Brad Wardell's Blog


GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #36 - v2.2 Preview

Published on Thursday, December 7, 2023 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv IV Dev Journals

[confluence title=""]https://stardock.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SDEnt/pages/1634729996/GalCiv+IV+Supernova+Dev+Journal+36+-+v2.2[/confluence]

 

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GalCiv IV: Epic Edition

Published on Friday, November 17, 2023 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv IV Dev Journals

We are currently working on the base game of the Epic edition.  This will come out at GalCiv IV 2.2 next month.

To make it easy for future updates to it, we are going to be bringing the code-base up to the Supernova edition. So in essence, GalCiv IV 2.2 base game on Epic will be the same as Supernova except for the new content (and things like AlienGPT).

GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #27 - Localization

Published on Monday, October 2, 2023 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv IV Dev Journals
One of Stardock's big challenges has been localizing our games.
 
GalCiv IV has over 180,000 words in it.  That's a lot to translate.  But that's not really the biggest issue.  The biggest issue is that we are constantly adding new text to the game which makes it hard for our linguistics team to keep up.
 
We typically use Trados for this sort of thing.  It's very powerful but it is not fast.  So I decided to write my own app called GC4TranslatorUI.  Fancy eh?
 
 
 
The format of our strings
 
The English files do have different names than the Chinese files.  Under the covers, they're just XML files like this:
 
    <StringTable>
        <Label>Race_Arcean_Dec</Label>
        <String>Arcean's stoic nature makes them unlikely to be [HS=HS_Ideology]ideological[/HS]. Instead they revere the military and Arcean soldiers gain additional [HS=HS_Approval]Approval[/HS] and are never pacifists.</String>
    </StringTable>
Where your app needs to match the labels together.
 
Due to finding Trados so slow, we are using this app which I'll walk you through how to use:
 
Step 1: The app is called GCTranslatorUI.exe and in the root of the Github project.  Load it.
 
It should look like this:
 
Step 2: Load the English source directory:
 
It's located here.
Your dialog should look something like this:
 
Step 3:  Choose Chinese as the language you want to use:
 
Step 4: Translate
 
I size the window to make it comfortable to use.  You will notice on the left side we have the priority of the translation.  (Normal, High).  We will also be adding additional strings.
 
Right now, all of the text has been machine (AI) translated.  So this would be a good way to get your linguists to take a look to and see what looks right and what doesn't.  You can see the English next to the Chinese on this screen.  If something needs to be changed, double click the entry and type in the correct translation.
 
Example:
Here is text that hasn't been translated.   The English source file is ModifierText.xml and the Chinese file it's to be translated into is AdditionalStrings_3.xml.   I double click on it and translate it.
 
 
 
This particular example highlights the issues with translation because what I actually wanted here was Sectors (not clusters) so even the English side is wrong.   But even if it were sectors, we mean sectors as in space sectors in a Sci-Fi context.  So even an AI translation would likely get it wrong.
 
Stardock is handling English, French, Russian, German, Chinese professionally (though the community has been super helpful with French, thank you!)
 
Eventually, we will have a large set of languages available to play the game in.  It's just a matter of how fast we are able to get to them.  But if the community wants to help, we welcome it.  
 
I didn't know Github at all when I started this. It's been a blast.  I've had ChatGPT teach me so I don't end up asking my engineers a bunch of newbie questions.  Link to ChatGPT: http://chat.openai.com
 

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Frogboy's October 1 weekend madness

Published on Sunday, October 1, 2023 By Brad Wardell In Galactic Civilizations IV

Just some tweaks we put in this weekend that should show up for the next beta release:

 

