One of the best game sites on the net, eToychest, has an interview with the team leader of Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar.

It's one of the most in-depth interviews I've seen on out there so definitely check it out!

This past year has been pretty amazing. From the release of the 4th highest rated PC game of 2006 (of all PC games released last year) to Object Desktop 2007, there's just been a ton of fun and cool things that have come out this year.

Check out the article linked below to get a run down on what has happened this past year!

My friend Cordellia thinks she might be in favor of Obama in 2008 depending on how things go.

I agree with her that it's hard to be certain without knowing who the choices are.  But having looked at his positions and statements, I'm pretty sure I couldn't vote for him even though I agree with him on a lot of his votes.

Let's see how we match up:

Abortion: Support

Affirmative Action: Strongly oppose

Rights for gays: Support

Teaching family values in public schools: No opinion

More federal funding of healthcare: STRONGLY oppose

Privatize social security: Support

School vouchers: Support

Death Penalty: Strongly support

Mandatory 3-strike laws: Oppose

Decrease taxation on wealthy: Support

Illegal Immigration: Oppose

Expand free trade: Neutral

Patriot Act harms civil liberties: Disagree, patriot act = good. No evidence
of loss of civil liberties.

Military spending: Support

Limits on campaign funds: Strongly oppose

Supports UN: Oppose

Replace coal and oil: Strongly support

Drug enforcement: Neutral

Allow churches to provide welfare: Support

I am not sure I could vote for an Obama based on his political views. But it's not clear yet.  For instance, I agree with him on a lot of his votes -- I don't agree with the interpretation the test takes of his votes.

I don't know if my views on immigration (where he's a total nut in my opinion) would disqualify him.

He also is clueless on economics. "Tax cuts for the rich do not create jobs" is a ridiculous statement. So who does he think creates jobs? The government?

He's also anti-2nd amendment.

He also thinks imprisonment should be about rehabilitation. I think imprisonment should be about taking bad people off the streets.

Overall, he's a guy who wants the government to have a lot more power and for individuals to have a lot less. There's no evidence that he knows how the real world works economically and seems driven by feeling more than his head.  He seems to like to appear compassionate by taking away other people's freedoms IMO.

So I guess no, I probably wouldn't vote for him.  I do agree he says nice things.

He said:

Blue states may pray to the same God but they it's the red states that are the ones who seem to actually deliver the goods.  23 of the top 24 states in terms of charitable giving per GDP were red states Coincidence?

There are very distinct cultural values in our country that can't be easily rectified. The left really needs to reconcile the statistical reality that as a general truth that they have substituted political belief for tangible action.  That is, to believe in a better world is actually more important than actually doing something to make the world a better place.

Obama's handful of actions so far seem to indicate that he is of that group -- he wants nice things to happen but he doesn't seem to understand how to make those nice outcomes occur.  Taxcuts for the rich don't create jobs he says. Okay. Who creates jobs then?  He is big into gun control even though there's a wealth of evidence that legal gun ownership makes society safer in the broader sense (those gangs in the innercity aren't buying their guns legally).

Holy cow what a year it has been at Stardock.  10 years ago, Stardock was an OS/2 developer.  If you were with us from the OS/2 days, comment below. We'd love to hear what some of your favorite OS/2 experiences were.  If 10 years ago someone had told us that we'd be helping Microsoft on Windows Vista projects and have top-rated turn based strategy game of the year we would have never believed it.

So what were some of the highlights of last year?

February: Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

Stardock released Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords in February of 2006.  This turn-based strategy game put the player in the role of the leader of an interstellar empire at the dawn of the 23rd century.  Set in a galaxy where the Terran Alliance, based on Earth, had set up a coalition to fight against the evil Drengin Empire and their vile allies, the stage was set for an epic battle.  The game received incredibly positive reviews in the press and has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide this year so far (and remains a strong seller in the Christmas season in part because of constantly free updates that add new features). The reviews included: Gamespot: 9.0 GameSpy: 4.5 stars IGN: 8.7 CGM: 4.5 stars 1up: 9 G4TV: Perfect 5 out of 5 SciFi Channel: Perfect 5 out of 5 While Stardock has made other PC games in the past, none have approached the success of Galactic Civilizations II.  One of the things that helped make it a success we believe was the absence of CD copy protection. People could install it and toss their CD if they wanted. And even if they someday lose their CD when they go and get a new machine, no problem, they could (even if you buy it at a store in another country) simply re-download the entire game from TotalGaming.net (via Stardock Central) for free. Want to try it for yourself? It's at your local retailer or you can order and download it immediately while waiting for your box to arrive at www.galciv2.com.

