Zenicetus

[quote] It's all very well to say he's over expanding too fast but the problem is (as I've stated elsewhere) is that the AI, even on fool, does not suffer the same penalties and can expand with inpunity. By the time you get your economy on track, each AI race has territory two to three times your size and the fleets to protect it. Right now the game is apaulingly balanced and needs a lot of love to redress this. By all means limit our expansions but ensure the AI plays by the same rules.<br/

[quote] Why not give them limited colonization? Like they can only colonize planets within their star system? Otherwise, I agree. Minor races shouldn't be allowed to have far-reaching galactic empires. [/quote] Agreed. I don't understand the frequent requests for minors to stop being minors and join the Big Boys. Especially in TA, since the whole point is to differentiate the majors with unique tech trees. The minors use a generic tech tree (IIRC), so you'd have a bunch of new r

[quote] Anyhow, the more critical difference is that most naval combat simulations apply the amount of damage taken, as a percentage of the displacement, to all areas of the ship's operation in and after the battle. So for instance speed, attack, defense, sensors, range, number of troops would all be affected by a percentage equal to the perentage of damage taken against the total hit points. Some naval combat sims also allow for 'critical hits' that remove certain systems entirely

The game seems to be weighted in a way that takes a LOT of effort to move off the evil side of the scale, and the Korx start out at pure evil -- rating "1" like the Korath and Drengin. Even if you make some neutral ethical choices, you'll probably still be rated evil at the end, unless you pay the cash to buy your way into neutral Xeno Ethics.

[quote] 29. Space Colonies, how about the ability via starbases and starbase modules to create space colonies 9space stations with biospheres, factories, etc.. all like normal colonies to some extentn but with a limited number of tiles to build modules on based on the size of the space colonies infrastructure which is increasable aalong a similar tech restriction as the level of battlestations. Space colonies could also only be built in colonies with no habitable planets, empty sectors and

[quote] I don't think the "mod it yourself" argument mitigates the need to balance the stock game. There's the Metaverse issue of course, but also, people shouldn't have to mod the game right out of the box. [/quote] I agree, and I hope the devs do end up tailoring the game along the general lines that most people seem to want here. Tech trading has always been problematic in this game, and turning it off isn't ideal either (IMO). That removes a much-needed source of income dur

Some good ideas here, but I'm not a big fan of cloaking. The times I've seen it suggested here, it seems to be on the basis of "wouldn't it be cool if?" or "cloaking was in X other game, movie, or TV show, so it should be in GalCiv." I'm just not sure it would add any strategic challenge to the game. Cloaking without a countermeasure doesn't sound like much fun. It would just be an "I win" button for the race that gets it first. So there would likely be a countermeasure you could resear

[quote] Uh, no you can't. Because it certainly doesn't stop the AI from still abusing it, it just shackles the player. How do you make Drengin and Korath able to trade their pain techs, but only with each other? [/quote] I'd have to check how this works, but there is an Alignment variable that might be used to limit the spread of that tech to evil races. I think the Korx are the only other race that starts as pure evil, so it's not a perfect solution, but it's a start. Anyway, t

[quote] Over everything I still prefer my own: If you do not have the tech on your tree, you can not trade for it, or steal it, or have it at all . This means that a race designed around not having research buildings can't just *poof* grab some and suddenly get a massive bonus, because it augments their abilities that were in-place to offset their lack of research buildings. This will still mean that most races can trade 99% of their tech trees with most races. This a

[quote] I have a feeling that something seemingly simple as making unique techs more expensive would involve a lot of changes and/or extra coding the devs may not be willing to do for this expansion. [/quote] For each tech that isn't flagged off as non-tradable in the .xml file, there's a "WillingnessToTrade" variable that runs from 0 to 100 (maybe it's 99). Doesn't that set the effective cost of the tech? If so, then it's an easy thing for the devs to adjust, or for the players

[quote] All robots, including the Yor, have an environmental range where they can function - as do we. We and they can extend that range using protective coverings, vehicles and structures. I don't think it is reasonable to assume the Yor can simply redesign themselves for a hostile environment anymore than we could. The Dread Lords gave them sentience but they did not give them an understanding of the technology that made that possible - otherwise they wouldn't be competing for domination o

[quote] radiation can interfere with electronics. again just some kind of simple coating. most types of radation can be stopped by a thin layer of tin foil. [/quote] That's not true. Check out this Wicki article on the effect of ionizing radiation on electronics, and the extent some computers are "rad hardened" by fairly extreme methods. Some hardened systems have three computers vote against each other, to miti

Awwww... no slaps from me, I'm a softie. :) We still don't know exactly how the devs will set up the Metaverse with TA. Maybe they'll have separate race-based scoring instead of an overall score? It's not clear yet that all the races can be equally balanced for difficulty. And maybe the shouldn't be. Some TA races like the new Thalans only get really strong in the late game, if they can survive the early years when they're so slow to populate and tech up. I like that because it means

