The big GalCiv III v2.5 update went out. Most people like it. Not everyone of course (it breaks save games). If you're liking it, you know the drill "Like and Subscribe" as they say on YouTube or in Steam's case, please leave a review. Even if you've left a review in the past, you can delete your old one and leave a new one which will have the "Recent reviews" which matters a lot (a lot more than it should imo but hopefully Valve will update their algorithms in light of recent review abuse on Dota2 and other games).

Anyway...

Playing with the look and feel



I changed the nebula background brightness so that other things pop a bit more. I also made the fog of war much darker. You can change the numbers in colordefs.xml and galciv3graphicsdefs.xml and starboxdefs.xml if you want to play with these things for yourself.

A citizen for you

In the next update, Crusade owners will get a free citizen. This way, at the start of the game, they can make some tweaks to their economy.

This also goes for various technologies. For example, research Diplomacy and you now get a Diplomat. This should make cultural influence victories a bit more realistic again (in 2.5, the AI got a lot smarter about detecting aggressive influence star bases).

More Trade

We're slightly decreasing the amount of money from trade routes but substantially increasing the number of trade routes you can have. This makes trading empires a lot more interesting.

Balance

It's no secret that I play GalCiv III a lot. Since joining the GalCiv III team back last Winter I've put over 1600 hours into the game -- and that's just STEAM hours (my programming hours don't get counted).

And each time I play I find something to improve.

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb

Many of the colonization events are getting a slight rework whereby the "evil" choice is somewhat more profitable than before. Also, the Malevolent ideology tree in Crusade is being tweaked to give a general bonus in negotiations rather than focusing on minors.

Today's notes:

Increased number of trade licenses that techs provide

Tiny hull cost increased from 20 to 25

Tiny hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Tiny hull acceleration increased from 0.2 to 0.3

Tiny hull max speed increased from 0.2 to 0.3

Small hull cost increased from 30 to 40

Small hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Medium hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Large hull cost increased from 150 to 250

Large hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Huge hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Huge hull logistics cost increased from 12 to 15

Starbase maint increased from 1 to 3

Trade Route income reduced from 5% of planet income to 3%.

Snathi get 4 instead of 3 trade route licenses with Xeno Commerce in order for Stardock to survive their inevitable culling of Earth.

More typo fixes.

Bureaucrats get 10 instead of 25 bonus administrative points. (Crusade)

New Improvement: Diplomatic Corps. Lets player train Diplomats. (Crusade)

Players now start out with a leader. (Crusade)

Rework to various colonization events to give the evil choice more goodies because evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Awe trait now provides benefit to all civs rather than just minors since you don't trade with Minors in Crusade

Interstellar governance now provides a leader upon researching (crusade)

Republic government now provides a ldeader upon researching (crusade)

Democracy tech now provides a leader upon researching (crusade)

Star Federation tech now provides a leader upon research (crusade)

Various high end diplomacy techs now provide a diplomat (crusade)

Cultural Influence tech now provides a celebrity (crusade)

Xeno Economics now provides an Entrepreneur upon researching (crusade)

Ephany now costs 2 instead of 1 Spice

Central Bank provides 1 wealth instead of 100% wealth (was a bug)

Central bank provides 1 wealth per level

Starports now cost 1 maint

Xeno Farms now provide 0.5 food per level instead of only 0.3 (along with all the upgrades) (crusade)

Various recruit projects on planets cost less but now require a special resource. (crusade)

You can now recruit celebrities but you cannot yet eject them into space (patience). )crusade)

Treasure Hunt mission is now available at start of the game. (crusade)

Prototype hyperdrive base cost increqased from 8 to 50 (duh) (Crusade)

Beam weapons use slightly more mass (crusade)

Plasma weapon cost increased from 60 to 70 (crusade)

Phased cannon cost increased from 70 to 90 (crusade)

Rapid recharger mass dramatically reduced but cost increased from 12 to 32 (crusade)

Energy Accelerator mass greatly reduced but cost increased from 23 to 50 (crusade)

Shield leach... (crusade)

Harpoon cost reduced from 80 to 60 (crusade)

Photonic warhead cost reduced from 150 to 90 (crusade)

Triton missile cost reduced from 250 to 120 (crusade)

Photon Torps reduced from 300 to 120 (crusade)

Kinetic weapon mass substantially reduced across the board (crusade)

Kinetic weapons damage slightly increased (crusade)

Quantum Driver cost reduced from 120 to 90 (crusade)

Singularity driver reduced from 140 to 90 cost (crusade)

Rapid reload and other special modules have their cost increased but their mass decreased. Idea is that special modules should be used by wealthy civs. (crusade)

More to come...