Greetings!

Lots to go over this month so I will do my best to keep it short.

## NEW Ashes Game ##

We are about to announce a new game in the Ashes of the Singularity universe.  It's in the tower defense genre.  This originally was going to be released as a DLC for Ashes but the gameplay changes required made it impossible to keep it part of the same EXE so it's being released as a stand-alone game.  Lifetime Founders of Ashes will get this added automatically.

We'll have more details about this later this week.  The good news for Ashes players is that a lot of new tech was experimented with and implemented with this game that will be coming back to Ashes of the Singularity this Spring.

## NEXT Ashes DLC ##

Many of the engineers at Stardock have been working on porting the engine to Linux.  I've mentioned this elsewhere but we've got it running.  The challenge now is that we need to do more optimization with Vulkan before we can make it publicly available.  

While the Vulkan work goes forward, we are in the process of creating a new DLC for Ashes that includes new units and buildings that should result in some new strategies and greater strategic depth.  We'll have more on that also this Spring.

## Ashes of the Singularity v3.0 ##

The new core engine features and bug fixes that we've made to Star Control: Origins and the upcoming tower defense game will be collectively referred to as Ashes v3.0.  We have a lengthy list of player requests (I'm working on a Hades bomber targeting update myself this week) plus a lot of other changes that will result in what will almost feel like a new game in some respects.

I'm on an airplane right now.  I've been flying pretty regularly since I was 5 years old (parents got divorced and back then they could live in different states). 

It's the flight experience where you can really see how much tech has changed.  More to the point, as Kurzweil has pointed out, tech is changing exponentially and it's gotten to the point where it's really hard to miss.

On the way to the airport

I was able to check in to my seat via the Delta app that put a notification on my screen while in my Tesla on auto-pilot.  Just a couple of clicks and I was good to go.

At the airport

I have TSA PRE and the new clear program which is supposedly (but not really) faster than TSA Pre.  I was through security faster than before 9/11.   The only hic-up, was that the monorail was down to the gate which meant hoofing half a mile.   Reminded me that most rail advocates probably don't use much rail.  Rail was a great tech in the 19th century...

I sit down near the terminal and every chair has its own little iPad type device for ordering food and drink.  Almost no one uses them now, they're already outdated because their iPhone or Android device "has an app" that's easier.

Under the covers, thanks to computer aided data analysis, what are in airports now are much nicer and useful.  They know what works in airports (coffee ships, mid to high end restaurants, shoulder massage) and what doesn't (fast food, general goods).  And tech has largely eliminated book stores (sigh).  The result is that the airports I visit are generally quite pleasant.

Moreover, the better experience means lower stress.  If Brad from 1989 were to time travel to 2019, the first thing I'd notice is how much happier people are.  The general smoothness of how air transportation works now (relatively speaking) means a lot less stressed people.  The only really archaic thing left are the &#$%@ drivers licenses or other physical ID we still have to mess with and of course the normal TSA experience (mainly the damn shoe thing).  But the end result is that people tend to be pretty relaxed (relatively).

On the plane

Many of the chairs have displays on the back.  Already outdated.  They're the display of last resort because everyone has a handheld or some kind.  Which reminds me, I can't find my Kindle.  

Planes typically have WiFi, it's not free but eliminates much of the boredom of long flights.  I use to pour through PC Gamer, PC Magazine, PC World, Macworld, etc. from start to end on these flights.  And even that was a big step up from the early 80s and 70s where I'd lug Infoworld with me in the late 80s.  I still miss reading Nick Petreley's articles.

But it's not just that it's improved, it's that the rate of improvement is accelerating.   

What are some of the things you've noticed changing that seems to be changing even more rapidly now?

It's a little thing but it's good that the AI knows when it's beaten.

The Drath were first introduced in Galactic Civilizations II. But, the lore behind them was developed in the 1990s during the stories that would ultimately serve as the game's underpinnings.

