I think the evidence is strong that Luck also benefits in other ways, modifying the chances for some events, etc. The one that I have noticed is that when I have Luck chosen, I seem to score many more Ranger archeological finds than when I don't have it, and certainly I seem to find MANY more Rangers than any of the AI.

drrider

I follow similar paths to Wyndstar is suggesting: in my latest game i am playing as the Krynn (don't have my exact data in front of me) with 45% Economy (10+30+5), 60 Defense (50+10), Moral 65 (50+15), Pop. Growth 25 (10+15), with my espionage being innate at 50. Being Universalists. I had tried the same basic idea with a custom race, but the Krynn's native morale really boosted it all and made it work for me. I think its like April 2225 now and I am easily making 75-150BC per turn with a 98-100% moral. Lacking the overall military structure, i plan on swarming my intended target with spies and taking em all down one by one mwah ha ha!!!

Anyhow, point is, everything (and i mean EVERYTHING) in the game comes back down to Economics, which means happy breeding people paying lots of money in high taxes . Why have super social or military production if ya can't afford it at 100%?

What happens if you attack an enemy fleet and you kill all their ships within the firast round of attack? Is the combat over in a Victory, or does 1 ship survive with 1 hp to retaliate before inevitably going down the next round? What exactly does First Strike do?

"If you are looking for an even easier set of bonuses to play with, I would put four pts. in economics, 1 pt. in morale, 1 pt. in luck, take the universalist party - and then do whatever you want with the remaining pts. There is no beating happy high tax paying quick breeding people."

The Terrans have only 3 customizable points, and aren't custom races supposedly inferior to default races?

Then ALL of the enemy ships get one round to fire back at you to. The "surviving with one hp" is the result if both fleets simultaneously destroy each other in the same round.


First Strike is the Arcean Super Ability which changes this rule. Any time an Arcean fleet attacks, ships that are destroyed in the first round of shooting only don't get to fire back. Note that when Arceans are attacked, they lose this power. Therefore, a successful Arcean strategy is to never use defense, just load up on speed and weapons. They are great at hitting and running, swooping in to destroy fleets in one turn, then using the rest of their movement to fly back out of the enemy movement range, so that they are never attacked. However, the Arceans were the "Grand Galactic Losers" - so this power must not really be as good as it sounds...




That is because they already have some points "spent" - that is selections made for you. To get their full customization ability you need to clear all of the points that have already been assigned. There is a button to do this helpfully placed on the point selection screen, although you could also do it by unselecting each power that was already chosen.


It is true that they are slightly weaker in some areas, but overall custom races are my favorite choice to play as. First, they get more customization points. Now they can't stack bonuses like the stock races - so they get much lower bonuses in each catagory. But with more points, you get a much larger spread of abilities. PLUS - you get to choose your super ability, so you are free to pick the super ability that most suits the bonuses and playstyle you are looking to attack the game with. I much prefer custom race with First Strike over Arceans, for instance, because of how I can stack up weapon and speed bonuses and still get a full economy suite of picks.

I do wish custom races were slightly strengthened, but that is not because I want to make the game easier by being able to make an uber race to play with. Rather, I have overall been disappointed with the performance of my custom race enemies. I have so much fun desigining who I will fight, it is frustrating when they underperform stock races under the control of the AI. If custom races had a few more points, or you could pick up more starting tech, my hope is I would be able to design even harder enemies that would be more and more of a challenge for me to beat (than any of the enemies currently are). I'm kind of sado-masochistic that way.

Hope that helps. So have you actually played your first game yet?
- Wyndstar

No. I get my Gold Edition box tomorrow but I can't open it until the 18th because I have exams from the 10th and don't want to get hooked before the big majority of them are over. And even then, I'll barely be playing at all until the 27th.

So, from what I understand, in DL, every race had a constant First Strike ability because they took turns to attack. Now in DA, both the attackers and defenders roll their weaponry/defenses and the attacker still attacks first, but the defender counterattacks while the weapons are in flight, so I guess, you'd actually destroy the defender ships with your high attack but get hit by the weapons they had launched. Just like in real modern air combat, almost. And the 1 hp survival would be when the weapons fired by those now-dead ships would be enough to kill the attacker, right?

Oh well. BTW, what are 'Grand Galactic Losers'?

