1.04 beta observations

from Stardock Forums
Finished a game with 1.04 beta, genius AI, gigantic galaxy (hasn't posted to the metaverse yet - it seems to be down again. But last time my score eventually showed up, so I assume it will this time too).

Couple of observations

- The "buying items" fix seems to work, in that you can rush buy something, switch to another project and still get the item. The UI is confusing, because it switches to the other project right away and you don't get confirmation in the next turn's GNN report.

- Couldn't really evaluate the new military strength function, as the Dregnin had an unbelievably good starting position and were, like, 8x everyone else's mil strength for the whole game. Building anti-matter missiles didn't seem to help my mil ranking as much in previous games.

- One CTD, late in the game during a turn update. Couldn't reproduce after reloading from save.

- The missing ship graphic bug is still there. If you play an entire game without quitting, some later ship (usually avatar, this game was range) graphics will be blank for both player and AI. Saving, quitting, reloading will load the missing graphics. This has been in every version since 1.0, as far as I can tell.

- Don't know if this is a new feature or not, but I had a strange experience with fleet defense. Late in the game the Dregnin attacked. I had a fleet of 31 starfighters near a starbase, and I figured they'd get slaughtered by the first attack. To my surprise, they withstood attacks by 6 dreads + 2 avatars. I'm quite sure that a dread attacking 31 fighters one at a time would beat them all, probably without taking much damage. Is there some fleet defence bonus I don't know about?

Otherwise it seemed stable, playable and balanced.
1,212 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
A quite a bit harder than before :) I've had two starts which in 1.02 definitely would have been wins but now instead turned into wars of attrition that I think I will not be able to win. Nice to see the AI get even LOL
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I have quite a number of experiences with this "fleet defense bonus" before but not to the extreme of SFs defeating dreads and avatars.

I've had corvettes successfully defend against dreads and dreads against an excalibur which were not the results I had expected to see in straight fights.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
The more I think of it, the more I think it is a bug as SFs with their low attack would never have been able to penetrate the dreads/avatars high defense. Same probably goes with corvettes and dreads.

Drank, was your starbase fitted out with military modules?
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
No military or defense mods on the starbase; it was just a morale base that I happened to have some starfighters near.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I did not experience any problems with the "buying items" feature. It confused me the first time, but that was only because I thought I accidentally cx'd it after buying it. But, for me at least, it *did* show up on the next months GNN report, so I knew all was okay.

I also found the AI to be much more difficult to play against...so much so that at first I thought the release was broken somehow... ;)

I did encounter one repeatable CTD to desktop that always happened after all my ships auto-moved for the turn...but I just restored the other AutoSave, and the problem did reoccur. :)

Otherwise, no problems! :D
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
The military graph in the beta seems much more representative but I'm not convinced the AIs are actually using it. Although I was only fractionally behind some other AIs they were still trying to bully me around as though I was a 90lb weakling. Plus, they still make illegal demands of my treasury which needs to be fixed because it blows chunks in early game strategy.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

"You will immediately surrender the Sol system and give us 9000 credits." - Drengin

"Um, I got three systems and we're like 25 turns into the game ya dummy's."

The great part is that the other AIs seem to give in, that's the only explanation I can figure out for the Drengin having 100 times the military might of everybody already.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Umm, I'm curious how you got the 1.04 beta. I've toggled the switch in stardock to present me with the option to DL betas but I don't see it as an available download. I'd like to also test out this upcoming release so any pointers in the right direction would be appriciated.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
As it was kindly pointed out to me, and as it is said in the "getting galciv betas" sticky, you need a subscription to Drengin.net to get them. When the beta flag is removed, everyone can get them through SDC.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Sloejack, try reading the sticky threads.

Only Drengin.net subscribers have access to beta versions. If all you have is a GalCiv sub, no betas will be available.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Hey guys... Before we ping slowjack more, maybe he is having difficulty finding this sticky thread, which would be tough if like me he expects it to be at the top of the forum's messages. It might have been there once, but it isn't as of this writing.

