It’s not that it is a class 20 planet – it only started as a class 14 and I’ve upgraded it since. It is that it had 6 fertile tiles with 5 of them ready to have something amazing placed in the middle. In this case, Kimberly’s Refuge. Combined with the planet being a fertile world the result is that this one planet produces 34 food.

Of course, having the time to build this up required relative peace to be the norm which is the subject of this dev journal.

One of the most common questions we get is how do you keep everyone from going to war with you? Can you play the game without having to build up a huge military. The answer is, yes and…maybe.

I’m playing as a benevolent civilization. This means my polar opposite civilizations (malevolent) will be inclined to go to war with me. If I were playing as pragmatic, they would also not like me but they are somewhat less likely to pull the trigger on going to war with a pragmatic civilization versus one that is their opposite.

So what’s the key to getting them to leave me alone?




Here is the Drengin. The biggest two things helping me with them are the fact we’re trading with them and they are relatively far away.

When I play as a peaceful civ, I am careful to trade as much as I can. You do take a hit due to trading with their enemies but it’s still a big benefit.

Trade helps in so many other areas too. For example, the more you trade, the less easy of a target you are since they really want your money.



Make sure you are setting up treaties with them.



You can give tribute to civilizations (give them money) which will make them happy.

If a bear is chasing after you and your friends, you only need to be faster than the slowest friend. You don’t need a big military to keep from being attacked. But if you are absolutely defenseless then you are inviting conquest.



If you have trained any diplomats, you can use them on the powerful civilizations that you want to leave you alone. You don’t need them to love you, you just need them to hate someone else more.

There are certain planetary improvements and technologies that give your civilization more diplomatic points. Your increased skills will cause other civilizations to like you more.

A lot of players will try to keep an eye on what other civilizations are doing by building starbases and sensor ships. But these can sometimes cause other civilizations to consider them trespassers. But freighters don’t have that issue.

Instead, design freighters that have great sensor ranges. Make sure you get an open borders treaty with them.



Hopefully these tips will help you maintain a galactic peace…or at least long enough to either ascend or get a diplomatic victory!

We are happy to release a patch that improves planet visuals, improves gameplay, and fixes bugs. Read below for details.


Planets

• The planetary map generation system now prefers placing tiles near the equator. The result is fewer, isolated tiles near the poles. Change does not affect the total number of tiles placed.
  
• Improvements to the planetary material system that allows for greater detail and color.
  
• Continent shorelines blend better with the water.
  
• City lights on the dark side of some planets (e.g. earth) get will get to max bright brightness when the population is 15 (was 30).
  
• Jupiter has been told to "stay in its lane" and use its own gradient colors instead of Mars'

Gameplay

• Players start with a shipyard. This has been added back because there is now sufficiently tight starting choices that we feel that holding back the shipyard simply creates an unnecessary repetitive starting condition
  
• Retribution: New starting improvement: Industrial Center (one per player). Good way to boost initial manufacturing
  
• Fixed a bug where the AI would sometimes delete a rally point if it found an object in it (as in, its own fleet!).
  
• AI combat ships are more willing to travel through dangerous territory to defend threatened planets.
  
• AI will ignore reinforcing planets that are already defended and not under threat.
  
• AI will focus on its primary enemy more so when targeting ships to attack.

Bugs

• Fixed a trade exploit with Hypergates.
  
• Fixed a problem with colonization events that aren't imagined yet.
  
• Updated the Planet window so the Build Queue buttons don't break out of their frame in Normal UI scale

We have analyzing gameplay data we receive as well as looking at saved games from players (thanks to all who send them) and incorporating improvements into what is currently versioned at v3.96.

Among the changes are:

• Players will start with a Shipyard already constructed.
  
• A new planetary improvement, Industrial Center (only buildable once) will start for players who have Retribution.
  
• Major visual polish pass on the planets. The planets we had were...ok in 2015 but really needed a refresh.
  
• Support for new planetary traits for modders
  
• Some tweaks to resource placement to make them more spread out and accessible

The shipyard being available on turn-1 should help new players and allow the game to "get moving" quicker. We decided to do this due to the recent updates that have made your home planets (especially for Retribution players) have a lot more interesting choices and we didn't feel the shipyard really needed to be one of those choices anymore.

