Zenicetus

As was mentioned in another thread recently, I think planets might have a low trade value to prevent a player exploit, where you can sell a planet and then quickly flip it back when it's deep inside your influence zone. With a low price, you don't have as much motivation to try that trick. It's probably necessary (at least for now) since the AI isn't very good at judging the influence "flippability" of a planet. You see that all the time, when they try to colonize low-PQ planets deep inside anot

There are still too many "unique" techs that haven't been flagged as un-tradeable/un-stealable (IMO), but it's fairly easy to go into the tech tree files and add more restrictions on individual techs if you want. That way, you can still play with tech trading on, which is a big help in getting started out with the "slower" race economies, while avoiding that homogenizing effect in the late game. Or just turn off trading completely, which will really emphasize the differences and make the game mo

[quote]1. Pay for votes, but leave patches free.It costs money to make updates, and that money has to come from somewhere. Why not allow players to contribute $5 bucks towards a patch. Regardless of if they pay, or don't pay, everyone should have access to the updates. Some people either don't have the money to contribute, or have difficulty paying online. Even if they don't or unable to pay, they still can contribute ideas, and they can go around saying how nice of a company you guys are.$5 is

Maybe I'm not thinking outside the box enough, but I don't see any clear alternatives to the traditional expansion pack. A subscriber model would be the worst solution (IMO). It works best when a product is alone in its class, and you can't get it any other way. The classic example is World of Warcraft, and that model has to start with subscription at the start, you can't add it on later. With subscription upgrades, the customer has to feel that, once they've paid enough month

[quote]I unno, there's actually a lot more balance than people give the other ethical choices credit for. Best example: Neutral's instant terraforming. The sheer cost of savings from NOT having to terraform those tiles on your own definitely rivals the MCC, if not bests it. But it is an INDIRECT savings, and not one easily seen by the player, even though the sheer economic value of it is immense. Generally speaking, each planet has at least 3 tiles that can be upgraded, at the rough cost of

[quote]I've noticed recently that the AI seem more inclined to all build the same type of weapons.[/quote] Same here, and it tends to be either missiles or mass drivers. It was missiles in my last game, mass drivers in the current one. Do you have tech trading turned on? I do, so I thought it might just be a side-effect of trading. P.S. on the "jihad" thing... that could be rationalized as a translation artifact. If you're not playing the Krynn yourself, then you're communicat

[quote]If GC3 is to win rave reviews as worthy of being a new release from an established brand, then the underlying political economy models must reflect that, for "sentient" species at least, there is more to life than mere survival.[/quote] Yeah, tell that to the Neanderthals. :) And it's not even "survival" when a dominant intelligent species arrives on the scene, and starts altering the planet. Tell it to the elephants, the mountain gorillas, the orangutans, the chimpanzee

[quote]Any organism, and thus any civilization's ultimate goal is survival. 'Not if the civilization is an ideal oriented group. The "good" sides are supposed to be such a philosophical type of people that have such religious ideals. (religious doesn't mean believing in some god)The Altarians are supposed to be peaceful civilizations, like

[quote]CariElf,I get invisible ships from the pre-made Construtors and Freighters. I usually only play with Terran ships, so I cannot confirm this with other races. This happens whether or not I play Terrans or custom race.Usually, the game starts off fine, but about a good 30-70 turns into the game, the constructors and freighters begin to disappear.[/quote] I'm getting that too in this latest beta, but I've noticed it since many betas back. It only happens for me with constructors a

[quote]I too have played many games with most of the major races in play and have found they do not mind attacking me if I am week, no matter my ethical stance. This has been whilst I have played as Terran, Drath or Iconian. A week Drengi race yes! A poorly Drath race though!!! and this is without any persuasive race interfering.Good should mean good.[/quote] Well, it's something of a convention in single-player strategy games, that the player needs to build up enough military power to

[quote]*cough* bumpIf I may be frank for a moment, I don't think there is any reason to bump this thread. While your suggestions are for the better (somewhat. I would argue that truly major events demand a specialized pop-up, like researching a tech), I'm fairly certain they're falling on deaf ears.It's ironic in a way; StarDock is, fundamentally, a company built around UI enhancements. Yet, their own game has perhaps the most infuriating UI for a 4x since the original Civilization. And it goes

I'll back up what KzintiPatriarch said about replay value. Most gamers only get a month or two out of a typical shooter like Crysis or Bioshock, maybe a bit longer if you play through it again at a harder level. But a good strategy game like GalCiv can keep you hooked for years, due to the randomized galaxy "sandbox" mode, the varied alien races (especially with the new TA expansion with unique tech trees), and the different victory conditions. I've been playing GalCiv2 since it first

I'd recommend starting with Dark Avatar, because there was a change in the ship combat system between DL and DA, and that same system is being carried forward into the new TA expansion. DA is very stable, while Twilight is still changing in difficulty and balance as every patch is released, and there are still a few buglets (like invisible constructors) that could prove frustrating while you're learning the game. If you start with DA now, you'll be able to move smoothly into Twilight w

Modding out the techs should work, in theory, and that should be easy with the new TA tech editor. But you'd also have to disable Super Abilities in your game, if you want to keep all races from colonizing them. I don't mind the high-colonization tech planets, because depending on how the randomized galaxy is generated, sometimes they become strategically important, and sometimes they don't. Anything that throws that kind of random (but interesting) element in the game is a good thing.

