Now Available: Galactic Civilizations IV v2.6 Reinforcements Update
Article posted on 5/22/2024
Galactic Civilizations IV v2.6 Reinforcements Update Brings Visual Overhauls and Gameplay Enhancements
The latest update for Galactic Civilizations IV, v2.6 Reinforcements, is now available, and it's packed with a host of changes aimed at enhancing both the visual appeal and gameplay mechanics of the game.
Visual Overhaul on Ships and New Ship Parts
One of the most notable changes in update 2.6 is the major visual overhaul of the Terran Alliance and Terran Resistance ships. These updates bring a fresh look to some of the game's most prominent fleets, likely to please fans of the series. Additionally, the update introduces a plethora of new ship parts, allowing players more creative freedom in designing their vessels.
Improved User Interface and Strategic Controls
The update introduces new strategic zoom controls that enable players to decide when different categories of strategic icons are displayed on the galaxy map, directly from the main game UI. This should make managing expansive space empires a bit more manageable. Also, loading screens will now offer tips and tricks, potentially helping both new players and veterans alike refine their strategies.
Gameplay Adjustments
Update 2.6 includes several gameplay adjustments aimed at enhancing the player experience. These changes address various aspects of the game, from balancing and stability improvements to tweaks that refine the overall mechanics. Players can expect a smoother and more engaging gameplay experience with these updates.
Multiplayer Enhancements
For those who enjoy multiplayer, the update promises improved turn time speeds and fixes for desynchronization issues that could occur when ship designs are obsoleted on one client but not the host.
Localization and UI Improvements
The update also brings numerous localization enhancements, making the game more accessible to a global audience with adjustments to tooltips and text displays in multiple languages to prevent clipping and overlapping.
Warlords Expansion Updates
The Warlords section sees improvements in the UI, such as an updated War Aims Tooltip that now includes a scrollbar for lengthy descriptions, ensuring better accessibility for players in different languages.
Overall, update 2.6 for Galactic Civilizations IV focuses heavily on refining the existing systems and adding visual flair to the game, while also addressing some long-standing community feedback regarding gameplay mechanics and UI issues. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting out, these changes might just enhance your galactic conquests.
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Full Changelog v2.6
Major Changes
Ships Updated! Major visual update to the Terran Alliance and Terran Resistance Ships
More Ship Parts. We have added a ton more ship parts so you can build new ships.
New Strategic Zoom Controls. You can control when different categories of strategic icons get displayed on the galaxy from the main game UI.
Loading Screen Tips. Learn tips and tricks about the game on the loading screens.
Lots of bug fixes
Hot Patch 5/29/24
Gameplay: Fixed a bogus fleet crash
Gameplay: Ships teleported to the 5th dimension no longer crash the game or cause stuck turns.
Chinese: Fixed a crash and missing text on the diplomacy screen
Chinese: Increase character sizes.
Hot Patch 5/23/24
Removed the overlap of the "Obsolete" and "Favorite" buttons on the Shipyard screen.
Change Log
Art
Added a ton more ship parts.
Updated Terran Alliance Ships.
Updated Terran Resistance Ships.
Warlords
Updated the "War Aims" tooltip to fit longer descriptions and added a scroll bar.
Fixed an issue where the war Aims entries could overflow in medium UI.
Added Text Hotspots for new Warlords concepts so they appear in the Galactapedia.
Ensure stats have hotspots on the "Edit Class" Screen.
Fixed a bug where operational abilities were sometimes incorrectly calculated.
Assault Shuttles are now displayed in the UI if ships have them.
Assault Troop stats are now shown in the Fleet Details Screen
Add assault attack/defense stats to the Battle Selected Ship Popup
"War Weariness" events only occur if the player is the aggressor.
War Aims now show up in your Relations list.
AlienGPT
Prevent AlienGPT from picking tutorial abilities.
Engine
Added guards to prevent the game from crashing from bad mods.
Cached "Battle Modifier Data" for a slight perf boost.
You can't "quickstart" a new game from inside of the tutorial (it caused a crash).
Prevent a rare crash when exiting to the main menu from the end game screen.
Fixed a stuck turn related to code that teleported enemy ships.
Gameplay
Artifact Powers
"Teleport" now cancels directives and sieges.
Makes the "Ancient Survey Module" artifact power add a scientist to the affected ship so that if they go to a planet, they can leave.
Events
"Planet of Luminous Plants:" Responses now have tooltips.
"Orbital Spray:" Increases pollution like it says it would.
"Legacy of a Nuclear Apocalypse:" Fixed pollution source display.
"Yor Singularity Advancement:" Clarified the tooltip and changed "Quantum Processing Unit" to "Quantum Processor."
"Damaged Trade Ship:" Now applies the correct Trade License.
"Precursor Quarantine": Add a tooltip to the final option.
Fix stuck turn caused by ship with unreachable targets set by Events.
Improvements
AI can no longer construct two civilization-unique improvements simultaneously.
Improvements can now have negative "Adjacency "bonuses.
"Artocarpus Viriles" improvement now gives only one adjacency bonus, not two.
Misc
The Festron are no longer included in the pool of available aliens when you play as a civ with "random". citizen species. Why? Because the Festron would eat the other citizens…
Totalitarianism's "Censorship" trait now consistently eliminates negatives from factions as it states it will.
