Random questions

1) I can't say I'd prioritize any of those above the others.  To my mind, they're all equally integral to building and maintaining a strong, stable society.

2) Probably somewhere in between.  It's an unfortunate fact of life that war will always happen at some point, and it's necessary to be fully prepared at all times to follow any conflict through to the end, and with victory.

3) Most certainly the best infrastructure and quality of life.  The better off its citizens, the better off the empire; the two are inextricably linked.

4) Again, to my mind, sustainability is the greatest use of resources.  By creating a robust, flexible, and efficient infrastructure; it becomes a viable strategy to wear your opponents down and then strike when they no longer have sufficient capacity to defend.

5) Only to the extent that any presentation espousing the use of violence as a primary tool in resolving conflicts both foreign and domestic.  Violence is a necessary tool in very particular circumstances, and all should be instructed in its proper application, but it should never be held in regard above other less destructive and wasteful methods.

6) I wouldn't say it's because I value the military, and I wouldn't go quite the same direction as the Spartans, but yes, the young would be instructed in combat.  Nothing particularly overt though, mandatory martial arts training from the very beginning of school, as well as emphasis on situational awareness, creative thinking, and logical thought.  All things of dual use in a civilized society and its military.  My military would be voluntary only, but when my entire population has the skills to defend our worlds so long as they're provided equipment, then I don't have to worry about using my troops to garrison the worlds, do I?

7) I think democracy is essential, but I think lifetime terms for any office are unacceptable.  Perhaps...10 years?  Limit of 2 terms?  The most important thing aren't really the terms, but rather preventing corruption.  The most effective way to do that is to prevent the "buying" of politicians through campaign contributions and lobbying.  By forcing all candidates to use an equally paltry sum for their campaigns and punishing those who spend more by disqualifying them and imprisoning them, as well as imprisoning those who gave them the additional funds for at least 10 years with no chance of early release; that particular type of bribery will be largely eliminated.  Also, the incumbent officials should be barred from campaigning at all, save their participation in official public debates.  Normally, an individual's finances and the like are their own business, but elected officials sacrifice that right in order that they serve the people properly.  They and their families' finances will be continuously scrutinized and suspicious or unexplained monies will be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.

Well I got questions of my own and I can't even get anyone to answer, I made alot of stuff on the editors but how do I get to play them? And When I go to a scenario, after I done the select the civilization screen, not that I can, after that, the game just turns itself off. Can you help me? Thank you, if I was mean at any point, sorry, I just don't got any friends, and its not that i'm hateful, its that i'm annoying but noone ever tells me why? Can You also help me out with that? You don't need to if you don't want to. Thank you. And I made about 30 posts just to get an answer for this.

[EDIT]

 And can I get some karma. All I got is 1 and thats cause noone ever listens to me. But if you off the topic, I got a post for you to test your writing skills, or to start coversations.

I'd like to see GC3 be a game where we could basically 'playtest' different answers to your questions. The '4X' genre has been fundamentally in a rut since it began. No game so far has even attempted to put a truly abstract system behind a worldview-based UI.

To use pen-and-paper RPGs as a comparison, the TBS genre is stuck in the D&D rut and has yet to see something equivalent to the Hero System or GURPS. D&D is full of rules that justify unique structures like religions, guilds, and rigid concepts of personal identity. Superior basic rules are highly abstract and open--they neither require nor forbid that a game world include religions, tribal rivalries, marriage traditions, trade customs, et cetera.

Play is entirely a reward-based mechanism of life-lesson simulation.  We and other animals engage in simulated behaviors that help us to develop the capacity to cope with real-world circumstances later in life, and our brains are hardwired to reward this survival behavior.  Play is how we learn about ourselves, about life, about our surroundings.  It's how we understand relationships of physical laws as well as social dynamics.  This means two things...one, that the primary way we're set up to learn is through play and not study...and two, that when play is not considered in this light, it can lead to some pretty extreme social damage such as entitlement, narcissism, indifference, and various types and degrees of social maladjustment.

I wholeheartedly agree that games should have more comprehensive models offering a wider scope of choices and outcomes, but that all of these should serve as indicators of realism as much as possible.  Neither good nor evil should be more advantageous than the other in a game, and nor should the game steer a player either way.  What the game should do is drive home the consequences of each.  And this is all while accounting for the multiple definitions of both without indicating as such.  No small feat.

Another problem is...it's hard to tell a story without setting certain things in stone, and the emphasis on games right now is that a story is being told that the player can interact with, rather than a reality in which the player CREATES a story.  Unfortunately, the completion of a goal or set of goals is sort of what defines a game.  This makes it exceedingly difficult to make a game where the player defines the goal BY PLAYING the game...rather than one where the goals are determined before play begins either by the game or by the player.  Games like Spore are much closer, but Spore's creator doesn't even call it a game, he calls it a toy.

That's just my take on it though.

 May we get back to the thread now, please?

I wasn't trying to threadjack. The OP's questions are interesting, but to me they point out the underlying question of just how many assumptions ought to be hard-coded into a game vs. just how many options should be left to enable varied play play styles and enhance replayability.

Basically, with GC2, it's no fun to think about those questions because the economic and diplo layers of the game are fairly simple and quite rigid. I'd love to see a game where you had basic choices at map gen like "Democratic society" and could later follow up with whether and how to use censorship to help maintain your governing majority. I'd especially like options along those lines if they did not yield a dominant, optimum path to the end game such as the all-labs/factories+evil thing.

 Hey, is my questions gonna be answered any time, i'm gonna get a pc for my games, with no internet! And I can't even come back on this one. Sorry if I was rude, its just my sister is begging for makeup, and she looks worse than a zombie with the makeup.   I got the Ultimate Edition, and where do you find the Serial Number, I don't know what went wrong when it got smaller. the font size is the same.

A "Random Questions" thread is maybe not the best place for such issues. Usually the key is on the back of the manual or on a sticker in above the disc holder. If you contact [email protected] though, they should be able to help further.

 Kryo, may I get your opinions on these questions?

Kryo, I did but I did it on two matters, this one and the how to play on the editor, but when I did, it stupidly said "Problem Unkown". Not trying to be hateful, but if I was, sorry.

[EDIT]

Oh, now I get it kryo, I know where it is now, sorry, its just that i'm to dumb, really, I am. But the only thing i'm not dumb about is that I'm smarter than my whole family, really, I am, and i'm younger, sorry for the run on sentence. Now what about the editors, and can you download the same disc onto another computer, my grandma is giving me another so the game don't slow this computer down, now can I down load it, or do I have to delete this and then put it on the other computer?

[EDIT AGAIN ON THE SAME DAY]

The Editors part is that, how do I play it on the game, do I download it onto the game or do I have to do what to play on it?

You're free to download and install the game on your other machine.

As to your editors question, it's not really clear what you're trying to ask, sorry.

 I got another Problem with the serial number, at first  had the dreadlords, still got the game downloaded, but now where do I enter the number? This website is getting me confused.

[EDIT]

Nevermind bout this question, look at my lastest question down the page plz.

You log in to your Impulse account on the second machine.   Then look at your games.  Then install to the second machine.   You may be able to do it quicker if you copy things from your GalCiv directory on the first machine to the same place on your second machine -- I think (haven't done this in a long time) that it will see the files that are there, and thus have to download much much less.

I don't know the second machine computer program stuff. Just count me out, and someone help with another problem, I got alot of problems, ok, goto the "HELP!" post that I made, Theres the question. Thx for your time joeys.