v1.03A now on StarDock

1.03A: April 30

New Features:
+ Morale Tweaked to allow higher populations
+ AI players more likely to surrender when hopeless
+ Generally slightly more money to play around with
+ Easier to trade with the AI, particularly at lower difficulty levels
+ New +7% planet quality ability available
+ AI less likely to trade evil techs to good players and vice versa
+ Sector Influence Tweaked such that growing your civilization from your bases of influence will have more impact.
+ Lightning Shield for Starbase moved down to Dreadnaught tech.
+ AI tweaked to respond to starbase threats more at higher levels, less at lower levels.
+ underlined listbox text (for future hyperlinking features).
+ Ship values tweaked considerably. Significantly more fun we think.

Ship Changes:
* Star Fighter slightly more expensive but now has 3 attack instead of 2 and twice as many hit points.
* Scouts slightly more expensive, have 1 maint point now.
* Avatar MUCH tougher but also more expensive
* Dreadnought more expensive, more to maintain but will also therefore be relatively more powerful.
* Battle Hammer Nerfed
* Ranger much tougher, costs more.

General increased costs because populations will grow larger with this new version which in turn means more tax money.


Defect fixes:

-fixed crash opening submit screen because of techlist string
-fixed stack overflow in treaty screen
-fixed bug where you could start the screens loading from empty save game list
-fixed disappearing resource
-fixed fleet data not updating
-fixed ships not saving home colony (should fix missing bonuses problem)
-Trade Goods, Super Projects, and Wonders won't get overwritten with going to the Details window
-Fixed crash on End screen when clicking on SOCIETY tab
-Fixed crash on Stats Screen with the "Social" Misc. stats window
-Put "Discoveries" on the Research window in List Boxes (previously wouldnt display all the uncovered Techs and such if it ran out of room)

Data Fixes:
-fixed typos reported by SF
-fixed morale anomaly
-fixed sea dome event
-made sure that tech list is scrollable even with "new" listboxes
-fixed trade fed fees
-tech capital now doubles bonus as it says in the description.
-fixed bonus events with weights that are too high
-fixed pods event



1.03 Late night update April 25, 2003
Fixes:
+ Arceans were trying to hijack civilian trade ships to defend their colonies which resulted in eradic trade revenue. Trade ships are civilian controlled, governments (human or computer) are not allowed to control them. Fixed.
+ Crash bug with string parsing fixed (yearly update).


1.03 Update: April 25, 2003
Tweaks:
+ AI trading for money tweaked a bit
+ Arcean AI defends planets better
+ Trade Goods now more valuable for trade

Bug Fixes:
+ Fixed Range Ability Bonus at start
+ Fixed Luck to be +25%
+ Social/Military Production Abilities now work as designed (round off error addressed)
+ Torian AI constructor madness addressed
+ Economics tested (no bug found, trade income can vary from turn to turn. In 1.03, the AI is much better about building starbases that pump up their trade so players are seeing more variance).


1.03 Update: April 24, 2003
Tweaks:
+ Mouse wheel behavior on domestic policy screen changed to be like it was.
+ Political Party selection cleaned up a little bit.

1.03 April 23, 2003
New Features/Tweaks:
+ Universalists and Industrialists added with proper abilities
+ Additional AI enhancements
+ Efficiency Production Bonuses get penalized if they are > 3X the planet quality.
+ Sector Influence is now weighted between the distance of the nearest starbase and the distance of the nearest star.
+ Colonies on planets + Colonies on planets + AI will disband poor quality colonies.
+ AI more aggressive at trading techs for $$$ at higher levels
+ Military resource doesn't increase Hitpoints Ability (it wasn't supposed to in the first place). Just weapons/defense.
+ Arcean AI personality now enabled with the previously disabled "nasty AI" tactics at higher levels.
+ AI chooses political parties better now (will use mods now intelligently)
+ Some performance tweaks for more responsive UI on lower end machines
+ Trade Federation UP issue nerfed - always has a time stamp on it. No eternal federations.
+ New Underlying MP3 engine implemented. This should cure those who were having random crashes related to sound.
+ Some tweaks to ship values.
+ Senate handles more political parties
+ New MP3 player integrated in to work on systems where the MS MP3 codec has gotten creamed.
+ General AI updates
+ Planet Quality Ability nerfed


Bug Fixes:
-Generic governor no longer adds trade goods/wonders/achievements to queue
-fixed a potential crash in yearly planet dialog (wasn't checking for null alien civ pointer)
-Moved the autosave to happen before the AI begins calculating to resolve a crash issue (game crashing during the auto save on some systems).

1,723 views 38 replies
Reply #1 Top
Question to Brad:

Do the data fixes incorporate in v1.03A all of the "do it yourself" posted by Hawaii Five-O at http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=50808 ?
Reply #2 Top
I'd say they do:

Data Fixes:
-fixed morale anomaly
-fixed sea dome event
-fixed trade fed fees
-tech capital now doubles bonus as it says in the description.
-fixed bonus events with weights that are too high
-fixed pods event

I'll go check right now.

