Galactic Civilizations III

Galactic Civilizations III

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[SD] redskittlesonly  [developer] Dec 20, 2022 @ 8:04am
GalCiv III v4.5 Changelog
We promised a GalCiv III v4.5 and we mean it and so here is what we’re working on.

So without further delay here are the changes in GalCiv III v4.5 which is now available:

Note: Most of these updates are for the latest expansion: Retribution. It is the ultimate version of GalCiv III and has gone through a lot of improvements since its first release.
  • AI’s will now merge with the weakest other civ if they are hopelessly behind after 75 turns.
  • Turns before an AI can surrender changed from 100 to 75 but odds of surrendering in a given turn reduced..
  • Yor Fusion Matrix improvement pop cap benefit reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Yor Anti-Matter Matrix improvement pop cap benefit reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Yor Quantum-Matter Matrix improvement pop cap benefit reduced from 4 to 1.
  • Earth planet class increased from 12 to 16 (4 additional starting tiles to build on)
  • All other starting planets also given +4 starting tiles.
  • Yor (Synthetic civs) can now build more population starting turn 1.
  • Yor manufacture population now only requires Durantium.
  • Yor starting base population cap reduced from 16 to 8.
  • All players now also start with a Scout ship to help get exploration moving a bit faster.
  • Most starting trade resources on planets require Promethion to upgrade. This was a bit of a newbie trap before where new players could find themselves with several things to start building on their planets that have little near-term benefit.
  • Theocracy Government Colony Limit increased from 5 to 50 to make it more attractive.
  • Unity Government Colony Limit increased from 7 to 32 to make it more attractive.
  • Republic Government Colony Limit increased from 16 to 32 to make it more attractive.
  • Emergency Coalition Government Colony Limit increased from 12 to 50 to make it viable.
  • Empire Government Colony Limit increased from 36 to 72 to make it more attractive.
  • Several other government types tweaked slightly.
  • Like with planetary Trade Resources, most artifacts found on worlds now require Promethion to upgrade to avoid the newbie trap, new player overload.
  • Going over colony limit from government penalty reduced from 25% to 20%.
  • Capital World raw production points increased from 3 to 5.
  • Capital World raw gross income increased from 10 to 12
  • Strategic Command now provides general manufacturing instead of just Military and provide Manufacturing bonuses to adjacent improvements.
  • Basic Factory improvement cost increased from 30 to 40 but has been moved up in the tech tree so players get it earlier.
  • The Bank…is no longer indestructible.
  • Several other banking and financial buildings are no longer indestructible.
  • Entertainment Center tech requirement moved from Cultural Exchange to Universal Translator.
  • The Mega resort is no longer indestructible.
  • However, Paxton’s Emporium IS indestructible now.
  • Carriers are more powerful but now require Large Scale Construction tech (moved far back in the tech tree).
  • Updated many of the event graphics with new better looking ones.
  • AI Trade offers are much, MUCH better.
  • So many bug fixes.
  • Fixed bug that caused AI to “see” planets the player could see even though it was in that player’s FOW.
  • AI much better as handling taxes
  • AI much MUCH better at choosing what technology to research which should make it far more effective when at war.
  • AI better about offering treaty trades
  • AI will abort offering a trade to another player (AI or human) if it determines it’s a really unreasonable trade.
  • Crusade: Durantium requirement removed from bigger hull classes to match Retribution.
  • Base ship speed increased by +2
  • Large hull HP increased from 80 to 100
  • Large hull cost increased from 400 to 500.
  • All Engine upgrades get +1 more moves (if you are putting on hyperdrive you should get more than 1 extra move)
  • Tiny hulls get +1 moves.
  • Lower end weapons no longer require a special resource (i.e. particle beams don't require Elerium).
  • Root threshold of faction power before surrendering changed from 25% to 20% (AI slightly less likely to surrender).