While such a minor change in versioning doesn't imply a major change, the visual update will be pretty apparent immediately.

For users who really like having strange planet types, we are also going to soon be announcing a new DLC (which is how we pay for the continued development of the game) that adds a bunch of new planet types.

We are pleased to let you know about the exciting changes in v3.95 of Galactic Civilizations III.

This is a big one so stand back!

• New game option: On Surrender, transfer all planets. Defaults to OFF
  
• New game option: No FOW in your territory. Defaults to ON
  
• "Ascension Victory" no longers requires you to control a majority of the crystals.
  
• Common and Abundant asteroid frequency increased.
  
• When a planet gets colonized or a shipyard gets made and it sees if there is a shipyard nearby that would be in the green zone (no penalty), planet automatically becomes a sponsor.
  
• Eliminated the map size limitations on map sizes as long as you have at least 8GB of memory.
  
• "Nanite Transmitter" now has limited uses.
  
• "Nano Fabricator" now gives 100 manufacturing overflow.
  
• "Nano Fabricator" now gives a +10% Max Manufacturing bonus to the planet.
  
• Dodge value on high-end thrusters reduced by 3%.
  
• Tactical battle maximum final dodge increased from 10% to 20% (i.e. a ship always has a 20% chance to hit you).
  
• Base relationship penalty for approaching ascension is -2 instead of -1
  
• Ascension close to victory threshold lowered from 66% to 50% as there tends to be a feedback loop on accumulating points.
  
• Space Rockets moved from default to Militaration tech
  
• Retribution: Civilization capital max population increased from 8 to 10
  
• Race Trait changes
  
  • Base Game:
    
    • Reduced the effect of the "Popular" race trait
  • Crusade and up
    
    • Research techs for Drengin no longer have maint cost.
  • All:
    
    • Port of call is one per player instead of one per planet to align with Retribution balance
      
    • Productive1 trait now provides 20% instead of 10% social production boost
      
    • Production2 trait now provides 10% instead of 5%
      
    • Clever1 now provides 15% research boost instead of 10%
      
    • Influential1 trait now does 40% influence boost instead of 15%
      
    • Influential2 trait now does 15% influence boost instead of 10%
      
    • Economical1 now provides 15% gross income boost instead of 10%
      
    • Handy1 now reduces Colony Maintenace by 50% instead of 20%
      
    • Handy2 now reduces Colony Maintenace by 30% instead of 15%
      
    • Popular1 tourism per planet boost reduced from 2% to 0.4% (it's still pretty huge)
      
    • Popular2 tourism boost reduced from 1% to 0.2%
      
    • Traders1 trade boost increased from 20% to 40%
      
    • Traders2 trade boost increased from 10% to 15%
      
    • Brutal1 increases soldiering from 20% to 50% now
      
    • Brutal2 increases soldiering from 10% to 30%
      
    • Courageous1 trait now boosts resistance from 20% to 50%
      
    • Courageous2 trait boosted from 10% to 30%
      
    • SharpEyed1 increases ship accuracy from 20% to 30%
      
    • Sharpeyed2 increases ship accuracy from 10% to 20%
      
    • Agile1 increases jamming (dodge) from 20% to 30%
      
    • Agile2 increases jamming (doge) from 10% to 20%
      
    • Observant1 increases sensors from 25% to 50%
      
    • Observant2 increases sensor range from 15% to 30%

• Moved the "planet build queue" over to give the improvement list more room.
  
• Moved "Word on the Street" window to the Govern screen.
  
• Tourism on a planet displays decimals if it falls below 1%.
  
• The game now provides feedback when you can't select a tech because of an "Age" restriction

• Fixed a rare bug that prevented planets and ships from spawning in the campaigns
  
• Fixed typos. Hat tip our discord fans for their help
  
• Ambient music no longer plays during the victory movie.

New Alien Civilizations bring their own ship styles, unique race traits, diplomatic quirks, AI personalities, and more!

The Villains of Star Control: Origins DLC pack introduces four major new civilizations to Galactic Civilizations III. All of the new alien factions come equipped with a unique leader, ship, music, and traits that make each civilization look and play differently from the existing major civilizations.

Play as or against the Measured, the overly bureaucratic race of sentient coral, or as the extremely polite (but surprisingly cannibalistic!) Phamysht. You can also play as the frightening race from another dimension, the Xraki, whose only desire is to destroy everything in their path, or as the immortal and genetically superior Scryve.

