Hello,

We are happy to be releasing GC3 v3.9. We've included community inspired balance changes, made significant improvements to performance, and updated how the zone of control works. We're also launching the "Villians of Star Control" DLC which includes new playable races, traits, and ships. Read below for details.

Features

"Villians of Star Control" DLC  

The Villains of StarControl have invaded! New playable races, traits, and ships. Read about it here:

https://www.galciv3.com/article/496599/available-now-villains-of-star-control-origins-for-galactic-civilizations-i

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.