Long ago, the Drath shared their world with the Altarians. They are, in effect, sentient dragons. They are very large, over 4 meters tall.  Physically the strongest of any civilization in the game, they actually have evolved into a subtle and cunning species since they were taken from Altaria by the last Mithrilar thousands of years ago, and placed on their own home world.

You might expect that a species as physically powerful as the Drath would become a race of warriors, but the sheer damage that any violence between their would cause resulted in the species developing in a very different direction. Their unique trait, war profiteering, is, with some irony, the result of their own culture's attempt to discourage infighting. That is, if two Drath clans were battling it out, it was well understood that other clans would economically profit from the war, thus making obvious that those Drath who chose violence would be economically deprived.

Once the Drath gained access to faster-than-light travel via Hyperdrive, they naturally took advantage of the galaxy's turmoil. The Drath, in short, eagerly trade with anyone and everyone they can, and profit greatly from the chaos of interstellar war.

Homeworld

Thousands of years ago, the Mithrilar took the remaining Drath from Altaria and gave them a new world. That world has thrived. It's +1 better than Earth as planets go.

Drath Ships

The style of the Drath is ornate. They are an ancient civilization. While humans have only begun to realize that there are beings from higher-planes of existence, the Drath, of course, have always known of them. Both the Mithrilar and the Arnor (the Precursors) interacted with the Drath directly in ancient times.

Drath Technology

Being an ancient species, they have a handful of unique technologies that other species, like humans, do not have access to.

Probably my favorite is the Precursor Relic Understanding tech.  It gives an early (but significant) boost to precursor relics that are scattered across the galaxy. 

Not surprisingly, the Drath will tend to grab up Precursor relics more so than other civilizations.  This was enough of an issue that we had to modify the Ascension notifications, because the Drath frequently win by Ascension victories. Beware.

Drath in action

The play-style of the Drath focuses on capturing and utilizing the Precursor relics. The most common path to victory for them is to ascend to a higher dimension through Precursor artifacts (this was enough of an issue that we had to beef up the notification system to let you know what they were up to). 

The Drath can get 25% more out of Precursor artifacts than other species.

This screenshot is just because..holy cow! Durantium, Promethion, and Thulium with a single starbase!

Here is an example of where the Ancient ability really comes in handy.  The Precursor Observatory provides +1 for ascension and the Arnorian Relic study gives a 25% bonus.  Any other civilization would only receive 2 total points per turn from this starbase that covers two Ascension relics. But the Drath are getting 5.

Acquiring 5,000 points is not easy of course (would take 1,000 turns at this point!), but if you were to capture a handful of additional Ascension relics and keep going down the Precursor tech tree, a dedicated player could find themselves ascending in less than 200 turns.

The Drath also get a large bonus for trading with civilizations that are at war.  Now, the purpose of this is less about making money and more to encourage a strategy of keeping your enemies busy while you collect ascension points.

Good luck!

______________________________

Retribution Journals

Journal #1

Journal #2

Journal #3

Journal #4

Journal #5

Journal #6

Journal #7

Journal #8 (Current)

Journal #9 (Coming Soon)

Greetings!

First off, we really appreciate your ongoing support.  If you don't already have GalCiv III: Retribution I highly recommend it.  It continues to enrich the overall strategy experience.  It also helps pay for ongoing development.

Now, however, it's time to start thinking about version 4.0.  This new series of journals is going to outline where we want to take the game next and let fans put in their two cents.  Much of the content of my journals will be me complaining about the game.  Please don't take this to mean that I don't like our own game or that I don't think it's excellent.  I just want to make sure we make the game as good as we can.

Early Game

1. Get better font face.
2. Implement a better style guide with headers being bigger and text generally being bigger. Text is too small.

Initial ships should get custom name on a per faction basis and then a default custom faction name that can become part of the faction.

I.e. T.F.S. Adventurer.

1. Change "class" in this example to "role"
2. Add a new field: Class which would be Constructor
3. Ships should have a default series of names to choose from (flavor text) based on their class.  Example, not T.F.S. Constructor but, for instance, T.F.S. Valley Forge or something.  The names of the ships shouldn't be bland.

