I'll write a fancier version of this soon but here is our near-term schedule:

• GalCiv 1.2: Random Events added (August)
• GalCiv 1.3: The UI update (September)
• GalCiv 1.4: The big AI update (October)
• GalCiv 1.5: Diplomacy update (December)
• GalCiv 1.6: House keeping (February)
• GalCiv 1.7: New starbase system (March)
• GalCiv 1.71: House keeping (May)
• GalCiv 1.8: Asteroid Mining, (June)
• GalCiv 1.9: Large Empire UI update, Small Empire Bonus  (Fall)
• GalCiv 2.0: GalCiv III Crusade! (Spring 2017)
• GalCiv 2.2: Ludicrous map size!
• GalCiv 2.3: Balance pass, diplomacy update  (Summer 2017)
• GalCiv 2.5: Massive UI overhaul, AI fleet manager, economic overhaul, Crusade/Basegame compatibility (Fall 2017)
• GalCiv 2.6: Multiplayer update (Fall 2017)
• GalCiv 2.7: Multi-core loading system, new AI exploration system, Fan feature requests added (December 2017)
• GalCiv 2.8: The big AI update (January 2018)
• GalCiv 3.0: Intriguing... (Spring 2018)

Late update: December 2017

Yesterday was the long-waited big update to Galactic Civilizations III.  Version 1.4 added many many AI and UI updates to the game based on months of player feedback.

You can see the news here: https://forums.galciv3.com/472349/

!! UPDATE !! READ THIS: https://forums.galciv3.com/472865/ 

We’re pretty happy with the response overall.  But there is one change I’d like to discuss with you guys: THE WHEEL.

Who am I?

I’m Brad Wardell. I wrote the original GalCiv for OS/2 and much of GalCiv I and GalCiv II.  I also designed those games and wrote their AIs.  On GalCiv III I’ve been more of an executive consultant thus far as I’ve been focusing on Ashes of the Singularity for the past couple of years.  But GalCiv remains my baby. I’ve spent over 20 years with it. So it matters a lot to me.

Background

In GalCiv III 1.0 through 1.3 players could go to the planetary governor and override the global spending priorities on a planetary basis.  This made micro-managers very happy and people who don’t like to micro manage very sad.

Planetary Wheel: Love & Hate

I am in the camp of hating it. HATING it.  Not because of the micromanagement because it completely violates what GalCiv has always been about: You are running a galactic civilization.  It’s supposed to be half simulation, half strategy game.  The wheel is totally gamey.  No civilization functions where last being can be assigned a job by the government. 

I have tried to stay reasonably hands off on GalCiv III but the planetary wheel had to go.  I wanted it out for 1.1, then 1.2, then 1.3 but other things took priority and it was finally killed in 1.4.

It has NOTHING to do with the AI

I read the forums and I see people talking about the change being made to make the AI easier.  That’s a ridiculous argument. Not to be mean but only a non-programmer would say that.  Micro-managing is what AIs do best.  I could write up an AI that could tweak planetary wheels every turn to a level that would make most micro managers weep. 

Put another way: computers are faster and better at math than humans and the planetary wheel was all about math. 

The reason the AI didn’t use the planetary wheel in previous versions is because it was supposed to be eliminated long ago.  So there was no point writing AI for this if the feature was going to go away.

It is my game but it is also YOUR game

Now, that said, I write games for you guys. That’s what motivates me.  I see people who really liked the planetary wheel.  So we need some sort of solution that will make both groups happy.

What I’m going to ask is that a prefs.ini setting called planetarywheel=on be added.  If that’s on, you’ll get your wheel.  However, that won’t be the official version of the game. There will be no in-game UI option to turn it on.  People who are passionate about this feature can still turn it on without everyone else feeling like they have to use this feature in order to micro-manage their empire to the nth degree.

I know that solution won’t make everyone happy. No solution will.  But hopefully this will be a reasonable compromise for most people.

New version of GalCiv makes the AI more fiendish, bigger galaxies easier to manage and much more!