I don't see how this relates to TA Metaverse games when you're asking for a customized, non-TA tech tree setup. I assume that any TA-based games for the Metaverse will require the standard (unique) racial tech trees, like everyone else will be using. Isn't that the whole idea of comparing scores, to be playing on the same level field? Using the DA tech trees in a TA game would give the player an unfair advantage, considering how most of the new races are now a bit more difficult (and i

[quote] My hope was that there were others who felt the same and as of yet had not spoken up, and that if it was at all possible that there may be check box to toggle playing with new races/techs or the DA versions. [/quote] It's normal for game developers to put a low priority on making changes in the internal game engine, when the same thing can be accomplished easily by user modding. Seriously.... it should be easy to use the new editors to make one vanilla tech tre

Well, normally I'm in favor of more options, and I do see the argument for a choice between expensive "in place" upgrades vs. returning to a starport for cheaper ones. I still think my last point is relevant though, assuming the AI can also choose which option to use (and is good enough to make the right choice). I don't want to guess whether the AI is moving a ship for reasons that don't immediately threaten me, or for strategic reasons that might be a more immediate threat. This is e

[quote] You can, but the issue the OP brought up was that certain races shouldn't flip at all to a certain other race due to their back stories. [/quote] The more I think about this, the more it seems like it could just be a player exploit if races were hard-coded like that. If I'm playing the Yor and I know that I have nothing to fear from Iconian influence, then that's going to affect my strategy. I'll try to colonize planets deep inside the Iconian's influence zone if I can g

[quote] believe the best solution would be to modify unique tech prices by let's say x20 so you finally will be able to perches them if you wish but a VERY high cost. BAD idea IMHO. Then races could pawn off their crap racial techs for a huge pile of universal techs. [/quote] It might work if the AI was smart enough to know which were the crap techs. But yeah... based on past performance, this probably just opens the door to a big playe

All the tech trees are in one folder, and they can be edited any way you want. It will be very easy to just copy a single DA-style tech tree to all the races, and you'll have what you're looking for. The Super Abilities might need some tweaking, since they interact with the bonuses and deficits in the race-specific trees. But that should be easy to do also. Me, I love the new race-specific trees. The expansion does exactly what a good expansion should do: make the game more cha

I know it doesn't seem very logical that a ship could be upgraded "in place," without returning to a starport or starbase. Maybe there is a network of invisible support/repair ships roaming around that perform the actual upgrade, and that's what you're paying for. At any rate, on a strategic and gameplay level I think it works fine. I'm not a big fan of micromanagement, unless it actually adds some challenge to the game. A system where we had to move ships back to planet orbits for an

[quote] That's the options I want. - No trade brokering. I will likely rarely use this, but that's because I'd use another option. But from what I hear, it's a pretty popular idea. - No unique tech trading. Again, not what I would use, but still popular. - No non-native tech trading. This is what I'd use. This is the "if it's not somewhere in your tech tree, you don't get to use it" option. No more Yor abusing trading to build enormous economies. No Torians with research wor

[quote] A limit of one active per civilization might be a good idea, too. [/quote] I think Frogboy said somewhere that Terror Stars are basically for finishing off "entrenched" enemies in the late game. I assume that's the reason why they survive the blast, why they're mobile, and why you can build more than one. If you can only have one, then it might not shorten the endgame that much, compared to standard invasions... at least on the larger maps.

[quote] Even if it doesn't get addressed, there's still always mods. They're giving us all the tools they used to make ToA with the expansion, right? So someone may well just be able to mod all this stuff in, if I'm remembering correctly. [/quote] Limiting which racial techs are traded looks to be easy, if a bit tedious. Each race has a tech tree .xml file, and some of the unique techs are already flagged off. For example, Precursor Studies for the Iconians (leads to Precursor L

Another thing is how it might make the game too deterministic. I just started a new game on a Huge/tight cluster map as the Iconians, with 4 other races set to random. I started off in one corner, and as I began colonizing outward along a chain of stars, I soon realized that my nearest neighbor was my ancient enemy, the Yor. As I colonize outwards toward their zone of influence, I'm leaving pockets of lower PQ planets behind that I can probably flip, if the Yor decide to colonize deep

[quote] I haven't seen it happen, but yea, something like the Iconians flipping to the Yor seems like it shouldn't be possible. [/quote] Yes, but if influence flipping is locked off on a per-race basis, then it eliminates the ability of the AI to change its goals in the middle of a game. For example, if it's clear that the AI can't get a conquest or tech victory, it might (ideally at least) switch gears and go for an influence victory. I'm not sure how much this actual