1. Display  Social and Military Construction as a single field and if you mouse over it have a tooltiop that goes into more detail.
2. Display Research
3. remove raw production, that shows up already on the tooltip for the planet.
4. remove population, that shows up on the tooltip for the planet. I mainly want to  know what planets I should be deciding what to do what on.
5. If I set a project on a planet, it needs to update the queue without having to switch away.
6. If room, show morale.

1. Show sponsor production being sent to shipyard.

1. New display option: Subtle color tint of controlled space (so in this example, there'd be a bit of a color tint here like this:

1. Option to display territory with the smooth lines rather than it looking hexy. Organic looking territorial lines looks better imo.

1. Apply style sheet here.  Headers being a smaller font size and weight is not ideal.

As soon as an Ascension crystal is taken and starting to build up points, place an ascension icon that starts out white, then blue, then yellow, then red based on how close it is.  Mousing over gives a list of players and how close they are to ascending and how long it'll take.

So this is an example of how suggestions can be formatted.  Feel free to add your own in the comments.

The Korath make no bones about what they're about: Extermination.

They were bred by the Drengin to be the elite shock troops of the empire.  Consider that -- the merciless Drengin Empire felt the need to breed a sub-species of Drengin who are even more brutal than they are.  Let's take a look at the Korath.

The Korath are the only canon species in Galactic Civilizations to have the extermination trait. This trait gives them access to a special technology called Spore Weapons.  While other civilizations have to raise legions of troops to conquer a planet, the Korath will simply  sterilize a planet from orbit - it doesn't matter how many legions are on the surface. This makes them extremely dangerous.

To breed super-Drengin, the Korath are raised on a miserable planet surrounding a dying blue star. While the planet itself is productive (class 12), it is a hellish environment.

Playing as the Korath

The Korath are built for war. Unlike everyone else, they can exterminate planets using their spore ships, which bypass any legions on a given planet.

The Korath start isn't that much different than other species, except there is one major difference: the Temple of Despair. This improvement vastly increases the player's sensor range on their home planet and greatly expands their influence. It will lead to many beings wanting to visit the world it is on in order to indulge their darker impulses. It also gives a +3 bonus to any manufacturing that is near it, and it provides a commander!  So yeah, it's incredibly powerful.

Before the Temple of Despair is constructed you can see the unexplored space just outside the solar system.

After its construction, the player can see a vast area around their world.  It also quickly expands their influence.

Korath Destiny

It is very, very difficult to play the Korath as anything other than malevolent. The Korath receive a series of unique and enticing monuments they can construct.  However, constructing them produces a lot of Malevolent ideology points. Thus, if you want to get the most out of the Korath, it means you will likely be a pariah.

They are my new favorite conqueror civilization.  Here's why:

1. They quickly see anyone around them.
2. I can still get the early nice benevolent and pragmatic ideological bonuses from early game choices before I accept that I'm going to be a very, very evil civilization.
3. I can generate a lot of income from tourism because of the Temple of Despair.
4. I can exterminate planets relatively easily, meaning I don't have to worry much about legions.

Korath Gameplay Example

The Year is 2242. It is time for the Korath to cleanse this galaxy.

In this iteration, my home world of Kora has spawned with Hyper Silicates, which is a rare treat. It also has a Precursor artifact that gives the target planet a bunch of instant production as well as a Thulium deposit.  So, we're off to a pretty good start.

Turn 1:

• Rush Buy Shipyard (pretty typical start)
• Rush Buy a Colony Ship (pretty typical)
• Rename Survey ship to "Doom Giver" (I hate the default names)
• Send Survey Ship to nearby star.
• Research Artificial Gravity (because it will add +1 to my ship speed)
• Start building Temple of Despair

Turn 2:

• Set population of new colony ship to 1 (minimum -- to make sure Kora has a good population for more colony ships).
• Start building another colony ship.
• Send new colony ship to a different star than the survey ship.
• Rush Buy Temple of Despair.
• Begin building the computer core next to the Hyper Silicates

Temple of Despair quickly uncovers a bunch of stuff, including a class 12 planet in another solar system.

