Wyndstar

[quote]If the AI doesn't surrender unless at war but the player cannot offer a peace treaty pretty much at will[/quote] No. If you are at war you can't talk to them for 16 turns minimum (that was changed I think in Beta 1.6 of DA)... but they can and often do surrender the very next turn to someone else. While surrendering to my empire is... irksome and makes the game go too quickly, typically several weaker AIs will suddenly turn into one large AI in a flurry of activity as everyone

[quote]The Thalan will finally get finished off this week.[/quote] [quote]so keep posting on the forums of what you'd like to see and we'll work what we can in for this week.[/quote] Please see my [link="https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=350&aid=172337#1432952"]Thoughts and analysis on TA as of beta 4b[/link] for changes I would like made to the Thalans. Great work as always, ~ Wyndstar

Alright... seeing as the Devs said the final Thalan version was almost upon us I wanted to give feedback from one more game. I've continued to try and give the new Thalans a chance. This time I played the Iconians on a huge map... and I let the AI have 4 years before I declared war. The Thalans had almost 75% of the influence on the map and DID colonize planets at close to a 2 to 1 ratio. I didn't attack them until they had built a military. However, even giving them 4

[quote]With a ton of number crunching and a severely huge amount of useless effort, it's possible to get an attack rating >9k on a fleet of 29 tiny hulls, but that'd require a whopping 24 maximized military starbases[/quote] Ah, when I count fleet attack totals I'm not counting any military starbase bonuses at all. That is, the best I could do in DA without starbases was generally about a 5.2k attack in a fleet. And yes, it was 5608 attack on ONE DL ship. One has to know how

Well, they are better off than the Thalans without tech trading, IMO. I think you are just struggling because in beta 4b they created management issues for a lot of people by greatly increasing ship upkeep. Empires that used to hum along fine were suddenly in a huge deficit because of all the ships they had running around. ~ Wyndstar

[quote]A question has come up about this. Could someone please explain how this works in DA? I can think of two ways that this could work. One way is that if surrenders are not allowed then the AI will simply never surrender no matter what the situation.[/quote] Mumble, please see my above post. This option is how it works in DA. ~ Wyndstar

Surrenders were possible in DL. In DA the AI was changed to more "realisitically" analyise its situation... which led to surrenders being much more common. Its because the AI became "surrender happy" that Stardock took the time to include an option to turn off surrenders completely in the new system. I prefer surrenders off in part because it helps me to gain score. In DA I've on many occasions had the situation where on one turn an AI will declare war on me, and on the very next tur

Also, having not seen YOUR cost breakdown, I'll say that generally the Iconians come with some pretty high upkeep per building. I'd have more cash planets with these guys to counteract. Say, on a PQ 8 - build 2 robo farms, a dream conclave (or two, depends on your global morale bonus and tax rate) a merchant emporium, and 3-4 merchant centers. Maybe a starport if it bugs you that the colony production is wasted. Personally... and I play the game in a skewed ultra optimised fa

Well, before I offer advice, I'll admit to being biased... I think the Iconians are a poor race, and have thought so ever since DA. So take this with a grain of salt: [quote]trade is going up (with starbases)[/quote] Often trade takes more than a year to start to break even, so this is a money sink at first. How long are your games? [quote]and Im wondering if I NEED to build multiple moral buildings and/or farms on every world?[/quote] This depends, are you running at

[quote]Yet another alternative to the tie rule with 1-HP defending ship is you need to have in the attacking fleet at least one more ship than that 1-HP defending ship has guns. A fleet of several dozens of tiny hulls with one cheap gun, accompanied by a strong ship to erase DL's defenses (if DLs have more than those tinys can remove with their punny attacks) should be suficient to destroy just about anything the DLs can field. OFC you need to bring that DL's ship down to 1 HP first. [/quote]<br

You have indeed found the tie rule. It works one of two ways: 1. If both fleets kill each other in the same round (in your case, the first round) - the fleet/ship with the highest attack total survives with 1 hp. 2. If both fleets survive 50 rounds, the fleet with the lower attack total is just deleted and destroyed. The fleet with the higher attack value may have taken no damage... but may have dealt no damage! I have used #2 to really abuse the game because your ships aren

[quote]...than you by the time you have the resources to declare war.[/quote] *blinks* Don't you START with the resources to declare war? ;p [link="https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=350&aid=172337#1417028"]Thoughts and analysis on TA as of beta 4[/link] Have fun out there! ~ Wyndstar