April: KeepSafe

For beta testers of the ThinkDesk suite, KeepSafe isn't new.  But it was this year that it was finally completed. I can honestly say that of all of Stardock's products (and we make a lot) that KeepSafe is the one that I consider a universal must-have.  You should have KeepSafe.  KeepSafe integrated file archiving and revisioning into the file system. What this means is that when you make a change to a file type that you've decided to "keep safe", that file is then backed up as a revision automatically in real-time. The number of disasters a year that KeepSafe users avoid each year is countless. Ever been working on a document for hours and for whatever reason the file gets corrupted, lost, deleted, mangled, etc.?  With KeepSafe, you can quickly go back to the last revision of the file. What I think KeepSafe compelling is how easy it is to recover. I've used a lot of backup packages in the past and they usually make it painful to get the file back.  In KeepSafe you can get to it either by right-clicking on the file in explorer and choosing which revision you want to get or going to the KeepSafe dialog and typing in the name of the file and it will go through its entire archive database instantly. Just this past week it saved several hours of work for me. I was updating the Galactic Civilizations II manual, which is a huge file. I was working on it over the network and for whatever reason, our network connection hic-upped when I was getting ready to print a copy. I had to kill Word and when I came back, I was left with a 0 byte .doc file. I do regularly backups so I had a traditional backup from the day before. But what about what I'd been working on all day? Because I had KeepSafe, I was able to go back to the version from 16 minutes earlier. Like I said, KeepSafe is a must-have. Every time we post about it users will come on and relate their positive experiences with it.  PC Magazine recommended it shortly after it came out.  Get it here: KeepSafe home page

Summer 2006: Object Desktop 2007

This past summer Stardock released Object Desktop 2007. This was the annual snapshot of the major components of Object Desktop put together as a single package.  This year is a turning-point in desktop enhancement technology because next year, the cutting edge will be on Windows Vista.  Object Desktop 2007 was timed so that Windows XP users could get the programs at their prime while also gaining access to the new Windows Vista content. A user with Object Desktop can completely control how Windows functions. There's no product, at any price, the comes remotely close to what Object Desktop can do.  And with Windows Vista coming, the power of Object Desktop will only grow with the cool new features in Microsoft's next-generation OS. Object Desktop includes WindowBlinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, ObjectBar, RightClick, WindowFX, and much more! You can read more on what Stardock has planned for Windows Vista here. Get it here: Object Desktop.com

Summer 2006: ObjectBar 2.0

Long ago, there was a thriving category of desktop enhancement called the GUI extender. These were programs that were largely built around the idea of creating your own shell environment.  The popularity of these has waned a bit as the Windows shell itself has gotten more powerful. ObjectBar 2.0 was designed to evolve with the changing use.  Rather than being used to completely replace the shell, it has been designed to enhance it.  It will use your existing WindowBlinds skin and it is much much easier to use than these kinds of programs tend to be. ObjectBar remains a very compelling and easy way to give your desktop its own look and feel.   It is also one of the programs that makes up Object Desktop. Get it here: ObjectBar.net

Summer 2006: DesktopX 3.2

Where ObjectBar makes it so that you can extend your desktop. DesktopX turns your desktop environment into clay for you to mold any way you like. What DesktopX is allow Windows to have objects on the desktop. These objects can do anything you might want them to be. Some can be just eye candy that are short-cuts like this snow globe that you can shake (and doubles as a desktop short-cut that you can set): Or you can build an entire desktop with it: Or create a mini-application: You can then export your creations for others to use.  What's amazing about DesktopX is the relative ease of creating this stuff.  There's literally a cottage industry of tutorials and content out there. A number of people sell their creations on-line. You can get some Christmas desktop objects here. DesktopX, like ObjectBar, is also part of the Object Desktop suite. Get it here: DesktopX.net

Summer 2006: WindowFX 3.0!