Turn 3:

• Event: I choose pragmatic (doubles the population growth)

Turn 4:

• I encounter the Drengin, but I don't speak their language (the Korath have long lost that ability).

Turn 5:

• Artificial Gravity has been researched.
• Archaic Languages chosen as next project so I can understand/trade with the Drengin.
• Computer Core has been completed.
• Nano Fabricator Artifact study chosen.

Korath is producing a crazy amount of influence.  If you look closely, you will see 3 stored goods. When a project finishes now, overflow is saved for the next project.

Turn 6:

• Survey Ship has found the Drengin home world.
• I compare the home worlds (I'm playing on Gifted). My population is a bit lower than theirs, but my research is better. Their planet started with food, which means they probably built the colonization center (which requires food), something I couldn't do.
• Survey ship sent to another solar system.

Turn 7:

• New colony founded.  I name it Ruin.
• Event: I make the pragmatic choice, which gives me a Kinetic Augmenter.
• Artifact that increases planet resistance on planet.
• Supply Depot is started. It will, however, take 19 turns.
• Planet only produces 3 social construction points per turn (compared to the 6 on Kora).
• Event: Ancient Device offers to terraform a nearby world. Yes. Yes!
• With a second planet, I'm asked to choose a form of government (Intrigue expansion feature). I choose Imperial.
• New planet is named Agony. Also unveils an amazing new planet nearby that I didn't previously know about.
• Ideology Pragmatism unlocked.  I choose to get 3 free constructors.
• Kora now has access to food, so I choose to build the colonization center next to the temple of Despair because the Temple gives a +3 production bonus to it.
• On Agony, I choose to build a supply depot.
• Constructor 1 is sent claim a Thulium deposit in another solar system.
• Constructor 2 is sent to claim a Precursor Economic relic, but is also within range of Kora, which means I can make it an Economy starbase that has an Archeology lab.
• Constructor 3 is sent toward my awesome new solar system.

The Korath will benefit from the Ship Construction bonus.

Turn 8:

• New Constructor is sent towards my awesome solar system that has an unclaimed Precursor world.
• I set Kora's shipyard to have sponsors from all my planets ,despite that they are far away and much of the production is lost.
• Archaic languages is completed, so I choose Path to Purity, which will give me the Euology of the Fallen Wonder, something the Korath have unique access to.
• Survey ship is sent towards another star system.
• Colony ship selected as next project.
• New colony ship that just got completed is sent to claim that wonderful Precursor world.

Turn 9:

• I open up negotiations with the Drengin now that I know their language. I trade them Artificial Gravity for money. I also trade them open borders to keep our relations decent...for now.
• With the money I build 3 asteroid bases near Kora to increase production.

Turn 10:

• New Citizen chosen: Administrator.  Because I will be building more constructors and Hypergates soon.

Start of game Status report:

I have 3 citizens (starter, one I got from building Temple of Despair and one I just picked).

Early game prognosis: Very good.

From here on out, I'll just highlight major events.

Early Game Notes:

• Kora produces 13, while most of my colonies currently produce 2 to 3.  To get them built up, I send them Supply ships.

Empire looks like this.

The Korath meet the humans.

Filthy Altarians steal a planet.

During early game Kora gets its default tiles built up.  I move to Aid Economy which I set to repeat until I get some terraforming tech.

I use the Nano Fabricator to build up my planets.

I construct a Hypergate connection between my home solar system and the "super solar system" to help get supply ships over to it more quickly.

Hyperlane between Kora and Ruin.

Battles now show damage on screen.

Spore weapons are a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, you get the planet... but on the other hand, the population is gone, which leaves no people to work in the factories or slave pits. It also means any citizens that were on that planet aren't captured. They're dead.

In my game, my home world got captured and I used a spore ship on it.  I got the planet back, but my empire was never the same.

Population

Research

Mid Game Notes

Rebuilding Kora was a major focus here from my mistake in exterminating the population. The Drengin occupation forces wiped out a lot of what was there, and their initial invasion destroyed my artifact.  Normally, I would say it was a total loss, but I need revenge on the Drengin for what they did.