Galactic Civilizations III is the most popular space-based turn based strategy of all time. Your civilization has just achieved faster-than-light travel and the galaxy awaits you. But you are not alone and must deal with alien civilizations through diplomacy, trade, cultural hegemony, or military conquest either against the computer or against friends online.

In addition to the new DLC, we've released a new v3.9 update for the game that includes massively shorter late game turn times, updated balance based on feedback, AI improvements, new star base modules and lots more. The changelog at the bottom of the post has more details, so be sure to check it out!




The Measured
Do you have a form for that?

The Measured are an extremely bureaucratic race of sentient coral who once enjoyed a thriving and rich civilization before they were genetically modified by the Scryve. They now serve as the record keepers for the Scryve Empire, a role to which they are well suited.



The Phamysht
So lovely to MEAT you!

The Phamysht are a race of extremely polite cannibals who find other beings generally intolerable. The galaxy is a messy place, and they’re here to finally bring it some class and refinement, even if it does mean eating lesser races out of existence.



The Xraki
CHAOS. ENTROPY. FEED!

Although they are considered to be fanatical monsters by most, the Xraki weren’t always that way. They hail from another dimension and were driven mad through the evil ministrations of the Scryve Empire, who turned them into their shock troops.



The Scryve
Permission to exist: Denied!

The Scryve are a race of immortals who weren’t always the villains. Their civilization was once filled with idealism and hope, but terrible events over time slowly corrupted them and withered their empire, turning them instead to brutal violence.

• Dozens of new ship parts inspired by Star Control: Origins for building and modifying your own ships
  
• Several new music tracks from Star Control: Origins
  
• New faction traits
  
• New ship designs, colors, and styles

Get Villains of Star Control: Origins today!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1104410



Features

Modder Inspired Balance update 

Special thanks to Horemvore, Old Spider, and the modding community. Brad/Draginol reviewed his mods to evaluate whether some of those ideas should make them into the game. We love seeing players that are passionate about the game and it's great to see their work making the game better for everyone.

Zone of Control update

No more fog of war in your empire.  All territory in your Zone of Control now is always visible.  This helps you keep an eye on what other factions are doing in your backyard.  

Performance

We've made a substantial improvement in performance.  This boost is especially noticeable in the shipyard screen and in late-game turn times.  

Change Log

Balance

• PlayerStartSpacingWideMod changed from 1.0 to 0.33
• PlayerStartSpacingNarrowMod changed from 0.50 to 0.175
• Basic Life Support range bonus increased from 0.25 to 0.30
• Large hull ship maint increased from 3 to 5
• Huge hull ship maint increased from 3 to 7
• Cultural treaties now benefit both sides
• Military Alliance treaties now benefit both sides
• Planets rebel a bit slower than before.
• AI values supply ships more when it's not at war.
• Surrender change: Surrendering players now destroy their worlds upon surrendering unless they are surrendering to a particular player in which case they will transfer their homeworld (and only their homeworld) to that player. This reduces the late game sudden explosion in micro-management of worlds the player may have no interest in. AI also destroys its ships.
• All territory in a player's ZOC is always visible. No fog of war (in your borders).
• New starbase module: "Ascension Gate Study." Allows the player to get a lot more out of the Ascension Gates.

Fixes

• Shipyard won't rebuild the list of ships unless there's been a change to the resources the player has. This dramatically improves late-game shipyards screen performance.
• Improved turn times, especially late game.  
• Fixed issue where disabling a DLC via command line would not have the grayed out portraits show up.
• Fixed some pixelation on the Campaign screen.
• Adjusted list container on the custom faction screen to avoid clipping of the Abilities list on lower resolutions.
• Fixed typos and grammar errors
• Added typos and grammar errors
• Shorten names that were too long
• Fixed colony list in Civilization screen showing the incorrect manufacturing stat in the column labeled for social manufacturing.
• Fixed several places in the UI that were showing incomplete or inaccurate stat breakdown tooltips for manufacturing because of missing tooltip data.
• Got rid of leftover debug UI graphics in the Promotion Stats tooltip (seen in the commander unit promotion screen).
• Fixed too-skinny approval field in the main map planet tooltip if the colony had 100% approval.
• Fixed a crash whenever an AI player surrendered over their stuff to another player.
• Changed description of Silicon-Based life to reflect that their cities were changed to use Promethion instead of Durantium.

