Petri Kokko

Reply to Galactic Civilizations III 1.2 Update Released in GalCiv III News GalCiv3 Forums

Did you remember to re-check the "allow mods" option? The update clears it...

Reply to I'd Buy a Better Ai DLC in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

You could but that makes for a bad strategy game. The whole point of having the AI play by the same rules is to allow you come up with ideas how to counter your opponent. For example, if you blow up economic starbases and shipyards you are currently actually hurting the AI [i]and that's exactly how it should be[/i]. Your game moves and actions within should have [i]meaning[/i]. If you just generate the stuff for the AI regardless of what happens then that kills you

Reply to I'd Buy a Better Ai DLC in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Actual strategy-level AI gets quickly hard to do the better you want to make it. The question of "where should I send these ships" isn't a simple one for a computer to solve. You are right that game AI isn't a simple thing, at least if you want it to actually offer an interesting challenge. Fortunately, that part is actually reasonably good in GC3 and way better than in most games. If you hand the AI fleets with good ships it'll use them. The problem is that it doe

Reply to The GalCiv III v1.3 Preview Thread in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]possibility to do something with class 0 planets (mine them, make them habitable with a lot of work, make it possible to explore them to find treasures of all kind, whatever).[/quote] Sorry to disagree here :) but please don't. Really. I want the ability to "sterilize" the galaxy by destroying a colony so that it [i]stays[/i] dead. Well, that's as far as colonization is concerned. If dead worlds occasionally spawned resources, either current ones or some complet

Reply to The Artifact - mega event bug in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

It's supposed to be an event that gives a fighting chance for the least powerful faction. If factions that already are powerful could snatch it that would make them even more powerful which probably isn't the intention here. I agree with the OP that only the original faction ought be able to use it even if that faction is destroyed. Or, at most have it so that, if the original faction gets wiped out the artifact is reallocated to the now-current least powerful faction (which w

Reply to request constructor in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

True. Occasionally you need more specific control. However, in the late game you can have 100+ starbases. At that point I'm not even thinking about the upgrade order of starbases or their modules anymore. It's just one continuous stream of constructors and you hitting the "upgrade" button for whatever modules are available until your wrist hurts... Which doesn't mean you still couldn't want or need to have more specific control. Perhaps make it so that you can

Reply to I'd Buy a Better Ai DLC in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]request that you change professions and start writing AI code.[/quote] Actually, that is a quite workable suggestion to improve the AI, provided you supply "galciv community" for "marigoldran" and "pitch in" for "changing professions". The major issue with the current AI strategy scripts is that they lack the tools to make them effective. The current scripts work blind as there are no hooks or checks available to base those strategies. Mostly they just guess by the turn

Reply to I'd Buy a Better Ai DLC in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]an AI that can beat or at least challenge the human WITHOUT using bonuses.[/quote] That's actually a pretty tall order. Humans tend to be very good at these things with their monkey-brain ingenuity, flexibility, and the bad habit of coming up with new surprising tricks. A [i]real[/i] AI is years away if not decades... But otherwise, yes. Make a [i]reasonably adequate[/i] AI opponent where "normal difficulty" is it playing without bonuses but knowing the "basic stuff

Reply to request constructor in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

You could keep it simple to implement and still have the choice of constructors by turning the request-functionality around: Instead of a starbase requesting a constructor you'd have a shipyard sending constructors. Could work like this: Insert into a shipyard build queue as many constructors of whatever type you wish and check the new choice "send to starbases". When a ship finishes the shipyard automatically sends it to the nearest starbase that can be upgraded. If you also adde

Reply to 1.2: AI still useless in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

naselus: [quote]This is a more expensive and difficult option by far. It requires adding entire AI modules to the game, which are not glamorous[/quote] Icemaniaa: [quote]They also supported me by opening up some other areas to Modding.[/quote] Combining your observations one approach to the AI problem could be to use the community support. If improving the actual AI is prohibitively expensive then how about concentrating on adding lots of new triggers, checks,

Reply to Mega Events DLC Now Available for Galactic Civilizations III in GalCiv III News GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]DLC allows a company to keep making money and so supporting a product for longer[/quote] Exactly. It's a better model than either "whole price up front" or "pay to play". It gives you permanent access to the game while still giving an incentive to the game company to maintain, fix, and improve the game. The only DLC concept variant that can be considered an evil scam is the "pay to win". As long as SD doesn't offer DLCs giving you access to more powerful stuff o

Reply to Cant register game in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

Keep the ALT key down while pressing "6" and "4" on the numpad and then release ALT. You get the "@" char.

