Inconsistent Behavior

I'm not sure if I should actually term these as actual 'bugs'. The true bugs I've encountered have almost all been reported already. The only one I've encountered that's quite obviously bug was a CTD I had - but that was when I quit the game, so I'm really not terribly concerned. I haven't had the game crash otherwise.

However, the following items are certainly inconsistent behavior that doesn't seem to be the intention of the game.

Important issues:
The Eyes of the Universe improvement doesn't increase the sensor range of planets, or ships in orbit. Furthermore, it only takes effect a turn or two after completion. It also only seems to increase the sensor range of starbases if you click on them once the improvement has already taken effect.

Influence flipping seems rather inconsistent. In a recent game, I flipped the Drengin homeworld after only a few turns with an influence ratio barely over 5. However, a planet much further inside my borders has been at an influence ratio of 22.20 for about 30 weeks now, and hasn't flipped yet.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to cap sensor range at 15 when Eyes of the Universe increases sensor range by 10 automatically.

The explosions graphics LAG MY SYSTEM something fierce. This occurs both in the tactical combat and on the map. I would actually classify this as 'major' if this weren't a turn based game.

It causes my system to freeze for about 2 seconds, then continues without issue.

Trading seems very inconsistent in general. Although I don't have any way to confirm this, I suspect that the AIs trade military technologies among themselves. However, they refuse to trade military technology to me under any circumstances - even if I have them bent over backwards over their last star system. Even the race known as 'mercenaries' willing to sell anything to the highest bidder absolutely refuse to sell me these technologies, no matter what the price. However, when I was manipulating the amount of credits just to see what would happen, the trade text turned 'green' very early on, signifying they would be willing to trade for that amount of money, but when I clicked ok, the text turned back to red with the disclaimer that they couldn't possibly trade military techs.

To expound on the previous paragraph: I was playing a game in which I was doing 68 percent of the research in the galaxy. It would still have taken me about 15 weeks to research Planetary Invasion, and then 5 more for Planetary Defenses. Yet, every single race around me had researched both of these technologies already. And when I tried to trade with others for Planetary Defenses, they refused - on the basis that it was a military technology. No amount of haggling would bring them to reason. Everything should have a price, especially for civilizations with high diplomacy scores - or lots and lots of cash and techs to trade.

Compounding that problem is that other empires put absolutely no value whatsoever on your Influence. No matter how much you offer, they think it's worthless. On the other hand, they value THIER influence very highly - often in similar value to their money. This is somewhat irritating when, for example, we both have influence points in the range of 100,000, but only 1,000 credits. They're willing to trade 300 credits for one of my techs - or about 500 influence points.

The AI has also come up with some really rather ridiculous trade offers, such as wanting to trade their Mass Drivers tech for my Xeno Ethics... when I've been researching Phasors. They could at LEAST have thrown in some money or influence into the bargain!

Minor issues (typos, really):

The Galactic Showcase's description in the build list says, 'Improves Influence Ability'. The item actually increases Diplomacy, as is shown in the detailed description.

Xeno Farming says it grows enough food for 8 million people? It should read 'billion'. I've found a few other instances of places mentioning 'million' when it should say 'billion'. Shouldn't take much more than a quick search and replace in the XML files to fix.

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Trading seems very inconsistent in general. Although I don't have any way to confirm this, I suspect that the AIs trade military technologies among themselves. However, they refuse to trade military technology to me under any circumstances - even if I have them bent over backwards over their last star system. Even the race known as 'mercenaries' willing to sell anything to the highest bidder absolutely refuse to sell me these technologies, no matter what the price. However, when I was manipulating the amount of credits just to see what would happen, the trade text turned 'green' very early on, signifying they would be willing to trade for that amount of money, but when I clicked ok, the text turned back to red with the disclaimer that they couldn't possibly trade military techs.

I'll just say that I've found the AI more then willing to trade military technology with me, both offensive and defensive. This is on Challenging. Similar to Civ 4 I believe your relations play a big part. If you are on friendly terms or even warm the AI will give you a better deal. If they hate you then they won't give you such things without a high price.

One thing I'll do also is trade military techs for military techs. Hmmm, I see they are starting to build ships that defense against my beams, well, how about trade them beam tech for missle or mass driver tech. No problem says the AI, we like military techs. Sweeeet. Now I can build missle ships they have no defense for.

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The AI has also come up with some really rather ridiculous trade offers, such as wanting to trade their Mass Drivers tech for my Xeno Ethics... when I've been researching Phasors. They could at LEAST have thrown in some money or influence into the bargain!

Normally in this case, I try to re-neg the deal and if they don't go for it, I don't give 'em what they want. Most of the 'ridiculous' trades offered to me by the AI are desperate pleas for help. For example, in my game, the Torians are being stomped by 4 different races (WHY? They're so loveable!), at which point they asked for Planetary Defense in exchange for Laser III. Unfortunately for them, Laser III was all they had and I'd skipped it and napped Laser IV.

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The eyes of Universe are useless now since in last patch they hard capped the sensor range. Why they did this is beyond me.

Oh I know cause everyone was shoving 10 Sensors into a Cargo vessel and could see the whole map.

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This happens all the time. I tend to trade for more expensive techs (Harpoon 3 vs Basic Missile Theory), allowing me to skip researching the lower portion of a tech tree. The problem with this is the AI constantly tries to pawn off the lower versions of the missile tree on me at every opportunity. They ask for rediculously expensive techs I have in return.

To top that all off, when I conquer a star system, it seems to always give me the low cost techs first (Basic Missile Theory) just because I lack it. Often I'm forced to buy off every stupid low level tech the AIs have to offer for a large chunk of cash... just so that when I invade starsystems, I actually gain some *useful* tech.

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The explosions lag my system too, so I turned them off. No issues now. This will probably be addressed in a future patch, but there are higher priority fixes.

The AI is smart enough not to trade military techs to a dominant force. Having them "bent over backwards over their last star system" is grounds enough not to give you guns. If you're friends and equals, on the other hand...

The idea that everything should have a price is silly. Is the US going to sell enriched uranium?

Trades offered by the AI are often feelers. Throw a bad deal out and see if you get a bite. If used car salesmen do it, why wouldn't diplomats?

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The sensor cap is stupid. Just make sensor modules singular on ships.

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