Star Control: Origins villains come to Galactic Civilizations III in exciting new DLC
New Alien Civilizations bring their own ship styles, unique race traits, diplomatic quirks, AI personalities, and more!

The Villains of Star Control: Origins DLC pack introduces four major new civilizations to Galactic Civilizations III. All of the new alien factions come equipped with a unique leader, ship, music, and traits that make each civilization look and play differently from the existing major civilizations.

Play as or against the Measured, the overly bureaucratic race of sentient coral, or as the extremely polite (but surprisingly cannibalistic!) Phamysht. You can also play as the frightening race from another dimension, the Xraki, whose only desire is to destroy everything in their path, or as the immortal and genetically superior Scryve. 

Galactic Civilizations III is the most popular space-based turn based strategy of all time.  Your civilization has just achieved faster-than-light travel and the galaxy awaits you.  But you are not alone and must deal with alien civilizations through diplomacy, trade, cultural hegemony, or military conquest either against the computer or against friends online. 

In addition to the new DLC, we've released a new v3.9 update for the game that includes massively shorter late game turn times, updated balance based on feedback, AI improvements, new star base modules and lots more. The changelog at the bottom of the post has more details, so be sure to check it out!

MAJOR RACES IN VILLAINS OF STAR CONTROL: ORIGINS

The Measured
Do you have a form for that?

The Measured are an extremely bureaucratic race of sentient coral who once enjoyed a thriving and rich civilization before they were genetically modified by the Scryve. They now serve as the record keepers for the Scryve Empire, a role to which they are well suited.

The Phamysht
So lovely to MEAT you!

The Phamysht are a race of extremely polite cannibals who find other beings generally intolerable. The galaxy is a messy place, and they’re here to finally bring it some class and refinement, even if it does mean eating lesser races out of existence.

The Xraki
CHAOS. ENTROPY. FEED!

Although they are considered to be fanatical monsters by most, the Xraki weren’t always that way. They hail from another dimension and were driven mad through the evil ministrations of the Scryve Empire, who turned them into their shock troops.

The Scryve
Permission to exist: Denied!

The Scryve are a race of immortals who weren’t always the villains. Their civilization was once filled with idealism and hope, but terrible events over time slowly corrupted them and withered their empire, turning them instead to brutal violence.

Additional Features in Villains of Star Control: Origins

Get Villains of Star Control: Origins today!

v3.9 Changelog

Features

Modder Inspired Balance update 

Special thanks to Horemvore, Old Spider, and the modding community. Brad/Draginol reviewed his mods to evaluate whether some of those ideas should make them into the game. We love seeing players that are passionate about the game and it's great to see their work making the game better for everyone.

Zone of Control update

No more fog of war in your empire.  All territory in your Zone of Control now is always visible.  This helps you keep an eye on what other factions are doing in your backyard.  

Performance

We've made a substantial improvement in performance.  This boost is especially noticeable in the shipyard screen and in late-game turn times.  

Change Log

Balance

• PlayerStartSpacingWideMod changed from 1.0 to 0.33
• PlayerStartSpacingNarrowMod changed from 0.50 to 0.175
• Basic Life Support range bonus increased from 0.25 to 0.30
• Large hull ship maint increased from 3 to 5
• Huge hull ship maint increased from 3 to 7
• Cultural treaties now benefit both sides
• Military Alliance treaties now benefit both sides
• Planets rebel a bit slower than before.
• AI values supply ships more when it's not at war.
• Surrender change: Surrendering players now destroy their worlds upon surrendering unless they are surrendering to a particular player in which case they will transfer their homeworld (and only their homeworld) to that player. This reduces the late game sudden explosion in micro-management of worlds the player may have no interest in. AI also destroys its ships.
• All territory in a player's ZOC is always visible. No fog of war (in your borders).
• New starbase module: "Ascension Gate Study." Allows the player to get a lot more out of the Ascension Gates.