~SDC~
Reply #3 Top
Yup, all the right files have a new timestamp, and all the fixes have been made.

Looks real good. Stardock rocks.

~SDC~
Reply #4 Top
My Battlehammers!

I should have finished my in-progress game BEFORE I hit the update button.

Doh!
Reply #5 Top
Excellent H50. Your fixes and Angelina Jolie are the only mods I've installed.


mmmm... Angelina Jolie... roooowr homina homina arooo! hubba hubba ee-ee ee-ee!
Reply #6 Top
thongor: Most if not all.

~SDC~
Reply #7 Top
Frogboy, looks like another great patch since the ships needed to be tweaked a little. I guess the new Star Fighters will allow some early conquests now!
Reply #8 Top
Ack! No kidding on the BH nerf! down to 40 HP from 90.
Reply #9 Top
Could someone point me to just where this patch has been hidden? I've been searching this site and Stardock's and I can't find it anywhere...
Reply #10 Top
Oh, yeah, people better pay attention to this update. Dreadnought maintenance up by 50%, Avatar maintenance up by even more. And expensive to build.
Reply #11 Top
It's not a standalone patch, you have to install it through SDC. I don't know if you have to have "show prerelease software" on or off.
Reply #13 Top
Capital ships are all generally more expensive. Partiuclarly to maintain. The idea is to have fewer units to have to micro manage.

~SDC~
Reply #14 Top
oh, I'm not complaining, just saying people are gonna be trying to figure out what's wrong unless they pay attention :)
Reply #15 Top
Battle Hammers only 40? Ouch! That's been the only thing letting me keep the aggressive AIs at bay in early to midgame transition. Just when I think I have a strategy that mostly works, it all goes kaboom, thanks, I think ;)

On the whole, though, looks very good. Should have my current game finished before I go to bed, then off to patch it and see how the new toys play.
Reply #16 Top
I think people will find this version much more fun overall.

Just general things that we did here:

1) There will just generally be more money floating around to spend on stuff.

2) There will be fewer ships generally to deal with because the bigger ones are expensive. So you'll be able to get as much out of 2 dreadnoughts as you would have gotten out of a half dozen before.

3) The AI is much more intelligent about knowing when it's cause is hopeless and will surrender more readily.

4) Influence in sectors is more realistic -- i.e. the sectors surrounding a sector have more impact on that sector's influence than previously.

5) But the AI is also more sensitive at higher levels to star base culture attacks. Will require more strategy to get away with.

6) Planet Quality Bonus of +7% is in the game. High enough so that class 15 planets and up get a point but not high enough to turn class 13 and 14 planets into good planets right off the bat.

7) AI trading much MUCH more interesting. Cold hard cash is worth a lot more than before. SOmething to think about btw if you consider that money for tech works both ways.

8) Populations get much bigger. Morale more interesting in that it's not that hard to keep up but if you neglect it, it can come back to bite you.

We play tested this build a lot, we had a lot of fun with some of the changes. Particularly with there being fewer ships.

~SDC~
Reply #17 Top
Does this mean it's okay to resubmit the 1.03 games that used to be incorrectly classified as anamolous? Load them in 1.03A, play the last turn, and send it in?
Reply #18 Top
TJL1 beat me to it, Frogboy... remember that "anomalous" saved game you had me send you over the weekend? Can I finish it up under the new update and resubmit without a problem?
Reply #19 Top
Ditto on the question about the "Anomalous" games. I just got bit by one myself that ended up as 0 points on the Metaverse instead of the 9000+ that it showed in game. :(

Either way, the patch looks great; can't wait to try it out!
Reply #20 Top
"-fixed ships not saving home colony (should fix missing bonuses problem)"

Yes! We can start building shipyards now...
:CONGRAT:
Reply #21 Top
Farewell, Battlehammers!
From this update on, you are useless with your 40 hitpoints. The Drengins will have a fine partytime on my planets.
You will be remembered!
Reply #22 Top
I'm at work at the moment, but can someone put the exact stats of the new Battlehammer and the Battleaxe up. That should make for a good comparison as I do fear quite a bit the the Battlehammer IS useless now as it looks like the Battleaxe is the better ship for nearly every aspect now, except for attack rating.
Reply #24 Top
I'm told its possible to play around with the file to adjust HP. I'd kind of like to see the battle hammer being a pure defensive ship, give it back its 90 HP but lower its attack rating to 1. After that minor adjustment I'm looking forward to playing with shipyards :D.
Reply #25 Top
Battlehammer:
- Lower attack rating, perhaps the same as a Battleaxe or just one higher.
- Higher defence rating than Battleaxe. It's higher up the techtree, so it must be better than the ship it is supposed to replace.
- Hitpoints right above those of the Battleaxe. Not much just a bit.
- Higher maintenance costs than the Battleaxe.

That should stop people 'abusing' the ship as a major attackship. Lowering the attackrate and upping the defence would make the most sense IMHO.