Galactic Civilizations III News

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We are putting the final touches on Galactic Civilizations III v3.7.

When we first announced the Retribution expansion pack (which if you don't have, we highly recommend you get) there were fans who really wanted to emphasize that there were a lot of quality of life features they wanted in the game (UI and gameplay balancing).

Version 3.7 is the first of a series of updates that really focuses on these elements.

Here are a few of the things we're focusing on here:

• Better late game AI. We are pretty happy with the AI in GalCiv III at this stage. But the late game AI sometimes struggles with its planets late game. As the # of choices for improving colonies increases, the harder the time the AI has between deciding when to "wait" to build something versus building something, destroying it and replacing it with something else. This isn't an exciting improvement and won't be noticed by most but we hope you guys can appreciate the necessity of improving this area.
  
• For Retribution players, we intentionally wiped out a lot of technologies that we felt were either too beneficial to a given race given their other advantages (synthetic races) or removed because they were just kind of speed bumps. We are slowly going through the techs and will be adding some back with some changes as we get more feedback from the community.
  
• The Synthetics got excessively nerfed in recent updates and we're backtracking on some of that. Robots are still pretty powerful but we probably went too far in removing some of their colonization abilities. This has been restored.
  

After 3.7, we're moving straight on to v3.8 and this version is very much about UX. This benefits both existing players and new players. For new players, it makes the game more approachable. For existing players, it just makes it easier to manage your empire.

Welcoming back Sarah. So some of you long-time GalCiv players know our senior developer Sarah. She was out on leave for awhile and one of the big reasons we're making so much rapid progress is she's back. Some of you may also know her from Ashes of the Singularity where she developed the strategic zoom display for that game (designed and programmed).

So please give Sarah a big Welcome back hello! :)

Cheers!

-brad

Galactic Civilizations III v3.6 Community Update improves custom ship mod compatibility, adjusts commonwealth worlds, and more

We're launching a version update today that addresses the most important feedback we get: YOURS. We've addressed several community reported issues in our continuing effort to bring you the best GalCiv game possible. We put balance and bug fix work into both the base game and the Retribution expansion with this update. Some of the biggest changes we made include:

• Merging fleets no longer renames them
  
• Custom ships work better with mods
  
• Artificial life forms can no longer build farms because robots don't eat food
  
• Your commonwealth worlds can no longer flip worlds in your empire (because that was treason!)
  

See the huge changelog below!




Don't have Galactic Civilizations III?
Buy from Steam | Buy from Stardock

Owners, the v3.6 update is ready and waiting for you in your Steam client.
Don't forget to pick up the newly released Retribution expansion today!

www.galciv3.com | www.galciv3.com/retribution




Gameplay

• Nerfed "Lossless Life Support" module
  
• Fixed typos in "Lossless Mining" module descriptions
  
• Updated Tourism bonus for the "Popular Race" trait to be flat 1 and 2% instead of multipliers of 10 and 20%
  
• Updated united planet tourism board to be flat with a 10% bonus (was multiplier of 100% which was crazy)
  
• Colonizing the Promethion Refinery precursor world now grants 5 Promethion
  
• Set "Virtual Vacation" to be a player wonder
  
• Changed "Influence Per Turn" from multiplier to flat on the Galactic Showcase
  
• Fixed mismatch of description and text in the "Antimatter Weapon Colonizing" event
  
• Tweaked pathfinding so that it doesn't attempt to find a path to the node closest to a blocked destination if the start tile is already the closest node
  
• Silicon-based life can terraform and colonize high level extreme worlds
  
• Removed farms for Synthetic lifeforms and enabled terraforming improvements and high end extreme world techs
  
• Fixed "Orphaned Improvements" and techs in the Retribution tech tree
  
• Fixed issue with Iridium tech tree failing on "Tariff Focus" specialization
  

UI

• Changed it so that when you merge a fleet, it will keep a custom name for the resulting fleet. If both fleets being merged have custom names, it keeps the fleet name of the bigger fleet.
  
• Adjusted "Economic Warning" flavor text to fit with new conversation popup font size.
  
• Fixed typo in "Precursor Research Node" description.
  
• Improved the text alignment on the UP Resolutions window
  

Bugs

• Fixed custom ship style sets having the wrong strategic icons. Players will have to re-save their ship style sets (and change the effect ships classes to what they want along with their text, since that is info that is saved off). Prevents players from having to remake the ship style sets and only deal with what was changed
  
• You can no longer assign commanders to planets
  
• Ships with "one per player" components can upgrade to ships with the same components
  
• Cleaned up code that clears/applies rebellion status to prevent edge cases where planets can flip when they shouldn't (like when the tile is owned by a commonwealth of the planet owner)
  
• Addressed a MP crash related to mismatched DLC
  
• Fixed mismatched strategic icons on some ship classes
  
• Fixed typos in "Plasma Arc" event
  

Mod fixes

• Ships created with mods now show up correctly
  
• Prevents crash if a tech unlocks more than 12 things at once (modders -- you know who you are!)
  

Retribution

• Fixed issue where Hypergates didn't fire any shots during battle because they didn't have range
  
• Changed the Hyperlane tool tip to account for the minimum move cost, so it will now show the max bonus as 900% instead of +-100%
  
• Removed extra space in the Korath faction description
  
• Added "lossless life support" back into the Retribution tech tree
  
• Updated Thalan conversation text to reflect that they bring in multiple ships now in mission 4
  
• Add basic Block Hulls to Korath Ship style
  

Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution Expansion, all new content for Galactic Civilizations III is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off!*

What started as a crusade has become a war of retribution. Your civilization has uncovered powerful artifacts, discovered how to construct hypergates, encountered two new major civilizations, and much more in this exciting expansion to the award-winning space 4X game.


*Offer ends February 28 at 10AM Pacific Time

Check out the release trailer here:
Save 10%* on Retribution and 70%** on the Base Game!



Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution adds Hypergates, Precursor Artifacts, new major civilizations, and much more.

Across the galaxy, you and your rivals are discovering ancient alien artifacts that grant powerful new capabilities. Meanwhile, as civilizations try to carefully balance building an economy, funding an ever growing war machine, and engaging in diplomacy, the humans of Sol III have invented a game-changing new technology - Hypergates - which, when connected, allow for rapid transit across the galaxy.



With two new major civilizations and the concluding campaign to the Galactic Civilizations III backstory that serves this massive space 4X sandbox game, Retribution asks the question: How will you rule your galaxy?





The new features in Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution include:

• Artifacts - Powerful items buried on planets across the galaxy will give your civilization instant-access to new abilities.
  
• Hypergates - Construct powerful gateways that, when linked, allow your fleets to travel rapidly across hyperspace.
  
• Major Civilizations: Drath and Korath - The manipulative Drath pull the strings across the galaxy while the Korath rely on extermination. Each has its own set of special abilities, bonuses, and ship parts.
  
• Supply Ships - Supply ships can be constructed to deliver goods and services to your other planets to aid in their development.
  
• New Technology Tree - A top to bottom overhaul of the technology tree adds depth and sharpens the strategic choices in your research options.
  
• Retribution Campaign -The malevolent Drengin Empire made a terrible mistake underestimating humanity’s strength, and the climactic battle that will follow may end in their extinction.
  

*Sale ends 2/27/19 at 1PM EST. Steam and Galactic Civilizations III is required to play this expansion.
**Sale ends 2/23/19 at 1PM EST on Steam and 2/27/19 at 1PM EST direct from Stardock. Steam required to play.