Fixes

• Shipyard won't rebuild the list of ships unless there's been a change to the resources the player has. This dramatically improves late-game shipyards screen performance.
• Improved turn times, especially late game.  
• Fixed issue where disabling a DLC via command line would not have the grayed out portraits show up.
• Fixed some pixelation on the Campaign screen.
• Adjusted list container on the custom faction screen to avoid clipping of the Abilities list on lower resolutions.
• Fixed typos and grammar errors
• Added typos and grammar errors
• Shorten names that were too long
• Fixed colony list in Civilization screen showing the incorrect manufacturing stat in the column labeled for social manufacturing.
• Fixed several places in the UI that were showing incomplete or inaccurate stat breakdown tooltips for manufacturing because of missing tooltip data.
• Got rid of leftover debug UI graphics in the Promotion Stats tooltip (seen in the commander unit promotion screen).
• Fixed too-skinny approval field in the main map planet tooltip if the colony had 100% approval.
• Fixed a crash whenever an AI player surrendered over their stuff to another player.
• Changed description of Silicon-Based life to reflect that their cities were changed to use Promethion instead of Durantium.

UI

• Reworked the way that the "Max Manufacturing" stat is shown in the stat breakdown tooltip. It now also displays the social and military manufacturing stats and their breakdowns, including the slider values when Crusade isn't enabled.
• In Crusade mode, "base research" or "base manufacturing" or "base income" are now displayed as Raw Production, to accurately reflect where that number is coming from (as opposed to being some calculated value from sliders and such in non-Crusade).
• In non-Crusade mode, fixed bug in the spending breakdown at the bottom of the manufacturing, research, and income stat breakdown tooltips where it showed player-wide raw production or slider values instead of colony-specific ones.
• Moved "Collect Gameplay Data" option to it's position to prevent the spinner option from taking its place.
• Various flavor text changes to abilities, components, technologies, improvements to make them more clear.

AI

• AI values hypergates much more.
• AI evaluates foreign influence before determining whether a planet should be colonized.

Crusade and Beyond

• Recently conquered planets are now immune to culture flip for 15 turns.
• Planets that have been culturally flipped have a 15 turn morale penalty.
• Planets now receive a default planetary defense bonus and a resistance bonus.
• Default colony ship loading population reduced from 2 to 1.
• Population used for filling colony ships increased from a radius of 6 to 10.
• AI ship design evaluation decreased from 20 turns to 10 turns.
• UpgradeDiscountFactor increased from 0.5 to 0.9.
• Bonuses to players playing at easier levels changed from a % to a flat.
• Civilization capital sensor range increased from 12 to 16.

Intrigue Only

• Patriot government ship loses a Railgun and a Harpoon to make it a bit less powerful.

Retribution Only

• Echoing Heartstone Artifact power reduced from 10,000 to 1,000.
• Tech Inflation increased from 2% to 2.5%.
• Starting Taxation increased from 25% to 33%.
• Galactic News earlier turn increased from turn 10 to turn 15.
• Galactic News cooldown increased from 12 to 20 turns.
• Colony Limit Max Penalty increased from 6 to 10.
• Default starting money increased from 3,000 credits to 5,000 credits.

We love Tower Defense games at Stardock. We’ve played our fair share, and many have served as inspiration and reference for our work on Siege of Centauri. Before I started on Siege, I went on a Tower Defense binge to analyze and understand what makes for a good Tower Defense game. Here are the pillars that I think are critical to developing a good tower defense game.

Variety of Creeps

Tower Defense is inherently a repetitive genre, and generally without much narrative punch to keep players engaged. As a result, Tower Defense games need to prioritize ensuring the game doesn’t feel repetitive. Meaningful variety of creeps is critical, not just with different stats but also qualities to make countering them require different towers or tactics. Swarm creeps should be vulnerable to splash but resistant to Cannon Towers, for example. You can think of it as designing creeps and towers in a rock/paper/scissors counter system, but with more interesting quirks mixed in such as shields or healing. Creeps can’t just be superficially different; the player needs to interact differently with them to keep them on their toes thinking about how to respond. Defaulting back to the same strategy over and over is where the feeling of repetition comes from.

Continue Reading...

Beta 3 is now available for the massive-scale tower defense game
Newest update adds scenario workshop, endless mode, and much more

Set in the Ashes of the Singularity™ universe, Siege of Centauri places the player in the role of commander of the defense of Earth's first colony on Proxima Centauri. Beta 3 adds a scenario editor where players can create and share their own missions, and a new endless mode that allows users to see how long they can last against a limitless onslaught of enemies.

“It’s always been important for us here at Stardock to put customization into the hands of the players,” said lead designer Derek Paxton. “Beta 3’s scenario workshop does exactly that: it lets people who have always wanted to design their own tower defense games create their own maps and missions.” Players can learn more about how to make their own scenarios with the Modder’s Guide.