UI

• Reworked the way that the "Max Manufacturing" stat is shown in the stat breakdown tooltip. It now also displays the social and military manufacturing stats and their breakdowns, including the slider values when Crusade isn't enabled.
• In Crusade mode, "base research" or "base manufacturing" or "base income" are now displayed as Raw Production, to accurately reflect where that number is coming from (as opposed to being some calculated value from sliders and such in non-Crusade).
• In non-Crusade mode, fixed bug in the spending breakdown at the bottom of the manufacturing, research, and income stat breakdown tooltips where it showed player-wide raw production or slider values instead of colony-specific ones.
• Moved "Collect Gameplay Data" option to it's position to prevent the spinner option from taking its place.
• Various flavor text changes to abilities, components, technologies, improvements to make them more clear.

AI

• AI values hypergates much more.
• AI evaluates foreign influence before determining whether a planet should be colonized.

Crusade and Beyond

• Recently conquered planets are now immune to culture flip for 15 turns.
• Planets that have been culturally flipped have a 15 turn morale penalty.
• Planets now receive a default planetary defense bonus and a resistance bonus.
• Default colony ship loading population reduced from 2 to 1.
• Population used for filling colony ships increased from a radius of 6 to 10.
• AI ship design evaluation decreased from 20 turns to 10 turns.
• UpgradeDiscountFactor increased from 0.5 to 0.9.
• Bonuses to players playing at easier levels changed from a % to a flat.
• Civilization capital sensor range increased from 12 to 16.

Intrigue Only

• Patriot government ship loses a Railgun and a Harpoon to make it a bit less powerful.

Retribution Only

• Echoing Heartstone Artifact power reduced from 10,000 to 1,000.
• Tech Inflation increased from 2% to 2.5%.
• Starting Taxation increased from 25% to 33%.
• Galactic News earlier turn increased from turn 10 to turn 15.
• Galactic News cooldown increased from 12 to 20 turns.
• Colony Limit Max Penalty increased from 6 to 10.
• Default starting money increased from 3,000 credits to 5,000 credits.

 

Last year we released Heroes of Star Control: Origins, and it proved to be so successful that we're following it up with Villains of Star Control: Origins DLC. The DLC arrives on August 27th and comes with 4 new playable races, each with their own unique abilities, ship styles, and theme music.

The Star Control: Origins multiverse is filled with beings of all shapes and sizes. Here is a preview of some of the darker species coming over to Galactic Civilizations III.

The Measured
The Measured are sentient coral. They once had a rich, thriving civilization before they were modified by the Scryve (who we will discuss in a moment). The Measured are the Bureaucrats of the Scryve sector which makes them fit in with the gameplay of Galactic Civilizations III nicely. They not only get the Bureaucrat ability but receive a new one: Mitotic which gives them free administrators when they colonize new worlds.




The Phamyst
The Phamyst are the galaxy's most polite cannibals. They find other beings generally intolerable. The galaxy is a messy place and they are just the ones to bring class and refinement to it.



The Xraki
The Xraki are considered fanatical monsters that came from another dimension by most. But things are not quite as they seem. The Xraki were once the shock troops of the Scryve Empire who harvested them and modified them via the Scryve's exclusive access to the only known Origin in the galaxy (a device that allows its user to go into alternative universes).



The Scryve
The immortal Scryve were not always villains. The Scryve Empire was once full of idealism and hope. Time and events slowly corrupted them. Now, the once all-powerful Scryve Empire is slowly dying. They have controlled our part of the galaxy for so long that few species have been left untouched by them. The Scryve are unlike any villain from the Galactic Civilizations universe. Where the Drengin are brutal, violent and intolerant the Scryve are civilized, thoughtful and methodical. The Scryve could best be described as a people who followed "the ends justify the means" one too many times.

The Scryve are masters at conquering and then holding. Not only do they have the Conquerors ability, they also receive the new Imperial ability which gives their ships a HP bonus in their territory based on the number of colonies whose zone of control are contiguous with their home planet.



Where to get it...

