Richrf

Should probably experiment with morale. bonus. But I think it's clear economy,population,morale are the top picks. Have to look at the equations to decide.

Economic - Master +30% 4 picks Population growth - Frisky? +70% 6 picks The Federalists +20% economy. 1. Economics bonuses. I finally figured out after flailing around in the first 2 attempts, that galactic civilization is about ECONOMY. There is no point in getting bonuses to military/social/research production if you don't have the $$$ to back them up (only half of the racial bonus is free). If you earn enough $$$ you can keep yourself out of the red (or

Colony rush still works. Particularly with a 'frisky' race , it becomes easy to win. Besides colony rush for me doesn't mean you occupy every planet, you see, but rather you occupy the best planets, I usually occupy those with at least PQ=8. I also use them to extend the range, since my colony ships are equipped with the best engines but no life support, which I consider a waste of space on a medium map. Once you occupy the best planets and marked your terrority, you can c

It's not just tech trading, but the nice thing about diplomacy techs is that it can prevent AI players from going to war with you, even if they are otherwise very hostile. I mean this seems obvious right, but I didn't expect how effective it can be! Version 1.1 I was playing this modified race with bonuses on economy + pop growth, so early strategy involved quick land grabs + focusing on economy techs so I could operate at 100% spending for most of the game. Opponents were humans a

Interesting so basically, tactics don't matter. It doesn't matter if you have the most boneheaded general in charge of the army.... Nothing would change.

In my games they seem to count. I was fooling around with cheats to see how powerful the military starbases could be with 100% tech, and it seemed to cow the AIs.... Had the most powerful military just with starbases...

Seriously, it is not and uncommon theme in SF for humans to be unique/special in some way. In fact, the whole young human race bursting into an older galactic community and surprising the latter with some tech, or some trait is a cliche that refuses to die. The GalcivII story isn't that unusual in this respect. Particularly if humans turn out by some time loop trick to be the first ones...

fedit

Humans were happily hunting and gathering for 500,000 years (40,000 years if you count purely verified homosapiens) before someone decided to try farming. Farming, how hard is that? Yet it didn't occur to people for tens of thousands of years. The problem in the GalCiv universe wasn't that they didn't think of Hypersp

I agree. Chess AI is also purely scripted in the OPENING. Why? Because it is stronger then. And in contrast to Brad the programmers of the chess AI admit that the strategical part of their AI is still retarded. (Chess AIs are able beat humans in strategical sound positions because of TACTICS.) Right,

Me too , just hope they do it and that they not start the same "it's not MoO it's a different game" routine like with GalCiv again if they will give different name. No tactical combat I suppose in Elemental. Sigh. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/Mad.gif" border=0 ALIGN="absmiddl

You guys have given a very good list. But there's one you guys haven't mentioned, Greg Egan! Axiomatic, Permutation City, Quarantine, Distress, Diaspora etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan Of the others already mentioned I like Baxter ( Manifold series) Asimov (Foundation and Robot series) Vinge (Besides A Fire upon deep, you should also check out True names) Card (Ender's

There is only two companies that have the expertise to make a MoM2 : Firaxis and Stardock. In my opinion, GalCIV2 is superior to Civ IV, so my preference is for Stardock] Personally I feel that of the two Firaxis more closely captures the spirit of Simtex/ Microprose game design philosophy, and

I would also prefer they work on a official successor to master of magic as opposed to their own title. Why? SD is a great game developer and one of the best in the bussiness, but IMHO, Simtex/ Microprose were unrivaled in their ability to create fun games. They had this talent of throwing around all sorts of crazy game breaking abilities creating infinite re-playability. Games such as Moo, MooII, Master of magic etc... Sd's gam

The names evoke Lord of the rings I think. The story feels heavily influenced by B5. Arnor versus dread lords = Vorlons versus shadows, the Terran alliance acts a lot like the humans in B5, but of course it seems like the story here predates B5? My guess is, through in some type of time loop, humans end up as one of the elder races either the Mithrilar (dark?), the arnor or the dread lords. Kind of like how Sinclair turns out to be yo