Lord Zardoz

About the only thing I think Galciv2 is missing outright right now is a means to spend influence points to call early sessions of the United Planets to attempt to enact laws. It could be things like trade sanctions against one civ, or to grant extra trade routes. It would need to cost a large amount of points just to points to call an early session, and getting the laws past would probably need some sort of auction mechanism. It would add a new dimension to the game and ma

I managed to cleverly use a different e-mail address when making my online purchase of the GalCiv2 expansion, and I have been unable to download it from stardock central. Who should I e-mail to get this sorted out? END COMMUNICATION

I would just keep this mostly abstract, but implementation of this may not be quite that difficult. Lets say that at some point, an espionage specific branch of the tech tree as implemented. I would put this item on that tech branch. Reverse Engineering You gain X% of another civ's current research applied to the same path they are currently researching, and a similar bonus to researching any techs that the civ in question already knows. Advancing alo

I would suppose that reselling copies can be made possible if the seller and buyer contact Stardock, and ask to de-activate the current serial number and then give a new serial number to the new buyer. But beyond that, its not really possible. END COMMUNICATION

Lifesupport is not exactly critically important for most situations. Its most useful when you are using very clustered stars, or on huge maps when you have an ally between you and your current target of choice. But if your on standard, evenly distributed stars, and dont mind conquering all your neighbors, you can extend your range the hard way. In my current game, I have not needed to build life support modules, just having the tech extends the range benefits of planets an

Tech definitely comes around faster in 1.1, but I kind of like it. The telling point is that I have played a game where I hit the top end of the weapon tech tree without simply sitting on my arse and dicking around. Part of that is also the use of Neutrality learning centers. The Dregin are alot more scary with half decent tech on their hands. In my current game, they have either topped out, or are about to top out, the Mass driver line of weapons,and they control about half to 2/3

Try using the accelerated start option (or the battle of the gods scenario), and have every AI start the game in a state of war with you. This should provide you with an intresting play experience. END COMMUNICATION

I would like to see the AI start using propaganda centers instead of embassies to prevent planet flipping, assuming that the Embassy spam is intended to prevent flipping. One would think that the structure dedicated to preventing a planet from flipping would be more useful for that purpose then embassies. Then again, I dont know how loyalty plugs into the formula for a planet rebelling. I know that you need 4x influence to get it to flip, but I dont know what role Loyalty plays in that equati

The consensus seems to be that the defense buildings suck most, with the embassies / farms being the 2nd most hated depending on the players strategy. I am very surprised that there is no vehemence for the propaganda center. I suppose many people dont bother going far enough up the Xeno Ethics chain to even see it. END COMMUNICATION

I am curious as to what everyone thinks is the best, non special building and which is the worst. I suspect that the answer for best building will overwhelmingly be Neutrality Learning Centers. For where they fall on the tech tree, they are simply awe inspiring. I also like how it seems a bit sinister due to the red colour it has. The next best, I would say, is the Stock Market. You get economy, some morale, and some influence all at once. For worst building, I would ha

I am playing on 1.1, and so far, I am pretty impressed with the AI, since it has managed to put out some very decent ships. In fact, they are far ahead of me in weapon tech, if not ahead overall, and the enemy ships have decent amounts of engines. Only reason I am doing well is that I spent some time getting a hefty amount of Armour tech, and everyone but Dregin went for Mass Drivers (no tech trading, and I made an effort to befriend the Dregin early on). But the AI planets I have t

The tradeoff for Mass Drivers is that they tend to be cheaper on a per damage basis then beams, putting aside the Nano Ripper for a moment. The net effect of this is usually not very signifigant, but it certaintly adds up. While a good damage to hull space ratio is important, it is not the be all end all. If you expect to be in a situation where its important to rebuild lost ships frequently, you may want to reconsider going after beam weapons. Missiles are an odd beast,

Just wondering, but has anyone won a masochistic game with all of the AI's starting the game in a state of war with you? I myself only bother to play the game on tough, so the question is just academic. END COMMUNICATION