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
My thoughts on the 1.04 beta patch are very positive. No crashes (still playing my gigantic, intelligent game) and I'm having great fun. At first I thought it was too easy to keep up relations with other civs, but the Torians and the Yor have proved me wrong :)

The Yor are getting to greedy again as they are up against all the other races and they are losing their advantage... hehehe! The Humans are rising to the occasion!!! :evil grin:

One note on the 'cheese tactic' that was pointed out earlier. I attacked the Fundamentalists so the average Torians declare war on me, because the Fundamentalists are their friends. I offer peace, they accept and I squeeze a LOT of money out of them. Two turns later they declare war again, I ask for peace and get loads of money again. I think this could have gone on and on. So there's an easy way to get rich. To keep the fun in the game I decided to offer peace to the Fundamentalists (gaining another amount of money) to get the Torians to fight the Yor instead of me, but I think this makes a good one for a patch.

~SDC~
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
I love the "fast access" to changing planet builds - the slideout display. - Suprised no one else mentioned this. It is new in this beta, isn't it?

~SDC~
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Ralegh,
The feature you describe, the quick access to the planetary build queues, has been around for a while.

I don't remember exactly when it appeared it was either something that the bonus pack added or it came into being just before the game went "gold".
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, the fast access has been around for a long time - I remember seeing it in the pictures of the game even before I bought it - there's a screenshot in one of the gameplay examples from Brad in the encyclopedia. . .
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
The old Declare War/Demand Peace strategy is present in many games, and seems to have always been in GalCiv - and it really is a problem.

Basically over 5 turns, before destroying a civ, you can get them to basically hand over all their trade goods, techs, money, and (if desired) their influence. Just attack, get peace, wait a turn, then do it again till you've got just about everything they have.

I think Civ3 fixed this problem with the "Cease Fire" length of time. If you went to peace with a civ and then declared war again within 20 turns your relationships with all other empires decreased substantially, as you obviously cannot be trusted.

That and doing it to an empire should make them exponentially unwilling to give you anything in exchange for peace, as it is obvious you are just going to kill anyway or eventually - better to surrender to another empire, they should think.
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Supposedly the AI in GalCiv is wise to this, so that while you can do it it will affect relations and how all civs deal with you. At least I seem to recall Brad talking about this in a post...
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
That is correct. I employed that tactic and got away with it a few times. Now bear in mind, this will vary depending on the level. In fact, when I tried it the third time, the computer came out and said something to the effect that "you maybe a powerful race, but we will not make peace only so that you can load your guns and attack again". Sure enough, they got to the point to where not a thing in the world would appease them and they fought to the bitter end.

SeanB
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
That is correct. I employed that tactic and got away with it a few times. Now bear in mind, this will vary depending on the level. In fact, when I tried it the third time, the computer came out and said something to the effect that "you maybe a powerful race, but we will not make peace only so that you can load your guns and attack again". Sure enough, they got to the point to where not a thing in the world would appease them and they fought to the bitter end.

SeanB
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not testing 1.04 but I had to jump in. One other problem with the Declare War/Demand Peace routine is this. I was at war with three civilizations and bought off two of them, paying a very high price. The very next turn they said because I was at war with their ally, they had to go to war with me. I think these problems can be solved by offering different time frames for the deals, 1, 5 and 10 years.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
In 1.03A57, I did manage to get the Altarians to give me all their money -- for fifty turns; worse, it mostly was money that I'd given them several turns before ;) and not something their economy could readily replace -- but I chalked it up to it only being Normal-difficulty AI. It basically took them out of the game (e.g. when it's literally at -50,000 BC there's not a lot it can do.)

No matter how much the gap between AI and moi, that probably was a bad deal for it to take. If they'd surrendered themselves, at least their people would be both defended and gainfully employed as part of the biggest power in the game instead of being hopelessly broke for years.