Fritz the Fox

This thread is for everyone here to express their heartfelt love for the hardworking people at Stardock who have enslaved us all with the highly addictive controlled substance better known as Galactic Civilizations II. It is also this poster's sincere effort to atone for a rash and longwinded posting flaming the good people at Stardock over a frustrating but minor tec

My problem appears to have been that no registration information existed for me (even though I had entered my serial numbers before, I suppose I didn't do it in the right place, or in the right order, or when the moon was full, or whatever) Support gave me a link to register (https://www.galciv2.com/registration.aspx) and all went smoothly from there (although my firewall gave me a brief hiccup...I had to ferret out the magic checkbox in Windows to tu

Actually, I was considering a career in politics, as I have a proven ability to alienate at least 50% of everyone by simply opening my mouth, and talking (or writing) nonstop for hours while saying very little or nothing. (I'm already in marketing LOL) But I don't have the earlobes for politics. Seriously, have you ever noticed the size of the earlobes on most politicians? I don't know why...maybe it's just one of the side effects of old age

I'm going to go start a more positive thread now, in way of atonement.

Ooh, yes, Verisign is evil. Actually, for the rock bottom of customer support, I direct you to Network Solutions, for whom Dante is rewriting the Inferno to include a special place for. It took me two months, three faxes and a threat to their legal department to get them to release my domain name for transfer. In that time I actually had a CSR lie to me and pretend to be his own supervisor. Appalling.

Knew I'd get flamed for this one. I probably even deserve it. I'm just trying to communicate my FRUSTRATION at having to jump through so many hoops to perform a simple task when the whole reason I purchased the product was to avoid said hoops...and how my ire has only been increased by the unresponsiveness of email tech support. It is a measure of the quality of the game that I find it frustrating at all. After all, if the gam

Y'know, I bought this marvelous game largely to reward the developers for what I thought soundled like their enlightened approach to copy protection. Unfortunately, the much-ballyhooed absence of restrictive anti-piracy measures seems to be more advertising hype than reality, and I cannot help but feel I've fallen victim to a bait and switch attempt to thwart my unfettered enjoyment of this product. The non-existent copy protection seems to have merely

I tend to side with Redalert regarding influence. I've always been somewhat annoyed by SF movies that feature characters who defect to other races, or otherwise betray their home planet. Traitors to their countries? Happens all the time. Traitors to their race? Uncommon, but it happens. Traitors to their species? No way. Even psycho animal activists claimn to be acting for the greater good of the human race, or at least the planet. <br/

A lot of people would like tactical control over ship to ship combat. I think it would be nice, but it should definitely be an option, as it could really bog down game play. I DO think it would be nice, at the very least, for faster ships to be able to withdraw from a combat that is going badly. Ship to ship battles are rarely an all or nothing affair. I would also love some sort of stealth technology (although it has scary implic

I tend to build fleets of a a handful of powerful cruisers(for invasions), a large number of well-rounded fighters(for interception), and a number of small scouts with good sensor capability(for recon and patrols). I've also had some good luck (and great fun) with very fast, long-ranged but lightly armed raiders, which I use to hunt down freighters and isolated starbases in the enemies rear areas.

I think this points out a need to make the diplomacy options a bit clearer. I did the same thing with the surrender option. Maybe some tooltips would help here? I think it might be clearer to have all the diplomatic options on the table, but if you select one that isn't gonna fly, then have the alien ambassador tell you why he wont go for it and what you could do to make it happen.

That's it! Thanks. Yes, I highly recommend it to anyone with the smallest interest in space. The other link I listed has some great stuff, too, especially for those who'd like to make their own custom maps (assuming that is possible).

Thanks, guys, great feedback. I thought there might be a simple list buried somewhere of star names, but after wasting a few hours of my life grappling with Civ IV's poorly documented and buggy modmaking, I have sort of soured on the whole modding idea. Perhaps more inspired souls than I will eventually craft a "real galaxy" map...that might be interesting. I still can't find the link to that great 3D software virtual tour of the galaxy (ki

OK, I was just informed by my ten year old son that you can, indeed, be an arms dealer. Apparently, my ships really are the Yugo's of the galaxy. If there is anything mor humbling than being bested by the computer on Dunce setting... So, anyway, strike that comment.

OK, let's get the obligatory stuff out of the way: I LOVE this game. IT should be a controlled substance. IT will probably require its own support group in a few months. Until then, though, I have a caveat or two, which I am posting here. Not to whine, mind you, but in hopes that maybe one or more of them might be addressed in a future patch. Ready? 1) WHY does the approval rating result in faster population growth? Most modern third world

...but other civs don't seem interested in buying my ships. If it isn't possible, I'd love to see it made possible. Also wondering why races keep telling me they are sending me some of their best ships, but they never seem to materialize. I really did RTFM, but I can't seem to find a way to exchange ships with other races, and they don't seem to do more than talk about it. Anybody?

On several occasions now, I've had allied or friendly races tell me they are sending me some of their finest ships to aid in my defense...and that's the last I ever hear of it. No ships ever arrive. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Am I missing something? Where are the ships?

I enjoy this game overall, but I feel that the tech tree could use a bit of tweaking. The interface to navigate the techs is clumsy, and there seem to be an awful lot of techs that have no real gameplay benefit other than to facilitate other techs, or offer some interesting new 3D widget to my shipyard. It's very frustrating to spend weeks researching a tech that sounds like it offers something valuable, only to find it provides no meaningful gameplay