Today we are pushing the massive v1.8 update to the Live build for everyone. This extensive update comes with a large variety of changes and features, including unlocking new civs, introducing multiplayer, a full difficulty rebalance, enemy A.I improvements, improving game balance, introducing new “Crisis” events involving classic civs, improving AlienGPT and a variety of improvements to both gameplay and planetary improvements.
Below, you’ll find the full changelog.
The Cosmic Contaminant is a toxic faction that thrives in pollution. They can use their love of pollution to maximize manufacturing. They excel in wars of attrition.
The Intueri Aggregate is a hive mind with little capability for complex thought. All significant technological advancements have come from observing and copying the improvements of others. A balanced faction with high diligence and loyalty, they can easily mimic and counter other playstyles.
Xendar gets a different color.
Drengin expectations lowered.
Thalan now has Phasors.
Slyne, given many more ships to start with (but won't spawn until much later if they do), moved further away.
Thalan will only potentially spawn much later, given much more powerful ships moved further away.
Snathi, nerfed, moved further away.
Re-cropped video to keep Luxar leader better centered and more predominant in the frame.
Human undefended penalty reduced from 10% to 5%.
Other species have more varied undefended penalties based on their lore.
Yor no longer have an undefended penalty.
Silicon based lifeforms should ignore food requirement for growth.
Added " Ammonia" biology type increases population growth in polluted environments.
Drengi wealth decreased, Tech increased.
Iconia influence decreased but given more tiles.
Ensure that Humans are default Citizens when creating new civilization.
Ensure Phalenoids boost from Season of Dreaming is reflected in UI.
Encouraged AI to attack with unfair odds if it has a massive military power advantage.
The AI is better and smarter about trading.
Fixed bug that caused the AI to think its combat ships were supply ships.
AI keeps better track of its money.
AI will use frigates to defend planets.
AI is much much better at protecting siege and transports (escorting them).
AI much better at taking out targets of opportunity.
AI is better about interrupting its plans to deal with someone attacking its capital world (note this is expensive CPU-wise).
AI is better about interrupting its plans to deal with incoming significant fleets.
AI is better at mixing fleets with various ship classes to create doom fleets.
AI will have unarmed transports and siege ships retreat when their escorts are destroyed.
AI Survey ships will switch to being attackers if they run out of anomalies.
AI will really try to avoid laying siege to minor colonies unless it has no other targets.
AI will become more wasteful with fleets (i.e., wear enemies down) if it has a huge military power advantage.
AI is much better at building scout ships to explore the FOW faster.
In the early game, AI will store up colony ships even if no good targets are in preparation.
AI significantly adjusts its ship-building strategy if the enemy is stronger.
AI will prioritize treasure-hunting missions if it gets low on money, is in a deficit, and is not at war.
AI will prioritize building much more expensive ships if it can build them quickly.
AI will abort building supply ships if there are enemies near.
Fixed bug where AI couldn't use the Steal tech artifact.
Update of AI defense of planets to make the AI defend planets better.
Fixed a bug where AI was not removing targets from its list when they were on the overkill list.
Improvements to the AI mean that it can queue up more tasks at a time.
AI is much better at taking out targets of opportunity.
AI is slightly less likely to build siege ships.
AI is slightly more likely to surrender when it's losing a war.
AI preferences are now hooked up to improvements to help the AI intelligently pick what to build on its planets and when.
Because of the major AI improvements recently, difficulty levels have been rebalanced:
New early-game events.
Min turns before an event reduced from 8 to 6 turns.
Early-game crisis events pushed up in probability.
Crisis event cooldown max reduced from 16 turns to 12 turns.
Various events that provide a temporary boost or penalty have had their turns of effect reduced from 50 turns to 25 turns.
Fixed time traveler event.
Disabled "Break away colony"
Fixed a race condition that would sometimes crash during events that created new factions.
Added crisis events that spawn the legacy factions (Thalan, Slyne, Xendar, and Snathi).
Missionary Event reduced in likelihood.
New event image for war-related events.
More events are given story counters.
Updated Event Choices to have more diverse & narratively accurate ideology implications.
Famine planetary event where we give food to the leaders increases their Loyalty by 5.
Fixed some hilariously bad ideology bonuses for events (i.e., murdering people isn't a pacifist thing).
Events can now give movements to specific ships rather than your entire fleet.
Leader Traits no longer mysteriously change over time.
Prevent dead players from doing stuff.
Add "auto-fire" to Starbase and Fleets. At the end of a player's move phase, all fleets and Starbases with long-range weapons and first them at enemy targets in range. Requires a tech.
Adds a "Standby" option to ship UI, allowing the ship to remain dormant even if enemy ships are nearby.
