Notger

Thank you very much. Espionage and governors ... great! That is the stuff that makes me buy all your expansions without even having a closer look at them beforehand. :)

[quote quoting="post"]Another thing I've concluded is that 2.0 isn't the end of the line.[/quote] I do not find myself playing too much TA (two games, beta included, so far), but this attitude tells me, that my money was spent to the right guys. Keep on going like that. I will buy GC3 wether I have time to play it or not. :)

1. Build economy boosting buildings and build them fast. If your are into micro-management, you could also use spare colony ships to transport troops to your freshly colonized planets or you could design a colony ship that holds half a billion of people. More people in the beginning = faster growth -> earlier in the greens. 2. I like having a starbase on every planet. Otherwise, you would waste the production created by your initial colony, once the colony was developed. Think of th

Why not? You can survive the demolition of a building, so why shouldn't you be able to survive the death of a star? After all, it is just a matter of distance. There once was this documentary on TV, where they showed a working Death Star destroy a sun with a giant laser beam (or something the like, they did not go into technical details). It worked fine. If I could only remember the name ...

The Total War series should be what you are looking for. Albeit, it has no research and a game lasts for days. But still the best RBS+RTS around.

That is an exploit I also witnessed very often. Maybe the AI gambles in a way that flipping still would not be certain and a colony ship is quite cheap, after all. Maybe there is a certain chance that the colony becomes strong and can survive in your sphere of influence. I do not know.

You can test that by starting the game with cheats enables and then pressing Ctrl+U after a game has started. That will reveal the map with all planets. You then just have to restart the game with the same settings (Ctrl+N).

Since the MCC grants its bonus to all planets, it is the single one best structure around. It easily beats every other bonus of the good or neutral alignment. Having said that, I stell prefer Neutral because that is my personal mindset.

The thing about missiles being better all through ... that is only true for DA. In the upcoming Twilight of Arnor, civs have their own tech trees and they sometimes favor a certain weapon type.

Bonus tiles feel strange ... what exactly is a precursor library? Which letters do they use and do you need a library card? Most of the time, you start on even grounds with the AI. If you start on a lonely planet, it will be rich and abundant on asteroids and vice versa. So for me, that option is not necessary. But the more options you have, the better.

What exactly is the use of the espionage rating (the one that can be influenced by certain techs like counter-espionage or by choosing the Krynn)? Where is it used for which calculation? Does it lower spy costs (not that I know, of yet)? Does it increase chances to steal tech (can't test that)? Does it increase the rate at which you gain knowledge about other civs (can't test that either, properly)? If anyone out there in this universe of GC2-lovers knows something about t

Wyndstar, having played the Thalans, I agree to everything you wrote. Though 50BC upkeep really is a kick in the groin, when the research tree for your new matrizes stays as slow as the old one.

Good read. I will use some of it in my upcoming Crynn Jihad. :)

No, actually I meant Ctrl+L. (Ctrl+N is not necessary after you found a good starting planet. ;) ) Sometimes I got a streak of over 100 turns of creativity not kicking in. Well, not only sometimes. ;) So from time to time, I loaded my game from a certain save-point to have a new go, when I realized that I fell behind too much. Call me lazy, but I play this game to see a story unfold, not to cope with large obstacles. (For the latter, I prefer Team Fortress 2.)

This whole auto-upgrade business is a little bit messy. If you play on a large map, manually upgrading can be a PITA. On the same map, manually deselecting governer upgrades, too. There could be a pop-up that asks you wether you want to auto-upgrade every structure after you have researched something that gives you new buildings. Or you have to monitor your research and change your settings as soon as you research something where you do not want an auto-upgrade. Bu

Loupdinour: With creativity and some Ctrl+L-pressing, it now works fine. But I think, there is something not working as intended, because being "forced" to take a certain ability to be able to play that race just does not feel right.

Loupdinur: Sir, yes sir!

Thank you very much! I will try that as soon as I can. :)

I am relieved that others experience the same. The Thalans feel great, yet it feels strange that a super-power from the future is the slow-techie of today. Concerning the powering up of a few planets: That is not possible, since you have no buildings to power up ... except for tech-trading. The downside is, that most of the others don't want your tech. I feel kind-of-stuck, here. In my game, I only managed to get along by bee-lining to planetary invasion and using

Hello all. I gave the Thalans a try and was very surprised at how different the game turns out to be. Yet, it also feels a little bit too different and I am looking for some advice from you. How do you play them? I am playing in a medium galaxy with everything normal, slow tech and eight opponents. Being initially able to build the three GA's makes Thala the strongest planet in the galaxy, yet a lonely one, since the Thalans nearly always start off without any usable seconda

You are right. I was playing TA, not DA. Thanks for your feedback. I guess I will repost in the appropriate forum.

I was giving the Thalans a try and observed the following: 1. There are no good planets near Thala, no matter how often I restart. 2. There are no buildings buildable, except for the three inital Galactic Achievements. 3. Researching any usable buildings takes a ton of time. So my game went like that: Build the three GAs, wait for 50 turns for the research to finish (slow tech), buy one planet in the meantime ... wait another 50 turns for another research project to finish. <b

There are reports that there is an event that will cause a splinter faction of your empire to emerge.

I do not know wether that helps, since I only play "tough", but I play with tech-trading enabled. Then I buy others into wars with each other. Especially when I cannot stand a certain faction that threatens me, I pay them to attack the Altarians. Every good party in the game will then attack this one party and usually take it down. I also never attack anyone except for the ones that are already nearly beaten and disliked by everyone. And, from time to time, I gift and sell tech

I do not like the increasing cost of spies, which leads to the leader of the board effectively being unable to defend against spy attacks. This was discussed in other threads, already, so I won't go into detail. I am looking forward to the new system, but I would really approve for a system where you could train offensive and defensive spies, the latter with only modestly rising costs.