Weekend at Frogboy's Sept 2023

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2023 By Brad Wardell In Galactic Civilizations IV

Lots of cool stuff going in this weekend.

Lots of new planetary improvements

New executive orders

 

Let's go over it.

In no particular order..

  • Drath homeworld gets a backdrop

  • Removed references to empires in flavor text, replaced with civilizations.

New Executive Orders:

  • Mitosis

  • Swarm

  • Planetary Clairvoyance

New updated Planetary Improvements:

  • Colonial Generator now called Planetary Generator. Can be built on homeworld.

Unique improvements for Ammonia based species:

  • Network Nexus

  • Irradiated Foundry

  • Contagion Source

  • Golgi

  • Amoebic Incubator

  • Knowledge Melding Hub

Unique improvements for insectroid (consuming) species:

  • Work Instruction Chamber

  • Cerebral Chamber

  • Harmonious Antennae

  • Hatchery

  • Work Hive

  • Mother Hive

Planetary Improvement Updates

  • Many improvements are no longer available to insectoids or Amoebas.

  • Updated graphics for Planetary Generator and Industrial Center

  • Civilization capital no longer auto-placed. 

  • Resource income from planetary mines (like Thulium mines) greatly increased at level 2 and 3.

  • Level up bonus for districts generally reduced from 2% to 1%.

  • Possibility Engine icon replaced and cost increased while research bonus reduced from 100% to 50% (yea this was seriously OP)

Leader Backstory changes:

  • Ammonia (Amoebas) get their own backstories

  • Insectoids (like Festron) get their own backstories

  • Synthetic (like Yor) get their own backstories

  • Amoebas no longer have ridiculous backstories like arranged marriages

  • Insectoids (like Festron) no longer get ridiculous backstories like missing twin

  • Silicon based civs no longer get ridiculous backstories like wanting to be a chef

New late game flavor text for asking for peace and such.

  • AI speech to you changes more based on the current status of the galaxy.

Cultural Progression Tree:

  • Approval boost from Eureka is temporary and reduced to 5%.

  • Sovereign Identity stat buff reduced from 200% to 50%.

  • Big Brother stat buff removed.

  • Big Brother diligence buff set to 100%.

  • Legacy citizen stat buffs removed

  • Legacy provides a 200% buff to resolve

  • Utopia citizen stat buffs removed

  • Utopia buffs Social stat by 200%

  • Singularity trait stat buffs removed

  • Singularity trait doubles Intelligence of citizens

  • Sanctuary trait buffs reduced from 300% (4X) to 25%

  • Terror Star trait buffs removed. (just unlocks the Terror Star tech to research)

  • Hive Miind buff reduced like the Sanctuary ones.

Technologies:

  • Synthetic Species get their own technologies

  • Aggressive civs get their own technologies

  • Ammonia (like Cosmic Contaminate) get their own technologies

  • Greedy civs get their own technologies

  • Radiated civs get their own technologies

Ship Components

  • Sensor ranges for high end sensors reduced slightly

Word on the street:

  • Different species now get different word on the street summaries on their planets.

Star names:

  • Took out some goofy star names (hat tip: Astasia)

Research costs

  • Tech Inflation multplier further increased from 2.5% to 5%

  • Specific tech tree research cost now given a slight exponential growth (^1.02 power).

Map Generation:

  • Slightly more stars on occasional and abundant and common settings

  • Planet balancing for more satisfying starts.

Planets and Stars:

  • Festron home world planet class increased from 20 to 24, Resources on it reduced

  • Contaminate home star system now comes with 3 high quality planets since everyone else is gonna hate them.

Policies:

  • Festron and Contaminate civs (and similar) blocked from various policies

Balance

  • Balance pass on the conversion between citizen stats and their output.

  • Workers no longer provide research benefits.

  • Ammonia based species base stats reduced because they basically amoebas. They make it up in quantity.

  • Various events that don't make any sense for a particular species not blocked. (The Yor do not mutate)

AI

  • The Fleet Commander AI will not counter the Primary Strategic AI’s order to leave for battle against a distant foe if it doesn’t believe its fleet is ready. (stop sending out tiny fleets!)

  • Balance pass on AI shipyard manufacturing priorities.

Various Bug fixes:

  • Lots of small bug fixes

  • Fixed bug where trading screen wouldn’t recognize you already have the tech

  • Fixed bug where techs wouldn’t always show what they unlock

 

Mooorre:

  • Distance between star systems reduced from 4 to 3 to speed up relative movement.
  • Rebalanced star count settings (now that they're working as designed)
  • Fusion Power Plant tech cost increased from 50 to 100
  • Life Support tech AI priority greatly increased
  • Tiny map size increased from 36 to 48 tiles radius.
  • Reduced the turtling the AI does when it's not at war
  • Fixed the buggy Siege ship behaivor
  • AI is much more likely to target their primary enemy units
  • Further reduce AI nagging for stuff
  • AI less likely to construct siege ships
  • Balance pass on AI research choices
  • Fixed map geneator bug that was resulting in inconsistent star quantities (note this may increase map generation time some)

and lastly

  • Pacing pass on tech speeds to make it more consistent on different map sizes.