Hostiles are no longer paralyzed (e.g., 0 movement) at the slowest game pace setting.
Change Auto-Explore behavior to favor closer tiles.
Terror stars can be built again
Make rally points the last selectable stacked object on a tile.
Ships
Survey Modules granted by Anomalies no longer cause stuck turns.
Survey Modules granted by Anomalies now activate the turn they are added to a ship.
AI can now build ships with new components like Vampire or Ion Gun.
Besieging fleets can no longer use their auto-fire weapons.
Fighters now show the correct evasion bonus.
Ships no longer auto-fire at Probes (ships aren't supposed to attack probes at all, but this change addresses an edge case).
Trade / Treaties
Bribing the AI into declaring war makes them go to war.
Fix for Trade Route Licenses count not being updated after declaring war.
Cultural Treaty descriptions now better match their actual in-game effect.
We now automatically remove treaties with dead civilizations.
Techs
Krynn tech "Path of Shadows" now correctly unlocks the "Temple of Whispers" improvement.
Fixed some techs that had been accidentally orphaned.
Interstellar Currency is once again available as a tech.
Localization
Chinese: Improved line wrapping.
Portuguese: Updated fleet stat in Cannot Invade Popup to have more room.
French and German: Fix overflowing list entries in the "New Design" Window.
Portuguese: Updated fleet stat in "Cannot Invade Popup" to have more room for Text.
Russian: Fixed text clipping for the message box, and Trade Window.
Portuguese and Spanish: Fixed missing ideology text
Russian: Fixed text clipping in the "Message Box", "War Aims", and "Trade" windows.
Increase the width of several tooltips to accommodate longer strings and translations.
Fixed various text overlapping problems in different languages.
Updated operational abilities descriptions to confirm the updated text is correct and properly display icons where appropriate.
Fixed assorted clipping issues exposed by longer translations.
MP
Improved turn time speed a bit.
Fix desync caused by ship design being obsoleted on the client but not the host.
Fix for client getting stuck after host cancels MP game.
UI
Battles
Fix for Battles Replays showing incorrect bonuses after unlocking tech shows.
Battle Viewer is no longer available for ships destroyed by remote volleys.
Battle Viewer UI no longer partially appears over the Battle Loading Screen.
Battle Log no longer goes black when you scroll down.
Give more space to fleet health total in the GNN battle report.
Add assault attack/defense stats to the Battle Viewer tooltips.
Game Options
Enabling VO in the Game Options no longer requires a restart.
Shhh! Added an "enable cheat console" option to the options menu.
Leaders
Fixed an edge case that caused your leader to be named simply "L."
Think Tanks effects are now displayed in the Leader "Favor" tooltip.
Main Game HUD
Make rally points the last selectable stacked object on a tile without breaking the cycle order of multiple stacked ships.
“Day of the Month” no longer changes randomly when you toggle the month / turn display.
Hopefully addressed the overlapping text resource bar at the top of the main UI once and for all.
Added an upgrade button to the fleet context menu for ships and fleets. Moved the Upgrade and New Starbase panel to better spot.
Planet Screen
Improved Influence tooltip
Festron Citizens produced by consuming other citizens now display the correct portrait.
Make the promote citizen popup relative to the list, not the entries.
For Unit approval breakdown tooltips, aggregates modifier sources of the same name, so that it doesn't cause giant tooltips that roll off-screen.
Ships
Transport citizen tooltips now appear over icons.
Fix fleet tooltip now properly shows the class field.
Added a space between the number and label to the Ship/Fleet Details.
Logistics maximum value no longer disappears when it exceeds 100.
Sort ship components by type, then strength.
Double-clicking a disabled Shipyard Mission should not allow the player to build it.
Ship Designer
Added a "Support" category tab to the Ship Designer.
Swap the position of the Obsolete and Delete buttons on the Designer landing page so there is no empty space when going to the screen for the title screen.
Change the Obsolete button on the shipyard to use the same icon it does in the designer.
Strategic View
Adds ability to set Strategic View icon visibility level from a slideout popup reached from a button near the turn button, vs only in the options window.
Adds options for disabling each of the strategic view icon categories.
Included a button for resetting these settings to default values.
Included a section that says what "zoom percentage" you are currently at, so you know what the following settings are being set relative to.
Trade Screen
Re-added the display that shows what you are currently researching.
Fixed a bug going back and forth from the diplomacy to the trade screen would display the wrong buttons.
Fix for crash trying to remove offer.
Trade/Treaties
Treaty tooltips display "gain" and "payment" from the perspective of the local player.
Treaty tooltips format the credits the same way as the treaty screen in the data bank.
Trade Breakdown screen: Fixed clipping of long planet names.
Misc
Added tips to loading screens.
Move the "War Icon" in the Civ Relations List Entry to overlay the Civ logo, rather than being next to the Relations value, to avoid text clipping.
Shipyard: Halted production from Raiders now shows as n/a instead of -1.
Going to the main menu resets UI colors.
Updated the galaxy map tool tooltip to accommodate longer Civilization Names.
Add a Close button to the Battle Log.
Update the Galactic Achievement window to move the "Begin Button" to the lower right.