Potential Bug, untested

I haven't been able to start threads for a long time so here's what I've wanted to ask
---------------------------------------------
Is there any cheap way to defend colonies, the equivalent of planetary missile base from MOO2 (not moo3 where planetary defenses did nothing)? That is something inexpensive that sits there and only defends a colony. Not a starbase, as those can be bypassed. Something so I don't have to blow every bit of money I have on ships just to keep the AI off my back (that always declares war and then loses because they churned out lots of obsolete ships rather than saving their money for the last minute.)
------------------------
And
-------------------

Idea for new trade good!! Soylent Green


I was thinking of how as population goes up, people get pissed. This is probably from overpopulation. And I recently saw the movie Soylent Green with that place overcrowded and most land cleared for farming and I thought...

TRADE GOOD:

"Soylent Green" (or non copy-protected name)

Increases food output by X on all worlds!

(Maybe it gives a morale penalty as well?)
------------------------
And
-------------------
Okay please confirm someone, are these influence point tradings temporary until the next election, or are they permanently gone forever??
------------------------
And
-------------------
Also after advanced, does putting more money into spying actually do anything? I've had people say with no money they've still stolen tech.

Also, what are the best things to disable in the performance options for speeding up performance?

I've stolen techs after hitting Advanced without any money going into espionage, so yes it's possible.

Defending planets: Well, the Planetary Defense improvement helps a little, and I think you can stack them. I would actually recommend Soldiering, though, if you can afford to take the time to reasearch those two lines (which aren't actually all that expensive). With high soldiering (playing Custom race helps, as does a Tir-Quan center), good technology, and a high planetary population (farms, aphrodisiac, frisky citizens, and high morale all help here), it's possible to simply resist invasions. The problem is that the AI will ramp up their tactics, but if you can use a light and fast fighter to disable unprotected transports on many occaisons, you might be able to simply let the escorted ships hit you.

I remember one game (AI at Intelligent) where the Yor utterly dominated my airspace during a surprise war. I had something like two ships. Those two ships did hit-and-run against undefended transports, but defended transports all made it through. Thing is, I was Custom with a Tir-Quan and maxed soldiering, plus technological dominance and a much-boosted pop growth. They invaded and invaded and invaded and invaded until they went broke from all the Mass Driver Bombardment, and I didn't lose a single world.

Edit: Oh, and then there was mass genocide. They surrendered, I demanded all of their meager tech as my price, and then I declared war and consumed them. Jerks.

Soylent Green is made from...

PEOPLE!!!!

And the land was not cleared for farming, there was very little farming being done by that point because the ecology was in such bad shape. Which is why they started using people in the production of Soylent Green.

I saw that movie in the theater when it first came out. Great movie.

A trade good of Soylent Green should probably increase birthrate as well as food production, which in itself would lower the morale due to more overcrowding.

DreadArchon, didn't the mass driver bombardments destroy your buildings or lower your planet quality? Also didn't you loose lots of population?

Moosetek13, the point in my suggestion was that it was made from the dead of their own species. I remember in the movie, they claimed that all land was cleared for farm use (I thought it was like the story "who can replace a man" where they try and try to farm but the land is bad. I know the plankton was dying).

Also sometimes on games when there's a species there, the evil option says enslave and eat, but gives no food bonus. Too bad

DreadArchon, can't the AI just use information warfare? Whenever I do that and I don't have enough soldiers, I always win.

Forgive me for jumping in here, but thought I'd add my opinion to this. I however will say I haven't tested my opinion, this is just what "I think" I noticed from my own games.

The Mass Driver invasion tactic, does kill off planetary improvements, but those are only calculated after the invasion, and if the invasion succeeds. So as long as you are able to properly defend against the invasion forces, and hold onto the planet, your structures won't be destroyed. If they do successfully invade, and you later retake the planet, you might find it to be missing a few things.

As for the Information Warfare tactic, the caveat to that technique is rooted with morale. A planet with 100% morale, won't likely give up any of its population to someone using Information Warfare. If however you have a low morale on the planet, Information Warfare can be quite devestating, as much of your population (defenders) might switch sides and help beef up the invading forces.