Neilo, I'm not sure I agree with you, although I understand your reservations. I've noticed that pretty much across the board the changes take the form of less morale boosts from researching tech in place of more +% weapons. And some of the new stuff available to every race - the Tulon Weapons Module or the Reinforced Hull Module (all cargo ships anyone?) really open up new play styles. The biggest problem is how difficult it is to balance the new trees against each other, an

Yeah, no plan survives contact with the enemy. I can't count how many times I would pick a set of bonuses planning on playing the game one way and my home planet and/or starting worlds would end up dictating a different strategy. Good luck, ~ Wyndstar

Ah, I thought you were suggesting Korath could make up a score differene by building military ships. Now in longer games on larger galaxies, go go military starbase spam. But for a 0 year game?? No way. You don't need them at all if you hit the AI early enough. ~ Wyndstar

Thanks for the updates. ~ Wyndstar

[quote]So when the old Xeno Ethics bug got me out of the hole[/quote] IF I was playing a game without Xeno Ethics when that bug was still in the game then I never would have given up. In that case monetary difficulties aren't really a problem, more like a speed bump. Fortunately that bug has now been fixed. I could have been a million trillion bcs in debt and kept going while that bug was around. Not to rain on YOUR parade... ;) ~ Wyndstar

[quote]Usually with the Korath u can kick out a few more stronger mil ships but you have no population on those worlds you are taking. With a race like the Arceans, you get a decent mil but you have to focus more on the PI techs and ships so you lose out on the mil score. At least, that's my guess on the matter.[/quote] Perhaps. I had no military score and I played Korath for my entry. Why build military ships? They don't contribute enough of a score boost early for their cost. <

[quote]I have to ask-would you have given up had you been 537m BC in the hole?[/quote] Honestly it would depend on the game. A big factor would be how many planets I had, how many planets I could get, what my population and tax sizes were, what my technology level was... etc. I might give up. I rarely do unless I know I'm beaten. If an enemy starts taking worlds of mine and I have no options left I might quit before my last planet is taken. In a situation where it i

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yeah, it was thrilling. I wasn't close to being the strongest civ until late in year 8 of a 9 year game. And as late as early year seven my military consisted of only 3 tiny hull ships with 3 attack each (actually my bonuses eventually increased that to 5 attack each! 15 total!!!) The Minions sitting on my military starbases... giving each starbase many turns of invulnerability - were really the key to knocking out the much larger Terran civ when I fina

[quote] Going back to my ridiculously high estimate of 50 planets in a small galaxy these 20K maxed out ships would still take 400 turns to just purchase, that's 8.3 game years. You guys are missing the scale of how incredible this really is. This is not just impossible, it's two orders of magnitude beyond possible.[/quote] Oh, agreed. I'm pretty sure that score has nothing to do with military rating at all. I wouldn't be surprised if he had no military. And its obviously

[quote]Also, do you believe that any conceivable pop growth rate gets you to a planet of 100B in less than 3 years?[/quote] No I don't. I think maybe he is manually setting the population levels. It is a cheat we are trying to sniff out after all. [quote]The only kind of thing that I can think of is some kind of underflow where some small negative is taken as a huge positive.[/quote] Well.... [quote]Setting -1 in the file will set the value to 255, 65535

Wow. I just finished a game that really blew my mind, and I decided I wanted to write up what happened so that I could share the story. I'm still test playing the new TA beta, which does not allow metaverse games. I've played a fair number of games at this point and it has allowed me to really play around with some new strategies. I decided I wanted to play a game that really focused on the new fleet enhancement modules (specifically the Tulon module). I hadn't used it befor

[quote]Well perhaps the 1 year 94K tech win in a small galaxy is just this side of believable.[/quote] Well I hope those scores in a small galaxy are believable... [img]http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n104/cjmosbo/Scores.jpg[/img] [quote]And what other component could he have increased by 4000%? Population? Hardly, even a 40 fold increase in pop is totally ridiculus but I'm also under the impression that your pop score is based on a logarithm of your pop and so a 40

Well, you know there are several (many, even) philosophies that start with the assumption or end with the conclusion that existence is evil. By making evil the more powerful choice the game just leans more towards those schools of thought. Is the game balanced? No, not at all. But as the artificial slave center says in its description - the only cost for building it is a slice of your soul. "Soul" is not currently a currency implemented in GC2. But the game poses an interesting tho