This may sound silly but how about giving colony ship an 'auto colonize'-button? Scouts can auto-explore, surveyships can auto-survey, miners can auto-mine so it would make sense. At any rate, it would level the playing field with regards to the early colonization rush. Us, lesser mortals, would have a fair chance against the AI at least. [e digicons]|-)[/e]
I've checked back with my game and saw the empty planets were the ones which changed hands between nations with very different tech trees. Occasionally, there were buildings present that were not native to the owning nation but the tech was acquired (either through trade or conquest I can't say). I think the AI has a few steps mixed up, perhaps like this: 1) Take planet? Check 2) Is the planet built upon? Check and perhaps add a few upgrades. 3) Game wipes out all impr
@galacticdoom I thought the defenses on your ship would be 35/35/35 with 25 defenses of the proper category and twice the square root of 25. As Sole Soul mentioned as well, defenses are depleted during a round. This was done so large numbers of small ships could take down larger ones. As such, large fleets can wear superior ships down. As to fleet combat versus single ships: Before version 2.0 I favoured the single all-attack massi
In a game I'm playing, I've seen something similar happen (huge map, abundant stars, abundant habitable planets, though difficulty). The thing is, I'm guessing it has something to do with races surrendering to others. In my game, the Drath and Korx surrendered to me and when I went over there planets, they were all developed. The only free plots probably came from tech mismatches. The Terrans, however, surrendered to the Drengin, a race with a seriously different tech tree for
I've had something similar happen to me but I can understand the reaction of the AI. They can only see transports moving close to their planets. The fact you're at war with someone else already doesn't mean you can't or won't declare war on them. Destinations of fleets can be changed at a moment's notice so the AI can't rely on that information too much either. In short, I don't know how an AI could positively confirm you're not going to attack him but some other haples
1. Both sides do get a benefit from a trade route but there is a difference. The one sending the freighter gets a variable benefit - the game will inform you of the range when the route is formed - which will increase over time, I believe. The side receiving the freighter gets a fixed income which I think is the base value of the route without the variable part. I don't know if that increases over time. So, both sides benefit from trade but the one sending the freighter
I agree the learning curve of the game is quite steep, even more so if you didn't jump in at the original GalCivII: Dread Lords game. The expansions added a lot of new tweaks, options and gameplay elements to the game. There have been several attempts from gamers to build something to help new players get started with their game but as far as I know none of the projects got finished. The game just changes too quickly (with many changes actually requested by the players themselves and
Concerning the tech trading, I think that it's not that bad (although I haven't played the game that much given the tech-snoozebutton-bug). The AI seems to favour native improvements to foreign ones meaning only the passive bonuses really get traded. Either that or the game ended before they had a chance, I don't know. There is one problem concerning governors and that is determining what 'best' means. Is it the cheapest to maintain, the highest output, the fastest build time, a ratio b
Welcome to the forum, Matticus88. You can buy the game from any place on the world (and off it too) as long as you have an internet connection. You buy the game using tokens, PayPal or credit card. You will receive an access code that'll allow you to download the game as many times as you want it, when you want it. Consider it a remote back-up if you will. I'm not sure I understand your question regarding the digital download system. You enter the code, let it download and you'
I have to agree with what one of the SD developers once said: making animations/movies is expensive and after the first few times, people click through it anyway. This is what I do with the intro and the planetary invasion screen is pretty much the same. There isn't much happening throughout the battle - two sides take turns shooting each other to bits - so you can skip right to the end and see who's still standing. So, old or new, it doesn't really matter. It's doesn't take long to loa
Some of the game mechanics change a lot over the expansions and every expansion adds so much that you are essentially playing a sequel instead of just a few nifty gimmicks added. If you look around on the boards, you'll find people trying to get to grips with the new economy models and tech trees so knowing how things work in TA won't help you all that much in DL or DA. Personally, I've pretty much always started running through the campaigns before going with the sand-bow mode - I'm ju
Based on the information you're giving it sounds like your population is too low. In my game as the Torians every planet have 12 billion happy taxpayers. With the common economy picks, this can add some spare cash to your treasury. The Torian morale tech tree doesn't confer any passive bonuses so you need to actually [B]build[/B] your improvement to enjoy any kind of boost unlike many other races. Why your tax income is so low I can't tell with what you're giving me to work with, or is
I'm afraid the war tax is imposed on any nation at war, whether you were the aggressor or dragged into it doesn't matter - which can be annoying if you're getting swarmed while trying to live up to the UP ideals. You don't need to annoy the Drath for them to find someone to fight you. They don't even have to know you. They'll just start proxy wars because they can - oh, and they're the humble, good guys. It's a rough galaxy out there. ;p I doubt the situation is intentional -
