- Never Play an Immense Map without 'Em -
Published on September 12, 2008 By ScottTykoski In GalCiv Journals

For the last few months the team has been toiling away on THREE seperate projects...Political Machine 2008, the unannounced fantasy strategy title, and GalCiv 2.0. And for those months we've kept players in the dark about 2.0...mostly because of the frantic, nose-to-the-grindstone pace we've maintained.

But now it's time....time to finally start talking about what will hopefully be the ultimate update to our little GC2 series

For those that don't know, GalCivII 2.0 is the final major update that we'll be producing. More updates are sure to trickle out, but in terms of huge new features being added, this will be our last huzzah Sad, but inevitable.

For this reason, we really wanted to pack it FULL with all the little features that were straightforward enough to keep the game balanced, but interesting/exciting enough to make 2.0 special.

The first of the new added features (and what's turned out to the the most suprisingly time-consuming) is the addition of Planetary Governors.

The necessity of this feature really came late in the testing of Immense galaxies in the Twilight gamma. There were just too many planets to deal with, and even queuing up planet improvements on initial colonization got cumbersome. Looking back, it's a feature that players have requested for a long time, so putting it in was a no-brainer. Also, for everyones future reference, the best way to get a feature added is to get the programmers annoyed by it's obmission

All you do is create a governor type (give it a name and short description) and fill that governors queue. As techs for better improvements are unlocked, the queue will automaticially update. Special tiles are searched for and properly utilized, and terriformed spots are filled as they become available.

The system is slick, and works well as a 'macromanagement' feature opposed to a 'let the AI handle my planet building'.

We hope to have all the new features in the beta (Thursday, September 25th), with a final release on Wedensday, October 8th.

Up Next Monday (Now Tuesday): Another Manager, and a Feature Requested Since Dreadlords 1.0...stay tuned!

 


Comments (Page 1)
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on Sep 12, 2008

Dang, now I have to decide whether starting another immense game between now and then is worthwhile.

on Sep 12, 2008

Any chance we could get some screen shots?

on Sep 12, 2008

Booyah!  I can't wait.   

 

 

on Sep 12, 2008

All right! This is one thing I will use immensely for big games. May even shave some time off my 6 week turnaround for a gigantic or bigger game.

on Sep 12, 2008

Any chance we could get some screen shots?

That shot of the planetary governor queue is most of the feature   the only other UI change is in the 'Planetary Governor' dialog (accessable from the Planet Screen) from where you actually select the governor in use.

I'll have more screenshots as the features are revealed!

on Sep 12, 2008

That shot of the planetary governor queue is most of the feature

 

I was going to ask you what shot, but I loaded up an IE based browser and see it. Seems FF won't show the pic, Maybe an adblock thing i'll have to look

on Sep 13, 2008

DethAdder

That shot of the planetary governor queue is most of the feature
 

I was going to ask you what shot, but I loaded up an IE based browser and see it. Seems FF won't show the pic, Maybe an adblock thing i'll have to look

 

Don't bother.

 

I'm pretty positive it's just due to his use of "\" in the url instead of "/".

 

This should show up in FF/Webkit browsers.

 

on Sep 13, 2008

Thanks Tsed!

on Sep 13, 2008

Hmm maybe i will have to start playing TA alot more than i have been.....Im especially curious about the "feature requested since DL 1.0"

on Sep 13, 2008

Very Sexy. Are you sure your not confusing a patch with a Sins stye mini-expansion?

on Sep 13, 2008

Feature Requested Since Dreadlords 1.0...stay tuned!

 

Don't let the carrier people see this!

 

 

Anyway, I can't wait to see what the new stuff is.  I'm really excited about a new spy system.  Thanks for the time and effort.

on Sep 13, 2008

Are you sure your not confusing a patch with a Sins stye mini-expansion?
We're actually shooting for something that resembles a free mini-expansion rather than your traditional update. I hope we can deliver

Don't let the carrier people see this!
Gah! You're right   Sorry carrier fans, that's not it.

on Sep 13, 2008

Sorry carrier fans, that's not it.

 

LMAO...i can just see a horde of users running for the tissues!!!

on Sep 13, 2008

BoogieBac, will the released version of enable us to create new governors and delete ones we don't want any more?

I see only two in the screenshot, and I can imagine situations where having a few different governor styles would be really handy (e.g. Money Farmer, Bookworm, Breadbasket, & Industrialist vs. just "Production."

on Sep 13, 2008

Will the Planetary Governor allow for setting parameters?  For example, to move farms ahead in the queue if population reaches 5 billion (when max allowed is 6), etc?  Otherwise, we will still have to keep an eye and manually adjust the building queues of each planet.

Also, let's say we do have to manually adjust the queues.  Will this then remove the planet from the Planetary Governor's control, or will it be intelligent enough to realize that an improvement on the list has been completed and just continue with the next building on the agenda?

 

-Jonathan

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