I also need to research atmospheric cleansing since Kora is now a toxic world.

There is something satisfying about seeing the humans and the Altarians fighting...

The Drengin must be our slaves.  So the invasion force does not include sport ships. At least not for the capital world.

Or maybe not.

(sometime later)

Drengin is now mine!

This was satisfying.

Mid Game Summary

If you want lots of trade, always make sure the Iridium Corporation is a player.  That's all money they're trading with me, which is very nice. It has let me keep my taxes way down.

There are some interesting AI Mysteries here.

Consider these two graphs:

Ship Construction

Military Power

The Iridium Corporation ship construction is actually better than mine most of the time, but they have basically no military.  They're rich, but weak.  They're at war with the Snathi, but they're a pretty minor power.

The humans are obviously doing pretty well. They're the only ones who really can contest my power. The question is: why?

And that's where the magic of AI programming comes in.  Figuring out the "why".   You can see that they have the ability to build bigger fleets. Look at the Drengin's capability versus their actual military.  Why were they not able to keep up?

Kora has built the Technological capital, which unlocks the Aid Research project for just that world. However, it is 100 research for 200 cost, which is a much better deal than the old aid research.  Some people will grumble that you can't do it on all worlds now, but it really messed up the pacing. To balance this, the cost of tech progression has been reduced.

The dark gray area in the top left is my territory. The humans are blue. The Snathi are yellow (top). The bottom right I don't have in range yet, so I don't know everything that's there. The Iridium Corporation is orange.

Update:

More investigation makes me think the AI is being too greedy on taxes. This causes unhappy people, which reduces productivity.  So yes, they have lots of money, but they are losing too much production.

The red vertical line shows when I modified the AI's tax rate.  This is eadch player's research.  The Korath of course are doing fine already since I built the tech capital.  But as you can see, the others benefited by trading income for productivity.

This is each civilization's approval level.  You an see where each one starts to jump up.  100% approval is a waste for your entire civilization.  But if it's less than say 80% and you have plenty of money, consider lowering taxes.

The Korath in summary

They are very powerful, but you will, ultimately, end up playing them as a malevolent civilization if you want to get the most out of them.  When using the spore weapons, use them only on planets with low populations already (minor worlds).  Use legions on on important worlds.

______________________________

Retribution Journals

Journal #1

Journal #2

Journal #3

Journal #4

Journal #5

Journal #6

Journal #7 (Current)

Journal #8

Journal #9 (Coming Soon)

## Contents ##

• Editorial
• DeskScapes 10 Preview
• Object Desktop Planning
• Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution

## Editorial ##

by Brad Wardell

Stardock is hiring engineers and artists.  We are moving full-steam ahead on the next version of our Cider engine.

Please be sure to check out our job postings: https://www.stardock.com/about/careers 

As many of you know, Stardock has always tried to be on the leading - sometimes bleeding - edge of technology.  A quick recap:

• ZIP files as folders. We take them for granted now.  That was us.
• Early adopter of multi-threaded, 32-bit game technology (Galactic Civilizations for OS/2).
• Pioneering of digital distribution (Stardock Central and later, Impulse).
• More recently, the first core-neutral game and first DirectX 12 game (Ashes of the Singularity).

We just love working on things that show the promise of things to come. 

There is no word coined yet for what's coming next when it comes to the concept of non-prejudicial processing.  I know it won't be called non-prejudicial processing.  Cloud computing doesn't quite work.  It just boils down to the fact that the physical location of processors and memory are becoming less relevant.

Right now, do this: ping Google or Bing.  What's the access time for you? If you have a good connection, it's probably better than high end hard drives were 10 years ago.  Now consider this: SATA 1.0, the hard drive connection protocol, is slower than some people's internet connection these days. 

In short: it just doesn't matter where the silicon is located anymore.  And that'll be doubly true in a few years.

