Imperial Civil War 2.3 Released - Steam Version

[Corey]

Imperial Civil War 2.3

Today, the Steam version of the mod has been updated from 2.2.5 to 2.3. The link for the workshop can be found here for those who are not already subscribed: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1125571106
After we've had a chance to respond to any initial issue reports, we'll make the necessary changes to be able to post a version on ModDb to support non-steam versions of the mod. Like with 2.2, this will necessitate the removal of custom VO and map preview images, along with some other things like that. We strongly recommend people play the Steam version where possible.

The main goals of 2.3 were to clean up some elements of 2.2, while also putting down the ground work (haha) for some changes that we're starting to flesh out in 2.4. The first steps of our ground reworks have been implemented, changing how a lot of squad sizes work, infantry loadouts, unit ranges, movement changes, and plenty of other changes and stat tweaks (MMTs shouldn't be shredding everything quite as much, for example) as we build up to completely redo projectiles and armour/damage modifiers on ground and in space for 2.4. We have some major ground mechanic changes in discussion on top of that which we'll be starting to experiment with in 2.4. There's also been the start of some economic and planetary development changes, built around helping to slow down snowballing and nerfing blitzing strategies to allow longer campaigns to remain interesting, including the introduction of the local planetary capital/garrison buildings (major government features to come). But, here's a non-exhaustive list of 2.3's changes.

New playable faction: Corporate Sector Authority
The CSA has been upgraded from non-playable to playable, and can be found in most progressive Galactic Conquests along with a couple era specific ones, and has their own From the Ground Up setup as well. Because of game limitations where we can only safely have 17 faction slots (including non-playables, and some coded factions like neutral that are more functionality things), we've had to downgrade the Yevetha from playable to non-playable and group them with the Independent Forces faction that represents a lot of the much smaller groups, since their slot is best used for some other more unique, less Imperial-clone factions we've spoken about in other news posts (some playable, some not).

New Mechanic: Era Selection
On top of some script cleanup to flesh out the era changes a bit more and eliminate some bugs, we've added the option to select which era you start in for Galactic Conquests, adjusting starting points accordingly. In the future, we'll have evrsions of the maps which allow you to choose starting eras while keeping more even starting territory (so you can play the New Republic with era 5 ships, but without starting with more territory). Obviously, since some factions didn't exist for the whole timeline, some factions will not be able to start in later eras.

AI Updates
We've already done a whole news post about this, so I won't cover it too much here, but we've also done some pretty significant changes for galactic and tactical game modes, including three new difficulty settings using the Cruel AI modifiers. We've also tried to clean up certain functions to make the AI run more smoothly and improve ingame performance. The issue where certain factions would not land a significant amount of their troops has been solved as well.

New Galaxy Art
We've modified Lord Enpremi's galaxy model and shader setup to fit the mod's aesthetic, so that's what you'll be seeing when you're conquering or liberating worlds.

Tactical Maps
On top of a bunch of new maps, including some shared with Phoenix Rising (another great mod developed by our own evilbobthebob), most existing tactical maps have had a series of updates and fixes.

New Units
Vigil, Victory II Frigate (like in Battlefront II), Imperial II Frigate (Rand Ecliptic), TIE Punisher, Jumpmaster (Dengar's Punishing One), Bulwark I, Bulwark III, Citadel, Invincible Cruiser, Recusant, Mankvim Interceptors, IRD & IRD-A, Gozanti, PX-4 Mobile Command Base, T-Wing, Espo Soldiers, Strikebreakers, JX40 Jailspeeders, Airskimmers, GX20 Hovervans, A-A5 Speeder Trucks, K-222 Aero Interceptors, Persuader (Snail Tank), Espo Walker, Repulsor Scout, Battledroids

Redone Models
Praetor II, Munificent, Dreadnaught, Nebula, Endurance, Secutor, Procursator, Gladiator, Y-Wing, Snowspeeder, Juggernaut, TIE Crawler, AT-TE (animations)

And plenty of other small changes.


Into the Future

Although 2.3 has just been released, we've already got several things underway for the upcoming versions. This will also involve a new way for us to handle release structure. Rather than year-long development cycles, in order to make sure things stay consistent and to get changes out faster to players, we're hoping to make the scope of each release more focused and get versions out to players more frequently. While the Hapans becoming playable will mark the 2.4 release, there'll be several 2.3.x versions adding and updating new content. In order to facilitate this, we'll be maintaining a constant testing team on the Discord server for the mod ( https://discord.gg/t3WJugG ), which will get the new versions every few months/weeks, and then the Discord server as a whole will have access for testing in the week before any release. We'll consistently be looking for people to add to the testing taskforce from the Discord as well, so if you want to track mod development, that's the best way to do it.

Early focuses in 2.3 patches will include:
- Mon Calamari art updates
- New units (ie Assertor, VT-49 Decimator)
- Tactical space map art updates (environment lighting and low-orbit maps)
- Economic overhauls
- Continued ground emchanic changes
- Space and ground projectile reworks
- Balance patches

I'll also be running community matches on my youtube/twitch channel 2-4 times per month. The dates for these will be posted and updated each month ingame, the first of which will be next Tuesday, streamed on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/coreyloses . On top of Imperial Civil War, we're also working on a Clone Wars mod which is approaching release as well, Fall of the Republic. I'm currently running a preview playthrpough for the Republic on that channel as well, which can be found here:

[tlmiller]

And there was much rejoicing.

[Tsubodi]

Really happy with 2.3 so far.
Just one thing I noticed whcih was strange and wondered if others had enountered the same problem.
I started an Essence of War campaign as the New Republic in Era 2.
After defeating Thrawn in Era 2, there was no "new construction options available" message. I played for a while and then noticed it had progressedto Era 4 again without any notification.
Here's the kicker though, whilst playing in Era 4 the Imperial Remnant invaded Generis and Palpatine himself landed and tore threw my garrison. Don't know how this is possible as he shouldn't be around in Era 4.
Anyone else encounter similar issues with era progession?
Cheers

[Xardovany]

Loving the new version sofar, my only question concerns the EotH atm, any mention of the Intego and the Efodio seem to have dissapeared from any notes concerning the future patches, are you still planning on releasing those in the near future?

[Corey]

EotH is getting a lot more things reworked, Intego will be part of that, and Efodio will if certain other mechanics happen. It's always been a fleet tender, so its inclusion will depend on fleet tenders being a useful category to have.