Well, I posted my Ascension game yesterday; my best score ever, but that was mostly the built-in score bias and not a sign of the game having been really good fun for me. It ran 500 turns, and the last 100 were pretty tedious because I was just waiting on that Ascension clock and watching the two remaining empires stew about how badly they'd be crushed if they tried to act on their anger about me ascending.

I still play on Tough b/c I don't want to fight bonuses--maybe I should try just one more notch, but I have "issues" that don't seem likely to be resolved soon. So maybe things would have been more interesting up at Painful or somesuch. But because I'm darned conservative in-game, I didn't go for even my first Ascension Crystal until I was solidly in the middle of the pack and able to keep the powers-of-the-moment fighting each other.

My Immense galaxy had only 5 crystals, 3 of which were pretty far from my core systems. The game might have been more than a hundred turns shorter if there had been another couple of crystals; five seems pretty skimpy on an Immense map.

Two other civs took crystals very early in the game, but they both ended up being crushed (I took down the Drengin, but they started it). No one made a run at any of my crystals, and I held a couple for the bulk of the game. I did feel cautious enough to lay down Military Starbases around each crystal, and I guess those augments plus the several defense fleets I kept close by might also have helped boost my score.

I guess I need to make myself try for a war win soon.

IIRC, it is 1.5 vs. 2 for war wins.

I'm playing the new beta..

First thing i've noticed is that you need to manager your spys a little better.. (or spam them out faster)

It's more the way I used them.  When you put a spy out in the wild to do some passive spying you can't get them back to your active pool.  I had 20 spy's ready and I allocated all of them to do some passive spying. A few turns later I got hit with 10 or so active spys and couldn't unallocate the passive spies to hit the active enermy spies.. ( the sod's had all targeted my money buildings.)  Almosted put my economy in a US like sub prime spiral downwards dive.

Edit: Smelly grandma check

Good question. I know that the alignment medal is a little touchy b/c it showed me Chaotic Evil for a while after I posted my only Evil game so far. That one didn't seem quite like a straight average, or it would have stayed Neutral.

Now I see why I was confused. It's sort of an average of an average.

IMO, the medal would make more sense if it was based on a majority of name-level ratings (3 evils, 5 neutrals, and 1 good would yield a neutral medal). But maybe I think weirdly because I always use Xeno Ethics and all but one time have chosen Neutral.

What happened to my medals ?

I have never played a cakewalk game. They have all been crippling.

Go to the Metaverse button on the left hand of the Forums screen; go to My Account, and when that drops down go to "Edit My Characters".  Make sure the character you want to show up has its "Default" button highlighted.  That should do it for you.

If, in the future, you want to change or access your personal account information, you will be UNABLE to do it through the galciv forums.  In that case, go to www.forums.stardock.com and use the same screenname/password that you use on here.  You can access your "My Account" information on there.

Thanks guys.

That fixed it.

Shows how long it is since I was here last.

The geezers mostly seem to be falling asleep in their rocking chairs, but I've stirred my stumps enough to finally manage posting another MV game recently, although it wasn't a score to brag about.

But I'm mainly posting to give a Gerontocrat mini book review. This game seems to attract folks who like to think about IT both here and in the future. Vernor Vinge already has a good rep for working IT themes in really farflung settings, e.g. his A Fire Upon the Deep. For me, he managed to do a remarkably good job of pulling off the same tricks, plus more, in a near-future, Earth-based novel called Rainbows End. In addition to using the kind of elegant 'texting as narrative' that I almost took for granted in ...Upon the Deep, Vinge has dug into the 'medical industrial complex' themes that I first encountered in Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire.

The novel opens with the lead character tuning in to the fact that he's in the last stages of recovering from a successful Alzheimer's treatment, and as a side effect of his former wealth and the 'minefield of medical miracles,' he also more or less has the body of a late adolescent or early adult. There's all kinds of swell stuff about being out of touch with the new interfaces, etc., that I suspect might be a good read for nearly anyone who thought to join the Gerontocracy.

Well gents, this place does indeed look to be the right place for me.  I just had my top bureaucrat, a right good fellow by the name of Auditor, send off the paperwork for approval, stamping, and filing in the proper folder.  You good chaps were quite hospitable towards me over in The Metaverse Recruiting Center, and I cannot fault anyone who supports a relaxing afternoon nap.  I'd even do a merry jig to celebrate joining if my back wasn't liable to act up.

Hmm, maybe it's just my eyes, but looking over the Metaverse I still don't see myself as officially in.  My join request is still shown as pending from the empire stats, and my account info screen still shows me as unaffiliated.  Is there something I need to poke at with my walking stick?

You can acces that function from the main Stardock forum site, but not through the link on the MV page.

Sentient species taste better...