This is really good news for users because it means your hardware will get a lot cheaper.  Now, people who don't have good access to the Internet will still need to have a really powerful device because they'll need to do most of the computing locally, but everyone else will be able to get by on hardware that will cost next to nothing compared to today.

This revolution is going to be a big deal for software and game developers because we can dramatically raise the "hardware requirements" from today because every consumer will, as a practical matter, have almost unlimited computing power. 

## DeskScapes 10 Preview ##

There's going to be a new theme with all of Stardock's new endeavors: seamless cloud integration.  DeskScapes kicks this trend off.  DeskScapes 10 is designed to let users access WinCustomize as if it were their local hard drive. It's actually a little unsettling when you first use it, because that's when it hits you on just how fast Internet access times have gotten. 

From home, my access to WinCustomize.com is 8ms.   That's faster than the fastest hard drives were when WinCustomize.com launched.  So essentially, the tens of thousands of wallpapers are effectively local.

The other major update to DeskScapes 10 is the ability to modify and save wallpapers.  So for example, you choose a wallpaper (animated or static), and you can edit it with the built-in DeskScapes tools. Then, from DeskScapes, simply save it off for later use. 

The DeskScapes 10 beta will be available for Object Desktop users shortly.  Visit www.objectdesktop.com to get access to our entire suite of desktop enhancement utilities.

## Object Desktop Planning ##

Stardock makes both games and utilities; there is relatively little overlap between the two customer bases.  People are often surprised that the same company that released Sins of a Solar Empire also makes Groupy.

Object Desktop new launcher is in development

Desktop enhancement software has been in a slump in the past few years. 

First, it had to contend with Windows Vista, which effectively broke a bunch of our most popular programs (like DesktopX).  Then, we had years of splintering -- Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8 -- where each version had its own compatibility challenges.  Now, despite Windows 10 becoming fairly standard, we have what amounts to be the "app store-ization" of software. 

Object Desktop used to be $89.99. Then it settled in for $49.99 for 1-year of access to it. The individual programs like WindowBlinds were $19.99 apiece for years. But now, people expect software to be less than $10, no matter how expensive ongoing development is, or how niche the demand is. People have simply become used to software being inexpensive, which has resulted in fewer developers being able to afford to work on them.

For example, we have the program ObjectDock,which we sell for $4.99. It doesn't work on Windows 10. Despite ObjectDock having been very popular at one time, we can't justify working on it based on the size of the market and the price of $5 per unit. 

Ultimately, for us, it's a matter of figuring out what there is sufficient demand for, the cost of developing and supporting it, and what price it can be sold at. 

Object Desktop remains our best hope because it's a suite of programs.

For 2019, we are focusing the most on these parts:

• DeskScapes (which we just discussed)
• Groupy (tabbed windows)
• Start10 (next version of Windows 10's start menu may make Start10 v2 very attractive)
• SoundPackager (it's coming back!)
• Fences (our most popular program)

We also have two new programs in development, at least one of which we believe will be released this year.

However, the above list has some notable exceptions that we will want to hear from you about:

1. WindowBlinds -  Skinning the Windows GUI remains a niche love for some, but in the age of high-DPI displays, we are seeing less interest in it.
2. IconPackager -  Similarly, very few people change their icons these days.
3. WindowFX - This utility adds a bunch of cool UX features to windows, but again, people are spending less and less time outside of an app.

These programs work fine on Windows 10, but you can probably imagine the specialized engineering talent required to work on these, versus the actual size of the market for them.

We'd love to hear from you: Make your posts here!

## Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution ##

Galactic Civilizations is a space strategy sandbox game that asks you how you would rule your galaxy. You start out at the dawn of faster-than-light technology and are left to make decisions that will form and impact your civilization and its future. 

Because it's a future-based game, it can't tap into the rich history of the real world like historical strategy games do.  Thus, for 25 years, we've made sure there was lore to back up the various alien species that are in the game.  And after 25 years, the major story arc that started back in 1993 finally reaches its climax in Galactic Civilizations III: Retribution.