Pick the best unit profession updated so they aren't quite so deterministic on what job they'll take.
Resource Extraction Techs for Durantium, Promethium, etc., now properly unlock respective Starbase Modules.
Spawned units will now mostly spawn citizens (non-specialists) but will still occasionally spawn specialists but now balanced to be of multiple types (instead of all farmers and entrepreneurs).
Number of clusters doesn't affect scoring quite as much as before.
Starting credits were reduced from 2,500 to 1,500 to balance with citizens on planets being much more powerful.
Monsters, pirates, and such are much more aggressive.
Hooking prisoners up to electrodes is part of a government policy on a planet no longer treated as a Progressive but instead a Totalitarian.
Survey module artifacts are less likely to occur.
Money reward from some artifacts is reduced.
Core world capitals provide +3 to the population cap by default.
Low-gravity world fertility is now more variable but with a higher range.
Citizens (default profession) provide 0.2 minerals per diligence, 0.2 research per intelligence, and 0.2 wealth per social (up from 0).
Reduced likelihood of planet terraforming artifacts from being found.
Extreme Automation policy buff to manufacturing reduced from an eye-watering 50% to 15%.
Starbase Defense Module now provides a 50-point shield barrier and enhanced weapons.
Advanced Starbase Defense Module now provides a 100-point shield barrier and enhanced weapons.
Barrier Field defense shield bonus increased from 50 to 100.
Starbases in other ZOC diplomatic penalty reduced.
New Executive Orders for the Drengin including "Pillage.”
Greatly increased leash length on monsters and pirates so that they'll actually attack stuff.
Monsters and Pirates don't care if they have big fleets. They just wanna murder stuff.
Ensure the Player does not receive unlimited bonuses when loading into the game.
The Rush cost multiplier increased from 5 to 7.5.
Aid economy cost increased from 75 to 150.
The Research Mission cost increased from 80 to 200.
Treasure hunt mission const increased from 100 to 250.
Treasure hunting has a greater variance in the money it brings in.
Faction power now counts for more on the prestige victory scoring algorithm.
Begging for help response default increased in weight.
Eminence and other techs now give a bonus to the player's diplomacy ability.
Citizen professions now give 10% of their relevant attribute towards all types of production and now 20% (up from 10%) towards their specialty.
Disloyal governors now result in a negative approval penalty
Citizens on planets represent vast swaths of the population and now provide a flat (as opposed to a %) bonus to a given type. They thus become a source of key resources on their worlds rather than simply a modifier.
Murdering is not egalitarian; it's nihilism.
Precursor relic-related modules are nerfed, so they aren't over-powerful (no culture victories for capturing 2).
Nanite warship anomaly is now rare.
Fixed various bugs where we don't always set target object (just the coordinates)
At long last, putting combat ships in orbit of a planet being culture-flipped will greatly slow down how fast they flip.
Spawn Overlord ability now actually spawns a good ship.
Minor races can attack others.
Aggressive civs defend their planets at half the rate.
Spawned civs are now given a 99% resistance (to make it much harder to influence flip them).
Spawned Civs get catch-up stuff.
Tech inflation increased from 1% per tech to 2.5% per tech (reduce tech snowballing).
Adjustment to base values on maps to make prestige victories on small maps harder to achieve.
The minimum price of a trade is reduced from 20 credits to 10 credits in the Bazaar.
Ban Dissent increases approval by 10%, BUT... Doubles colony maintenance (to pay for all those cops).
Culture flip pacing balanced more.
Removed the rule that you can only have one trade route pair. This means you can if you want to put all your trade routes between Earth and Drengi. But that is putting your eggs in one basket.
“Starport” cost increased from 25 to 75.
“Starport” given 2 maintenance.
“Union Center” now gives proper adjacent bonuses.
“Heritage Center” now increases tourism to its planet by 5% per level.
The “Economic District” cost was reduced from 100 to 75.
The “Economic District” wealth generation per level increased from 3% to 4% per level.
The “Governor's Manor” now increases colony income by 3% per level instead of 2%.
Added "Recycling Center" improvement.
"AI Overseer," now a galactic wonder, reduces by 20% instead of 10%, and the level bonus decreases crime by 1% per level.
"Bureaucratic Offices," renamed" Office of Control," now a Galactic Wonder, provides 3 Control per turn (instead of 0.1) and an additional 0.1 control per turn per level.
The "Ministry of Diplomacy" buffed to provide +1 to the player's diplomacy ability but now requires "Auorrus Arboretums."
"Spice Market" is now a wonder, and the Tourism bonus has increased from 5% to 10%.
"Bob the Galactic Wonder" now requires "Precursor Nanites" to build.
