1) gold diamond (free technology) anomalies are gone, and only an event brings them in - So if you don't get that event, you don't get those anomalies!
2) Farms no longer increase population - WTF, WTF, WTF???
3) Planets have a population cap of 3 billion which you can do NOTHING about in the crucial earlier stages of the game. So you cannot increase your economy like before, you just stagnate, but the AI seems to be able to bound ahead as normal! You will need to cut down whatever difficulty level you used to play at as a result.

I on the other hand like the update quite a lot (assuming this is about GC3). Population Growth,Production and even ship traveling speed were cut down quite a bit, leading to longer, more interesting games, that aren't already won when you're 1/3 trough the technology tree. For the first time in my life I recently had an opponent that was on par with me till late game! However some things seem to be broken like planet tiles increasing "resistance" when there are no "Resistance"-Buildings in the game. A little more polishment would be very welcome.

Ship traveling speed was cut down for who? The player!
My last couple of games i had Drengin colony ships appear in my zone from half way across the gigantic galaxy with speeds of 29 when the best speed i can reasonably muster at that time is 10 with one or two range. I shudder to think what the Drengin range is? It is seriously F up

I am used to playing with Drengin on Godlike level, but now, because of the above absurdity, i will now have to cut the difficulty way down - BOO HISSS to this update.

Update:

Ok i can confirm yellow diamond anomalies are not 'gone' as such..... gigantic galaxy, 50% explored, i found 1!

If you get the event that spawns anomalies, you get allot, and it VASTLY changes how one game plays out compared to the next game where you did not get that event.

I put the Drengin down one difficulty level from Godlike. They still have very fast colony ships but are no longer traveling half way across the galaxy just to flog worlds out from under my nose. I have to add that this change in behavior is strictly due to the change in difficulty level, since i am playing on the same map each game.

Oh i forgot to mention another disastrous change.... prototype weapons and engines are no longer in the game! I say no longer in the game but you could also say nerfed into irrelevance. Such a crying shame.

What is there that i noticed is good about the update? well, there is a 'space elevator' which is not all that exciting, but at least it is something. I did not notice anything else good apart from that one thing. I would have appreciated the AI making their ships faster, but that aspect was ruined by overkill.

lets call this update a 'nerf mod' because that is all it is.

If you play on Godlike level the AI has a huge headstart in Technology. No wonder their ships are faster than yours. Not sure why your are complaining after you voluntarily set up an unfair game. Also: if I was playing on the highest difficulty I'd welcome it if the game got more challenging...

Does that answer explain how i was happy playing on Godlike before the update and not happy after the update?

Now i have a further update; after putting the Drengin down one level, i am now finding they are too weak!

Another thing i do not like about the update is that it is far more difficult to develop worlds.

I am on or near turn 200/300 in my current game and i have no manufacturing capital, no financial capital, no science capital. Also i have a list of precurser buildings sitting in my build list never getting used.

The reason nothing is getting built - planets build F slow, but nothing new about that - the reason is Starbases!

There is no one planetary structure that on its own is going to contribute more than what starbases covering multiple planets can do - so always the money goes to starbases.

Now because constructors cannot add to starbases anymore, i have little option but to set them on building military vessels.

It was much more fun when i was under pressure to build constructors vs military, but now that choice is taken away from me.

Planets are no longer interesting to develop since starbases are always more efficient to develop.

every direction i turn this update has made the game worse.

Here is another thing.... dont bother developing direct weapons technology.

I went down the full line of kinetic, then when i got to the end, i went into the ship designer and do you know what my first thought was? Why the F did i bother developing this USELESS technology???

I should have developed the weapons support technology instead, and focused on capacity and miniaturization.

Why not? Why?

Weapons technology is weak weak weak. I got to the final limit of weapons technology in kinetic line, you know how much attack that final weapon gives? attack, +4 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And when you consider what that weapons technology cost all i can say is WWWWWWWWWWWWWTTTTTTTTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFFFFFF??????


Weapons support technology is massively cheaper in comparison, and although i have not checked yet, probably gives better overall offensive results. The main weapons tech line is just F.... ked in terms of incentive to research it. Just do like the first couple of levels then forget the rest unless you run out of other things to research.

Is that +4 compared to the first weapon tech, or +4 compared to the weapon tech just before it?

Sorry i made a huge horrendous, enormous mistake, the final weapon tech is not a measly +4 attack, it is actually a whopping + 6 attack.

So that means if you put one of the final kinetic weapon on your ship, you get + 6 attack.

I noticed that missile weapon get disproportional more damage with tech level than kinetic or beam weapons. Don't know how this translates into DPS though, as the whole combat system is still largely a mystery to me. All I know is, that my ships are usually crushing the AI's ships without much effort by midgame, no matter which weapons they are equipped with.

If it is anything like the GalCiv2 weapons, then missiles give a lot of extra damage, but they cost more per unit and they take up more space per unit.

There was an earlier exploit using missiles and first strike, and since missiles had longer range, no one could touch you under certain circumstances where they would normally do a heap of damage. i think they stopped that exploit though, not sure? but anyway, missile fire rate is less, size is larger, that is what is supposed to balance it out.

Tactically, speaking, missiles are best used with fleets where all ships are the same size and or tackticle battle position, so that all ships fire at the same time and may inflict casualties on the enemy in the first round before they can return fire.

You would use beams because they look cool.

You would use Kinetic because they are cheaper.

Most games i use Beams because of above mentioned reason.

Only using Kinetic in my current game because of the random technologies i obtained from the AI and i just ran with it.