Metaphase

I usually phase out tiny and small in favor of the larger ships. I don't like to lose ships, even though tossing them at the enemy in swarms can be quite effective, I like leveling my ships up. I've had a fleet of mediums that reached level 68 and had 91 HP each I think (also had xinathium plating), it was great. Another perk of the larger ships is that you can fit more engines on them and they can still be very powerful so they can move multiple se

I would like that feature available as well. It would be nice to not have to micro-manage to minimize or even eliminate the wasted production (for planets that don't have starports) I set the military slider to 0-5% the entire game. Small planets with 1-3 factories or so won't have enough production to waste any on military this way. My other planets (mid for constructors/transports and large for the rest) will just do so when not upgradi

The population is generally made up of civilians that don't work for the government (you) so you only get tax money out of them really. The money that goes into your production is payment to keep them running as in paid laborers and resources etc. Of course such a large private sector would probably encourage things like technology to move faster in your society, I don't mind that it doesn't have a direct impact on your government projects. After al

I liked the idea of ally only tech trading. Kind of a compromise between the far too easy diplomatic tech trading with everyone and the slow advancement and limitations of having tech trading off. I almost always play with tech trades off since it is far to easy with it on. I hate having to check for new techs every turn to grab anyway. Just a side note though, you might want to try the ideological war scenario. It auto allies you with 2

I like the dimension it adds to the game though to fight over something else than planets, however I feel that they are overpowered as well. Sometimes I like the challenge of adapting to utilize resources I get a hold of, and sometimes I'd rather have a straight test of my abilities with a strategy that I want to use rather than be pressured to change it due to the random placement of these things throughout the galaxy which you don't discover until s

Just an update, I thought I would mention an observation about this game. This setting that automatically starts you off at war with 2/3 of the galaxy seems to be bringing out a particular side of the AI. Namely, since they are at war, and have so many enemies they all seem to be almostly completely ignoring research except for a slow progression in the weapons department. All their research levels are rock bottom compared to mine and have been the

I wouldn't mind seeing some bonuses to defense, but if its too much you'd end up with some incredibly long battles if you like to watch them. That being said, I think it comes mainly down to style of play and the timeline of the game you are playing. I use a basic amount of defense on all my ships, I don't like the extent to which it is randomized during battle, but 1-2 in each category have proven quite benefinical. I prefer not to lose s

I decided to try some of the tailored game options and so I start in Ideological war scenario which puts you on a team with 2 good races as the terrans and at war with 3 neutral and 3 evil civs. Settings were Large Galaxy, and occational - common on stars, planets and habitable, painful difficulty. So I appear in the very bottom corner, sector (1,1) and think well this kind of stinks for exploration and expansion, but at least I'll be secur

Personally I think it is far too easy with tech trading on, which is why I play with it off most of the time. As long as you stay on top of what discoveries are made it is not only an instant trip to being at least on par with the technological leaders, but even without focusing on diplomacy you end up with quite a bit of extra BC after trading the tech around to everyone else. I'd call it an exploit if it weren't an intended function of the game.

I'd say that would be a fine change, but there are tons of suggested solutions to this tech trading problem. I probably haven't even read them all yet so I'll hold off on giving my endorsement. No tech giving early on would indeed hurt the diplomatic strategy, but I don't think it makes it that hard. The first time I tried diplomacy on Tough level I accidentally had tech trading still off from my previous conquest only game and I still won

It should probably be taken into consideration, but remember there is always the possibility that the ally will choose to break the alliance and not honor it if they don't feel it is worth it. I don't know if the AI will do that, but a player certainly has the choice and they are to be treated in the same way by the AI.

I do have some concerns about a feature like this though... - If the sliders could be adjusted every turn it would just be a matter of spotting a transport and switching the entire population of a planet to soldier before it arrived. - How well would the AI handle these sliders? *skeptical* Although I would like to be able to take over a planet without having the tax payers population wiped out, as with many suggestion

With tech trades occuring instantaneously, the mechanics of the diplomacy system give rise to a powerful dominant strategy; namely, when a tech is held by two or more players, either player has a strong incentive to be the one to sell the tech to the rest of the players. There are a few complications to this simple picture

I found that combination to be incredibly effective even though I accidentally left tech trading off from the last game I played. Even without tons of techs to trade back and forth to stay on top the combination of perceived military power and diplomatic superiority was more than powerful enough to let me research and build up my infrastructure in peace. Besides frequent gifts to make even the evil races like me, I only had to pay like 400

Expanded espionage and planetary invasion if possible. Some improvement to the battle viewer so the ships don't just float around randomly and projectiles actually hitting their targets. A few extra options like 'no' anomalies and abundance of galactic resources too. (they are so powerful...) A 'find next idle ship' kind of button and the ability to turn off the auto-target next idle ship thing it does. The

How about a button that will find the next ship without orders? That way you can easily find them without going into the options menu, but only when you are ready to do so. Unless you accidentally hit it of course, anyone else hitting the Turn button when they are just trying to click on the lower right of the mini -map? I think the mapping on that button needs to be looked at...

Xeno ethics you say... so once you research that the random ethical events don't appear anymore? I guess if that's the case it wouldn't be necessary to take it too far... I haven't researched that before, looked like mainly diplomatic / cultural bonuses while I've been focusing on economy production and science and ending with conquest victory. This is only my second non campaign game, I guess I tend to forget I'm a GC2 n00b when

So I'm one of the only 2 civs left on a huge map in 2232 owning 20 some odd planets and I start getting bombarded with all these ethical dilemmas which I didn't see for the first few years at all, but now getting several a year. I've got over 300,000 billion citizens and getting like 3,000 BC a week in surplus and I get to make decisions on how to deal with say a plague for example that threatens to kill off up to 100 million people if I don't spend l

Seeing the research cost might be nice if you aren't familiar with the tech tree yeah, but they do assign different values to them supposedly. Like I remember reading that they made the AI more reluctant to give away military techs. I also noticed that some races (probably dependant on their current strategy) might value influence a lot more or less than BC. So it probably wouldn't help too much since how much they are willing to let something go fo

Okay, I see I over looked that, thanks. Is there a rational as to why you can drop off people on these planets though and the population maintains at that level? I'm kind of sick of relocating people every turn although I suppose I don't have to just because I can... or maybe that's the 'bug' or exploit that you can keep more people on planets that you aren't supposed to be able to by moving them there. If you leave more people than you can f

I've noticed that several of my planets' populations are no longer increasing. I come back and check for several turns and they remain the same. For a while I thought it was because there was no longer a starport on these planets and that it might be linked some how to immigration. I put starports back on the planets though and they still refuse to grow and I noticed that it happened to one planet that always had a starport on it. Still the majorit