Endless mode is a highly anticipated feature that has also made its way into the Beta 3 update. Players can attempt to survive increasingly difficult enemy waves on a few new maps that will present them with some very challenging choices.

Several new towers, enemies, and upgrades that make for deeper strategic choices are also in Beta 3. In addition, new scenarios that continue the story of the colony’s struggles are ready for players to explore.

The Early Access program is designed to allow fans to have input into game mechanics, pacing, and balance. Stardock has been releasing frequent updates based on player feedback.

“Beta updates and community feedback are a critical part of Stardock’s development process,” said Paxton. “We’ve been really happy with how the fans have helped shape this game.”

Siege of Centauri is currently in Early Access on Steam and Stardock for $9.99. The final version is expected to sell for $14.99. For more information on what’s new in Beta 3, visit the forums.

Visit www.siegeofcentauri.com for more information.

Changelog

New Features

• Endless Mode- The onslaught doesn't end. See how long you can last against increasingly more difficult waves.
  • Covey- Five paths lead down from the north toward your colony. Can you defend against them all?
  • Mendel- A huge desert map gives plenty of room to build defenses. And you will need it against a wide variety of attackers.
  • Ulrath- An arctic forest with dispersed resources. It will be hard to defend your Colony, Metal Refinery and Fission reactor, hard decisions will need to be made.

• New Campaign Missions- Follow the story of the Siege of Centauri with seven new missions.
  • Plains of Fire- This Medium sized Desert map will test your ability to withstand threats of all sorts. Air units, dreadnoughts, shielded, swarms and even units that produce aircraft as they travel.
  • Dule- This night map introduces a new enemy whose army grows as it travels. Take it out quickly, or it could be too large by the time it reaches your Colony.
  • Plutus- Your Colony is well defended here, but your resources aren't. Try to keep everything safe, which won't be easy because of a new enemy that speeds up all its allies.
  • Sord- The enemy has also deployed turrets at this location. Be careful where you use Milton and Reinforcements, if they are too close to the enemy turrets, they won't last long.
  • Caina- Spiders eggs dot this map. If the enemies reach them they will tear them open and the spiders will join the attack on your colony.
  • Styx- A new Juggernaut assaults your colony, and it produces waves of Falling Stars as it travels. Can you kill it before it reaches your colony while the stars are disabling your defenses?
  • Sedge- This time there is no Colony to protect. Instead you are building a device that will end the war. Can you complete construction and hold it for the 10 minutes it takes to activate while the enemy assault grows?
    
    

• Download and Share Scenarios- Have you always wanted to make your own tower defense game? Create your own maps and missions, share them with the community and download scenarios the community has created. check out the Modder's Guide here: http://wiki.siegeofcentauri.com/index.php?title=ModdersGuide

• New Towers- Two new towers are available to equip and upgrade.
  • Mortar- A cheap area effect tower, great for weakening swarms and softening any allies without spending much metal.
  • Nova Tower- An assault tower with long range, high damage and and area of effect. Whats the catch? It only damages shields and won't do anything to enemies without them.

• New Enemies- Lots of new threats to test your defenses.
  • Rolling Hive- This hard to kill hive produces flying Wasps as it travels that will fly directly to your colony from wherever the Hive is.
  • Floating Factory- The enemy produces Scarabs as it travels that slowly add to its army. What starts as a single threat could be a massive swarm if it isn't taken out in time.
  • Harbinger- This flying fortress will need everything you have to take it down.
  • Taskmaster- This slowly advancing enemy will speed up all allies that come near it. From entire hoards, to dreadnoughts barreling toward your base. Be care who you allow it to get close to.
  • Nest of the Queen- A devastating production dreadnought. It can take out your Colony in seconds if it gets close. The Nest is especially difficult to beat because it sends out waves of Falling Stars to disable towers in front of it.
  • Heart of the Phoenix- The toughest and most deadly enemy so far. When this dreadnought is destroyed, it forms a sturdy egg that will birth a new Phoenix after a delay. Destroy the Egg before process can complete.
  • Vulture- A special enemy on Sedge that will take out anything in its path, including your towers.