If the devs were going to spend any additional time beyond what's already slated for the TA expansion (which probably won't happen anyway), then I'd like them to just keep working on making the AI a challenging opponent. That's what will build long-term replayability into the game, and there's still a lot of work to be done in that area. Just my opinion, but I think Achievements are a cheap, tacky substitute for good game design that keeps the player hooked. Also, and maybe this is jus

Maybe a modder will jump in with more info, but I think the only way to make a ship "huge-er" in the stock game, is just to keep piling on the larger parts and scaling them up with the size slider for the parts, starting with the stock Huge hull as the underlying framework. Make sure you haven't left the sliders at small-scale settings for the parts. Also, I think I remember reading somewhere here that you want to avoid using the bare hulls that are attachment points only, because they

[quote]I'll point out again that I wasn't fortunate enough to get into the TotA beta[/quote] FYI, the beta is open to everyone. You just have to pay the pre-order price for the expansion, so you can still try it if you're interested. It's worth the money (IMO) if you're planning on getting the TA expansion anyway, and can tolerate it not being quite 100% polished. We should be seeing the tech tree editor soon, and that will give everyone a better idea of what's do-able in that area.<br/

[quote]...and the board game equivalents to GalCiv2....Hrm...would that be Traveler? Or am I missing out on another game?[/quote] Hah! Games like Traveller didn't come out until a decade after I was Sethpenguin's age. No, I had to be content with Risk as the closest thing to 4x games back then, and the more abstract strategy games like Chess and Go. I would have killed to have something like Traveller, or today's computer games like GalCiv2. Kids these days don't know how lucky they ar

Yeah, I always thought it was a waste for the AI to defend every planet it owned as soon as it could, and I don't do that with my own planets. But I just chalked that up to limited AI routines. Easier to defend everything equally, than figure out which are the strategically most important or threatened planets. But not defending any planets doesn't make much sense, unless the AI is now smart enough to do a last-minute build when a threat approaches. Now THAT would be cool, but I'm not f

I'm seeing something different but maybe related (latest TA beta). It's a large map with four races (Torian, Korx, Drengin, Altarian) and I'm playing Yor. It's a new game and I'm in the early phase where all the available planets have been colonized, we're getting our economies established, and the first trade routes and starbases are being set up. In prior betas (and in DA), I'd be seeing everyone starting to put at least some minimal fighter in orbit to prevent early invasion. Not ha

Hey Sethpenguin, when I was your age, home computers and game consoles weren't around (yes, I'm old). I didn't fit in at school either, because I had my head buried in science fiction novels, and the board game equivalents to GalCiv2, when everyone else was into other things. Different people are attracted to different types of entertainment, that's all. It's like the difference between playing chess and football. Both are great games, but a chess Grand Master probably isn't going to b

[quote]That sounds a bit promising, but I haven't played the beta yet, nor how I read anything about a tech editor. I'm not sure how creative you'd be able to get with it, however, as far as unique modules like the spore module or my suggested Raider and Stealth modules, or abilities that go beyond the general framework of the game.[/quote] We haven't seen the TA expansion's tech tree editor yet. I think it's likely that it will allow re-naming, re-arranging and changing the stats for f

Invisible constructors and freighters here too, especially when they first launch, and when I'm zoomed in enough to show (or not show) a 3D model. I'm having to zoom out to where the icon switches in, before they'll show up.

Playing the latest TA beta as Yor, large map, challenging: 1) When constructing a starbase on a resource for the first time, I'm not seeing any starbase graphics. The resource is listed as under my ownership, with "1 module available," but it looks like a raw resource icon when zoomed in. I haven't tried upgrading yet... just noticed this on a new game. 2) I like the new auto-launch feature for the shipyard, but when a ship auto-launches and I left-click on the blue icon on the rig

It's a moot point, guys. The TA expansion is the last update for GalCiv2 and the major features are locked down. Stardock is already working on their upcoming fantasy TBS game, and they've said that GalCiv3 is probably two or three years away, after the fantasy game and whatever expansions are released for it. Stardock knows that some people want carriers, as well as other things like player-controlled tactical combat and full multiplayer. But not everyone wants those things (I don't). And like