As for the general topic of planetary defense, there are a few things you can do. In my opinion, the biggest thing of real importance is having a decent sized population, and having the morale for that planet to be fairly high. I've often had enemy ships come, three in one turn. They'd try to invade, they'd fail, and just keep trying because their transports were close enough that I wasn't able to intercept in time. Another good thing to do, is to leave at least one ship guarding each planet. Even if you're low on cash, sometimes it's good to just have a weak fighter there, as they can defend it against non-escorted transports. Once the enemy comes in with any sort of armed ship, you will likely lose your guard unless you've spent the money to have a fairly good ship left on defense duty. Researching soldiering is also important, as when the invasion is actually taking place, it helps to decide the odds, which in turn can keep more of your population alive, whether you're attacking or defending. Other than that, there are the obvious planetary improvements for helping out. I forget their names, but one is to boost the ships you have in orbit around the planet that are defending it (which you can only build one of per planet) and the other is supposed to give your population a defensive bonus to the actual invasion tactics (which you can build more than one of, per planet.)

Orbital Defense Fleet and Planetary Defense.

Trading influence points is temporary, just until the election.

A simple ship in orbit will stop any transports and building up soldiering will aid in defense of planets. Also, if you have no ships in orbit, then the computer can't attack your planet with anything but transports (their warships have nothing to shoot at). Just put a ship with zero maintenance in orbit to block incoming transports and use a roving pack of specialized fighters to slap around any enemy fleets (I use Tiny ships with high defense against enemy weapons and low attack: they can't damage me and I just pickle them to death with puny weapons).

Best Tactic for me in invasions is mini-soldiers. 3000 against 27000 and only lost 350 troops. No planetary improvments on a fully developed class 26 world.

Soylent Green - Made from dead people, yes ...
But IIRC they did not just wait for folks to keel over ...
They "recruited" for the stuff ...
So then should'nt the total pop go down ???

Also, what are the best things to disable in the performance options for speeding up performance?

This will vary depending on the machine.
Some you will probably want to try are:
+ Your anti-aliasing level (Turn it down)
+ The number of stars and nebulae
+ Disable point sprites
+ ThrottleFrame Rate (Make sure it is unchecked)
+ Simple Explosions enabled (this is in version 1.2 if you have the beta)

Try those first, and if you still run into trouble, you can try disabling textures on certain things since this will reduce the amount of memory you are using.

What does throttleframe rate do?

What are point sprites?

I have something like disable/don't load damage graphics (I don't want to load GalCiv2 now to find out exact wording because it'll eat all my system resources and I'd have to reboot). But it's about damage graphics/animation. Is that the same as simple explosions?

DreadArchon, didn't the mass driver bombardments destroy your buildings or lower your planet quality? Also didn't you loose lots of population?

i'll admit i haven't paid much attention, but it seems to me after i bombard a planet (whose civ i've been spying on) it doesn't seem to lose any improvements. i wouldn't bet on that but its the general idea i've gotten from observeration. i'll watch closer next time and try to confirm/disprove my theory.

Just because you use Gas Attack / Mass Driver or whatever destructive type attacks ....
Does NOT mean PQ is reduced ... It is only a CHANCE of damage ...
I have conquered planets using the same strat ....
And some were fine , and others ... were DEVASTATED !!!!!!

What I'm getting at is that I've had a hugh advatage before (which, assuming that advantage factor and planet quality reduction are proportional) like 40 vs 7 and such and not seen* neglible decrease in planet quality or improvements lost after my invasion force is defeated.

*(There may have been one, but from my limited observations there wasn't one.)

Did not get that ubelkatze,
.... IF your invasion FAILS ( is defeated ) then ...
NO DAMAGE is done ...
Damage to PQ is only applied when you CONQUER a planet ...
... and like I said, even that is a "roll of the dice" ....

Ok that confirms my observation and theory then and answers Meklar4681's question:

No, DreadArchon would not have had a loss in planetary improvements or quality.