For those of you not familiar with Galactic Civilizations III a quick recap.  GalCiv III is a game where you choose an interstellar civilization to lead in the 23rd century. One of these includes Earth in the year 2250.  What sets it apart is the scale and modability of it.  You can literally build up your own galaxy to play in.  When people say it’s the ultimate sand box game, they mean it. 

The game supports over a hundred different civilizations playing simultaneously on a vast scale all while starting out with just a home world. And there are already thousands of custom made civilizations and ships available to download right from within the game.

Solving the AI challenge in v1.4

As others have pointed out, space is big. It’s really…really big. It’s so big it’s as if it has some sort of inferiority complex about itself and it’s just screaming “Hey! You! Look how BIG I am!”  So when writing a game that is part strategy game and part simulation, you have some unique challenges.

For example, how do you write a computer AI that provides a challenge to players without making it cheat like crazy? When GalCiv III shipped, the AI was “pretty good” but it didn’t take long for expert players to find ways to crush it.

So how did we solve it? Data mining.

We started looking at how these experts were playing the game.  Sure, stalking YouTube players may seem wrong but then again, people openly posting their strategies are fair game right? And with GalCiv III being a 64-bit multi-core game, we can toss a lot of computing power at the problem. So we did.

No DLC for 1.4.

For those looking for a new DLC to go along with 1.4, I’m afraid there isn’t any this time.  All our budget went into this free update.  We hope you like it!

Lots of other stuff

The AI wasn’t the only thing we worked on of course.  The multiplayer community of GalCiv III continues to grow and we’ve put in a lot of work to make that a much better experience since the game does lend itself to multi-day sessions of MP (though I wish  more people would play the Arena maps but I digress).

Screenshots:

Nothing exciting, I just love the idea of starting in our home solar system.

Much better chicks to get information on your world.

Emphasize the production of a planet or turn it over to the AI to manage (with an all-new, written from scratch planetary governor AI)

The Ship designer remains one of the coolest features of GalCiv III.  Remember: The AI will use your ship designs when you play against them. Also, these cool ship designs are available via Steam Workshop so you can import them into your game (or print them to your 3D printer).

Player designed ships leads to some interesting battles..(yes, that’s a space hair dryer)

Players can share their designs online for epic…Lonestar fun…

You can also zoom out to see your custom made galaxy fighting it out

Import alien races created by the community into your game for massive galaxy wide diplomacy, trade and warfare

The Full Change Log

Summary
The AI Strikes Back! The AI now does a much better job of building its planets and managing its economy. Player Governors are likewise better at building planets and the new Spending Foci allow you to manage planetary production.

AI
+ The AI does a much better job at building worlds
+ Added AI governors to better manage starbase construction
+ Improved budget management
+ Improved constructor movement logic

Governors
+ Player governors do a much better job of building planets
+ Added spending foci to the planetary screen. This allows players to shift their planetary production between manufacturing, research, or wealth.
+ Added a Balanced Governor type that builds worlds that are balanced between manufacturing, research, and wealth spending.

Change Log
AI Changes
+ AI creates specialized planets instead of generic worlds.
+ AI prioritizes building starbases around planets instead of strictly claiming resources.
+ If the AI determines that it is overspending and cannot support the fleet size, it will aggressively decommission ships. Older ships are decommissioned first.
+ Improved AI and Governor planetary project (e.g. Economic Stimulus, Cultural Festival, etc.) selection
+ After conquering a planet, AI will pick Governors based on the existing improvements.
+ AI now picks Governors based on planet bonuses.
+ AI now uses spending foci.
+ AI tech Governor now has a better tech order provided.
+ AI will no longer overbuild starbases and it only builds what it wants to build.
+ Add Governors for the AI to manage Starbases.
+Tweaked the AI War strategy to focus a bit more on Research.
+ Improved Constructor movement logic:
- Constructors will no longer get stuck in a logic loop when entering dangerous areas.
- Fixed weird edge cases regarding constructor building rings and resource capturing.