To be absolutely clear: Retribution, like the other expansions, focuses on improving the sandbox game.  The campaign is strictly optional. You don't need to know the background lore to enjoy the game. 

So to recap, here's our story so far: https://www.galciv3.com/databanks/our-story

The short version is that alien civilizations mistakenly thought that the humans were pure diplomats. They didn't realize that if you scratch a human, a pretty lethal warrior bleeds. We're reformed barbarians, and through the course of the past decade-and-a-half of games, we've hinted, including when we introduced the Thalan back in 2006, that it's a really bad idea to push the humans too far.

Retribution, campaign-wise, is really the story of whether the humans are ultimately able to hold back their darker impulses, or whether they'll complete what they started in Crusade. 

You can read the various journals here.

Retribution comes out at the end of February.  We hope to see you then and let us know what you think! Visit www.galciv.com to keep up on all things Galactic Civilizations.

Tell us what you'd like to see us work on for Object Desktop this year.

New apps? Update existing apps? You let us know.

The New Technologies

Retribution makes the greatest changes to the technology tree since the original release of the game.  Moreover, many of those changes occur at the very start of the game as opposed to late game. Today, we'll walk you through some of the changes and why we made them.

Colonization

The most obvious change here is the study of artifacts. We will have an entire journal dedicated to artifacts.  But suffice to say, going up the artifact tree allows players to get more out of the artifacts they find on worlds. There have also been other changes designed to improve the overall pacing of the game.  For example, Colonial Administration introduces farms and cities together.  Moreover, the various multi-choice techs are completely eliminated. Every tech gives you something meaningful.

Engineering

Engineering got a pretty big shake-up.  First off, Space Elevators have been moved to "space elevator technology".  At the start of the game, players have some new planetary improvements they can construct instead, like the Colonization Center, or Supply Depot, which help get things moving and provides a bit more time to decide where players want to place their hubs.

This tree also has the Hypergate tech path on it that makes hypergates better and faster.  Like with Colonization, this tree has been narrowed and the optimization/choose 1 of N techs concept is gone.  Starports have been moved to Orbital Manufacturing and, as you may have noticed, Carriers have been moved way, way up in order to make them a viable alternative to weapon systems.  This will also involve improving the carrier concept in general.

Warfare

The Warfare tree has been re-designed to be much cleaner. While there are a few optimization techs in the tree, the pacing of the techs has been substantially improved.

Planetary Invasion is much earlier now in the tech tree.  This is partly because, now that stars are more distant, there is a bit more time to prepare for being rushed. 

The weapon improvements have been merged together by weapon type.  So instead of, for example, beam weapons having two parallel improvement tree,s there is only one.  This way, a weapon technology has time to become relevant.  New miniaturization techs have also been added later in the tree to, again, make a given weapon technology have its day in the sun, rather than becoming obsolete in a short time.

Culture

The Culture Tech tree has gotten a major overhaul as well.  It now contains a immigration sub-tree for increasing population growth on planets. Like the others, the tree here is narrower in order to give techs more time to be relevant, as well as make sure that each technology feels important.

The effect

In the game I'm testing with today, I have 6 colonies.  It's turn 40.  I am playing on a large map. What's happening?

My Best Colony

My population is 2 out of a max of 3.   But as you can see, my production isn't that dependent on population now.

My 2 population becomes 9.5 production thanks to the Space Elevator placement, Supply Depot, government, etc.  The costs of various improvements and techs have been balanced to reasonable levels.  Moreover, a Supply Ship from Earth...

Supply Ship from Earth bringing 100 social production with it (10 turns worth of production).

On Mars I have "aid economy" on repeat, which is helping me out.

My home world, Earth, is built up.  I haven't researched any terraforming improvements yet, so this is Earth's natural state. 

Let's look at Earth

Its population of 7 is getting a lot done thanks to automation.  I have it aiding economy.

You might be wondering what happened to Aid Research. The answer is: that ability is now tied to the Technology Capital super project.  Aid Research is now much, much more powerful, but only can be done on a single planet (which if you use supply ships with rally points you can get a lot done).  This was done because late game, social manufacturing effectively became research, which was not really ideal.

