Screenshots of GC:EU Xpack

http://ethermage.net:800/~codemage/Trade%20Master.jpg

There're a couple of the new stars. Oh, and a bunch of Trade Centers. I set a rally point for all my constructors (visible) right between 2 sectors, and sent them from there in sets of 4 to make Trade Centers as they arrived. There're 6 trade routes between my nearest planet (just off the screen to the left) and the Arcean worlds. When I established the trade routes, they only had those two, but then the Torians surrendered to them. Of course, this strategy has a consequence for their economy as well, as the economy graph shows.

Oh, and that's served out of my cable connection, so I may have to take it down if too many people try and get it at once.

-EtherMage

From HawaiiFive-O:


Here's the 'Star List'. You'll find it off the 'Planets List'.

http://www.ctuit.com/bill/StarList.jpg

It shows you star color, population, # of colonies, and ownership. The 4 'mode' buttons at the top don't work yet. I'd imagine they will be filters of some sort - uncolonized 15+ planets, ownership, the like. If you click on the star the map will zoom there, pretty handy. Also in the screen shot you see one of the new 'Wormhole' graphics. A lot of the anomaly graphics got enhanced, you'll still see the stuff you are used to, but there are additional graphics now. There's only one new anomaly type though (if you haven't checked it out yet, see my thread in Mods with the 'Spoiler' warning).

Next, we have the new Diplomacy screen:

http://www.ctuit.com/bill/Diplo1.jpg

You can see that there are now hyperlinks on some of the stuff you can trade. I hope they plan on hyperlinking Trade Goods as well.

If you right click on a star system, you get this screen:

http://www.ctuit.com/bill/Diplo2.jpg

Pretty darn handy. Shows you where the system is located, how big the population is, the influence, and the number of colonized worlds around that star.

If you are trading techs, you can right click on it and jump to the tech tree:

http://www.ctuit.com/bill/Diplo3.jpg

Once again, very handy. They still haven't come up with a system to consistently format their bonuses, however (note the Trade Routes +1% in the screenie).

If someone else has already covered rally points, those are the main points in this first beta. We know there's much more to come, however, as the promised new ships, linked events, more UP Issues, and other stuff haven't shown up yet.

It's been very stable for me so far. The hyperlinking is nice, but I've got the Tech tree pretty much down at this point- it will be much more handy to someone new to the game. The new graphics are a welcome change, and that new anomaly is a lot of fun! Certainly made me change my game plan for the early game. Rally points will be a godsend on larger maps.

Overall, I give it a big thumbs up, and we know there's a lot more content they'll add before release. I'll keep you posted.
[Message Edited]

From HawaiiFive-O:

Here's another screenie:

http://www.ctuit.com/bill/anom1.jpg

Here you can see one of the new anomaly graphics. This anomaly type's description is 'Free-form Gas'. This anomaly existed before, but it's behavior has changed in the expansion.

Before, to the best of my knowledge, when you investigated 'Free-form Gas', it behaved in the same way as the 'Research Hurricane', it would either give you a 25% boost to the current tech being researched, or it would give you a research assistant whining about it being a waste of time.

Now, it is a wild card. I've popped ability bonuses, as well as boosts to the current tech out of these. Fun.

From HawaiiFive-O:

Here's what it looks like when you right click on a ship in the Diplomacy screen:

http://www.ctuit.com/bill/Diplo4.jpg

As you can see, you pretty much get all the information you could want- stats, location, even current hit points.

Isn't the last one quite exploitable? That way you could find out where all your enemies fleets are located.

Not quite. You forget, when you're at war with a race, none of their ships are listed in the diplomacy window.

-EtherMage

~SDC~

I have one small problem with that...

If I am kicking their butts, and want to offer an end to the war, but for a price, and they have no techs or money, then I am prevented from extorting ships/starbases from them.

Oh well.

Firstly, thanks for the screenshots Ray- Im not going to go out and upgrade to Drengin.net, but tis considered..:D

Crushbone, I agree completely- I see the logic regarding starships, but bases out to be treated like planets- a civ should be willing to give them up for peace.

lol yeah that pisses me off to. Dregnin Empire wants peace.... im going to kill them, i get nothing out of the peace treaty because i drove them into poverty and they have nothing.so that means i was puttin all my recources into the war,and i need some ships/Starbases to atleast defend myself from another race, and..... so i think they should atleast look into that. oh yes, on other thing... what is the point of a terror star?

is it me, or do the torian confederation always have double my pop?

Wouldn't it be neat if, on the diplomacy screen, techs where one party had a monopoly were displayed in a different color, say red. If I have a monopoly on battleships, I'm more reluctant to trade them than if another AI already has them.

That information is already available; it just requires checking each race's diplomacy screen.

I love that idea! I never bother checking whether or not I have a monopoly on a tech. but I sure woud be more wary if I knew I had it. The AI could use this also to determine if the tech is more valuable than the default. It could also check to see if lot's of people have that tech and downgrade the tech value.

Nice idea!

Thanks for the screenshots! Post more if you have time!

-Monkson

~SDC~