• New Upgrades- Lots of new upgrades to allow you to customize your towers the way you want. 
  • Nuclear EMP- Upgrades the Carpathia's standard EMP delivery system to a small nuclear payload, allowing for a much larger blast radius.
  • Ares Charge- Reduces the Energy cost of your disruption beam by 25%.
  • Defense Scrambling- For a short period, targets take an additional 20%, 30% or 40% increased damage depending on tower level.
  • Chain Lightning- Overloads an enemy, causing them to pulse with energy that will damage nearby units.
  • Colony Interface- Connect to the Colony's computer network to assist its upgrade procedure, reducing the cost of Colony upgrades by 25%.
  • Shellshock- All enemies hit have their weapon reload increased by 100%, 150% or 200% depending on tower level.
  • Field Leak- Disables the targets shield regeneration for 30 seconds.
  • Lossless Recycle- Reduces the cooldown of all orbital abilities by 25%.
  • Colony Pulse- Colony Weapons ignore shields.
  • Recharge Generator- Reduce the cooldown of Overcharge by 90%, allowing you to spam it as long as you have the energy to use it.
  • Targeting Calibrations- Updates Milton with Icarus targeting capable of engaging airborne targets.
  • Metal Replication- Allows the Carpathia to automatically generate additional metal equal to a small percentage of your existing metal stores.
  • And many more.

Balance

• Everything has been re-balanced.
• Really, everything? Yes.
• What about...? Yes, that too.
• Difficulty now modifies maximum spawn size (so you wont get as many enemies in swarms on lower difficult levels).
• Orbital Strike no longer has a 10 second delay.
• Reduced the time a Falling Star disables towers.
• Towers are allowed to shoot beyond their range a bit if they have been tracking an enemy that just moved out of range (this prevents a very frustrating issue where towers would aim, then the target gets out of range, then aim, then the target gets out or range forever and never shoot).

Fixes

• You can't overcharge in the radius of an Orbital Nullifier.
• So many performance improvements.
• Fixed edge scroll issues that were keeping players form being able to place a tower at the edge of the screen.
• Fixed an issue where maps with a lot of waves would overwhelm the wave panel.
• Reinforcements are better at engaging with enemies.
• Crash fixes.
• Fixed lighting on Epicurus.
• Milton's Jake Peralta module uploaded. Cool cool cool cool cool.
• Fixed an issue that could cause negative scores.
• Fixed an issue where your high score wouldn't be updated if you were defeated.

UI

• Tons of new sound effects.
• Tons of new and improved visual effects.
• There is now a briefing screen before every mission (v/o is coming).
• Added tooltips to the score entries so you can see exactly how the score is calculated.
• WASD key selection no longer disables tower hotkeys.
• Victory screen now includes shield damage done.
• The campaign screen now shows what difficulty level you beat each map at.
• Added a warning if you try to start a mission with air units without an anti-air tower equipped.
• Added a warning if you try to start a mission without any towers equipped.
• When you select an upgrade for a tower, that tower automatically becomes equipped.
• If you unequip a tower, all upgrades for that tower are automatically returned.
• We now show if you have unspent upgrade points on the mission screen.
• We change the cursor when you mouseover an Energy Cell, to indicate that it will explode if you click it.
• Milton is now displayed with your tower damage on the Victory screen.
• We now show new unlocks on the victory screen.
• Updated loading tips.
• We now display the amount of free towers you have available on the tower button, if an upgrade has given you some.
• Updated camera to be more top down at farther zoom.
• New icons for all towers.
• There is now a view indicator on the minimap.

Last year we released Heroes of Star Control: Origins, and it proved to be so successful that we're following it up with Villains of Star Control: Origins DLC. The DLC arrives on August 27th and comes with 4 new playable races, each with their own unique abilities, ship styles, and theme music.

The Star Control: Origins multiverse is filled with beings of all shapes and sizes.  Here is a preview of some of the darker species coming over to Galactic Civilizations III.

The Measured
The Measured are sentient coral.  They once had a rich, thriving civilization before they were modified by the Scryve (who we will discuss in a moment).  The Measured are the Bureaucrats of the Scryve sector which makes them fit in with the gameplay of Galactic Civilizations III nicely.  They not only get the Bureaucrat ability but receive a new one: Mitotic, which gives them free administrators when they colonize new worlds. 

The Phamyst
The Phamyst are the galaxy's most polite cannibals. They find other beings generally intolerable.  The galaxy is a messy place and they are just the ones to bring class and refinement to it. 