Fall 2006: ObjectDock 1.5

The fall got started with a bang with the release of ObjectDock 1.5. This new version of ObjectDock added a ton of new features, improved performance, and Windows Vista support. ObjectDock is a program that enables users to organize their programs and running tasks into a dock. ObjectDock enables users to have more control over how they organize their desktop. Rather than have a bunch of icons on the desktop, these icons can be put into docks. ObjectDock can also be used to replace the Windows Start bar entirely freeing up valuable screen real-estate. The program comes in two forms -- a freeware version and a Plus version which adds tabbed docks and additional functionality. ObjectDock Freeware ObjectDock Plus adds tabbed dock support too For a full list of what was new in 1.5 you can go here. Get it here: ObjectDock.com

Fall 2006: WindowBlinds Vista Beta

WindowBlinds for Windows Vista has long been in development.  Windows Vista has a fresh cool new look called Aero.  And as good as Aero is, if you want to have your own look, you're out of luck -- unless you have WindowBlinds 5.5 Beta that is. WindowBlinds 5.5 Beta is currently only available on Object Desktop so you'll need to get Object Desktop to use it. WindowBlinds on Vista makes use of the new 3D desktop compositor that is the backbone of the Windows Vista display technology.   You can read a preview of it here. Get Object Desktop here:  Object Desktop Homepage

Fall 2006: The Dark Avatar Beta

With the popularity of Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, it was inevitable that there would be an expansion pack.  And this expansion pack goes way way beyond what most expansion packs deliver in terms of new features. The expansion pack adds customizable opponents, two new civilizations, planet environments, enemy agents, asteroid fields that can be mined, and much more. It's currently in beta and anyone who pre-orders before December 15th gets access to the beta. Here are some screenshots from the beta: You can get Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar at: www.galciv2.com/darkavatar

Of course, this is not a complete list by any means. But these are some of the highlights fo what has been going on this year at Stardock.  Please visit us at https://www.stardock.com to keep up with the latest goings on in what we do.  What is it we do? We listen to what you guys want and try to create cool stuff with those ideas!

Grab yourself a copy of DesktopX and start adding additional goodies to your Windows desktop!

DesktopX is the program that first made is possible to put live desktop objects onto Windows. While many people use DesktopX to create mini-applications (widgets and gadgets) it's far more flexible than that. Here are some goodies to try out:

	Snowglobe By Frogboy   Created by AlexG. This snow globe is fully animated (pick it up and shake it for the snow to go off) and alpha blended on any version of Windows (which means that if you change your wallpaper you'll be able to see the wallpaper through the glass portion). It defaults to pointing at My Computer
	Network Tree By Frogboy   This Christmas tree can do whatever you want it to do. I have it pointing to Network Neighborhood but that can be easily changed. The lights blink and it's fully alpha blended.
	SnowDocs By Frogboy This animated snowman can act as a short-cut to anything you want but defaults to your documents directory.
	Realistic Animated Christmas Snowflakes By GreenReaper Set how many snow flakes you want and it'll have them gently fall to the ground (or quickly depending on your settings)
	Christmas Lights Classic By Island Dog Here is another set in the Christmas Light series. You can right-click and clone the object, and string them along your desktop. Enjoy!

More to come!

The expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar) has a new beta up.  Gamers can still pre-order and get the beta.  This build should be just about ready to go other than omissions (i.e. unhooked up features). It shouldn't crash or be unstable.

Here are some (but not all) the changes:

** MAJOR ADDITIONS **

+ When a civilization is killed, it will give its remaining military ships to either the pirates or another civ.  Non-military ships are destroyed.
   + If the civ is good, it will first try to divvy out its remaining military ships to the civs with which it has warm or higher relations,  if there are no warm or higher civs, it will give its ships to the pirates
   + If the civ is neutral, it will divvy half of its remaining military ships to civs with which it has warm or higher relations, and the other other half to the pirates.  If no civs with warm or higher relations are found, all of the remaining military ships are given to the pirates
   + If the civ is evil, all of the remaining military ships will be given to the pirates
   + A message pops up that explains what happened and to whom the ships were given

+ Added some new improvements.
  +Research Coordination Center: 1 per planet, 25% Research bonus, requires Research Academy tech
  +Food Distribution Center: 1 per planet, 25% food production bonus, requires Xeno Farm Const. III tech
  +Fertility Clinic: 25% population growth bonus, requires Fertililty Acceleration tech
  +Counter Espionage Center = makes the planet it is built on immune to agents, one per planet.

+ Trade routes get more valuable each year (significantly more valuable). This will allow more strategies involving spies and trading.

+ When a trade between players is enacted, AI player won't see any player for 8 more weeks (any player not just human). This should dramatically change the way trade occurs between players. Previously, the AI traded techs like crazy. 

