Hello all,

We are pushing the v1.61 Insider Build Live which will contain a multitude of improvements including requested enhancements to A.I enemy decision making and strategies, ongoing updates to the battle viewer, and new ship balance changes to better improve the core combat experience.

The full changelog can be found below.

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07/11/23 | v1.61 Changelog

Art:

• Artifact images updated to the new medallion style to differentiate them from executive orders.
  
  

Battles:

• Tweaks to the battle viewer to make what is happening more visually interesting.
• Camera adjustments to the battle viewer to help make following battles better.
• Lay out and positions of ships in battle adjusted to make different types of ships have more distinct placement.
• Approval's effect on resistance reduced to make culture flipping easier.
• Combat engagement area reduced from 11,900 to 5,000 (to help keep ships from looking like bugs).
• Greater visual variance in starship scales in battles.
• Battle arena size increased from 5000 to 6000.

Gameplay:

• Major strategic AI improvements.
  
  • AI much better about defending its worlds with its own fleets even if it has to sacrifice ships to weaken enemy ships sieging its worlds.
  • AI is much better at gaining space superiority before going in with siege and invasion ships.
  • AI is much better at enforcing territorial control with its fleets.
• Major strategic update to the AI's handling of starship construction:
  
  • AI will now recalculate effective ship design strategies within the same turn if a given resource runs low.
  • AI now assembles balanced fleets based on the advantages of different ship classes.
  • AI better at assembling large fleets to control different areas of territory.
  • Updated AI ship design data to encourage the AI to build a more varied number of ships.
  • AI weapon layouts updated to produce more lethal ships per unit cost.
• Peacekeeping Trait Gives +1 to Starbase Range.
• New Diplomatic Modifier: Aggressive civs near player will start to look at whether they want to wipe you out early.
• Culture Traits Code: Shared Belief - Housing Districts provide +1 more housing.
• Have Diplomats buff to relations reduced from 3 to 1 by default.
• Diplomat relations buff doubled for AI players who are traders or peaceful.
• Ripe for conquest relations penalty increased from 3 to 4 if the player is aggressive.
• Improvements:
  
  • Orbital improvement costs generally reduced from 500 to 100 credits.
  • Kazaar's Mainframe Promethium cost reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Starport planet improvement now increases movement of ships built there by +1.
  • Colonial Clinic cost increased from 87 to 150 but Durantium cost reduced from 5 to 1 and can be built on the home world.
  • Population District cost increased from 40 to 100 but now provides a Population level buff to neighboring tiles.
  • General increase in the cost of planetary improvements.
  • Manufacturing district level buff increased from 2% per level to 5% per level.
• Shared belief resistance bonus reduced from 20% to 15%.
• Civs will like you more if you are at war with someone they don't like.
• Cultural awareness discounts originating from events increased.
• Cultural Conquest of planets takes far fewer turns than before.
• Prestige score calculation updated to handle larger maps better.
• Balance pass on prestige victory condition to make it harder to achieve.
• Tech changes:
  
  • Drive Optimization removed.
  • Culture Treaty now unlocked by Diplomacy tech.
  • Research Treaty now unlocked by Diplomacy tech.
  • Economic Treaty now unlocked by Trade Pacts tech.
  • Military alliance Try now unlocked by Alliances tech.
• Pirates and monsters were made slightly more common.
• Balanced Precursor prison event so that factions only get +1 max pop instead of +3.
• Dread Lord ships much more dangerous.
• Space Monster ships more dangerous.
• Space monsters can be spawned further from star systems now.
• Most Commander ships now also have survey modules.
• Ship balance:
  
  • General balance pass on weapons and defenses and hull sizes to make larger ships more cost effective.
  • Beam accuracy increased from 75% to 90%.
  • Beam range reduced from 3000 to 1000.
  • Missile range reduced from 9000 to 5000 .
  • Kinetic Range reduced from 1000 to 250.
  • Fighter hull tactical speed (sub-light) reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Fighter hull acceleration increased from 4 to 5.
  • Frigate hull manufacturing cost increased from 18 to 24.
  • Frigate hull tactical speed reduced from 1 to 0.5.
  • Frigate hull accelerate reduced from 2 to 0.5.
  • Cruiser hull manufacturing cost increased from 100 to 200.
  • Cruiser hull HP increased from 24 to 32.
  • Cruiser hull Mass increased from 18 to 24.
  • Cruiser hull tactical speed reduced from 0.5 to 0.33.
  • Cargo hull manufacturing cost reduced from 30 to 25.
  • Missile cooldown reduced from 10 to 6.
  • Beam cooldown reduced from 4 to 3.

Text:

• Spelling fixes, grammar fixes, fixing stuff that just made no sense and formatting.
• The monthly income label changed to Monthly net income for more clarity.
• The current prestige leader was renamed leading opponent.

U.I:

• Resource inputs on core worlds in the context card now uses integers to fit better.
• Players can now see the specific numerical values of diplomatic modifiers.