+ 10/27 Made the AI research weapons better by increasing the priority of all weapons types slightly to work better with tech governors.
+ 10/27 Added multiple new AI prototype blueprints and designs such that the AI is now much better at using Resources to kill you.
+ 10/27 AI ships now patrol their territory if they do not have a specific target.
+ 10/27 AI now use shipyards and planets as rally points.
+ 10/27 Adjusted levels at which the AI will start decommissioning ships
+ 10/27 Fixed a bug where the AI was being notified that a ship has stationed in a fleet when it wasn't.
+ 10/27 Weak ships will fall back to starbases.
+ 10/27 The AI will now prefer to build up transport fleets before building attack fleets. This will make AI invasion fleets stronger and invasions easier for the AI.

Governors
+ Added spending percentages to the manufacturing, research, and wealth tooltips. For the manufacturing tooltip, also added social and military percentage information. This help clarifies the effects of the new spending foci
+ Added spending focus to the planetary screen. This allows players shift their planetary production to manufacturing, research, or wealth. Choosing a focus diverts 25% of the planetary production to that area.
+ Added a "Direct Control" governor that allows players to manually place planetary improvements (similar to the old "remove governor" button)
+ Added a Balanced Governor that builds worlds that are balanced between manufacturing, research, and wealth spending.

Gameplay
+ Added new Military Subsidies Planetary project that funnels excess social manufacturing production into a sponsored shipyard.
+ Created new Moral Allowance planetary project that funnels social manufacturing production into boasting the planet's morale.
+ 10/27 Lowered tech weights on some defense techs.
+ 10/27 Drengin are now able to build Approval starbase modules.
+ 10/27 Tweaked the common medium habitable planet from 25 to 22
+ 10/27 Increased the priority of life support on most blueprints.
+ 10/27 Lowered mass of several components slightly

Diplomacy Polish
+ In the trade window, added the relations slider underneath the Leader's name
+ Diplomacy Trade screen: added confirmation before declaring war
+ Added mouse tooltip to the "speak to" button if the opponent wasn't available for trade
+ Add an "available to talk" icon to faction power list on the main screen
+ Trade screen: collapsed ships stay collapsed each time between screen transitions
+ Trade offers should properly consider the credit value of a stack of items.
+ The cancel button in the "Home Star System Window" now works properly

UI / Graphics
+ Minimap no longers shows ZOC influence under fog of war
+ Added gel background to the Load Map screen and fixed some text overlap issues
+Search results in Research Technologies are are now flushed between games
+ Added new tooltips for faction power list
+ Fixed an issue where the production wheel does not always update the values on the screen when previewing new values on the wheel.
+ Revised the Collect Gameplay Data tooltip text to make it clearer what it's doing.
+ Removed the "Quick Move" game options screen as it didn't do anything.
+ The rename object dialog did not have a message or icon. Fixed it so it looks a little better.
+ Fix line artifacts on the Research screens
+ Fix Medium UI sizing issues in the Relic list.
+ Fix issue where Approval stat on planet list entries was popping out of grid in Medium UI.
+ Fixed lines on medium UI in the battle report entry.
+ 10/19: Clicking on sorting icons in the main UI again will reverse the sorting order
+ 10/27 Cleaned up the Relationship `sliders on the Interaction and Diplomacy windows.
+ 10/27 Added new diplomacy icons for war and ally
+ 10/27 Cleaned up unused assets
+ 10/27 Re-work icons on for Planetary Governors.
+ 10/27 Added "Low Res Textures" option to improve performance.
+ 10/27 Setting up lean textures for dread lords texture set to improve their appearance

Balance
+ Reduced decommission idle time from 30 to 10.
+ Lower Manufacturing planet requirement to class 7
+ Updated planetary projects. Boost birthing subsidies to 10% from 5%
+ New Military Subsidies project, (Requires feedback work)
+ Adjusted Life Support modules to be cheaper in general and scale better with advancement.
+ Nerfed Factories slightly.
+ Balance Drengin, and Yor manufacturing and Research improvements, to better balance against Terran improvements
+ Lowered Tech inflation exponent slightly
+ Rebalanced Starbase modules, primarily boosting bonuses
+ Increased the influence generated by starbase modules
+ Techs will now increase in cost in late game