+ When a war begins between a player and another player, it will last
minimum of 16 weeks (turns).

+ New In-Game music added.

+ Each major civ will be guaranteed at least 3 asteroid fields in their star system

+ Min and max scale amount in ship designer adjusted to 10% - 250% range (Formerly 25% - 175%)

+ Research screen: you can now select individual milestone techs.  This will display their data in the context area above the tech tree

+ ESPIONAGE_ABILITY was not properly up since we changed the way espionage works after Dread Lords.  It is now hooked up in the code to give you the appropriate bonus to espionage spending.

+ Added 12 new Events to the game

** SPECIAL ABILITIES **

+ Super Diplomat
  + Diplomacy Super Ability gets real teeth in the diplomacy (negotiation) screen.
  + Player with Super Diplomacy ability can speak to aliens twice as often as regular players.
  + Super Diplomats are somewhat better at getting people to help them out when at war.
  + Super Diplomats are somewhat better at getting good deals in trade.
  + Human Super Diplomats don't have to worry about the "advanced weapons" limitation on tech trading. AI will trade advanced weapons with the Super Diplomat if they have enough cash.
  + Other players like the Super Diplomat more so than other races (the super diplomat rarely will end up being in a war that they didn't themselves start).

+ Super Manipulator
  + Super Manipulator ability put into effect in the diplomacy screen, can easilly get players to go to war with one another.
  + Super Manipulators are massively better at getting other players to go to war with people who have annoyed them.  Rule of thumb: Don't tick off the super manipulator player or you'll be sorry. Keep them happy.

+ Super Hivers
  + Now start with a 20% range bonus, opposed to unlimied range

+ Super Spies
  + A race with SUPER_ABILITY_SPY not only gets an agent to start, but also will have the "Counter Espionage" tech unlocked

+ Super Breeder
  + The super breeder code was commented out, so I uncommented it and adjusted for the new description

+ Super Traders
  + Added 2x trade revenue for super traders.

+ Super Annhilator
  + Korath should be building spore ship (but still needs work)

** NEW MEGA EVENTS **

+ MEGA EVENT: Disease event
  +  added tech for Disease Cure in techtree.xml
  +  GetAbility() returns 0 if this event is active and Disease Cure is not
known

+ MEGA EVENT: Corruption event
  +  Trade revenue is multiplied by 3 in
classCivilization::CalcRevenueFromTrade
  +  Taxes collected are divided by 2 in classColony::CalcTaxesCollected

+ MEGA EVENT: Tourism event
  +  in CalcTourismRevenue, the end result (before UP laws) is multiplied by
5.

+ MEGA EVENT: Organized crime event
  + in EndTurn.cpp, where the event is created, it cycles through all the
colonies and adds an agent from RACE_PIRATES to each colony using
AIGetBestPlanetImprovement to determine the most effective location.

+ MEGA EVENT: Somber event
  +  changed it so that the CalcMorale() function calls the one with the
parameters so that we don't have two redundant functions that need to be
updated
  +  in CalcMorale, the morale ability is halved before it is applied to the
calculations. 

+ MEGA EVENT: Subspace tear event
  +  Starting with the next turn, the max move for all ships is 4 (it's a
constant at the top of starship.cpp)

+ MEGA EVENT: Super tourism event - could use some better text, but I was running dry
on creativity.
  + Tourism revenue is multiplied by 10 in CalcTourismRevenue, but does not
stack with the Tourism event.
  + in CalcMorale, fTaxModifier is multiplied by 2 if this event is active.

** MISC ADDITIONS / TWEAKS / FIXES **

+ Disabled "Spy" button on planet context window if the selected planet has a
counter espionage center

+ Created a new popup message if (while in place agent mode) you try to select a planet with a counter espionage center on it, which'll give you an appropriate message about how the planet is immune to foreign agents.
 
+ Made it so the "Place Agent" button is disabled on planets with a counter espionage center.

+ Put a check for counter espionage center in AICiv so it skips planets that can't have agents.

+ Lots of little tweaks to trade values to make trading more interesting

+ AI better at upgrading asteroid mines

+ Dark Avatar game year starts in 2226 now.

+ Altarian AI will increase tax rate further than previous.

+ Drengin-derived AI personalities now have new planetary improvement algorithm -- for deciding which planet improvements to build.

+ Bug fixed whereby scouts would think planets were out of range when they weren't. Should help AI (all of them) scout better.

+ Drengin-derived AI players more intelligent in picking techs to research.

