Brad's ongoing GalCiv update thread

I'll give them both a try. I must be a glutton for punishment.

~SDC~

I'll put these in and report back. Keeping my fingers crossed!

~SDC~

Tried the dll and no crash this time, now I just have to wait it to show up on metaverse. Thanks for the fix.
What "nice little tweaks" did you put in the new galciv.exe?

~SDC~

Can I just say, that you rock.

I am getting my butt whipped by the opponents at sub-normal level, and I am an old MOO II player who can usually win on impossible difficulty.

So I am probably not maximizing something. I am thinking perhaps it has to do with leasing (I am not doing any of it) or with the slider bars of my econmy. I usually go to republic quickly while at peace. I tend to try to stay good or evil.

So my suggestion to you is three fold.

1) A Tutorial, but not just one that explains how to play. One that includes good strategy tips. A tutorial for each galaxy size. That way you can have the strategy be suggested about what to do/focus on if you want to do well. Generic stuff. I'd bet us gamers would help you write it. It just needs to be in format of someone writing down the steps they do, and then later they "Why".
"DO this, BECAUSE this". And any special notes about how it might be done differently. Generic solid basic strategy. For instance in choosing tech I usually go for industry first, THEN communication, because I can stall for a bit.

2) Make it so you can choose an option to Force distance between all starting empires, and to where there will be at least 4 systems around the starting player no matter what. I have started LARGE maps and would probably have not realized just how bad a starting position I am in. Another interesting alternative would be to simply specify Corner, Center, or Random when starting. That way you either get a nice corner slot, the middle (For a good challenge/diplomacy) or random.

3) include a "Whats included" file in any patches/extra content. I would be able to tell you if your patch worked more effectively.

I have other ideas, but I do not want to hijack your thread. I just moved too, and I have two other PC's to set up and network here, but I am more interested in Gal Civ.

Oh okay, shoot two more ideas.

4) Make it so I can select "Auto-adjust" to automatically set sliders within a certain percentage of profit. In other words I can auto-adjust to be making a choice of perhaps 0%, 10%, Max% of profit over expenses, and the governer will automatically adjust the sliders based on what I need. I have no idea if I am overspending on military for instance.

5) Make it so we can create our own random events and planetary colonization events and then submit to you, to code as extra content. I can come up with lots and lots of these, that would be variations on your existing themes really. Including, just watching old Star Trek episodes and taking the basic idea of what was discovered "On this world, you encounter an ancient android, the last of his kind, his race disappeared mysteriously 2000 years ago, do you..." and then a good, neutral and evil response. Or perhaps "On this world, you have descovered three apparently ancient beings whose minds were stored in orbs over the few centuries Kasparov, his love, and his closest friend, they would like to inhabit the bodies of mortal flesh one more time, will you... and so on. (Those are two old episodes).

yes?

Well, everything seemed to work correctly, but haven't seen my name on the Metaverse list yet. Gal Civ does seem to load a bit faster, and when I hit "submit", it jumped back to the main menu alot faster than it did before. I didn't have a problem with crashing, just not getting uploaded on the Metaverse. I'll wait a bit to see if it gets added, then report back. I put in the .dll and the other "a" update, and no signs of any trouble.

~SDC~

and I thought I might get some sleep tonight

OK, I just re-submitted my first game, and it did not crash!!!! Just a matter now of waiting to see if the score displays. I'll give it a few minutes and post again. Thanks Brad and everyone at Stardock!

-Dave

~SDC~

Oh, by the way, I hope your move goes well Brad. Being in the military, I've had my share. You'll have to share with us a story or two, as all moves have at least one good story attached! At any rate, good luck, and I hope all your stuff gets there in one piece!

~SDC~

Jae: You can do that already, have a look at the bonusevents.event file in your Drengin.net\galciv\data directory. You should eventually be able to submit them to http://www.galciv.com/library.asp

Hi guys!
If you were having crashes before when submitting scores, and you're currently having issues with the new DLL, could you send me your savegames? (ian@stardock.com)
Thanks!
Ian

Should there be a long delay before scores appear once they are submitted?

-Dave

~SDC~

Should there be a long delay before scores appear once they are submitted?

-Dave

~SDC~

That's what I'm wondering. If not, then it's still not working. Never had a crash, just no update to Metaverse. I'll keep checking though. Hope springs eternal!

~SDC~

Still no dice. I can't imagine it takes this long (45 mins) for it to update, so there must still be a problem.

Furan: I never crashed upon submitting to Metaverse, just never updated. I'll send you my save game if you want. If so, just the 1 save file, or do you need the entire save folder which coincides with that?

I'll keep checking back, but for now, I have a galaxy to conquer!

~SDC~

If somone wants to send me a saved game too I will test things out on the Server side of things.

T-Man, what's your e-mail, and exactly what do you need? Just the single save file?

~SDC~

Lobos and David Schapira:

Did you register your player in the Metaverse? At the top of the Metaverse page there is a link to "Register your player". After I did that, my game showed up on the list.

Hope that helps!

any idea what's in the .exe update?

cheers

h

Chris

Yes, I tried that about 5 times, checked the serial number numerous times, and even tried the entire process with a different alias, and no dice. I'm using A_Lobos, just as typed, so if you come across it, let me know. The different alias I used was A Lobos without the "_", and neither worked. I made double sure the "in game" submission screen reflected the alias I was, at the time, attempting to register, so I have that covered also.

Thanks though for the suggestion, and if you have any others, please send them my way. I starting to think I'm missing something small somewhere, since there doesn't seem to be too many folks having this trouble.

~SDC~

Lobos

If I remember right (and I probably don't... :notsure: ), I had to use my email address that I registered with for the "Player Name". Does that work?

Chris

No, that didn't work. What it seems like to me, and I'm only looking in from the outside, is that all the registration is doing is linking an alias to your serial number. The game, when it updates, will put the scores up under the serial number, and then show them on the board under the alias you provided when you registered. Am I pretty close?

If that's the case, there may be a breakdown with my serial number, between what I registered with at the top of the Metaverse (which I took off the CD case), and the serial number the game is uploading my scores under (within the game). That's even if it's uploading at all. Since we don't have a pop-up or box telling us it was successful, there's no way of really knowing. Is there anywhere I can check to make sure the game has the correct serial number? A text file or data file I check into. I would assume unless I typed in the correct number the game wouldn't install, but this I don't know for sure. It's just a thought.

Thanks again for taking the time though!

~SDC~

Sorry, here's my email. pford@stardock.com

~SDC~

Jae Kaenash, you made some very good suggestions. You can count on Brad (CEO) taking note, he reads all post. There is the ability to add and modify events. Just not a tutorial for it yet. Take a look at most all of the files in the DATA directory. Their text files. PCXs, MP3s, there is no end to the moddability. The AI is hard coded but I think that is a good thing.

Oh, and let me know what email address and player name you are using.

~SDC~