The Xraki
The Xraki are considered fanatical monsters that came from another dimension by most. But things are not quite as they seem.  The Xraki were once the shock troops of the Scryve Empire, who harvested them and modified them via the Scryve's exclusive access to the only known Origin in the galaxy (a device that allows its user to go into alternative universes). 

The Scryve
The immortal Scryve were not always villains.  The Scryve Empire was once full of idealism and hope.  Time and events slowly corrupted them.  Now, the once all-powerful Scryve Empire is slowly dying.  They have controlled our part of the galaxy for so long that few species have been left untouched by them.   The Scryve are unlike any villain from the Galactic Civilizations universe.  Where the Drengin are brutal, violent and intolerant, the Scryve are civilized, thoughtful and methodical.   The Scryve could best be described as a people who followed "the ends justify the means" one too many times.

The Scryve are masters at conquering and then holding.  Not only do they have the Conquerors ability, they also receive the new Imperial ability which gives their ships a HP bonus in their territory based on the number of colonies whose zone of control are contiguous with their home planet.

Where to get it...

Villains of Star Control: Origins will arrive for Steam, GOG, and Stardock on August 27th for $5.99.  Not only does each new species have their own unique abilities, but they come with their own ship styles, which means lots of new ship parts to play with.

Strategy and mayhem are the core of what makes a tower defense fun to play. Tower defense games need to pose meaningful decisions to the player, but while also containing tension and frenzy. Siege of Centauri went through different iterations internally as we tried to find the perfect mix of strategy and mayhem. Strategy and mayhem aren't inherently at odds with each other, but inevitably will be at times. Each tower defense game has different leanings, but there's always a balance to strike and navigating that dichotomy has been a design challenge. Today I'll be sharing some of the examples where this dichotomy has come up and how we've navigated around it.

Tower Costs

Ignoring balance and difficulty for a moment, how much should towers cost? It may seem like a basic question, but it matters a lot! If towers are too cheap, then placing them can feel inconsequential and a repetitive chore. If towers are expensive, you'll naturally only have a few so as each is more of a commitment, making each one more meaningful. However, overly high tower costs mean you can spend too much time saving up and waiting rather than placing towers. You can feel more like an observer than a player, and overly expensive towers can make the rock/paper/scissors counter system too punishing. Lower tower prices also mean you have more action on the screen, which creates cool visuals! Sitting back and watching towers blow stuff up should be fun.

Continue Reading...

PLAY FREE ON STEAM THIS WEEKEND ONLY
Also save 84% for a limited time!*

Build a civilization that will stand the test of time in the largest space-based strategy game ever! Choose from dozens of unique races and make a name for yourself across the galaxy through diplomacy, espionage, technological advances, and more.

Galactic Civilizations III is a 4X space strategy game set in the 23rd century. Humans and aliens compete against each other for domination of the galaxy through war, cultural hegemony, diplomacy, and more. Customize your game experience right down to every detail: galaxy size, opponent factions, victory conditions, AI difficulty level, and frequency of galactic events and anomalies. 

Play Galactic Civilizations III for free now 

Don't have Galactic Civilizations III?
Save 84% for a limited time!

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*Sale valid August 15th, 2019 at 1PM ET - August 19th, 2019 at 1pm ET.

*** RELEASED 08/22/2019 ***

New Features

• Endless Mode- The onslaught doesn't end. See how long you can last against increasingly more difficult waves.
  • Covey- Five paths lead down from the north toward your colony. Can you defend against them all?
  • Mendel- A huge desert map gives plenty of room to build defenses. And you will need it against a wide variety of attackers.
  • Ulrath- An arctic forest with dispersed resources. It will be hard to defend your Colony, Metal Refinery and Fission reactor, hard decisions will need to be made.

• New Campaign Missions- Follow the story of the Siege of Centauri with seven new missions.
  • Plains of Fire- This Medium sized Desert map will test your ability to withstand threats of all sorts. Air units, dreadnoughts, shielded, swarms and even units that produce aircraft as they travel.
  • Dule- This night map introduces a new enemy whose army grows as it travels. Take it out quickly, or it could be too large by the time it reaches your Colony.
  • Plutus- Your Colony is well defended here, but your resources aren't. Try to keep everything safe, which won't be easy because of a new enemy that speeds up all its allies.
  • Sord- The enemy has also deployed turrets at this location. Be careful where you use Milton and Reinforcements, if they are too close to the enemy turrets, they won't last long.
  • Caina- Spiders eggs dot this map. If the enemies reach them they will tear them open and the spiders will join the attack on your colony.
  • Styx- A new Juggernaut assaults your colony, and it produces waves of Falling Stars as it travels. Can you kill it before it reaches your colony while the stars are disabling your defenses?
  • Sedge- This time there is no Colony to protect. Instead you are building a device that will end the war. Can you complete construction and hold it for the 10 minutes it takes to activate while the enemy assault grows?