Villains of Star Control: Origins will arrive for Steam on August 27th for $5.99. Not only does each new species have their own unique abilities, but they come with their own ship styles, which means lots of new ship parts to play with.

Build a civilization that will stand the test of time in the largest space-based strategy game ever! Choose from dozens of unique races and make a name for yourself across the galaxy through diplomacy, espionage, technological advances, and more.

Galactic Civilizations III is a 4X space strategy game set in the 23rd century. Humans and aliens compete against each other for domination of the galaxy through war, cultural hegemony, diplomacy, and more. Customize your game experience right down to every detail: galaxy size, opponent factions, victory conditions, AI difficulty level, and frequency of galactic events and anomalies.











Don't have Galactic Civilizations III? Save 84% for a limited time!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/226860/Galactic_Civilizations_III/


*Sale valid August 15th, 2019 at 1PM ET - August 19th, 2019 at 1pm ET.

Galactic Ascension Status is new in v3.8 for GalCiv III. Our VP of Entertainment, Derek Paxton, decided to sit down and have some fun with it last week - check it out here!

What's YOUR favorite victory strategy?

https://www.stardock.com/games/article/496427/

Galactic Civilizations III v3.8 Update Brings Major UI Changes

Set in the 23rd century, Galactic Civilizations III is a 4X space strategy game where humans and aliens compete against each other for domination of the galaxy. v3.8 brings a few exciting changes to this already massive game, which you can read more about below.

No more sneaky Ascensions! At the forefront of the update are changes to the Ascension notifications and UI. Each civilization's progress is now displayed on an easy-to-read progress bar, and anytime someone gains control of an Ascension crystal, an icon will alert you to it. 

The shipyard display now shows how much production is being sent to that shipyard so that you know how fast it's able to build things. The planet list views will now also show research.

We've also made some other improvements to the UI's layout, including updating screens so that they use fonts, colors, and font sizes consistently. We've also added a feature where you can adjust the difficulty level in the middle of a game. Read the full list of changes below!

Changelog

• As soon as someone controls an Ascension crystal, have an icon show up and informs you that Ascension has started. Mousing over should show you how far along each civ with Ascension is from ascending as a % bar with (turns).
  
• UI Layout updates
  Updated most screens to use fonts, colors, and font sizes consistently.Made fonts bigger wherever possible.
  • General cleanup of margins and list entries wherever possible.
  • Removed extra returns from the "word on the street" blurbs.
  • Move some of the drop-downs in options screens to keep them from clipping.
• You can now adjust the difficulty level mid-game through the options screen (single player only).
• Starting ships don't append a number to their name unless another ship of the same design has already been spawned. This is to support custom flavorful names for core starting ships from starting ship designs
• Updated starting ship names of factions added to the game after Crusade.
• Shipyard display now shows how much production is being sent to that shipyard, so you know how fast it can build things.
• Fixed an issue causing the unit buttons from not showing up in Medium UI on the Colony List screen.
• Planet view list now displays research
• Aliens can now be tagged as being available or unavailable as random civilizations
• Fixed Tourism exploit in Crusade version of the Consulate
• The AI has been ordered top stop freezing time to keep its mission ships safe. (stuck turn fix)
• Addressed "word on the street" grammar and spelling mistakes
• Removed duplicate planet data in crusade and base game data folders that could potentially cause bad things(TM)
• Adjusted the choose civ screen to improve text wrapping
• Fixed alignment issue on the Drath starting screen
• Fixed a bug that prevented commanders from being assigned to United Earth ships

Don't own Galactic Civilizations III? Get it Now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/226860/Galactic_Civilizations_III/

We're putting the touches on v3.8. From here on out, a lot of our effort is going to be on features that improve the game experience, polish and usability. They're not sexy features but they're much needed imo.

Starting with 3.6, we began work on improving the modding experience. This is something that's been being further developed in 3.8 and will get more attention after as we try to "unify" the experience further so that people can eventually pass around mods and know they'll "just work".

We still have the general challenge in that you have Crusade and "base" GalCiv III v1.x. Crusade changes the economic system to a citizen based system so that's a big challenge in reconciling in terms of mods.

There won't be any more expansions for GalCiv III. Future gameplay improvements will be made to the Cruade base (i.e. as long as you have Crusade these will work). But we do have new DLC coming over the coming year.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here. Cheers!