+ Anomalies don't' give as much money.

+ More anomalies overall

+ Engines use more space on ships. A lot more space. Won't affect most
players but for players who were making ships that could travel 40 moves per
turn, the engines are now too big (it wasn't supposed to end up like that
anyway, people get better at the game than we ever did <g>).

+ Fusion, Anti-Matter, and Quantum power plants are now MUCH more powerful.
(25%/50%/100%).

+ Race values now re-balanced.

+ Some tech costs tweaked.

+ added Sector label to sector string in the main gamescreen

+ changed it so that CheckForDefections does not try to immediately update graphics and overlays for the asteroids and mining bases, which causes the corrupted textures

+ changed it so that the whole minimap gets painted with the range color if the event is active. 

+ Finished the new Scenario window, and enabled access to it via the ‘Details’  button in the Galaxy window.

+ Disabled the "Spy" button in the planet context window if you do not have any spies to place.

+ The previous and next planet buttons on the Place Agent Screen will now make sure they don't allow the player to view a planet with a counter espionage center on it.

+ Made it so the shortcut key for the Place Agent Screen will cause a popup message if you don't have any agents to place

+ Made it so the max percent of income for espionage is 10% higher for a civ with the super spy ability.  The value of 10 is easily tweak-able since I put it in DEFS.hpp here: #define SUPERSPY_MAX_ESPIONAGE_RATE_BONUS 10

+ Changed the description of the Super Spy ability so that it says you "start out with the Counter Espionage tech" rather than "are immune to agents"

+ Planet habitability production penalties are now in effect.  For example, if you only have the level 1 colonization ability, you will get 50% production.

+ Fixed bug that caused ships to not be able to move (all tiles were out of range)

+ Fixed bug in combat code that caused projectile defenses to not work correctly

+ Planet sizes for habitable planets on the main map are now based on the planet’s quality (with small degree of randomness)

+ Auto-mining now ignores fog of war to be consistent with auto-survey (It was confusing to some players why the ship could not find the asteroids)

+ Fixed mouse bug with combo boxes.

+ Fixed a crash discovered by a user that occurred if you select NOTHING to build on the shipyard and press one of the rotate buttons.
 
+ New race themes for the Korath and Krynn added.
 
+ Race Abilities setup screen tweaked (Inherant Ability display, Special Ability spinner, and Total Abilities list).
 
+ Special Ability listed in the 'Choose your Race' setup screen.
 
+ Personality Setup sliders now have a 'Middle' notch.

+ When saving a custom race, a new dialog appears and asks for the race name and description before saving it

+ If a component has no flavor text or description, there will be no bubble for it in the ship intelligence report screen

+ Changed hard-coded points available from 5 to 10

+ Ability points listed in customize race abilities screen is now taken from the “CustomizationPoints” field in the race config.

+ Race Selection Wnd: special ability "info" button shows paragraph detailing the effects givent by selected ability

+ Custom Personality Wnd: Values for sliders now displayed

+ Checked in GalaxyWnd.dxpack that fixes z-order with custom map combobox

+ Made it so that you can load Dread Lords scenarios and custom maps in DA

+ Made it so that the personality tab is disabled for the player race, even if it's a custom race

+ Made it so that you can't change the super ability for the canned races

+ disabled the custom map and scenario comboboxes if playing a metaverse game
 
+ If you choose not to overwrite a ship design, the game will now return you to the ship designer so you can change the name

+ Fixed bug in message that pops up when the player is a Super Organizer and is attacked, and other civs come to his aid

+ Added two new tag names that can be used in planetImprovements.xml, both are a percentage value
  +<PopulationGrowthBonus></PopulationGrowthBonus>
  +<FoodProductionBonus></FoodProductionBonus>

+ made it so population growth bonus and food production bonus values show up correctly on the planet screen, improvement summary screen, and place agent screen

+ Fixed formatting of values in the planet list to use %, bc/week, and population (T, M, abbreviations.
 
+ Fixed ship list so selecting a list item will select that ship and senter on it (or center on a planet if the ship is in orbit).

+ Modified the Custom Opponent screen so that adjusting an opponent's intelligence affects their financial resources and natural ability sliders in the Custom Personality screen, and vise versa.