MP
+ Fixed several desync issues
+ Addressed issues that made the Host seem unresponsive.
+ New Lobby messages will appear on new lines. Messages were sometimes bunching up.
+ Added a Cancel button to the loading screen for multiplayer games.
+ If either player has the universal translator, then they can now speak to one another and trade.
+ Fixed a bug where the middle "For" section on the trade screen would appear when a trade is canceled.
+ Fixed a case where the "start button" was appeared disable when it was not.
+ In some circumstances, the game was incorrectly sending multiple match reports for the same game.
+ If a peer exited the game or lobby, the host was not always getting the disconnection request.
+ Restored game: Fixed a problem where a player's faction was changed to Terran.
+ Restored game: Joining the lobby will no longer occasion create an extra slot.
+ Fixed a case where starting a multiplayer game would have visual gaps in the player list
+ The game can now load player created Gigantic maps in multiplayer.
+ Added support for private multiplayer games
+ Host can now set the number of human players in the lobby.
+ 10/19: Fixed a multiplayer crash when attempting to de-select a spending focus
+ 10/27 The fixed a bug introduced in the previous opt-in that prevented players from choosing different factions in multiplayer.

Bugs
+ Fixed a startup crash caused by system variables.
+ Medium UI: In the Tech Tree screen, the player was in the "Age of Expansion" but is seeing a yellow bar as if they were in the "Age of War".
+ "Wish upon a Relic" Mega Event no longer spawns hordes of pirates.
+ Fix an issue that was stopping the Drengin from getting Tech and Manufacturing Capitals.
+ Fixing crash when removing a custom part from ship design if the custom part does not exist on the local machine. The most cost
+ The Dread Lords were unable to build fighters for the orbital defenses. However, the game thought there should be fighters and prevented players from invading.
+ Some Dread Lord controlled planets could not be invaded if the Dread Lords built an Orbital Defines Platform. That defense would try to generate fighters that the Dread Lords could not build so the battle would never start. The Dread Lords can now build the fighters and their planets can be invaded.
+ Fix missing Icon on Hull Mastery Specialization.
+ If the logo for a custom faction is not found, use the "random faction" logo is used as a fallback inside of entire texture atlas.
+ Fixed a bad prerequisite for Yor Lossless life support technology that was causing an infinite loop.
+ Added a check for "Windows\system32" in the environmental path variables at the start of the game. Some users are missing this in their path and the game would crash on start.
+ The "Wish upon a Relic" Mega Event was incorrectly spawning pirates in addition to the Relic.
+ Fix issue that was stopping Drengin from getting the Tech and Manufacturing Capitals.
+ Fixing crash when removing custom part from ship design if the custom part does not exist on the local machine
+ Fix missing Icon on Hull Mastery Specialization.
+ Fixed bug when loading a game with custom factions and the faction logo image was not found locally on the machine that loaded the saved game. It would not display the strategic icon properly and render the entire icon atlas. If a cust logo is not found, the "random faction" logo is used as a fallback.
+ Ship movement debuffs are no longer clipped in tooltip
+ Fixed the number suffixes for the End Game ranking.
+ The first planet in custom made maps are now the player's homeworld.
+ Planetary screen wasn't displaying the proper number of Manufacturing, Research, and Income icons.
+ The Register and Free DLC buttons now become disabled (with a tooltip) the same way the Multiplayer button does, so if the internet or Steam cut out while the game is running there won't be any confusion about the state of those buttons.
+ Added missing component icons
+ Prevented a crash with wonders and players with custom data.
+ Fix bad thumbnails on some Drengin Ships
+ Removed the spending wheel from the Govern Planet screen. Use the focus buttons to adjust spending levels instead.
+ Fixed several stuck turn problems
+ Added next and previous arrows to the shipyards window.
+ Adjusted the height of the Map Editor description box to allow more room
+ Shipyard: Improved "required resources" tooltip Buy button to be more informative and friendly to the player
+ Starbase list now only displays filters that are needed. That is, don't show a "mining" filter unless you have a mining starbase.
+ Planet lists will now properly sort at the beginning of each turn
+ Fixed a problem that made the game unstable if you had hundreds of ships.
+ Typos
+ Pressing T while the input box does not have focus will now hide the chat window.
+ Rally point and Fleet numbers will no longer appear on top of the UI.
+ When choose a Civilization, the the factions appear in the following order: default factions, DLC factions next, and custom factions last.
+ The game now verifies if the user is logged on to Steam when attempting to show/hide the DLC Available button.
+ Fixed a crash when a dead AI is the last player in the turn list
+ 10/19: Renamed the improvement "Moral Allowance" to "Morale Allowance"
+ 10/19: Human player can longer initiate trade before other player has universal translator
+ 10/19: Getting or setting player stats will now not work if the user isn't logged in to Steam
+ 10/19: Updated registration UI and text.
+ 10/19: Fixed startup crash with generation of the texture atlas. As a result of this fix:
- Atlas files are now in the steam game folder
- Modders: Atlas files can be generated by adding /atlasgen to startup command line. This puts the atlas files in the "my games/galciv3" folder. The game will now check the "my games/galciv3" folder first, and fall back to game dir if not found.
+ 10/19: Updated batch files to prevent a crash with systems with specific path variable settings.

