random50

Any chance of one more speed below "very slow"?

What about the other settings? Were they all identical as well? I did a quick test (higher up this thread) in research times by map size and noticed a definite difference for one of the early techs. It might even be *very* complicated, ie each tech scales in its own unique way. The point is, scaling is definitely there.

I hear rumours that the focus buttons have been changed and the all-X strategies have been dethroned as the optimal way to play. Can anyone give more details? I'm considering whether to buy the expansion and this is probably the major decision maker for me. (I know that sounds an odd thing to decide on, but I really disliked the way I felt forced into the all-X strategy in Dark Avatar/Dread Lords; going for a balanced approach and deliberately playing suboptimally was

[quote]The problem lies as you go up in difficulty. At Suicidal, you might get 100bc for a tech by selling it to one AI. Let's say you needed that same 100bc tech, you'd have to play 1000bc. In some cases, the AI won't sell it, even if you offer it every single planet you own.[/quote] Is that really a *problem* though? It is supposed to be "suicidal" level, after all. I don't know how the advanced players are doing these days, but when I was last playing this game (a year or so ago, p

Both KOTOR2 and NWN2 suffered primarily because of the klutzy graphics engine. Both of them had pretty strong storylines, although KOTOR2's in particular got truncated thanks to those (beep)s at Lucasarts. If people weren't so obsessed by the cosmetics (graphics and sound), we wouldn't be reduced to only seeing a handful of game releases every year (it's basically impossible for a small team to produce a game these days), nor would we be forced to keep upgrading hardware just to play t

Develop good modding tools then just leave it to the gamers. One thing I'd be interested in seeing is a company willing to publish the better community produced mods and share the revenue with the creators (perhaps after the active development cycle is ended). There's *already* some very good stuff put out for most moddable games even when people are doing it completely for free. Imagine what might turn up if the modders had at least the *potential* for some financial reward at the

Pretty much as the title says! I've not been keeping up to date with developments...did they add the ability to group fleets together for the purposes of issuing commands?

A PQ of 9 with those bonuses is really "only" like a PQ 27 without bonuses and only a PQ 23 if you're only looking at research. Meanwhile, a 16-starbase array roughly *quadruples* the effective number of labs.

However, does that mean when you conquer the planet with the MCC or ASC on it that you destroy the planet? I'm not sure. I've never seen the AI build either!

Nah, we probably don't want blatantly visible handicaps that would not fit in with the 'realism' of a galactic universe? I'd say the production and research levels the AI can pull in on a virtually empty planet at suicidal is *fairly* visible.

It's rarely wrong to be building markets in preference to building nothing. When to start building up other stuff is much trickier. You don't want to wait until you can completely afford it because you will then have a prolonged phase where your economy will grow much faster than your capacity to spend the extra cash. This could easily end up leaving you well behind in the race. Equally, building up too early will leave you in a nasty financial hole. I judge it by feel...after a few

So that's 100% economy bonus, 50% stacking manufacturing bonus, *way* better colonization events, best unique techs?! I knew evil was overpowered (which is why I don't usually choose it) but that's just ridiculous!

Oh well. Those were the days. Nowadays the only place you can use a 300% food bonus tile is on a PQ8 where your pop is limited to about 14.7B anyway or if your playing DL perhaps a PQ9 with it's 20B limit. I don't get why people say this. I always build farms on bonus tiles. As long as the planet's not in a high enemy influence area, and morale overall in your empire is good enough to keep your party in power, why care about a small number of planets

Whether you want to call it an exploit or not, I don't really care; that's just semantics. I do care that it significantly narrows the way to play the game effectively, unless you choose to *deliberately* handicap yourself. Just decouple the sliders...a pretty easy programming change(?) requiring no other adjustments to balancing or AI (assuming the AI will have the sense to build more economic buildings to meet the higher demands on cash. If it can't do this automatically t

for one, i think you should reference at least 3 or 4 of the "many times" they've shut down exploits. First strike combat system. Bundles of diplomacy related stuff. Engines. These were all *major* changes to the game mechanics to either shut down exploits or help the AI compete, at least 2 of them were very good changes IMO. I'm sure there have been *many* more minor changes. If I don't like it, don't use it...that's all very

In a single player game, why do people care if other people do this? If it bothers you, don't do it. Why bother shutting down any player exploits at all, then? (And you have, many times)

I will do some trading with minors for whatever is available. But in general, I find it's more important to get the invasion rolling asap before the balance of power shifts. Out of curiosity, have you ever managed that at suicidal with "very slow" tech speed?

They're balanced IMO. They're a "quick start" pick rather than a "long haul" one. Mid game onwards once you've grabbed a few resources they make relatively little difference, especially the morale bonus, whereas many other picks are still almost as potent as they were at the game start.

Iztok, hasn't the income formula been nerfed in DA? This is probably why what previously worked in DL doesn't do so well any more; a marginal difference like that is significant in the early stages before research and resource bonuses to econ kick in. Plus the 250 starting pop is tougher, as you say. I tend to take Superbreeders and build mostly econ buildings early on. Purge has it right for very fast tech IMO (and possibly fast or normal), but I wouldn't fancy my chances of pulling

I think it'd be a waste of time because the game is still being frequently updated. Wait until the final release is out IMO...then people will probably be much more interested because it's the only way it'll get fixed. Unless, I guess, you believe you've solved all the problems and want to prove as such to the devs so that they can then incorporate your changes.

As far as I can tell, this doesn't seem to be the case for social production and military production. It would be nice if progress was forwarded into the next project on those as well. It *is* I think, at least as far as buildings go. Go to the colonies screen and click on any building you happen to be upgrading. It will show the precise cost remaining (in Dark Avatar at least). This is often immediately less than the theoretical cost of the upgrade.

So, are there easy solutions to the production problem? There's one extremely easy solution I think. Decouple the research and production sliders (but keep the social and military coupled). Then you can choose to use exactly whatever percentage of your max research capacity as you like, and exactly whatever percentage of max production capacity you like. I can't imagine this would be at all difficult to implement. You could argue it will affe

No. Move quick...you need to be invading whilst the AI is still concentrating on colonizing.

Also your insanely favorable economic conditions do not really come into play unless you're essentially granting my argument that income trumps production. I'm not following you here...the favorable economic conditions automatically come into play because of the map and galactic event. I'm still going to maximize my economy by whatever means I can in order to pay for my production, I'm just going to sacrifice as few tiles to it as I can get away with, w

I don't keep my save games and I'm a bit short of time right now (especially since I seem to be spending what little I have left on here! ) But don't think that means I'm ducking out of the challenge...it'll be fun to find out. I'm very confident in the all labs approach, since you can get insane x00% bonuses to research as well, plus I've done it many times. (Actually I suspect your approach is pretty much this one anyway for most of the game, just with the balance *way* more toward moneymaki