LintMan

Wow, a lot of interesting comments. BigAlSchool, I think you're right that if the AI was able to understand and prioritize its needs and weight the costs of trading vs researching, it would help things a lot. That's probably not a trivial undertaking, though. I do want to point out, though, that I actually enjoy the whole tech/diplomacy part of the game and my post was mainly intended to explore its behavior rather than gripe about it (though I did certainly point out some issues I

Just a quick question...Almost no one mentioned Research Buildings, why is that? Are they just mediocre or is there something wrong with them? I tend to build about 2 on a PQ 12 planet. I'll dedicate some of the PQ5 planets to pure research also. A bunch of people mentioned a research building - the Neutrality Learning Center (aka "Museum of Pa

Larger maps I think are easier to player for the human player. Because you have more space to develop slowly, consolidate and put your plan into play. In one of Frogboy's journals, he remarked that the AI did better when it had more planets to work with (so he was stressing the AI by playing a smaller map with few planets). So I'd presume that

In my current game, playing a huge galaxy map with a custom race with a high morale bonus, and having gotten all the morale techs and trade goods, I've been running taxes at 80% with 100% approval everywhere (using 1-2 VRC's at most), until my planets started crossing over the 20bil pop line, at which point, approval plummeted even as I cranked out more and more VRC's replacing my stock markets (I didn't want to lower taxes for the other 170+ (!) planets just to appease the few ultra-high-pop on

Some thoughts/comments I have about the trade screen. - What an AI is willing to pay for a tech you're selling seems to vary not just with the tech itself and your/their diplomacy levels, but also I suspect with the amount of cash the AI has available, and possibly some race-specific preferences. So the AI might be willing to pay 300bc for some juicy tech if it has lots of cash, but often it seems that it caps what it's willing to spend on any particular tech deal to mayb

The slider seems to be a fixed percentage of your income per click. So early game, you need to go up several clicks just to get the minimum 1bc, while late game, the first slider click might correspond to 75bc. There's also no way to set an amount other than at the slider click-stop points, so if that first stop is, say, 40bc, your only choice is to pay the full 40, or have no espionage at all.

What's this OP? OP = original post, the post that started this thread

Quitch: 1 - GC2's econ model was a bit counter-intuitive for me also based on what I'm used to in other 4x-type games. It's not a bad model; it just took me a bit to grok it even after reading the manual and the tutorials. Probably a more detailed tutorial or manual would have helped here. 2 - I'm a campaign-mode kinda guy; in many games I play through the campaigns and I'm done with the game, never even bothering with sandbox/skirmish modes. But I sort of got bored by the end

The AI would do well to factor in other considerations besides military might when deciding who would be "easy pickins". I'd call it something like a "War machine" rating. It would rate not what your current military status is, but how easily you could ramp up and become a juggernaut. Tha main factors: - Current civ-wide production capacity (how fast can you crank out new fleets) - Current ship-related technology levels - weaps, defs, hull size, logistics, minia

I think Warp V is *faster* that Warp IV (and cheaper too, according to wikipedia), so it's pretty reasonable that it's a little bigger, definitely well worth it. Hyperwarp III is also faster/bigger than II. Impulse III is smaller than II, but costs more.

Also, FYI: Checking the "upgrade all ships of this class" actually seems to cost you more total than if you upgrade them each individually for some reason, as of the last time I checked (beta 4a, I think)

Oops, sorry for the double post - My post didn't show up when I refreshed the thread the first time.

It is not a bug, it is designed to be this way. Not just your production stops, but everyone else as well. So it is fair. Do you have any quotes for the devs saying it's an intended feature and why? As far as I've seen, they've been completely mum on the topic. Why in the world would they want it to work this way? I've seen som

In my beta 4B "tough" difficulty game, I'm playing neutral Terrans, 2nd largest map size (huge?). My main borders are with the Arceans and Altarians. On the Arcean border, I started building embassies on my planets when he started colonizing worlds inside my borders and have flipped 5-6 so far and 4-5 more on the edge. On the Altarian border, I've done the same and have flipped 2-3 so far with 2-3 more on the edge. Altarian relations have gone from warm to neutral (despit

Most likely the name "cruiser" was already in use - I've had similar CTD's after designing a ship and then picking some common-type name. I had thought Stardock fixed that in a earlier patch, but it just bit me as recently as beta 4A.

It's not just you. People have been reporting this bug since the day of release, so it's old news. It's also not just a bonus movement issue: when you end the turn, no production or research is done for that turn (not even for the AI's), either. This can be a big problem if you were expecting, say, a defense ship rush-built to be done right before en enemy transport arrives, except now it won't. Some people here have claimed t

Thanks Draginol for putting the single player experience first! Way way too many games treat SP as a "training ground for multiplayer", with very little interest in providing a good gameplay experience. Even many reviewers ignore the SP aspect of games and focus on MP. Most recently, I spotted this thread on the upcoming Dominions 3, where a player asks if the SP AI will be improved. <a href="http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/s

My current 4B huge galaxy has at least one minor race in it. They've made contact with me, so I can talk/trade with them, but I haven't spotted them on the map yet to relieve them of their nice planet.

What's really annoying is when this happens and it's a Starport, the starport stays but cannot be used nor demolished sometimes. Aggrivating Starports are flagged as indesctructable in beta 4B, so that shouldn't happen anymore. Perhaps that's even the reason it was done, because it's otherwise an a

The auto-explore definitely could use some improvement, but it's not that big a problem. Maybe instead of moving the scouts 1-3 turns in different directions, try moving the scouts directly into different sections of FoW. In my current huge-map game, I've been trading for the AI's scout ships and have 20+ scouts roaming about. At one point, 2-3 synced up and I did the above, and no problems since then.

One other tip: Ignore defence, until they change the mechanics of it a LOT, it is useless. Engines are by far more important as they determine whether the capital ship gets to take out 1 fighter, or if the capital ship just gets blown away with no chance to even shoot back. My Tip: Don't ignore defens

Art is expensive, no doubt about that. To create proper commercial art is skilled labour. The artist must have a high level of training, and that never comes cheap. The media and applications required to make computer art are often quite expensive as well. Finally, a competent staff artist's wages can be costly -- a good staff ar

Yes. somewhat inexplicably, the cost of doing an upgrade all costs a fair bit more than upgrading them individually. IIRC, one time I checked, the upgrade all would have cost about the same as indivually upgrading the same amount of ships plus one.

The idea of a ship pack doesn't seriously put me off like the Oblivion horse armor does, but it does strike me a bit as a possible indicator towards increased gaming costs and the eventual death of free add-on content in games (along with the horse armor, assorted other xbox live pay-content, and all those "episodic" games that are getting talked about). I hate feeling "nickeled and dimed". That said, though, if there was compelling enough

Thanks for the quick response & turnaround!