AI for the massive-scale space strategy game now more human-like thanks to v2.8's "supreme commander" system updateFor a complete list of changes, see the changelog at the bottom of the post!
Galactic Civilizations III is the largest 4X space strategy sandbox game ever. Set in the 23rd century, you’ll compete against humans and all manner of aliens for galactic domination. Research new technologies, explore the galaxy, and colonize new worlds while engaging in diplomatic intrigue - or, sometimes, all-out war - with other races and answer the question: how will you rule your galaxy?
What's new in v2.8:
v2.8 leverages one of the greatest advantages of Galactic Civilizations III: its new, 64-bit, core-neutral game engine. Since most PC gamers have at least 4 CPU cores, we took the opportunity to develop a semi-genetic algorithm based AI that allows the computer to play much more like a human would.
GalCiv III is already known for its good computer opponents. To continue creating new depth of experience for our playerbase, the new asynchronous “supreme commander” AI will observe and send priorities for computer empires, which will feel much more like playing against another human.
We want players to have lots of viable strategic choices. To that end, we have been making lots of balance updates over the past year. v2.8 will help players play as a “tall” empire as well as a “wide” empire by giving them the potential to tilt the balance of the galaxy through smaller empires and well-run nation states.
The final focus of the new update has been in the ongoing drive to make the game more approachable without sacrificing its celebrated depth. A number of new UI elements to streamline gameplay, additional in-game descriptions, and more. Some changes are minor improvements, like moving rarely-used features to a different place, but other changes like defense modifications for ships will make the game even more intuitive and satisfying.
v2.8 is now available Don’t own Galactic Civilizations III yet? Save 10% when you buy direct!Also available on Steam.
www.galciv3.com
v2.8 Changelog
Gameplay
Bugs
Hmmm what is this feature? I think it describes the above point, however, I found it interesting that it had it's own point.
Very nice job Stardock, Thank you!
This is great but I still Cannot add Random civilizations to multiplayer games!
I also cannot pick random for myself
Great Update!!!Debating whether to start over my current game to dive right into this.
When trying to put two or more in a fleet, the tooltip shows "two ore more".
Did you know that typos are like anomalies in the game? When you find/fix one, another one appears.
Yes, continuous and persistent emergence of typos is a natural phenomenon, just as observable and provable as say, gravity.
For some reason this is largely ignored when the various forces of the universe is listed in the textbooks. It is a mystery... ! But at least the terminology is still very space oriented!
You could for example say that, "Near Bay" ships, strangely worked in most large fleet situations. and for starbases. For a squadron of fighters, maybe not so much... But never enter any kind of epic space battle with a tiny little scout ship, at any rate!
All this is great and all, but I hope 2.9/Intrigue promises to develop the cities mechanic more. There's nothing more frustrating than hitting the population cap upon making planetfall, or having a massive approval hit on Turn 1 because you have 10 pop and only capacity for 5. Or eating up oh-so-many tiles to make a settlement halfway useful (and thus negating their usefulness). As it stands the mechanic only seems to make an already slow-paced game slower.
I wonder if it mightn't be worth upgrading your colony centre into a city instead (sort of how you can upgrade your other improvements, but this one long-term eats food as maintenance rather than costing food outright (and maybe not cost an eternity or enough BC to clone your first-born)
Will you please make the colony and civ capitals into spaces that we can build on? Like the tile bonuses (caverns, wild grain etc) are?
https://galciv3.gamepedia.com/Tile_bonuses
This would be a simple change and it would FINALLY get rid of the continual annoyance of the capital being randomly placed in an annoying spot.
This.
Are the bugs in the 'ideological traits' going to be fix?
If you would describe them I could pass them along to the devs.
If this means 'let us choose Colony Central as part of colonization procedure,' I would really like to see that. I'd settle for yet another AI tweak that would eliminate the painfully common Stupidest Spot Imaginable choices that have been reliable through every version of GalCiv I've played.
Oh, and I forgot--three cheers and three luxury trade routes for all the 'little things' in this update. I hope Brad took the team out for a very fine meal after y'all bumped this up from opt-in.
P.S. The clear responses to player feedback give me hope that someday soon we might be able to again choose launch directions for shipyards.
We've been asking to let us choose where the capital goes forever and it doesn't happen. What I'm suggesting is that the capital becomes a tile you can build other improvements on and it has bonuses for building on it and adjacency bonuses.
I think that would be easier for them to program than giving the player control over where it goes. Worst case scenario its in a stupid spot that doesn't really help you; but you can still build an improvement on it so its not going to screw up your adjacency bonuses.
I know, I've seen the requests now and then for over a decade
But I've also seen that the devs/managers have some mystical tipping point that when triggered yields the results 'you/me' want. One of my favorites from GC2 was the advent of the turn-count alternative to the Week of thing.
I'm no coder (unless you count simple VB macros and Access expressions), but I can imagine choose-your-capital could be built by adding an option stage after the founding event that adapts the code used for place-a-spy view.