• Download and Share Scenarios- Have you always wanted to make your own tower defense game? Create your own maps and missions, share them with the community and download scenarios the community has created. check out the Modder's Guide here: http://wiki.siegeofcentauri.com/index.php?title=ModdersGuide

• New Towers- Two new towers are available to equip and upgrade.
  • Mortar- A cheap area effect tower, great for weakening swarms and softening any allies without spending much metal.
  • Nova Tower- An assault tower with long range, high damage and and area of effect. Whats the catch? It only damages shields and won't do anything to enemies without them.

• New Enemies- Lots of new threats to test your defenses.
  • Rolling Hive- This hard to kill hive produces flying Wasps as it travels that will fly directly to your colony from wherever the Hive is.
  • Floating Factory- The enemy produces Scarabs as it travels that slowly add to its army. What starts as a single threat could be a massive swarm if it isn't taken out in time.
  • Harbinger- This flying fortress will need everything you have to take it down.
  • Taskmaster- This slowly advancing enemy will speed up all allies that come near it. From entire hoards, to dreadnoughts barreling toward your base. Be care who you allow it to get close to.
  • Nest of the Queen- A devastating production dreadnought. It can take out your Colony in seconds if it gets close. The Nest is especially difficult to beat because it sends out waves of Falling Stars to disable towers in front of it.
  • Heart of the Phoenix- The toughest and most deadly enemy so far. When this dreadnought is destroyed, it forms a sturdy egg that will birth a new Phoenix after a delay. Destroy the Egg before process can complete.
  • Vulture- A special enemy on Sedge that will take out anything in its path, including your towers.

• New Upgrades- Lots of new upgrades to allow you to customize your towers the way you want. 
  • Nuclear EMP- Upgrades the Carpathia's standard EMP delivery system to a small nuclear payload, allowing for a much larger blast radius.
  • Ares Charge- Reduces the Energy cost of your disruption beam by 25%.
  • Defense Scrambling- For a short period, targets take an additional 20%, 30% or 40% increased damage depending on tower level.
  • Chain Lightning- Overloads an enemy, causing them to pulse with energy that will damage nearby units.
  • Colony Interface- Connect to the Colony's computer network to assist its upgrade procedure, reducing the cost of Colony upgrades by 25%.
  • Shellshock- All enemies hit have their weapon reload increased by 100%, 150% or 200% depending on tower level.
  • Field Leak- Disables the targets shield regeneration for 30 seconds.
  • Lossless Recycle- Reduces the cooldown of all orbital abilities by 25%.
  • Colony Pulse- Colony Weapons ignore shields.
  • Recharge Generator- Reduce the cooldown of Overcharge by 90%, allowing you to spam it as long as you have the energy to use it.
  • Targeting Calibrations- Updates Milton with Icarus targeting capable of engaging airborne targets.
  • Metal Replication- Allows the Carpathia to automatically generate additional metal equal to a small percentage of your existing metal stores.
  • And many more.

Balance

• Everything has been re-balanced.
• Really, everything? Yes.
• What about...? Yes, that too.
• Difficulty now modifies maximum spawn size (so you wont get as many enemies in swarms on lower difficult levels).
• Orbital Strike no longer has a 10 second delay.
• Reduced the time a Falling Star disables towers.
• Towers are allowed to shoot beyond their range a bit if they have been tracking an enemy that just moved out of range (this prevents a very frustrating issue where towers would aim, then the target gets out of range, then aim, then the target gets out or range forever and never shoot).

Fixes

• You can't overcharge in the radius of an Orbital Nullifier.
• So many performance improvements.
• Fixed edge scroll issues that were keeping players form being able to place a tower at the edge of the screen.
• Fixed an issue where maps with a lot of waves would overwhelm the wave panel.
• Reinforcements are better at engaging with enemies.
• Crash fixes.
• Fixed lighting on Epicurus.
• Milton's Jake Peralta module uploaded. Cool cool cool cool cool.
• Fixed an issue that could cause negative scores.
• Fixed an issue where your high score wouldn't be updated if you were defeated.

