Twilight of the Arnor Beta 4

Published on January 4, 2008 By CariElf In GalCiv Journals

The Thalans and the Altarians are finally in the beta. They're going to need tweaking, but we figured that we'd give them to you anyway. And before you ask, yes, most of the buildings that the Thalan start out with ARE supposed to be galactic achievements. Read the tech descriptions.

+ NEW: Thalans are now enabled

+ NEW: Altarians are now enabled

+ NEW: Planet Improvements:

+ Shrine of Tandis
+ Social Matrix
+ Church of Valor
+ Gaia Vortex
+ Brain Washing Center
+ Technology Matrix L1 through L3
+ Manufacturing Matrix L1 through L3
+ Zero-G Amusement
+ Hyperion Matrix
+ Temporal Entertainment Matrix
+ Economic Direction Unit

+ NEW: Re-designed Invasion screen is now in the game

+ NEW: Several new starbase modules added

+ NEW: Ships that don't have weapons now have a maint. Cost associated with them.

+ NEW: Ship maint cost increased to correspond with higher level of money in game

+ NEW: Base speed of ships increased by +1.

+ NEW: Cost of technologies re-designed to be based on # of habitable planets in the galaxy as opposed to the size of the galaxy. This will have the general effect of making techs cost considerably more but this can be adjusted in the user settings. The availability of "immense sized" galaxies had caused techs to be ridiculously cheap. This will need to be play tested and tweaked.

+ NEW: Implemented fleet version of IsTerrorStar to return TRUE if any ship in fleet is a terror star

+ NEW: Terror Stars can now be added to fleets via fleet rally points

+ NEW: If a terror star is added to a fleet, it NULLIFIES the effect of fleet speed enhancing modules such as warp bubbles.

+ FIXED: Crash when hitting CTRL+N

+ FIXED: Bug where Super Dominator ships don't have a model created for them

+ FIXED: Tech tree was listing Space Weapons as a mass driver category tech.

+ FIXED: The Dread Lords and Dark Avatar campaigns will now work when playing with the Twilight of the Arnor exe
   + Mods are currently disabled for Campaign games
   + When loading the Dread Lords or Dark Avatar campaigns, the data definitions are taken from the older data files to avoid problems caused by inconsistencies in the tech trees ship components, etc.

+ FIXED: In a scenario, when a tech has a restricted parent tech, the tech is now marked as restricted

+ FIXED: Campaign and Metaverse games now save the custom race xml files in their subfolders of My Documents\My Games\GC2Twilight to avoid invalid race configs because they were created with different data

+ FIXED: Bug where race configs with negative abilities were marked as invalid

+ FIXED: Bug where trade routes got reset to their home planets after loading from a save game

+ FIXED: Crash related to terror stars in fleets with constructors

+ FIXED: Bug where incorrect number of moves was calculated when a single warp bubble ship was added to a fleet via a fleet rally point

+ FIXED: Bug where if United Planets was forcing a government type, AI civs could still change their government type

+ FIXED: Typo in event message "Trippled" à "tripled"

+ FIXED: Bug where if you disband a fleet, ships would have more moves than if you removed the ships individually

+ FIXED: when in "place agent" mode, clicking on an un-colonized planet to place the agent on would wrongly show the same popup as clicking on a planet owned by a minor race. This was caused when we went back and let you spy on the Dreadlords, but none of the other minor races. I put in an extra check so that when planet owner is CIV_INVALID_PLAYER_ID it falls though like we originally intended.

+ TWEAK: Arceans now have a -10% speed penalty

+ TWEAK: Thalans have a -30% population growth penalty Far fewer starting

+ TWEAK: Bonuses in general for civs as their native advantages are now expressed more in their technology trees and enable greater customization by players.

+ TWEAK: Interest Rate ability renamed as Purchase Now Discount.

+ TWEAK: Tech Tree xml files are read in from /Data/(Language)/TechTrees folder instead of all folders in /Data/(Language)

+ TWEAK: Added dialog to let user know if they are trying to attack a defenseless planet that they need a transport to invade

+ TWEAK: There is no longer any need for DefaultTechTree.xml. The file has been removed.

+ The "Default" tech tree is now generated by the game to include all possible techs

+ This eliminates the need for us to constantly update this file whenever we add or remove techs

+ TWEAK: The hint file now supports tech-tree-specific hints

Comments (Page 2)

Tod Jones

on Jan 04, 2008

You forgot to mention that the Stellar Forge appears to be fixed and that the Terrans and Drengin now get speed bonuses (and the Drengin a diplomacy penalty).

Alstein

on Jan 04, 2008

Ok, why don't the Korath get a penalty as well as the Drengin, if not a steeper one?