I think you may have encountered a temporary glitch there, One-Eye. The basic concept is that every Ascension base gathers one point per turn. You need a thousand points to ascend. So, if you get two bases, you only need half as much time. As to the negative diplomacy modifiers; these work over time. Settling an Ascension starbase won't set of galactic wars the very next week but it will weigh on the relations. Whether war will break out at all depends on their positive modifie
The approach of a lure using a fleet module is interesting but not an approach I'm using. That said, the carrier-approach does have it's benefits: 1) Engines are costly and big. Speed modules can really shine here though I don't know how many races have that technology. 2) Fleet attack modules relieve the pressure to develop costly weapon technologies. 3) Since a fleet consists of (mainly) cheap and small attack vessels, several planets can easily knock together a
There are two reasons I use logistics and fleets: 1) To gather invasion transports. I have the impression sides take turns in ground combat so the more hapless grunt you drop, the harder they strike and the less damage they receive. 2) When the enemy uses bigger ships than I have. In an effort to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with the introduction of ships firing back (except in the case of the Arcean super ability), the ship with the largest base
In DL Each ship can only target one other ship. Considering that even small ships can sport an impressive amount of weapons at higher tech levels, it becomes more advantageous to build several small attack vessels rather than an expensive huge hull. The reason behind this is variance. The higher the numbers on the attack and defence values, the more likely a discrepancy between them will result in the destruction of your ship. In short, higher variance means more risk and reduces the va
1) Move the warning window of asteroid bases switching allegiances to the GNN news window. Especially on larger maps the fickle nature of these bases becomes more like a turn-based spam rather than useful information. ;) 2) Life as a diplomat would be easier if you already greyed out what you could get for a given amount of money, tech or planet. If this would update itself after you make a change (say, you give planetary invasion and got Xeno Farm technology, it greys out everything
You don't need to design hulls or add jewelry to win the game, but the worthwhile add-ons such as weapons (and more weapons) need to be placed by yourself, either at random (double-click on the object you want to add) or deliberately. Dark Avatar comes with a wide array of pre-designed ships which you can find in the shipyard under the tab 'Templates'. I've played with lego too but to me, the ship design option is a gimmick. A very nice one, granted, but not a vital aspect of t
I've once suggested a system akin to miners and asteroids but I'm certain many others will have been earlier to suggest such a change. Especially on larger maps the starbases become cumbersome and the area of effect diminishes relatively. Actually, I don't even bother building starbases on large or gigantic maps except on resources. Works just fine. From the systems I've read about, I prefer the one where you build a constructor and that ship will build your starbase, completely, over t
By increasing size, mod size, power and cost, you are effectively trying to undo/cushion what Stardock did to the combat system, namely allowing multiple firing solutions. Before the change, offensive power lied with the attack power and the number of ships in a fleet. In the current system, it's basically just fleet attack, regardless of the number of ships in that fleet. Another effect is that you are handicapping small vessels in favor of the larger ones. Whether this is a g
1) Balanced options/models. An imbalanced choice (corner solution) should be regarded as a fun experiment, not the best way to play a game. 2) Strong governors. Reduce micromanaging without taking away control from the player. Otherwise he might just as well watch the governor play the game for him. GC2 does this quite well already. 3) Strong diplomacy. It should be about more than just two tests: a) am I stronger? b) how does my roll compare to me liking him? -> Wa
Actually, it might have more important effects than that. Consider a fleet of 10 small hulls pitted against one big hull. The small ships have 10 defense, 10 hp and 5 attack. The big ship has 100 defense, 100 hp and 50 attack. Assuming everyone scores max on their rolls, the current system weights in favor of the big ship. It takes 50 damage on its defenses while it would wipe out two ships with some to spare. If the ship was forced to spread its weapons fire over all enemies,
I think the reason why GalCiv falls into both categories of systems is because of the vast difference in hull sizes, HPs and space for modules. Add to this that modules and miniaturization change things radically as the game progresses and you get a very fluid environment. Such an environment needs a very stringent (reducing options) or robust system (capable of widely varying variables) to balance out. The current system is, however, easier to use for the AI. In Dread Lords, you could
I'm not sure whether this will change anything but the balance between small ship and larger ones. It won't necessarily encourage balanced ships in either size category. One possible way to alleviate this could be to have a HP tech tree (in my humble, amateur opinion). One of the reasons defenses become less useful is because at high attack/defense versus HP ratios, a slight discrepancy will get your ships blasted out of space anyway. More HPs means a bad defense roll can be cushioned a