UI

• Tons of new sound effects.
• Tons of new and improved visual effects.
• There is now a briefing screen before every mission (v/o is coming).
• Added tooltips to the score entries so you can see exactly how the score is calculated.
• WASD key selection no longer disables tower hotkeys.
• Victory screen now includes shield damage done.
• The campaign screen now shows what difficulty level you beat each map at.
• Added a warning if you try to start a mission with air units without an anti-air tower equipped.
• Added a warning if you try to start a mission without any towers equipped.
• When you select an upgrade for a tower, that tower automatically becomes equipped.
• If you unequip a tower, all upgrades for that tower are automatically returned.
• We now show if you have unspent upgrade points on the mission screen.
• We change the cursor when you mouseover an Energy Cell, to indicate that it will explode if you click it.
• Milton is now displayed with your tower damage on the Victory screen.
• We now show new unlocks on the victory screen.
• Updated loading tips.
• We now display the amount of free towers you have available on the tower button, if an upgrade has given you some.
• Updated camera to be more top down at farther zoom.
• New icons for all towers.
• There is now a view indicator on the minimap.

Many RTS campaigns have a meta-map which dictates the flow of the campaign, such as the one found in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. Meta campaigns aren't inherently a good or bad approach compared to a traditional, linear mission structure, it depends on how well it's executed.  Meta campaigns are easy to mess up and be an anti-fun grind, so they should not be tacked on as an extra feature. A meta-campaign should be the entire focus for the single player campaign or a substantial DLC like Company of Heroes 2's Ardennes Assault. So what is it that makes a good meta-campaign?

Not all types of RTS games are going to work equally as well with a meta-campaign which is crucial to identify. Meta campaigns tend to consist of procedurally generated skirmish missions with certain perks such as different win conditions. Short 1v1 skirmishes with constraints don't make sense for an RTS game like Supreme Commander, which instead shines in lengthy sandbox style missions on massive maps. With an emphasis on skirmish style missions, the skirmish AI has to be really fun to verse for a meta-campaign to not just feel like a grind. While Rise of Nations has minimal variation in its missions, the skirmish AI is so fun to verse that it hardly matters. Let's take a look at some of the reasons an RTS might want to do a meta-campaign over a traditional linear campaign.

Continue Reading...

Galactic Civilizations III v3.8 Update Brings Major UI Changes

Set in the 23rd century, Galactic Civilizations III is a 4X space strategy game where humans and aliens compete against each other for domination of the galaxy. v3.8 brings a few exciting changes to this already massive game, which you can read more about below.

No more sneaky Ascensions! At the forefront of the update are changes to the Ascension notifications and UI. Each civilization's progress is now displayed on an easy-to-read progress bar, and anytime someone gains control of an Ascension crystal, an icon will alert you to it. 

The shipyard display now shows how much production is being sent to that shipyard so that you know how fast it's able to build things. The planet list views will now also show research.

We've also made some other improvements to the UI's layout, including updating screens so that they use fonts, colors, and font sizes consistently. We've also added a feature where you can adjust the difficulty level in the middle of a game. Read the full list of changes below!

Changelog

• As soon as someone controls an Ascension crystal, have an icon show up and informs you that Ascension has started. Mousing over should show you how far along each civ with Ascension is from ascending as a % bar with (turns).
• UI Layout updates
  • Updated most screens to use fonts, colors, and font sizes consistently.
  • Made fonts bigger wherever possible.
  • General cleanup of margins and list entries wherever possible.
  • Removed extra returns from the "word on the street" blurbs.
  • Move some of the drop-downs in options screens to keep them from clipping.
• You can now adjust the difficulty level mid-game through the options screen (single player only).
• Starting ships don't append a number to their name unless another ship of the same design has already been spawned. This is to support custom flavorful names for core starting ships from starting ship designs
• Updated starting ship names of factions added to the game after Crusade.
• Shipyard display now shows how much production is being sent to that shipyard, so you know how fast it can build things.
• Fixed an issue causing the unit buttons from not showing up in Medium UI on the Colony List screen.
• Planet view list now displays research
• Aliens can now be tagged as being available or unavailable as random civilizations
• Fixed Tourism exploit in Crusade version of the Consulate
• The AI has been ordered to stop freezing time to keep its mission ships safe (stuck turn fix)
• Addressed "word on the street" grammar and spelling mistakes
• Removed duplicate planet data in crusade and base game data folders that could potentially cause bad things(TM)
• Adjusted the choose civ screen to improve text wrapping
• Fixed alignment issue on the Drath starting screen
• Fixed a bug that prevented commanders from being assigned to United Earth ships

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We have a great time designing missions for Siege of Centauri. There is a lot of design work to do to get the pacing right. To much and it's overwhelming, to little and it's boring.