+ Setup buttons for your "Special Ability" are disabled if you're not a custom race

+ Custom Ship Style Window, ships in available templates list will be filtered to show ships with the same hull capacity as the selected ship

+ Choose Opponents Window: “Edit” button will be disabled when all opponent slots are full and player selects a race from the available opponents list

+ Added a line break in overlays for fleets to break up text (like “Auto-pilot”) and the number of ships (makes it more centered, better looking)

+ AI Ships that are working on an asteroid mining base will not display the number of turns it will take for them to complete the job

+ You can no longer talk to civs that do not want to talk to you by using the arrow buttons in the trade screen.  This will now skip over civs that do not want to talk

+ Races will decide not to talk to you only if you actually make a deal with them.  If you open the screen and then close it, you can still return to talk to them.

+ Added 2 new Korath diplomacy movies

+ Asteroid field mining base overlays would display the name of the base after CheckForDefections was called
  + Asteroid field mining bases do not use overlays, so the old overlay updating code has been commented out
  + UpdateAsteroidFieldTurn was checking the status of NeedToUpdateOverlayIcons, NeedToUpdateLines, NeedToUpdateGfx but was not clearing these flags after updating
  + Asteroid field mining bases were not having their bonus lines or gfx updated

+ Fixed bug where planet overlay icons were not updated after neutral alignment caused the planet to be terra-formed.  It would still show no free tiles.  Now it shows that tiles are available.

+ Tech milestone nodes were not drawn properly if the first milestone was researched, but other milestones were

+ Dreadlords will use battleship shipcfg for its dreadnaught ships.  They do not have a dreadnaught shipcfg file so I made the change in their ship style file so they will use battleships instead.

+ Asteroid mining bases and planets that defect will be updated immediately after closing the Defection message window

+ Fixed bug where asteroid fields could get created on top of planets or other objects

+ Bug where both left and right clicking popped up info box in maximized tech screen

+ Bug on opponent screen, where Edit button would be disabled if there was only one opponent selected

+ If a space miner is on an asteroid that cannot be improved, the "Automate" button is now available

+ AI civs will use their ship style templates to create their initial ships

+ Survey Ships can now be designated in the custom ship style screen

+ If you do not have any user-defined templates, a message will pop up the first time you go to custom ship style screen and tell you how to create your own templates

+ When the game creates an AI ship and puts components on it, it will first check to see if the part is already on the ship.  If it is, it will not add it, unless there is not enough of the part on the ship

+ Setup screens will show the AI colony ship template if you are customizing an opponent, and the regular core colony ship if you are customizing your player

+ Added new survey core ship templates for each race (all ship styles are set to use these, except DreadLords which use a frigate template)

+ Fixed bug that caused incorrect thumbnail gfx to be displayed in custom ship style window

+ Fixed potential crash when selecting ship templates in custom ship style window

+ Fixed bug in research screen that did not allow you to select milestones by dbl-clicking them

+ Added a tooltip to the Domestic Espionage screen to show how your espionage spending amount is calculated, (ie. percent of income devoted to espionage + civ espionage ability)

+ Hooked up new button on planet screen for nullifying agents that will only show up if you've selected a sector with an agent on it, and will only be enabled if you have an agent to use for nullifying

+ Added a tooltip for the planet screen's nullify agent button that'll show you how many available agents you have

+ Fixed Bug in sector mapper: CheckForStuckInStack was returning true if a single ship was on a stack with dead ships. Now it ignores dead ships.

+ When you conquer a planet that was a civilization capital, the civ capital improvement remains on that planet and you get the bonuses

+ When you trade or acquire a civilization capital planet through culture, the civ capital improvement remains on that planet and you get the bonuses

+ Fixed string crash on Foreign Report Wnd

+ Fixed crash when loading custom maps

+ Fixed bug in Ship Designer where when using some canned templates, certain parts would not show up on the template

+ Fixed bug in Ship Designer where when upgrading a ship, or using a template, the designer would not list icons for all components, making it impossible to remove certain parts from the design

+ Fix to AI special planet evaluation

+ made Mega Events on by default

+ fixed bug where RaceWnd always selected Terrans

+ made toggle music hotkey work without shift key

+ made F11 toggle max/min starmap instead of just maximizing it.