  • Hostile civ spawn events (Snathi, etc.) will no longer occur to civs with the Pacifist trait.
  • Research district base benefit increased from 3% to 5%
  • Manufacturing district base benefit increased from 3% to 5%
  • Life Support module added for ship design, increases range by +8.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed the AI to stupidly declare war without much of a military simply because they were pissed off.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed the AI to end transports with insufficient escorts
  • Updated the planet window and unit list to fix problems with accessing data and citizens on the screen. Improved the layout and fonts.
  • Disease related events blocked from triggering if the player is a synthetic civ).
  • Endcap Technologies: These are technologies that are unlocked if you get the corresponding endcap cultural progression trait. They are very expensive so that researching them is only viable late game.
  • Post-Sentience tech now increases citizen diligence by 0.2 per turn
  • Technological singularity now creases the research on the CAPITAL WORLD by 1% every turn. (this is very powerful for tall empires)
  • Consensus end cap tech now provides the player a +0.1 diplomacy buff per turn until everyone loves you.
  • Dream of Utopia end cap tech now results with the capital world of the civ generating +5 more influence per turn every turn. Note that this is a very expensive end game tech.
  • Glorious legacy end cap technology results on every planet generating an additional 5% more influence per turn. Again, these are techs that requires completing a cultural progression tree category and then researching the extremely expensive tech.
  • Coordinated travel end cap technology results in every ship getting +0.1 more moves per turn every turn (max of 100 additional moves per turn).
  • Individual Divinity end cap technology results in all citizens getting a +0.1 buff to every stat every turn.
  • Cultural Influence tech restore to Synthetic races so that galactic challenges will work (hat tip: Manhattan)
  • New Tech: Interstellar Cartography. Increases moves cap by +1. Requires Starbase Modules tech to research.
  • Exotic Agriculture requires the Farmer species trait
  • Anomaly detection now provides +1 to moves
  • Ship maint decrease when ships in orbit removed
  • Ships that start their turn in friendly territory now get a 50% buff to their moves that turn.
  • Base ship movement reduced from 3 to 2 now that ships get a 50% buff in friendly territory.
  • Capital Mainframe research bonus increased from 20% to 25%
  • Supply Depot requires Xeno Industrialization now
  • Altarian focus changed from Pacifism to Egalitarianism.
  • Cultural Progression trait changes:
  • Sovereign Identity gives all planets a 20% buff to planetary resistance (to culture flipping)

Cheers!

GalCiv IV BETA v1.9 localization

Published on Wednesday, September 27, 2023 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv IV Localization

 

Our localization teams are hard at work across the world.   And the community has done some great work too.

However it is clear that we are not going to get all 185,000 words fully translated in time for release.  It takes about 60 days for the linguists we work with to edit and translate.

That said, we are fairly far along.   Stay tuned!

GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #26 - The Animals of AI

Published on Monday, September 25, 2023 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv IV Dev Journals

When utilizing Stardock's AlienGPT, one might naturally ponder the question: which animals are the most sought-after choices for building a civilization around? Well, here's the answer.

 

 

Nearly 40% of users opt for cats, followed by foxes, fish, dogs, snakes, and more.

Animal Number of Mentions Percentage (%)
cat 1445 30.90
fox 331 7.08
fish 320 6.84
dog 319 6.82
snake 258 5.52
bird 251 5.37
tiger 219 4.68
wolf 190 4.06
rabbit 170 3.63
monkey 151 3.23
bear 139 2.97
elephant 133 2.84
shark 125 2.67
lion 102 2.18
giraffe 102 2.18
turtle 97 2.07
horse 84 1.80
sheep 83 1.77
dolphin 82 1.75
whale 76 1.62

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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.

GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #25 - A Galaxy for Everyone

Published on Thursday, September 14, 2023 By Brad Wardell In GalCiv IV Dev Journals

Greetings!

We are coming to the finish line for GalCiv IV: Supernova!

Our once reasonable scope has, of course, exploded over the Summer as we got our hands into making this the best space 4X game we've ever made!

The next major BETA update, 1.90 will be focusing on making the game more appealing to a much wider group of people.

Galactapedia

Galactapedia Image 1

Galactapedia Image 2

Galactapedia Image 3

 

This feature is expected to expand significantly in the coming weeks. We're excited about its potential and are hopeful to integrate capabilities allowing modders to add their own entries.

 

Modding

Speaking of modders...

Modding Image 1

Modding Image 2

 

We are gearing up to unveil the GalCiv Workshop. It will start by supporting uploads of civs and ships.

 

Workshop Image

 

Design your ship, hit a button, and upload. The same goes for your custom civilizations. Moreover, in various places, you'll have the option to pick from a range of ships. In beta 1.9, we're interested in your feedback on where additional integration points could be located.

Stay tuned for updates on code modding!

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