There’s lot of incidental fixes, tweaks and optimizations in here as well. But we think you will find this update to be a major improvement in pacing, AI behavior and general gameplay.
Last edited by [SD] redskittlesonly; Dec 21, 2022 @ 10:24am
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Showing 16-30 of 56 comments
SofaKingA Dec 23, 2022 @ 8:25pm 
I'm going to have to reinstall this, nice!
Multiplayer isn’t a priority which is said my friend and I love doing Civ 5 v the AI. Try playing on a very small map with a low number of AI. see if you can finish a knife fight game.
omzh Dec 25, 2022 @ 7:18pm 
Originally posted by PEACEOFWAR:
So I have seen it mentioned a few times that CIV4 has been released but I can't find it on steam, is it still being approved for steam or is it only available directly? ty,

It's only available on the Epic store right now. Although there are some issues with it and seems to have been released a bit early without enough support.
Terestrian Dec 25, 2022 @ 8:33pm 
DESIRED IMPROVEMENTS,

I liked Gal-Civ 1,2 & 3. Gradually got better, but it stagnated.
One thing I liked the most, was the replay-ability of the “Procedurally generated” galaxies and DISCOVERING through the initial FOW (fog of the ‘undiscovered’).
I don’t want to be critically-destructive but – Constructive,

So there go my suggestions: EVERYTHING should be “Procedurally generated”
1. “PROCEDURALLY GENERATED” NAMES & ATTRIBUTES/ CHARACTER TRAITS & start-up assets (tech, ships, etc) for ALL AI races. So it’s unpredictable. You don’t know, who has what and what they are like. The human players can customise their own race.
2. “PROCEDURALLY GENERATED” TECH TREE (hear me out).
The game might have a “skeleton” science tree (un-disclosed, to any players) that… it - constantly “adds to… as needed. In any one completed game maybe, only 10% of the many possible sub-branches of science, MIGHT/ COULD EVER be researched so… REPLAYABILITY.
At the beginning of game you might ONLY see 4-6 options for research, researching any –might reveal say 2 further, options and/or further researching upgrades/ improvements to current one. (That means one might research speed many times so that race become so fast other races can’t kill them, coz thy can’t catch them, (but they might be weak otherwise) or someone is so stealthy others just can’t find them). So… bigger SPECIALISATION in a field of one’s choice… that both human players and AI can pursue, so… complete TACTICAL SECRETSY. As different players’ -research choices- takes them further, in their chosen direction; so their TECH TREES BECOME VERY DIFFERENT from other players tech trees, diverging in a huge variety of secret, tactical styles. The direction of research for AI would be determined by their randomly assigned character Traits/ sub-traits, sub-sub-traits, etc to add diversity.
3. “PROCEDURALLY GENERATED” RESOURCES in space or on settled planets. Sure, there might be a ‘skeleton’ small group a basic resources, in all games, but unique resources might appear randomly (at the beginning of game OR DURING… “Procedurally selected” from hundreds of options the game has, so you can play the game 50 times and still find new resources. New resources, would need research into that resource and subsequent applications of it. (Example after researching a resource you could then, research Wormhole generation, and install such a module on a capital ship)
4. UNIQUE LINES OF RESEARCH, could be triggered – not only by unique resources but also by other conditions like: having researched a group of 2 or more other items or number/combination of scientist/citizen on a planet or the happiness/ prosperity/ military victories, etc in an empire, or even random, so there could be a big variety of triggers…
The point being: both the real player/s and AI/s, DO NOT KNOW those trigger conditions, so it’s always a MYSTERY-SURPRISE what might happen when.

More I could say, on the above subjects, if there’s interest. At the moment playing GC3 (and I would say GC4 as well, I haven’t bothered to buy it coz it’s too similar to previous GC3) - is like: a train on a track, covering the same tech tree where I know end-game techs from the beginning, the races and their tactics = predictable; planets/ resources = predictable, frankly a bit boring, no mystery-surprise, no thrill of discovery and you the developers want to give us superficial tweaks while you regurgitate more of the same-all… same-all. Pardon my honesty, but I AM trying to be CONSTRUCTIVE here not destructive, because I LIKED your games and I come back to them every now and then. I would like to see true innovation not the same tired game clichés. See my article on: new - combat options in the other thread.
Silverwarp Dec 26, 2022 @ 10:45am 
I played with 4.5 a short while and I noticed the following so far:

Custom Civilizations has a +8 Class to homeworld instead of +4
Text descriptions for the planet class when you're selecting a planet for a custom cilization has not been updated for the actual planet sizes
I'm also not sure if Custom Civilizations start with an extra scout. That said, I usually start with a Colony Ship and I only got the Colony Ship.
When I got one of the Random Events and selected the option that gave me a "marginal colony," I got a Class 8 colony. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but I recall that colony is usually a Class 1.