+ 10/27 Starbases no longer give +100% to beam weapons.
+ 10/27 On the Planetary Governors screen, the auto-terraform is no longer disabled the first time the screen is opened.

Known issues

• There are some cosmetic text issues on the Hebrew version of Windows in some of the tooltips.
• If you haven’t run the game since upgrading to Windows 10 and the last time you played was earlier than 1.1 the screens directory might not work right resulting in launch issues.  If this happens, delete the GalCiv3 directory in documents\my games.

The Links

•  
• To see more screenshots of GalCiv III taken by players visit here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/screenshots/
• To go to the Steam page for the game go here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/226860
• And of course, the home page: www.galciv3.com

While it's been awhile since we've been able to focus on WinCustomize's front-end, I wanted to give you a head's up that WinCustomize just got a major hardware upgrade on the backend.

Hopefully the site, the galleries and elsewhere feel snappier. Let us know.

NOT RELEASED

(expected early this week)

• Engineer speed increased
• Lower tier units move somewhat faster
• Cosmetic improvements to the Cronus dreadnought
• Map fixes
• New Map: Grison
• Fixed bug that caused teammates to take attrition damage when in a teammate's territory
• Game setup settings are now remembered
• Game setup bug fixes
• Various UI fixes
• Air units move much faster
• Creeps now span in groups of 4 instead of 1 to slow down easy rapid expansion.
• DirectX 12 related fixes
• Double-clicking on units selects multiples in area.

List in this thread what things you think MP needs before release. I'll try to update this post with your feedback (or at least, the ones I think are doable).

I'll  start:

1. HOST migration. Scheduled for Beta 1. Host quits, game should continue.
2. Surrender option where you concede the game go to stat screen.
3. Nicer stat screen with line graphs and more data.
4. Ability to mute chat easily

Medium Settings: 2560x1440:

DirectX 11:  23.7fps

DirectX 12: 39.6fps

What's your score? (I use JING to take my screenshots).

The terrain in Ashes of the Singularity is procedurally generated. This opens the door to randomly generated maps in the future despite being so large and so detailed.

Greetings! This will serve as raw content for the GAME page on the Ashes website.

Backstory

You can read that here: https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/game/backstory

The FAQ

You can read that here: https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/game/faq

Update to FAQ:

Alpha Info

Q: What should we expect in the Early Access version?

A:  We have full AI now and maps that support up to 6 players.  We expect to keep increasing the player count as time goes on as long as most player's machines can handle it (there are a lot of units to track).  We also support up to 6 players in multiplayer with, again, the goal to increase that as far as the hardware/Internet will allow us to go.

Q: What are the system requirements?

A: For early access we have:

Absolute Minimum:

• 64-bit Windows 7 / 8 / 10 OS
• Quad Core CPU
• 8 GB Memory
• 2 GB DirectX 11 Video Card
• 1600x900 Display Resolution
• High-speed Internet Connection

We Recommend:

• 64-bit Windows 7 / 8 / 10 OS
• i7 (or equivalent) CPU
• 16 GB Memory
• Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD R9 390 equivalent Video Card
• 1920x1080 Display Resolution
• High-speed Internet Connection

For final release, we expect to be able to bring the video card memory requirement down to 1 GB but otherwise, the rest will remain the same. 