I think it might be more fun for Brad to apply some of the AI improvements for tile use to capital placement. And probably better in terms of time-to-code.
p.s. I quite like the combination of your screen name and your forum pic. The film's a masterpiece and imploding goat's sound like a hyper-horrifying weapon of mass destruction has been at work.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, because I don't remember seeing this in other versions, but are the other civs supposed to be able to send more trade vessels than I have planets (and I have a lot)? I'm talking at least 50 vessels on a large map, and not that deep into the game. It's nice to get the extra credits from trade, but it REALLY slows the game down.
Yes depending the number of ais.
That's 50 per ai, not 50 total.
The limit is for trade routes, not trade ships.
Still I think this is something the devs might want to take a look at. So would you please upload a savegame file to something like Dropbox so they can check it out?
It probably feels that way, because the AI ship range is unlimited. Maybe not for all ships in all cases, but it is most visible for freighters. This bug (or AI cheese) spoils the game for me at the moment. AI should be limited to the same game mechanics I have to use as a player. Getting more production points and research points and similar stuff is OK in higher settings. But unlimited AI ship range is not (maybe on the highest AI setting, but not on normal, gifted...). If they want me to buy Intrigue, they have to fix it...
Still have the issue where an enemy ship/fleet follows your ship/fleet all over the map once it detects it. Even though the enemy may have only 2 range sensors, it invariable follows you like a puppy dog - even if you first move 'east' to get out of it's sensor range, then dogleg north and are 6 or seven squares away...the enemy ALWAYS seems to choose the right direction to go instead of picking a random direction to search.
This is cheesy and can be exploited too easily...i can make an uber strong fleet chase one of my tiny scouts endlessly as long as it has 1 more move than they do.
Issue has been around for a long long time....
Other things I have discovered:
- I cannot interact at all with Minor Civs, though the AI can.
- Tech tree is buggy - lots of times in the diplomacy screen (and on the main Technology window) it will show N/A for tech times...you have to go to the tree and double click on the tech you are researching then go back to the diplomacy screen to see the correct values.
- When you open up an opponents world through the espionage screen, annoyingly it kicks you all the way back to the main window when you close the planet view instead of returning you to the espionage window - adds multiple clicks and slows the game down and it is quite frankly clunky and amateurish mechanics.
- Same vein - you cannot cycle through enemy planet screens like you used to be able to - you have to close the planet screen, reopen the espionage screen, reselect the race and reselect the next world - quite frankly a feature breaker for me - too darn many clicks and takes way too much time to see what the AI is building and where you want to place a spy.
- Can place a spy on one of your worlds but cannot remove them.
- Cannot promote or move diplomats - how the heck are you supposed to place them and what do they do?
- Lack of example tutorial for citizens overall - I love the feature but damn if I understand it entirely.
- On Commander promo screen it describes the type of ship you can upgrade to but there are no stats. Would be nice if the rollover had ship stats in it so you can make an informed decision on promos.
- Tool tips in general are vague and lack enough detail to really figure out how to do things. I have spent too many hours saving and trying out different actions to see what they do - really slows the game down and I am sure I am missing some really cool stuff...which brings me to the last point:
- Lack of a 2.8 player manual documenting all the cool new features - 3.8 is really a different beast compared to earlier versions.
- Those are the ones that come to mind for now...but let me say this is by far the best version of GC3 so far, love playing it.
One more biggy - on the trading screen you cannot remove credit or resource/trade items easily - you have to click on the item, then manually type in '0' in the amount screen to get it out of the trade item list. Way too clunky - should be able to just double click on that trade good or credit amount and it cgoes away just like the tech items do. Also, the estimated credit amount for an acceptable bid is buggy - often it opens up with a random number that is no where near what the AI will accept - say it may open to 125 credits but the real amount the AI will accept may be 600, 700 or more - no way to guess without clicking the up or down arrow multiple (and I mean multiple) times to see what is a good bid. This is almost a game breaker for me - it is a diplomacy breaker. takes forever to determine a successful bid. This behavior comes and goes, even within the same turn - it may say 100 is good, then when I add then remove another item it says 100 is not acceptable when it was just a few clicks ago. Frustrating and mega annoying to the point of tedium.
Great game. Good work guys. Best version of GC iii yet, making one of the best games ever even better!
I haven't played since we got the Snathi, so some of my comments may be outdated:
The new playstyle is so much better. Admins + new production/adjacency mechanics + resource mechanics completely revamp how to face the game, and make planning much more complex. I'm two days in and my play still isn't optimized.
(I wish each improvement explained what gave that improvement an adjacency, i.e., list type or have it color-coded... in some cases I need to terraform, and I want to know what bonuses will occur BEFORE I pick the tile to terraform... i.e., how will the pragmatic temple impact the malevolent one? Should I blaze that tile or not? Obviously I'll learn this over time, but its a b---- first time through).
Summation = game is incredibly good!
Malevolent- Aggression-Bloodthirsty "All planets receive a Overlord class ship." No they don't.
Does one have to purchase this update OR is it installed automatically Or does one have to manually install?
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