Will add more as I play more.
Last edited by Silverwarp; Dec 28, 2022 @ 9:58am
KarlHeinz88 Dec 26, 2022 @ 11:05pm 
Ich can auf galactic civilizations III update option upgrade v4. 50 preview installed
durfal Dec 28, 2022 @ 3:53am 
I was happy about the update and start playing galciv 3 again but civs kept being destroyed in a weird and random manner during my games.
Then I found out that one of the new changes was: "AI’s will now merge with the weakest other civ if they are hopelessly behind after 75 turns"
This is absolutely ruining all my games at the moment and making me rage quit the game.
I sometimes like to play a diverse and relaxed peaceful game with a lot of other civs on an easier level and take over civs only by culture.
But now left and right civs keep "being destroyed" and randomly taken over by another civ.
By example in my latest game at turn 75, 6 civs were "destroyed" and taken over all by the same one which was then spread all over the galaxy.
And in my other games this kept going as I became more advanced (at that time I didn't understood what was happening).
This is immersion breaking as suddenly your neighbours with which you were friendly, without a war suddenly changed into another civ.
I wish this merging thing could be made an option, because I don't like it at all. (Or a mod to turn this feature off)
Last edited by durfal; Dec 28, 2022 @ 3:56am
Fultoniron Dec 30, 2022 @ 3:32pm 
They have broken this game with this lousy update. Merging has unintended game play consequences that makes it terrible.
Airmaster Dec 30, 2022 @ 5:24pm 
Originally posted by Fultoniron:
They have broken this game with this lousy update. Merging has unintended game play consequences that makes it terrible.

Surrendering opponents we're already merging with the other AI opponents long before this update. They just didn't surrender to you and it can still be turned off in pregame settings
Fultoniron Jan 1, 2023 @ 11:33am 
Where is that setting to turn off merging?
ghost88 Jan 1, 2023 @ 1:50pm 
It is titled "no surrenders" or similar wording it is in the options pages if chosen the AI must fight to the last man err being.
Last edited by ghost88; Jan 1, 2023 @ 1:52pm
Tigerous Jan 1, 2023 @ 4:45pm 
Originally posted by spyple:
Any chance to fix the bug for the hours played related achivements.
Those are:

New Recruit achivement
Space Emperor achivement
Honorary Stardockian achivement

They are completely broken!!!

I had to roll back to version 2.80 of the game last year to get the stardockian achievement which is the only way to still get it. Had issues with trying to revert to current-for-the-time version 4.2 as no matter what I did the game was broken. I tried verify file integrity, uninstall-reinstall, even manually editing the registry to no avail. Responses to my ticket on the forum were slow and then non-existent with no resolution. I kept playing 2.80 for a few more weeks but eventually moved on. Interestingly my laptop which I only use for gaming if I travel and I did not revert to 2.80 does not exhibit this issue but I'm not going to play on that when I've invested substantially in a ultrawide monitor, RTX graphics and 5.1 audio setup. Maybe it's fixed with 4.5 patch. I did revert my HTPC as well so maybe I'll try the new patch there. Not sure of the other 2 achieves you mention as I don't have that DLC.
Fultoniron Jan 2, 2023 @ 1:52pm 
Originally posted by ghost88:
It is titled "no surrenders" or similar wording it is in the options pages if chosen the AI must fight to the last man err being.

Thanks Ghost88. I'll try that
pete Jan 4, 2023 @ 4:52am 
Originally posted by smuren:
Sorry, this new feature where weak civilizations merge when falling behind has ruined the game. This has now happened the last four gameplays and i am now giving up playing.
instead of rage-posting did you not think to turn off the AI surrendering feature? Or are you in the special 'I shouldn't have to club?" :steamfacepalm:
Last edited by pete; Jan 4, 2023 @ 4:56am
dw_fr Jan 4, 2023 @ 8:15am 
Originally posted by PEACEOFWAR:
So I have seen it mentioned a few times that CIV4 has been released but I can't find it on steam, is it still being approved for steam or is it only available directly? ty,
its not available on steam
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