Development Update: 17 January 2019

Greetings, interstellar tyrants!

Today's patch has been a long time in the making: it includes extensive changes to the AI and diplomacy system, difficulty level balance, and adds an oft-requested Victory screen, complete with a stat graphs display. As always, your feedback and suggestions are important to us, so keep them coming!


Upon achieving one of the victory conditions (Conquest, Diplomatic or Allied Victory), a Victory pane will become visible in the Diplomacy menu. This includes options to view a Graphs screen (with selectable displays to compare Population, Military Strength, Scientific Progress, Metal Production, Available Labor, Total Income, and Science Production), exit to main menu, or to continue playing. If the player chooses to continue playing, no further victory conditions will trigger.

The Graphs screen can also be accessed during a game (with display subject to faction visibility) by selecting the Intelligence Briefing option in the Diplomacy screen (or by hitting Ctrl-G). (Note that in games saved prior to the patch, graph data will be missing for pre-patch turns.)




The artificial intelligence (AI) for the computer-controlled opponent factions has been substantially reworked. We have added a variety of new behaviors and diplomatic events. In particular, AI factions have more context-sensitive behavior regarding its friends and enemies; it can now more capably offer or request help from an ally, and it is more likely to take offense when one is friendly to its enemies. Since the AI opponents now play more effectively, we have also extensively tweaked the balance of the various difficulty levels, removing some bonuses that the AI received on "Normal" difficulty setting, and giving the player some extra bonuses on the "Easy" setting. Even so, players may find difficulty levels above "Easy" noticeably harder than prior to the patch.



Gameplay Changes and Additions

• Changed balance and AI advantages on Normal, Hard, and Brutal settings. Players may find games on settings above "Easy" to be noticeably harder.
  
• The AI no longer receives resource bonuses on 'Normal' difficulty mode.
  
• The player now receives resource bonuses on 'Easy' modes.
  
• Torpedoes can now be placed in heavy hardpoints.
  
• Orthin and Gremak can now research Heavy Missiles.
  
• Strike fighters will now attack starships using beam weapons if their beam weapons are more powerful than their missiles.
  
• Significantly reduced the range of anti-missiles.
  
• Reduced marauder ship spawn rates.
  
• Reduced the strength of Marauder fleets.
  
• It is now possible to deploy outposts around planets you already control.
  
• Added several new diplomatic issues.
  
• Added the 'Expansion Request' event.
  
• Added the 'Trade War' event.
  
• Added the 'International Incident' event.
  
• Added the 'Wreckage Analyzed' event.
  
• Added the 'Technology Captured' event.
  
• Reduced the research cost of 'Defense Grid'.
  
• Increased many agreement influence costs.
  
• Increased upkeep costs for mid/late game ship hulls.
  
• Phidi no longer start without the 'Military Doctrine' technology.
  
• Changed the hiring cost formula of mercenaries; in most cases this is an increase.
  
• Decreased the spawn rates of mercenaries.
  
• Increased the cost of the 'Artificial Organisms' tech.
  
• Increased mid/late game strategic fleet speeds.
  
• Upgrading tanks no longer increases their build or upkeep costs.
  
• Increased the number of stars in 'small', 'normal', and 'huge' maps.
  
• Citizens from allied factions will now sometimes offer to join your empire.
  
• Allying with an alien faction now removes the "Alien Rulers" morale effect from colonists of their race in your empire.
  
• Increased the research cost of 'Battle Mechs'.
  
• Galactic council votes can now influence reputation.
  
• 'Graviton Physics' and 'Advanced Field Theory' now grant increased tactical speed.
  
• Increased mid/late game science boosts from experimenting on slaves.
  
• Reduced the number of technologies offered by the Herald.
  
• Updated mechanics for ancient data archives.
  
• Tinkers AIs should now make use of Asteroid Outposts.
  
• Changes to the random number generator used in planetary bombardment / invasions to improve the accuracy of the predicted outcome display.
  
• 'Artificial Sentience' now provides +15 science on all worlds instead of +1 improvement slot.
  
• 'Adaptive Energy Grid' now provides +10 labor on all worlds instead of +1 improvement slot.
  
• 'Social Engineering' now unlocks a varying number of improvement slots depending on planet size.
  

AI Changes and Additions

• Various tweaks to the Strategic AI. (Thanks to Harpy Eagle for his contributions.)
  
• The AI's ship building strategies should now reflect its research strategies, and vice versa.
  
• A variety of fixes and improvements in the AI's economic logic.
  
• A variety of fixes and improvements in the tactical combat AI.
  
• Significant changes to AI behaviors around starting and stopping wars.
  
• The AI should now be less likely to spam colony ships.
  
• Adjustments to the AI's handling of planet production changes.
  
• The AI should now pursue more varied research paths.
  
• The AI should now sometimes transfer population units between planets.
  
• AI's will now be more likely to cooperate with allies.
  
• AI's should now wait at least 15 turns between making peace and restarting a war.
  
• AI's may now demand that you stop trading with their enemies.
  
• AI's may now demand that you release their people from slavery.
  
• AI's may now issue ultimatums before starting a war.
  
• AI's may now insist that your fleets stay outside their territory.
  
• AI's may now request to start joint wars against third parties.
  
• AI's may now demand that you return control of colonies they have a historical claim to.
  
• AI's may now object if you establish colonies/outposts in their territory.
  
• AI's may demand control of splinter colonies founded by members of their own species.
  
• AI's may offer gifts to friendly players.
  
• Allies should now better cooperate when routing defensive fleets.
  
• Tweaks to the logic governing AI tactical retreats.
  
• Changes to the AIs "sue for peace" logic.
  
• Changes to peace concessions.
  
• Changes to formula used in resource request events.
  

UI Changes and Additions

• Added a Victory screen that includes a Graphs screen.
  
• Added an "Intelligence Briefing" option to the diplomacy screen which will display Graphs for known factions (hotkey Ctrl-G).
  
• Added a Credits pane to the Main Menu.
  
• Added various faction-specific weapon art assets.
  
• Updated the layout scheme for population icons in the planet information screen.
  
• Added a 'Max Pop' option to the list of sorting criteria in the Planetary Report
  

Fixes

• Fix for a low level bug in the AI task dispatching logic.
  
• Added debugger hooks for VS Code.
  
• Fix for a bug involving intercepted AI transport fleets.
  
• Fix for a bug involving AI City Planning.
  
• Fix for a bug in the city planning food consumption logic.
  
• Fix for a bug caused by absorbing an empire that contained outposts.
  
• Fix for a star shader glitch affecting many cards using newer AMD drivers.
  
• Attempted workaround for a bug affecting ship designer part placement.
  
• Fix for a bug in the AIs handling of captured ships.
  
• Fix for a bug in the war/peace logic.
  
• Fix for a bug in the AI improvement selection logic.
  
• Fix for a bug caused by reverse engineering captured Tinker technologies.
  
• Fix for a bug involving ignored ship capture reports.
  
• Transferring control of planets will now also transfer control of all orbiting stations.
  
• Tinkers should no longer request food aid.
  
• Fix for a bug caused when one AI empire absorbs another.
  
• Fix for a bug in the "empire eliminated" report.
  
• Transfers of planetary ownership should no longer leave invalid "encounter" reports on the starmap.
  
• Fix for a bug caused when transports arrive at a planet that has changed allegiance.
  
• Annexing a planet will now reduce its planetary defense level to match what is permitted by your technology.
  

(Click here to view the complete development changelogs, and here to view the development roadmap post.)

We hope you enjoy these changes. Until next time: good luck, Emperor!