I think if Korath get a penalty- it could be in military and social production due to lack of slaves...

Tod Jones

on Jan 04, 2008

Ok, why don't the Korath get a penalty as well as the Drengin, if not a steeper one?

I think if Korath get a penalty- it could be in military and social production due to lack of slaves...

Probably because the Korath didn't get a speed bonus. And military and social production penalties wouldn't be in keeping with the races strengths. The Korath still use slaves anyway, they just don't want new ones (they can clone all the slaves they need) and are happy to just exterminate alien species.

GambitNC

on Jan 05, 2008

Just a quick question: Is this version compatible with saves from beta 3D? Thanks!

Wyndstar

on Jan 05, 2008

Does this combine with the already present tech speed variable? If so, no two games tech speed will seem alike (playing on all random settings).

Very interesting.

~ Wyndstar

tlwhite01

on Jan 05, 2008

Thanks Kryo!

I did that and it showed up. Dl'd fine, works fine so far. As far as BrynnX I can't say what might be the problem on his end. Hope he can get it worked out. Thanks again for the help from the staff!

mystic

on Jan 05, 2008

Nice beta again.

But one question remains...when will those 5 editors be released?

smartie0

on Jan 05, 2008

Well it seems Im the only one Im VERY dissapointed with the 2nd delay.
I cant say all these new updates are great but the most important thing for me is the map editor. This was the main reason I bought the expansion. I really want to create my own galaxies and not premade. At least include it in the next beta along with the custom race. And one addition please make the galaxy colour in strategy mode customizable or at least change it to something more appropriate than brown like dark grey.

Since you are going to release end of March (and for me that means I will have to wait till end of April since I will travel abroad away from my computer..)I wanna tell some things... Make the game even better than expected!
Because even now with all new extras, I have seen in betas the game is getting better and better but it remains the same game colonize, build, research, fight etc. I was finnishing all the games always but not the last 4 cause I was boring.. the same game again.
There were the Mega Events but they seem to be inactive in beta since I have seen none.
Try to make the game more impressive like u got a new invasion screen thats in the right direction. What about the video that plays when u build a mining starbase for first time? Its ugly and looks to be from GC1.

What about anomalies? They could become more interesting some of them they could be more unique and trigger a video pop up about a tremendous discovery positive or even negative! Why all of them should be positive? Space is a dangerous place..
And what if few of them could trigger a mega event? Like the activation of an ancient device that distorts space and time in all the galaxy and creates dangerous bubbles in galaxy map? All races should work together to find a way to destroy the device.
Something that I loved in MOO2 it was when I was terraforming the planet it was changing shapes and colours from barren to green paradise. Its so old game today but planet screen was far more better than GC2 with boxes and icons.
Something more realistic perhaps? A real city instead icons?
Maybe my ideas come too late but its because I expected more innovation rather polishing.
I dont blame anyone in Stardock the opposite since you are my fav game company but a little more impressive content appart tech trees and coding would have greater effect in game and us.. gamers.

thehandofzarquon

on Jan 05, 2008

Just a quick question: Is this version compatible with saves from beta 3D? Thanks!

It probably would be, but it is probably best just to start a new game (or finish that game first)

smartie0

on Jan 05, 2008

Compatible or not it does not affect your saved game.
Changes affect only new games as I know from previous updates.

WarKirby

on Jan 06, 2008

I'm playing this new beta with a save from the previous, and I can't progress now. The game crashes every time I try to move to the next turn. screen turns black "We are sorry, has crashed. Would you like to send an error report".

This is happening at the same point consistently, and making it completely imposssible to progress. I was really enjoying this, too.

Phaedyme

on Jan 06, 2008

Send a zip of the save file and a smart exception report to gc2bugs@galciv.com, if my understanding that such issues are supposed to be corrected by now is correct.

CariElf

on Jan 07, 2008

Just a quick question: Is this version compatible with saves from beta 3D? Thanks!

It should be.

Please send a SmartException report to gc2bugs@stardock.com along with the zipped save game.

Does this combine with the already present tech speed variable? If so, no two games tech speed will seem alike (playing on all random settings).

Very interesting.

Yes.

But one question remains...when will those 5 editors be released?

I don't know if we'll be releasing them during the betas.

Phaedyme

on Jan 07, 2008

Send a zip of the save file and a smart exception report to gc2bugs@galciv.com, if my understanding that such issues are supposed to be corrected by now is correct.

Darnit, why did I write "galciv.com" instead of "stardock.com" there?

crow_t_robot

on Jan 07, 2008

+ NEW: Ship maint cost increased to correspond with higher level of money in game

SO, the ship maintainence gets higher as you get more money? That is not cool.

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