In-game event

Galactic Civilizations III v3.96 Released

We are happy to release a patch that improves planet visuals, improves gameplay, and fixes bugs. Read below for details.

Planets

The planetary map generation system now prefers placing tiles near the equator. The result is fewer, isolated tiles near the poles. Change does not affect the total number of tiles placed.
Improvements to the planetary material system that allows for greater detail and color.
Continent shorelines blend better with the water.
City lights on the dark side of some planets (e.g. earth) get will get to max bright brightness when the population is 15 (was 30).
Jupiter has been told to "stay in its lane" and use its own gradient colors instead of Mars'

Gameplay

Players start with a shipyard. This has been added back because there is now sufficiently tight starting choices that we feel that holding back the shipyard simply creates an unnecessary repetitive starting condition
Retribution: New starting improvement: Industrial Center (one per player). Good way to boost initial manufacturing
Fixed a bug where the AI would sometimes delete a rally point if it found an object in it (as in, its own fleet!).
AI combat ships are more willing to travel through dangerous territory to defend threatened planets.
AI will ignore reinforcing planets that are already defended and not under threat.
AI will focus on its primary enemy more so when targeting ships to attack.

Bugs

Fixed a trade exploit with Hypergates.
Fixed a problem with colonization events that aren't imagined yet.
Updated the Planet window so the Build Queue buttons don't break out of their frame in Normal UI scale

Other announcements

In-game event

We are happy to release a patch that improves planet visuals, improves gameplay, and fixes bugs. Read below for details.

Planets

The planetary map generation system now prefers placing tiles near the equator. The result is fewer, isolated tiles near the poles. Change does not affect the total number of tiles placed.
Improvements to the planetary material system that allows for greater detail and color.
Continent shorelines blend better with the water.
City lights on the dark side of some planets (e.g. earth) get will get to max bright brightness when the population is 15 (was 30).
Jupiter has been told to "stay in its lane" and use its own gradient colors instead of Mars'

Gameplay

Players start with a shipyard. This has been added back because there is now sufficiently tight starting choices that we feel that holding back the shipyard simply creates an unnecessary repetitive starting condition
Retribution: New starting improvement: Industrial Center (one per player). Good way to boost initial manufacturing
Fixed a bug where the AI would sometimes delete a rally point if it found an object in it (as in, its own fleet!).
AI combat ships are more willing to travel through dangerous territory to defend threatened planets.
AI will ignore reinforcing planets that are already defended and not under threat.
AI will focus on its primary enemy more so when targeting ships to attack.

Bugs

Fixed a trade exploit with Hypergates.
Fixed a problem with colonization events that aren't imagined yet.
Updated the Planet window so the Build Queue buttons don't break out of their frame in Normal UI scale