns in the folder Mods\Mod Name\Data\Campaigns then they won't work. The game simply won't read them. However, if you place them into Mods\Mod Name\Campaigns then they will. This makes it much easier to "install" the updated Campaigns, because you no longer have to place them into the core-folders. However, this also has some downsides: 1. you can't use sub-folders (all Campaign-files need to be placed into the Campaign-folder), 2. the modded Campaigns will be used whether mods are activated or not, 3. the mission-specific Conversations.xml don't seem to work from this folder. I haven't looked too far into whether the last one can be fixed without having to place the files into the core-folder, because it will be moot anyhow, once the CU has been integrated.
The 20% bonus to base approval from the Secret Police Center does workWhile looking through the PlanetImprovements.xml of DA, I noticed that the Secret Police Center had the following tag "<F_AbilityFactor>0.20</F_AbilityFactor>". It was commented out for some reason. I got curious, and tested if it would work. It did, but only if the SPC is a Super Project. In other words, the advertised 20% bonus to base approval did work, yet someone at Stardock decided to replace it with a regular 20% morale bonus, making the SPC a overpriced, one-per-civ Extreme Stadium (i.e. worthless). It boggles the mind. Even more so considering that this has been the case since DL and nobody noticed it in all those years.
I also found some issues in the CU:
GC2_Conversations.xmlAI_TRIBUTE_DEMAND_RELATIONS_LOW: the Arceans have entries for all races, even though it should be human only (I don't think Lord Kona would take it kindly to be remarked of as "you humans".)
DECLARE_WAR_ON_EVIL_PLAYER: the Korath entries use the race-number 14 (Krynn) instead of the correct 13
InvTactics.xmlTidal Disruption and Core Detonation should be changed back to BonusType 3. I originally changed them to 4, because their descriptions state that they reduce the defence of the Defenders. However, this had the effect that it made those tactics less effective, which wasn't my intent.
Mechanized Warriors no longer has a LuckFactor. Yet, all the other tactics still have it. This doesn't make any sense to me. Especially because, at least as far as I can tell, LuckFactor does have an effect on the tactics.
The description of Terror Drones has several typos, but Maiden666 already reported them.
Screens.str[AlignmentBonuses3] and [AlignmentBonuses4] still state that the Propaganda Center increases loyalty and the Secret Police Center increases approval even though you switched them around.
DL CampaignMission2a_Text.xml: The first line of the Altarian entry for MISC_FIRST_CONTACT says "Shielding technology could easily turn the war in our favor, brother." The Terran leader in TotA is female, so this should be changed to either "sister" or "cousin".
Well, that's all the issues I can remember, but there might be more (there's always a typo somewhere).
By the time i get Secret Police Center, i'm pretty much wrapping up the game. I might build it just to be a completist, but never paid attention to its effect.
I don't think there is any progress on integrating the CU into the core product. We have the installation package available here off the forum and that is all.
Yup. Haven't heard anything in months.
<sigh> The way things are going with Stardock, I'm not even that surprised. It's still annoying though.
Oh well, I'll wait until December. If things still haven't changed by then, I'll take another look through AT 2.0, make sure everything's alright, and release it as final version. No point in delaying it any further.
Agreed.
It's been four months since Brad popped in and asked whether it is ready to go on Steam.
In that time there's been who knows how many alphas of the other game I've been interested in, and I like the other developer more because he engages with the community better.
Being honest with you here, and considering that it would be a 'free' update, I don't so much mind the time that has elapsed. However, lack of engagement with the community about a game which people still play is kinda bad. I can't help but feel that unless someone starts playing and commenting on GC3 or one of the other new Stardock titles, they will get put on the back burner.
Okay fine, Stardock is a business and it needs to make new products to sustain itself. No argument from me here. However when the products are strategy games which hold up years after release, there are always going to be customers who continue to play and mod the old game even when a new product arrives.
I did play GC3 a bit after release, actually. It's not bad, and I think the 'just one more turn' itch is there, but there are so many things I want to change with mods. It's what I like about GC2, a whole new game experience is in one little mod folder.
I agree with you Marvin, and I really don't know anything about it, but how difficult (or how much work needs to go into) it would be to release this as a patch? I assume not much, someone just has to spend a few hours on it. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm confident that the time spend by the people who created this update is much, much more...
As I recall, doing a Steam release does involve some time spent integrating Steam. It's slow enough to not be ideal for an intensive round of testing and bug-fixing, but works fine otherwise.
Hey guys, a small heads-up: Stardock released GalCiv 2 and 3 on GOG.com today. Here is a link to the release thread.
I've just finished downloading and installing GalCiv 2 and had a short look at it. The game got a new executable (v2.20) which no longer requires registering with Stardock (as expected from a GOG-release). No idea what else might have been changed with this version.
Surprisingly enough, the release contains the Community Edition Guide. However, as far as I can tell, none of the actual changes from the CE are included. This makes the inclusion of the Guide rather baffling to say the least.
/facepalm. That's no good...
Gaunathor. I've send a mail to Stardock and got a very quick reply. They said the GOG edition is the CU. Can you check again please?
I just had a closer look, and yes, the CU is actually included. However, they've placed all the content from Community Update\Data (including the empty folders) under Galactic Civilizations II\Data instead of Galactic Civilizations II\Twilight\English.
Just got my hands on the GOG release. So, has the update been applied correctly to the game? Do I need to fix something manually?
It's a bit strange to see the update being applied to the GOG release. Usually GOG doesn't include any gameplay altering updates/mods made by third parties. I guess Stardock has just handed over game to GOG like this.
Is there any way to revert the game back to the last official version? Don't get me wrong; I highly appreciate your work on the Community Update but I still like to be able to try the game in its original state.
Also, if you guys should release further updates those should be pushed as official updates to GOG. The inclusion of the CU wouldn't make much sense otherwise...
Edit: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/stardock_now_boarding_gogcom_3ccfe/post114 Okay. So if the content of the data folder has been put into the wrong location doesn't this mean that some of the content (all the other folders included with the update) has been applied to teh game while the core changes have not? Ugh...
Edit 2: Just did a quick comparison of the folder/files from the CU and the GOG release (other that the CU data folder). Not all files are identical, somebody should double check that.
Pretty much. The new icons for planetary improvements, the removal of the icons for food bonus tiles, and the changes to the UI have all been correctly applied. Everything else? Nope. It wouldn't be Stardock, if there weren't some issues.
So, anything GOG users can do to fix their game? Would like to forward that info to the GOG forums. I don't think we will see an official update earlier than next week.
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