One of the lessons I have learned is that even though its fun to have a variety of challenges, large maps, multiple entrances, unpredictable movement, etc, it gets overwhelming very quickly. Unpredictable movement in particular can make someone want to drop kick their monitor when they setup defenses and enemies totally ignore them and go a different way.

In general I like these different threats because when they are used very specifically it provides a new challenge to tackle. For example I love Rul. It is a small map with one entrance, but there is no indication where the enemies are going to go when they enter the map. It isn't overwhelming because it is the challenge factor, everything else (enemy strength, etc) is all relatively easy. Most opponents don't even come for your colony first.

But the "unpredictable movement" tool in our toolbox is used very sparingly.

Likewise I really loved multiple entrances for forcing players to make decisions about deployment and not going down the same path every time as you may notice in other TD games. But it can also be overwhelming when you are completely unaware of an army as it sneaks past your defenses and sacks your colony and you didn't even know it was there. Having to make a calculated strategic decision is good, losing because your weren't monitoring the minimap closely enough isn't fun (and isn't the game we are trying to make).

It seems to feel better in larger groups. So instead of having enemies coming in form the East-West-East-West-East-West it feels better to be East-East-East-West-West-West. That way you are able to focus on a region as part of a larger war that is going on. Knowing you won't have anyone coming through the east entrance for the next 405 waves gives you time to leave that be and worry about other areas of a larger map.

It is a lot of fun. And soon you will be able to have that fun too. Siege will have the ability create and share your own missions with the community, as well as downloading and playing the missions other people have created. If you want to create a mission where There is barely any places to place towers you can do that. If you want nothing but endless rivers of reapers coming at your colony that never ends until you kill 1,000,000 of them, you can do that.

I'll provide a full modding guide for Siege later but for now this is a little sneak peek.

First we have a map editor that allows you to select the size, environment, terrain, buildings, effects and cosmetic values you want. Decide where to put your colony, outposts, fission reactors, metal refinery's and energy cells. Draw out your paths and place plateaus where you want the player to be able to put towers and basins and mountains where you want to block movement. Put your metal refineries in a great defensive location, or put them right by an entrance so they come under immediate attack.

I enjoy making maps, but you can also use one of the existing maps in the game if you want to jump right to planning the attack.

Everything for designing the mission script is in XML. We use the scripting functionality from Ashes of the Singularity, with a lot of new features for Siege. At a very high level you have Waves:

Which tell you what is to spawn and when. It includes the rush bonus for each wave (in case you want to play with those) and the timer for the main wave (Wave3 Timer=55 means that wave 3 will spawn 55 seconds after wave 2). As well as delays for parts of that wave. Just because there are 6 Punishers spawned in Wave 5 doesn't mean they all have to spawn at once (though they could), in the above they spawn 2 seconds part from each other.

You also need to define the paths. These give you complete control over where the units will go. You select where a spawn using this path will begin and where it will travel on its way to your colony. There is an option in the map editor to show positions so you can see exactly what points you want your enemies to travel to.

The third major piece is the Spawns themselves. These are what are called by the waves and you can see that they all have a path assigned. So you can see that if a wave called for a spawn of "Air-Spawn" it will create a Unit_Air (which is a Punisher group) on the path Path-Air for player 1 (the bad guys).

That's all you need to make it work. But if you really want to have some fun there are a lot of trigger you can play with. You can give the player some metal, spawn a specific enemy if a player put a tower in a certain region, make something happen when a particular enemy dies, send in some help for the player, and on and on. All of the missions in Siege are open (you can look through them with any text editor) so you can see how we do it for your own scenarios. And I'm excited to see what all of you come up with.

I came from the modding community so I get a lot of pleasure out of putting these sorts of tools into the game, and I look forward to playing your creations soon.