+ Planets now use pre-made height maps in the height maps folder
  + If height map is not found, it will be generated
  + Height maps will be recycled to save memory

+ Added new option to the Options screen (unchecked by default): Force AI to use max CPU

+ Added support for the following buttons to the ship design screen:

+ CTRL+ARROW KEYS:  Rotates camera   (just like on main map)

+ Fixed +/- zoom keys in ship design screen

+ Starport and Ship Yard screens now have keyboard support: (same key shortcuts as ship design screen, minus the ship-design-specific keys)
  + [1] Default view
  + [2] Front view
  + [3] Side view
  + [4] Top view
  + [+] Zoom out
  + [-] Zoom in
  + [CTRL] + Arrow keys, rotate camera

+ If you click on a segment in a tech group, the next milestone you can research in that group will be selected, but the information displayed will be displayed for the segment you clicked on.  For example, if you click on Sensors III, but Sensors I is the only one available for research, you will begin researching sensors I, but the info displayed will be for sensors III.  This prevents accidentally not changing techs, because you clicked on the wrong segment in the group.

+ made overall difficulty re-calculate if the intelligence is changed from the CustomPersonalityWnd

+ Fixed bug where starbases did not inflict damage on attacking ships, and thus could not kill them

+ Fixed bug where starbases inflicted more damage than the hit points on the attacking ship

+ Tweaks to some of the mega events to make them not quite as overwhelming

+ Planet Screen: removed sfx when clicking on the improvement list

+ Fixed bug where number of opponents was not remembered from game to game

+ Changed old “Space Truck” ability string to “Build Mines on Asteroid Fields”

+ Bug where declaring war when using spore ship would cause invasion dialog to pop up

+ Players will now always get a unique song when starting a Dark Avatar game

+ made it so that if the AI trades for terraforming techs, it will call AutoTerraform from UpdateGalaxy

+ fixed bug where Force Max CPU Usage was ON by default

+ made CPU Usage High by default

+ added super ability to OpponentWnd

+ enabled tech groups

+ fixed espionage sliders

+ On the place agent screen, improvements that CAN have agents on them, will be highlighted with a green border

+ On the place agent screen, made it so tiles that can be terra-formed, soil improved, habitat improved, or built on will not be shown with a highlight

+ Fixed bug where if spore ship was in a fleet with other ships, and invaded a planet, the whole fleet would be destroyed instead of just the spore ship

+ changed number of agents needed to reach LOW, MED, and HIGH level of espionage to 3,6,9 instead of 1,2,3

+ fixed bug where Campaign would overwrite settings from last sandbox game

+ made trade routes save the year established

With DualCore and QuadCore CPUs starting to get out there, what are some of the things you might expect to see?

We take a humorous look at what the AI of the future might look like. Check it ut!

It's not often I have to ban people from JoeUser.com. The Terms of Service (linked below) spell out the definite no-no's.

But that doesn't stop some people from trying to play victim if they get banned. I'll be the first to admit that the rules are not universally enforced. That's mostly an issue of the administrators only being able to read a tiny % of the articles on the site. So statistically, what happens is that banning occurs in discussions in which an administrator is a participant.

The quickest way to get banned is to start personally attacking an administrator. So what exactly is a personal attack? Like "porn" most people know it when they see it.  One on-line person once put it "A personal attack on-line can be reocgnized as words that would get the speaker of those words punched in the nose in real life."

What won't get you banned:

1. Having a different opinion on an issue than an adminstrator
2. Having a different life philosophy or political philosophy than an administrator
3. Vigorously defending your position with regards to an Admin
4. Vigorously attacking the position of an Admin

Example:

Acceptable exhcange:

Admin: I think pulling out of Iraq immediately would be absolutely insane!

User: What's insane is thinking that staying the course is good. Your position will result in the deaths of more American soldiers!

Unacceptable exchange:

Admin: I think pulling out of Iraq immediately would be absolutely insane!

User: Anyone who thinks we should be in Iraq should sign up for the army right now. Admin, you're a chickenhawk. You are nothing that a pathetic coward.

Upon an unacceptable exchange, the admin will normally provide a warning:

Admin: Attack the message. Not the messenger. Do not personally attack users. If you do so again, you are history.

This is where one of two conclusions are reached:

Either:

(a) The user takes a deep breath and moves on.

or

( Accuses the admin of being unable to handle "the truth" and telling him to F Off. (and gets banned).

As a general common sense thing, it's just not a good idea to personally attack or insult anyone on-line. But it's particularly not a good idea to personally attack the admin of a given site.

Some people I think honestly can't make the distinction between the person in the debate and the issue they are debating. They personalize a given issue to the individual.  I freely admit that my real world views are not nearly as strident as what I post on JU.  I want to post thought provoking topics but my actual views on the topic are not nearly as passionate as what I write. Or put another way, I care about politics but I don't care care about it. 