"Augmentation Center" now increases all citizens' intelligence by 3 but now requires Precursor Nanites to build.
The "Prison Labor Camp" fixed.
Prison-based improvements have their bonuses increased from 10% to 15%.
New Planetary Improvement: “Holo Theater. “
"Computer Core" raw research provided reduced from 2 to 1.
"Coordination Beacon" Influence per turn per level decreased from 10% to 5%.
"Starport Shipyard" buff decreased from 10% per level to 8% per level.
"Surveillance Center" now provides a +1 military (shipyard production) adjacency bonus.
"Trade Network" per level benefit increased from 2% to 4%.
"Financial Districts" per level benefit decreased from 4% to 3%.
“Agriculture District” per level value increased from 5% to 8%.
“Research Districts” per level benefit decreased from 4% to 3% (to balance with the population providing a research benefit).
Fixed a bug where the AI was seeing district upgrades as durational projects.
The “Farmer” trait is no longer needed for some of the more basic Xeno agriculture techs and improvements.
The “Farmer” trait is no longer needed for the first few upgrades to Agriculture districts.
The "Possibility Engine" base effect lowered from 200% to research to 100% but now increases research by an additional 5% per level.
Recycling Center given 3 maintenance.
Coordination beacon given 1 maintenance.
“Eyes of Universe” given 1 maintenance.
Trade network per level wealth bonus increased from 4% to 5%.
"Holo Theater" maintenance was reduced from 3 to 1.
Increased ship tactical speed/acceleration to look better in battle viewer.
Starbase kinetic weapon cooldown reduced from 2 to 1.
Starbase Missile Range increased from 1500 to 6000.
Warp Drive and Slipstream starship modules added.
Turned off Mass Checks for Commander Ships.
Ship movement late game is less chunky.
Asteroid miner cost increased from 15 to 40.
Doomray cost increased from 12 to 50.
Doomray mass reduced from 5 to 4.
Doomray Elerium cost was reduced from 3 to 1.
Starting ships no longer have -2 moves on the first game turn.
Plasma Turret for Starbases moved to correct prereq., no longer has an Elerium cost.
Consolidation of attack ship types into a single "combat ship class."
Sensor Modules return.
New Sensor added.
Plasma turrets renamed Starbase plasma turrets to remove confusion.
More hull size differential for ships in the battle viewer and on the map.
Beam weapon cooldown reduced from 6 to 5.
Beam range increased from 1000km to 2000km.
Kinetic range increased from 400km to 500km.
Changed "You resent you" to "We resent you" in custom faction flavor text.
Modified some of the English text for tone.
Got rid of the "You're a jerk" phrasing in the flavor text (tone).
Alien civ language about what it wants tweaked to be clearer. "Your Starbase is now in my territory," for instance.
Shortened the diplomatic explanation for refusing to remove a Starbase (text clipping).
Weak AI renamed "Artificial General Intelligence."
Spelling fixes, formatting fixes.
Removed extra line breaks for space savings.
Renamed Galactic Mainframe to Planetary Mainframe.
Removed the doubled line breaks in the text.
Control per month is now Control Per Month.
Starbase modules typo fix.
Collectivism Header text fix.
Updated UI text for greater clarity.
Updated Terran Alliance ship names.
Drengin Pillage text added.
Slaves were renamed Thralls.
Improved flavor text.
Minor text edits.
Make the Stats list entry larger to fix longer translations.
Update Alignment and sizing of stats on the Diplomacy List window.
Planet Upgrade scroll bar no longer resets its position.
Fixed a problem on the Trade screen that prevented the trade of resources under some circumstances.
Tech Tree screen: removed the sidebar list to reduce visual clutter.
Remove the "Done" button from all Cut Scenes.
Fixed the size discrepancy in the civ description text boxes.
Update all tooltips to say "Hold shift to lock tooltip" if they have more information to show.
Fix the clipping issue with the description text on the Prestige tooltip.
Add Tooltip to Show/Hide buttons for the summary panel in the upper right.
Add requirements to policy tooltips.
Editing pass on leader backgrounds (made more succinct).
Frowny face on citizen threshold reduced to 33% approval.
Adjusted font size to reduce the amount of text getting clipped due to inline images.
Highlighted Start Mission text.
Update the Unit Trait ToolTip to ensure tiles fit longer strings are forced single lines.
Fix clipping of the resource icons on the resource bar.
Executive Orders: Added Cooldown information.
Added Crime and Pollution sort buttons to the Planet List.
Added a new Game Option to show the planetary grid.
Executive Orders: Added Cooldown information.
Updated "Shift to Lock Hint Tooltip" to appear only on tooltips that have "Hotspot Text."
Fix for objective icons not showing up.
Updated Precursor orbital upgrades.