Gameplay

Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time multiplayer strategy game set in the distant future in which humanity has expanded into the stars and is now in conflict for control of key planets in our galaxy.

You begin with a single headquarters called a Nexus and a construction unit called an Engineer.  The world is broken up into regions, each containing resources. Your objective is to annihilate any enemies on the world or take control of special regions containing Turinium until you can reach a critical mass of it. 

The Resources

There are two primary resources:

• Metal. This is the raw construction material for buildings and units.
• Radioactives. This is the raw fuel you use for advanced units and advanced buildings.

In addition there are two other resources in the game:

• Turinium. Some regions don’t contain a power generator but instead, a Turinium generator.  The player who controls the most of these will begin accumulating Turninium. If enough is collected, they win.
• Quantas. This is an artificial resource produced by Quantum Relays that the player constructs. They are spent on improving overall technology and making use of orbital global base abilities.

Starting Conditions

When the game begins, the player starts with a home base called a Nexus and a single Engineer.  The world is broken up into regions, each with its own power generator.  These power generators are protected by neutral guardian units, more of which appear as time goes on.  Taking control of a region grants the resources of that region to you, provided that you control all the regions between it and your Nexus.  Using these resources, you construct various types of factories that can construct various kinds of units. 

Economics

Your economy is driven by acquiring metal and radioactives. A region you control will typically have either metal or radioactive deposits. Each one will provide 1 of its corresponding resource.  If you place an extractor on that deposit, it will double the output.  If you build an amplifier on the power generator, it will double the output of the entire region.

As you construct units and buildings, resources are subtracted from your inventory.  Much of the player’s skill boils down to managing these two resources to ensure that they are not over-spending or allowing resources to be wasted.  Through technology, you can increase the maximum inventory of resources to use during times of peek production.

Resources: Income, Balance and maximum inventory displayed.

Combat

Players construct a wide variety of units depending on their circumstances.  Air units can provide radar and visual coverage, bomb strategic targets, or maintain air superiority.  Ground units can be from small (50m long) frigates to gigantic, nearly kilometer long dreadnoughts.  The planets being fought over have relatively low gravity, allowing both sides to employ units that hover, which allows them to navigate around each other in 3 dimensions.

Units tend to be differentiated based on weapon range, rate of fire, and damage capability. 

Building Armies

Ashes introduces the concept of a Meta unit.  When a player forms an army, all of the units in that army behave as if they are a single unit. Selecting one will select all of them.  Each unit is aware of every other unit in its army and automatically engages enemies and protects allies based on the needs of the army.  When someone forms an army, each child unit is effectively just part of a single big unit that can and should be controlled as such.

Veterancy

Dreadnoughts are units you care about.  As they survive battles they gain experience, which allows them to level up and gain new abilities.  A high level Dreadnought may be substantially more powerful than one that has been newly produced. Hence, if one is in trouble, you will want to retrieve it.

Orbitals

As players accumulate resources, they will be able to construct orbitals, which gives the player access to global abilities. These abilities include, but are not limited to:

• Engineering call-down.  Only the Nexus can construct Engineers, which is fine early on, but as the player expands across the world the Nexus gets further and further away from the front lines. Players can spend Quantas to call down an Engineer.
• Teleport.  In addition, players can construct buildings that will automatically send units to a designated destination by spending enough Quantas. This allows players to flank the enemy (though their units are extremely vulnerable when teleporting) by transporting to a distant location location on the planet.
• Orbital Strike. Players can bring down wrath from above by spending enough Quantas, eliminating vulnerable units in a large swath of destruction.
• Orbital Shield. Players can proactively protect their units by projecting a shield onto their units to block an Orbital Strike.

Ascendancy

In addition to individual planetary wars, there is a larger galactic war taking place in this part of the galaxy for control of key worlds.  Controlling worlds provides resources and advantages that you can use in future conquests. However, this works for your enemy as well.

Victory

If you can destroy an opponent’s Nexus, they are eliminated.  If you (or your team) has eliminated all opponents, you win.  If you (or your team) controls enough Turinium, you also win. 

I had a 2 hour game of Ashes.  This quickie video summarizes things.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8051911/Ashes-BradIsBitter.mp4