I also feel like there are a lot of interesting things I might want to build on this planet once I have more tiles available.

Back to La La World

The question on pacing boils down to what players would expect to accomplish in 10 turns.

La La world got rich!

So what changed?  As you can see, the population didn't, it's still 2.  Raw production didn't change either.  What did change was the construction of the Central Bank, a Supply Depot, and a Market Center. 

But how did all that get built in 10 turns? Answer: the Supply Ship from Earth.

Before Retribution, players would basically just pound the turn button waiting for their population to grow.  And what were their shipyards doing around turn 50? Either spamming colony ships (if it was a huge map) hoping to find stuff, constructors, or treasure hunters. Game in and game out.

Now, Shipyards are deciding between Stellar Architects (hypergates), Supply Ships, Constructors, or Colony ships depending on the situation.  Because planetary invasions are so early now (relatively speaking), players can punish nearby civilizations that are mindlessly expanding by building up their own colonies a bit. And this ignores the effect of artifacts in this formula.

The cumulative effect is that players have a lot more strategic choices to make based on how the map is set up, who their neighbors are, and what resources they want to employ.

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Retribution Journals

Journal #1

Journal #2

Journal #3

Journal #4

Journal #5

Journal #6 (Current)

Journal #7

Journal #8

Journal #9 (Coming Soon)

My entire adult life has been dominated by 4X strategy games. Some periods have felt like the genre was in a bit of a rut. Other times (looking at Alpha Centauri and Distant Worlds) there are true moments of amazing innovation.

I can't go into specifics because of NDAs. But I can tell you that we're entering a new era for 4X and I thought I'd share with you why this is.

As some of you already know, my partner Soren's studio, Mohawk Games, is working on Ten Crowns which is a 4X game and Soren knows 4X inside and out. There's some real innovation going on over there.

There are projects at some of the other studios we're part of that aren't announced yet but are going to fundamentally change the 4X landscape and here's how:

Less abstraction. Historically, we've always had to play a fine balancing act between abstracting or not. It's either all in or all out. 4X games often feel like board games. One of the innovations Stellaris brought to the strategy genre which seems like a natural progression from Crusader Kings has been nuanced abstraction. That is, game elements that you can choose to care or not care about depending on your gameplay preferences.

This nuanced abstraction will become a much bigger deal over the next few years as we are able to simulate more and more detail.

So how is that possible? Cloud-coprocessing. Right now, in 4X games, we are constantly paranoid of hardware requirements. Because they're a bit niche, we have to keep the hardware requirements down. But soon, players will be able to have the Sim and AI processed in the cloud.

Specifically: Co-processed. That is, if you have a monster machine, you won't need the cloud. But it means that users with lower end hardware who have a decent net connection can experience truly detailed AI and sim.

I can tell you that internally, we've already started playing around with sending out AI jobs to the cloud to process. This allows us to have vastly more detailed AI (and smarter AI) and more detailed game elements.

But "better AI" isn't really that transformative. What is, however, is the more nuanced gameplay. Less abstraction means you, the player, can have much finer control over your empire based on what level you want to involve yourself in.

Right now, we get stuck between micro-management hell or overly simplistic. The player really doesn't get much of a say of how much they have to manage and we all know that throwing a "governor" on it isn't really that helpful.

But on the other hand, if I have a strategy game with extremely detailed mechanics that I can comfortably zoom in or zoom out (figuratively) on the detail and decide where I"m comfortable, knowing that the details will be handled just fine because the AI (or even entity scripting) is farmed out to the cloud, I get to play the game the way I want to play.

That nuance will, in turn, change the way 4X games are designed. I can't tell you how many times we've had to toss out some sophistication (especially late game) because computing times would take too long to have the process AI-driven and the only alternative would be to make the player manually mess with it (and again, governors are typically pretty terrible because they're so simplistic and arbitrary, there's no nuance -- manage entire city or do nothing).

Anyway, I can't wait for you guys to be able to see what I'm talking about. We are in for some exciting times. -b