But some people really get consumed by their opinions and so they don't make the distinction between the issue being discussed -- the issue they disagree with -- and the person writing the position they disagree with. I.e. the classic "shoot the messenger".

One person recently banned had just finished calling me a "weak minded pathetic coward" because I supported the Iraqi invasion but had not personally joined the military.  Personally attacking me does not move the discussion forward. And let's assume that I am a week minded, pathetic coward. Okay. Now what? Does that change the validity or non-validity of removing Saddam?  That is why malicious personal attacks are forbidden.

People do get frustrated. I certainly do. In the above exchange the poster had already called me "dumb" in about a half-dozen ways. He was frustrated that he couldn't convince me of his point of view. But he didn't get in trouble for it. There is a threshold of venom obviously.

The other behavior that I don't like on JU is the tendancy of people to create personal attack posts about other people on the site. I understand the rationale for them - user A gets black listed from user B's site and it's the only way they can respond. I still don't like it though even if we don't vigorously enforce it.

My advice is this: Life is short. Blogging is for fun. If you're getting upset, take a day off. Take a few days off and regain perspective. I have had to do that hundreds of times over the years. People piss me off too.  Just try to avoid targeting the person as an individual. No one's perfect. Everyone slips given enough time. And your body of contribution to the community does matter when deciding what to do about it (i.e. if most of your posts are just nasty hate-filled personal attacks you'll be treated differently than the person who posts thoughtful discussions but gets pissed off and name-calls).

So I got my new Quadcore in. 2.667Ghz of Quadcore power.  I love it.  And as an AI developer, the future looks increasingly bright with features such as Quadcore coming.  Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar, will support Dualcore CPUs. If you turn up the CPU options, more advanced algorithms come into play.

But think of a future where Quadcore is common.  I could have, literally, a thread dedicated to doing nothing else than statistical analysis of data running in the background.  Such power would allow the AI to start storing a great deal of data that would be persistent. Your strategies could be written to disk and then analysed in future games by the AI.  It's something I definitely want to put into our next game (a fantasy strategy game) in some form so that the AI really does learn over the course of multiple games. 

These concepts are nothing new of course. Neural Nets/Expert Systems have long been discussed in AI circles.  What is changing is that some of these techniques become quite viable when you're dealing with a large % of your gamer base having multiple core CPUs.  Now, threads that do nothing but sift through data become possible. Even a brute force asynchronous thread could result with significantly more intelligent computer players.

Which got us to thinking -- why play on-line at all if we can make the computer players be exactly like human beings. I mean, we could let you choose between the various griefer types out there (the disconnector, the whiner, the jerk, etc.) and then take it to the max. Bringing us to our final destination:

Player sits down on a Friday night to play Galactic Civilizations III, loads up the game, and starts.

Upon contact with the Drengin Empire...

Drengin: "So Brad, I see you're playing again on another Friday night. That's pretty sad. Last Friday you played for 5 hours. According to your Tivo, you didn't record Battlestar Galactic. Loser. So, you going to do your usual build up a massive army while trading with me to get good relations and then attack? Because, this week we're playing by my rules. That's right. Here's how tonight's game is going to go.  You're going to let me win. If you quit or defeat me I'm going to upload those baby pictures I found in 'My Documents' up to the Internet.  You're going to lose and you're going to suck it down.   Also, you're going to exterminate the Torian Conferation.  Each game you buddy up to those freaks and I'm sick of it. So this time you're going to betray them like you did me.  Yes yes, I know that the Torians have access to your MySpace page but that's a chance you're going to have to take..."

..

Ah yes, we will finally be able to make computer players as malicious as real life human beings! By having them remember between games we can simulate grudges and with a few extra cores, have it learn all about you. EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU.

Drengin: "So you're doing pretty good I see. Lots of money. LOL. Well Brad, I happened to look at your Quicken account while I was waiting around for you to move your Battle cruisers -- yea, I see them -- Duh. anyway, clearly you are better at managing your economy than managing your own checkbook. I mean, good god, $314 at McDonalds last week? No wonder you keep buying workout equipment. Hey, I have free advice for you -- quit eating fast food!"

..

Obviously that utopian vision of computer opponents is far into the future.

Seriously though, one can't help but get very excited about the prospect of being able to start making real use of those Dual and Quadcores. Dedicated background threads doing data analysis from previous games could result in far more effective and interesting computer opponents.