Twilight of the Arnor Beta 4b

Published on January 24, 2008 By CariElf In GalCiv Journals

OK, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there aren't any updates to the AI, the tech trees, or the races in this build. The good news is that Brad is going to be on X-Play tomorrow at 8pm! He'll be demoing Sins of the Solar Empire. So he's been in L.A. this week on a media tour instead of working on the game. We do have some bug fixes and a tweak for you, though.

+ FIXED: Bug in AIFindScoutDestination where the scout's planet destination was setting ulAIColonyAssigned instead of ulAIScoutAssigned
+ FIXED: Stuck turn button bug where an AI scout kept trying to move on to a planet
+ FIXED: Bug in campaign code where it wasn't checking the Dark Avatar directory for campaign files when loading the next mission
+ FIXED: Changed it so that you have to be spending something to use the creative ability
+ FIXED: Changed Creative ability to only give the amount of tech points necessary to complete research on the tech, instead of the entire cost, as it did previously.
+ FIXED: Creativity now ignores negative creativity ability values
+ FIXED: Minor races are no longer affected by Neutral Ground UP Law.
+ FIXED: Terror stars are now moved by Neutral Ground UP law along with the rest of your warships.
+ FIXED: All random events (including mega events) that create minor races should now be disabled when minor races are disabled
+ FIXED: Bug where minor race tab on Foreign Policy screen wasn't enabled if a minor race was created when the minor races are disabled (in case we decide to allow exceptions to the disabled minor race option)
+ FIXED: The Jagged Knife no longer automatically uses the The, so you won't see The The Jagged Knife anymore
+ FIXED: Added new XML tag to TechTree.xml CanUseCreativeAbility, which determines if the tech can be completed using the race's creative ability. If it is not present, it is assumed to be TRUE.
+ FIXED: Bug in "minor races get all of a major civ’s tech" event that gave the wrong techs to the minor race
+ FIXED: Bugs in other events that involve giving one civ all of another civ’s techs
+ FIXED: When a terror star is in the mobilizing phase (which lasts 10 weeks and doesn’t allow the terror star to move), it was possible to move it if you fleeted it with another ship.
+ FIXED: Bug where UP issue restricting starbase modules affected terror stars
+ FIXED: Bug where UP issue that prevents you from attacking starbases did not exclude terror stars (but there are no issues like that currently implemented, this was mainly for mod compatibility)
+ FIXED: If you don't have a serial number registered and you go to start a Metaverse game, the game will now tell you that you need to register your serial number
+ FIXED: Bug where fleets with warp bubbles did not get correct moves when loading a saved game
+ FIXED: Crash in planet surface code

+ TWEAK: Ship Maintenance now excludes freighters and is lowered by 1%.

Comments (Page 3)

Loupdinour

on Jan 25, 2008

Lowering costs 1% doesn't
seem like much.

It is not really a percentage. The maintenance was reduced by 1 bc per ship per turn. Actually, a nice reduction

Perhaps due to rounding it's at least knocking off 1bc per ship.

Hawawaa

on Jan 25, 2008

Thank you Stardock. Wot! Also I can't wait for you to deliver me my Sins of a Solar Empire less than two weeks and well I lost control a long time ago...

talon012754

on Jan 25, 2008

Sins of a Company Stardock.
Going around touting another game while we no longer get a double "the" in the Jagged Knife event?
Huh!

Now I know why it was changed to March.
I cut cheese in thy general direction.

stargazeruk

on Jan 25, 2008

How are other people feeling about the money issue? Lowering costs 1% doesn't
seem like much. A lot of complaining about the economic issues in the game.
How is it now?

I am not going to start playing the beta if I spend all my time worrying about money.

Regardless I will start playing when it comes out of beta.

At the begining of the game I do have money issues. I raise the taxes as high as possible without affecting happyness to much and production to 100%. I try to populate as many big planets as possible (over 10) and build them up I try to balance them out when using buildings as much as possible and overtime it pays off.

I do loose money for a while and then I lower my production to match my income over time as the colonies grow I raise the production counter to match my income. It works for me and I make money after a while.

RaGod

on Jan 25, 2008

Ok i have a question for the devs, and il understand if it doesnt get answered.

Question: Would it be difficult to add in a slider for the ship maintenance at the beginning of the game where you select research speed galaxy size ect? I had enjoyed the last betas economy a great deal, and my friends that played it did as well. I understand the new maintenance costs make it more challenging but some of us love just having a mass of ships in a nice quiet corner of the galaxy map

doogles

on Jan 26, 2008

Lowering costs 1% doesn't
seem like much.

It is not really a percentage. The maintenance was reduced by 1 bc per ship per turn. Actually, a nice reduction

Perhaps due to rounding it's at least knocking off 1bc per ship.

My guess is it's like speed, trade routes, etc. When you work at stardock too long, you express normal integers with a "%" sign appended. Scientists still haven't been able to figure out why. But if you look at your empire in one of the views, you can see things like "Trade Routes: 9%" even though all it really means is you have 9 trade routes.

So when Cari says it's a 1% reduction, I'm guessing she means 1bc, because even with my massive thalan ships last game, very few would have seen any benefit from a 1% decrease.

Sir_On_The_Edge

on Jan 26, 2008

Or maybe the world is wrong and they are right? They are from the future after all.

Franco fx

on Jan 26, 2008

Question: Would it be difficult to add in a slider for the ship maintenance at the beginning of the game where you select research speed galaxy size ect? I had enjoyed the last betas economy a great deal, and my friends that played it did as well. I understand the new maintenance costs make it more challenging but some of us love just having a mass of ships in a nice quiet corner of the galaxy map

It would seem logical to tie maintenance to difficulty level. Zero maintenance on cakewalk with full maintenance starting at normal.

Yandeer

on Jan 26, 2008

The maintenance tweaks really helped, i won my first game with the Iconians in TA now, with Thalans as my ally! Finally the Iconian economy is somewhat manageable.

econundrum1

on Jan 28, 2008

Actually I think that's a pretty good idea, and I doubt it would be very hard to implement.

Farae

on Jan 28, 2008

Actually I think that's a pretty good idea, and I doubt it would be very hard to implement.

Here, here! I agree!

luckyirishguy25

on Jan 29, 2008

+ TWEAK: Ship Maintenance now excludes freighters and is lowered by 1%.

I'm glad that you guys noticed the Ship Maintenance/Economic in balance, but 1%??? this won't really any affect until your ship maintenance is over 100bc per ship which will result in a whole 1 bc discount, if you ask me it needs to be more like 10%, paying 99 or 100 bc per turn is negligible. Why have all these new components if their too expensive to use?

calmon

on Jan 31, 2008

+ TWEAK: Ship Maintenance now excludes freighters and is lowered by 1%.

I think its 1% Point! So if the maintenance was 5% from Orig BC per turn now its only 4%. In reduction is 20% in this example. I'm not sure whats the base maintenance % was before.

CariElf

on Feb 01, 2008

So when Cari says it's a 1% reduction, I'm guessing she means 1bc, because even with my massive thalan ships last game, very few would have seen any benefit from a 1% decrease.

Maintenance is calculated as a percent of the cost to build the ship. I changed it from 5% to 4%. So I was referring to the actual coefficient in the equation rather than the actual reduction of the maintenance itself when I said that it was lowered by 1%.

Franco fx

on Feb 01, 2008

I changed it from 5% to 4%. So I was referring to the actual coefficient in the equation rather than the actual reduction of the maintenance itself when I said that it was lowered by 1%.

So the reduction is actually 20%

That's nice, thanks

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