I always go for economics (federalist party) and put all my bonus points into morale and population growth. In DL, I always play Yor for their minitiarization bonus and starting engine tech. The Thalans are another good one with their higher class homeworld. In DA, I haven't decided what race I like the best. The Yor don't get quite as starting bonuses as they do in DL, but the isolationist super ability is really powerful. I may like them best in DA as well.

I put military production very high on my list because of the colony rush. It's not just for colony ships...it's for constructors, extra survey ships, a few scout fighters, and spore ships. Military production diminishes in importance later in the game, but the rush leaves you in a good position by then.

One other overlooked fact about it: that's bonus production. That means 50% free bc. One bc of free production is just as good as 1 bc in the bank. Consider this: if 50% of your military bonus production was free (not sure if that's reality for your current version of GC2--it keeps changing from version to version), and you spent 4 race ap for +50% military, you're getting 50% of 50% = 25% free production. 4 ap in Economy only gets you 30%. You may not "feel" the free bonus, because it's not balancing your books the way Economics does, but it's there. I also like Industrialist over Federalist political party, for a similar reason: +20 social/+20 military is 4 race ap, vs. +20 Economics which is only 3 ap. And you're getting free production.

If we're all choosing the same racial attributes, I wonder if their costs should be raised? (Or other attribute costs lowered, to make them more appealing.)

From the Tournament of Losers!

It's probably about time to have another tourney...

OK. So I'm decided. I'm removing 1 point from Trade Routes and Hitpoints to give me a total of 5 extra points. 3 of them will go to Economics, 1 to Luck and 1 to Speed. With Universalist Party, my bonuses will be:

10% Research
10% Morale
25% Trade(inherent)
25 Diplomacy(inherent)
6 Logistics(inherent)
25% Economics
1 pc/wk Speed
10% Pop Growth
10% Defense
50% Luck
Super Diplomat

Out of these bonuses, I consider Defense as largely useless since all my ship designs are purely/mostly offensive. This will be on a:

Large Galaxy with:
All Major Races
3 Minor Races
Uncommon Planets
Uncommon Stars
Common Asteroids
Occasional Anomalies
Tight Clusters
Blind Exploration OFF
Tech Trading ON
Mega Events OFF
Super Abilities ON
Challenging Difficulty
All Challenging AI.

Now to just wait and resist the box... I seem to be doing well at that so far.

I seem to be settling in on the Thalans for Dark Avatar. Their industrial super ability is really powerful. Combined with their class 15 homeworld, it gives me a great jump on the start. I'm still putting all my points into morale and population growth and using the Federalist party for the economic bonus. The Thalans get a free economic bonus and along with the economic bonus from the Federalist party, it gets me over the economic hump faster. Economy is a tough one in both games, but it's even tougher in DA.

CraigHB, have you tried using the Torians (or rather custom Torians, you get an extra point or two)? The nice part about their super ability is that you can reassign all the points you would normally put into population growth into something else...In particular, you can now fill up all the economy and morale boosting categories, strengthening your ability to run a larger industrial base at 100%. Works best with an all industrial strategy, letting you do factory builds in a near Thalan time frame. Although I rather like the Thalans myself, it appeals to my inner Klackon, but this seemed a touch more effective to me (and I have tried both).

Thanks, I'll have to check that out

after a couple DA games i'm still using the +20% PQ, +50% luck, and then swapping the rest amongst morale, econ, pop growth, and sensors depending on my mood. i should really give up on sensors though... i always go for the eyes wonder early.

hmmm... gonna have to try a first strike race with +50% luck and maxed out weapons bwuah ah ahahahha ha ha hah ah a

What is Creativity bonus? According to the wiki, it's some sort of thing that gives you a free tech once in a blue moon. What's the use of this at all?

Also, does Luck in DA also give you more bonus tiles, or does it just give you better minimum rolls?

See my reply #10, this thread.

And if you look at the evidence in the debug.err file, it is variable and intermittent but it is most certainly NOT just "once in a blue moon". Spread over the course of a full game, I estimate it to be worth MORE than a single ap put into research, perhaps worth as much as ~10% research.

drrider

I almost always go with luck, and also since I am starting to like playing the Yor, I go for an extra +1 to the speed since with the superability of the Yor (slowing down enemy ships) along with the bonus to my speed, allows me to have an advantage when fighting on my own turf.