The Psyonic Beam has the opposite feature. It has an icon in the ship designer, but it does not have any sort of beam effect. You get that somewhat sinister sound effect, and then enemy ships start to explode. I say, as long as the enemy ships explode, its all good. END COMMUNICATION

I would not want the AI to design ships every time a tech gets researched. If your at a point where your getting a new weapon or def tech every few turns, it would probably be cripplingly slow. Now, I dont know if this refers to deciding to aesthetic elements of ship design or it it refers to actually choosing the load of weapons, defenses, sensors, life support, and the like. Having said that, I can see how this turns into a non trivial problem. The only obvious time to

I have an answer for BaninLance's question. Lets say you have your transports geared to carry 3000 Billion people. If you load that transport up at a low quality planet, odds are that the planet only has 5000 Billionpeople. So after loading the transport, you have 2000 Billion people left to regenerate 3000 Billion people. I know its some form of exponential formula for pop growth, so it will take a while, since the population has to more then double Now, lets say you h

hehehe, I have only had this event happen to me twice. Once when I was just learning the game, and had crappy morale. I crushed the 'Free Dregin' with two quick invasions. The 2nd time I wanted to trigger this deliberately. I humbly suggest that if you still have the save file from that revolt, you go for an easier planet. It would make a very intresting scenario game to try to pull a win when your mid game with only a 4 tile planet. END COMMUNICATION

You need to consider the effects of extra HP. There is more to ship combat then total offense and defence ratings. Also, the larger hulls benefit more from miniturization. Another thing worth considering is the effect of defences. I am not sure if defenses scale better with hull size then weapons, but if they do, then its worth noting. END COMMUNICATION

Just something to note for Rogue Metro, but population will indeed start to plummet if you tank your approval rating. I had a late game empire that was doing very well. And out of boredom, I decided to see how hard it would be to trigger the revolt event where some of your civ breaks away from you. So I put up a massive tax hike, and tanked my economy. IT took a long time to happen, but after a while, the event did happen. But

It really does depend on the purpose you are building the given ships for. If you are going to want to attack, you need fast ships, especially on larger galaxies. You cannot really fit much in the way of engines on your smaller ships. You can slam the next system over with fighters, but by the time your figher fleet makes it to the far side of a larger galaxy, its obsolete. For me, Medium hulls get 2 of my best engines, and everything abo

I kind of like the mine field idea, and I am all for enhancing the diplomatic aspects of the game. I happen to disagree with Fighters, and enforcible borders. I dont like the idea of fighters because I just dont think it will substantially add to the enjoyment of the game, and make ship building a great deal more complicated. I dont like enforcible borders or terrain, because Douglas Adams said it best. Space is big. Minefiel

I will say humans. In most of my recent games, they are the most difficult to deal with. Basically, the mix of an adequate military rating and good diplomatic ties to everyone else means that I cannot get them bogged down in proxy wars nearly as much as I would like to. The Drath and the altarians are also annoying, but not quite as much in recent games. While the Altarians tend to get a good mid game thing going, its easy to send them of

If I were in a position to dictate my own solution to this, I would make an entirely new branch of the tech tree that is unique to any given culture. This cultural tech line would be untradeable, and would provide bonuses that exaggerate each races characteristics. I would give this tech branch as many techs as the cultural domination tech branch. This tech branch would give bonuses that make sense for the races, such as Drath specific defense techs

On a related note, do the AI's use the last settings that you used for a given race, or do they get set back to default? And how do you force the settings back to default? I know there is a reset button that pulls all 10 points out of everything, but I have not noticed the button for resetting all races, or even just your currently selected race, back to default. I am sure that its a case of me looking right at it and not seeing it though.

I have seen events that double a given planets quality, but I have not encountered the described event. I would like to see an option to increase the frequency of these sorts of events. I want to see the Fundamentalists or the Independant league appear more often. Or more Pirates and escaped convicts. I would also like to see the alignment reversal events popup more often. END COMMUNICATION