Reply to The Best Way to Make a Fun AI Is to Make it React on a Strategic Level to What the Human Does in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]AI should build up fleets PRIOR to declaration of war and send those fleets out at you immediately post-declaration. [/quote] Your sentence order is wrong. I think you meant "AI should build up fleets and send those fleets out at you PRIOR to declaration of war." The "immediately post-declaration" is the part when you attack and invade. :) More seriously, the AI and/or the supporting strategy scripts ought to understand and use planetary specialization. I think, that&#3

Reply to Cant register game in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

ALT+64

Reply to Mega Events DLC Now Available for Galactic Civilizations III in GalCiv III News GalCiv3 Forums

The gift DLC contains additional ship parts.

Reply to Tactical Combat - Retreat! (as in this should be an option) in GalCiv III Future Ideas GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]should a retreating transporter be able to invade?[/quote] That's a good observation. It's bad enough as it is with player owned super-fast transporters that can move around the enemy fleets and invade from distances of 30 hexes or more. If a surviving transport could attack after having lost a battle but survived because of the retreat option, that would be an exploit, if anything is! Of course, you could account for that. Actually, a general intercept rule wou

Reply to Production wheel shifts? in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Even reload isn't necessary. You got those shifts even while playing normally. I have interpreted it being some kind of rounding error that happens when your base production changes enough for some reason, most often because of population growth. Haven't investigated it in real, though, as it's more of an annoyance. I'm not that perfectionist and so 99.5% is "good enough". You don't exactly have to squeeze out every last drop to beat the current AI... :)</p

Reply to Tactical Combat - Retreat! (as in this should be an option) in GalCiv III Future Ideas GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]just because something has always been a certain way doesn't mean it isn't time to evolve[/quote] Maybe, but remember this is a TBS game, not RTS. If I wanted an RTS game I'd buy one. To me the "hands off" tactical battle resolver is an attraction. Degenerating that into a clickfest is just bad design because there are better real-time space simulator games that let you play the captain. And no, "it would be optional" isn't the answer because if the manu

Reply to The GalCiv III v1.3 Preview Thread in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

1. General UI principle: Wherever you have a list or a table, please, make it sortable and add filters. Be it ship parts, colonies, news, whatever. Really. This alone would help a lot. But make it a general principle applying to everything. Sorting + Filters for lists and tables. 2. Don't show us ships, show us fleets. It's a nightmare to find anything in the ship lists. We have tons of ships. But we also arrange them nicely into fleets so use fleets and especially the fleet n

Reply to [Mod Question] Is it possible to make a faction without a starting world? in GalCiv III Modding GalCiv3 Forums

Would it be possible to mod the planet picture into something else? For example, you could replace it with a starbase-style space construction. Technically it would be a planet removing your problems with the empty start but its look would give the impression that you have an entirely space based civ in an empty star system.

Reply to Guard and Sentry - do these actually do anything? in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Doesn't sentry wake up upon any foreign ship, not just an enemy ship? I remember being annoyed by that as I constantly had to re-sentry ships because of "false alarms". Of course, some civilizations use the same word for "enemy" and "foreigner" so maybe it's not that odd... :)

Reply to Am I missing out by not doing these things? in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Same here. I use the strategic view only for navigation and, well, for strategy. For everything else the map is zoomed to whatever level makes most sense but always below the level where the objects turn into icons. It just looks better that way and is more immersive. I usually watch the battle movie, too. It gives a certain satisfaction. Plus, you [i]do[/i] get info on how the weapon-defense setup is working. Although, mainly it's just for the enjoyment factor. :)

Reply to Guard and Sentry - do these actually do anything? in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote]Automatic attacking other ships, friend or foe, would make people mad when the first ships goes up against a clearly superior force and gets killed.[/quote] Well, presumably a friend wouldn't then move into range in the first place, and if the enemy was too strong then clearly your guard detail was too small... :) What I was actually after was that your planetary defense fleet would automatically block foreign ships from moving into a striking distance of your plane

Reply to destruction of mine in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Yes, but it can't not happen, either. If you did lose them in the current system then you would have a mining starbase that continued to mine the resource but didn't produce anything... It's a weird system where resources are treated sometimes like "amount of stuff" and sometimes like "flow of stuff". The result is a hybrid that works as a game limit rule but that makes little sense when interpreted from the point-of-view of the game universe. You really should sep

Reply to Guard and Sentry - do these actually do anything? in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Sentry puts the ship to sleep. It wakes up when a foreign ship enters its sensor range. Guard puts the ship to sleep. It stays there until you wake it. If someone attacks, it (naturally) defends itself. Sentry is semi-useful. Guard less so. Have used guard to "park" ships so that I'm not bugged every turn to move them. This has the danger that you forget they exist... My ideal implementation for "sentry" and "guard" would have been: Sentry: Sleep until [i]e