jwburks

Haven't Played This Game In A Long Time, Just Updated It; Not Much Has Been Fixed. in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Hm. Been a while. Maybe a week or two after this game was released is when I bought it on the advice of some forum mates over at BioWare.com's Off Topic forums. It was fun at first, mainly because you have more breathing room than Civ IV and you can build your own ships and what-not, but to be honest the game was a little shoddy. Sadly, it still is. Don't know how many times this game has been patched, but it seems to have been a lot. So why does nothing seem different? The controls are still a

Trying my best not to hate "civilization" games... in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

It's been a while for me since I've been here. I haven't played Dark Avatar in quite some time. I believe I quit playing because the game got aggravating. And a while back my girlfriend asked me to install Civilization IV for her, and so I started playing THAT dreadful thing again. But now I'm at the point where I'm just wondering who exactly these games were targeted at. Certainly not me. It ocurred to me that I simply cannot grasp the appeal of this genre. You have to either be extremely smart

Reply to How do i make BC?? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Only thing that has worked for me so far is colonizing a planet, building 3 factories, then nothing but banks, adding a farm when the population reaches 6 billion, then another when it reachs 9 billion. You still won't make a lot until you research stock markets. And one planet won't be enough, either. This game is like what would happen if Scrooge were reincarnated as a video game.

Reply to So I finally won my first game of GalCiv2... in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Hm... yes, I did play with Normal difficulty. After the game was over, one of the AIs had their tax rate at 80%. I guess they had an even harder time not going broke than I did earlier. It does seem that colonizing a bunch of worlds solely for banks is the way to go. If the AI had gone for better banking techs, they probably would have done much better. Their tech was one step away from stock markets, but considering how long this game was... I think they waited too long. 6 other civs o

Reply to Drengin War and Diplomacy Bug or am I just crazy? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

That make me spit my tea all over the monitor! Sounds like a bug to me.

So I finally won my first game of GalCiv2... in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Last night I finally completed a game, but I'm pretty sure it's only because I got lucky that I did so well. I played as the Thalans on a Huge map with Tech Trading turned off, no Mega Events, Abundant Habitable Planets, Planets, Stars, Scattered Stars, Normal Tech Speed, Random Minor Civilizations. The game threw me in with the Altarians, Arceans, Korx, Krynn, and Torians. There were two minor races but I never saw them. I think the AI killed them... Ah, I forgot my abilities. I gave m

Reply to A few newbie questions in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Oops, that economy resource you're mining can't have trading modules. It's a resource that you mine, hence it can only have mining modules. I think you can still put weapons and armour on it, though... with Starbase Defense.

Reply to Economic Starbases - do they affect tax income? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Really, that many? I play on Huge maps, anything smaller and it gets too crowded for my tastes. I've tried gigantic maps, but it just seems to add more space, not more planets, anomalies, etc. In my current game I'm doing okay, I just started last night. I got 3 morale resources, 1 economic resource, 3 technology resources... there are no more economic resources on the map so far, but if I see them, I'm getting them. I think this is pretty good seeing as how no one has even initiated tr

Reply to A few newbie questions in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Is it me or does it take about 3 days to get a decent ship with weapons and armor or shields? Is it the point to be only able to build small ships with only 1 weapon? Not sure what you mean. If you mean it takes three days of playing, then you may be right. My games last at least 3 days, I'm on my second day in this game and have only built defenders to keep the AI off my back. 2- Why is it soe hard to keep everyb

Reply to WTF is going on?? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Sounds like a PHP/MySQL problem in the web page.

Reply to Economic Starbases - do they affect tax income? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

And economy is my own personal hell in this game. I should probably ask you how *you* do it. All I do is devote 75% of my colonies to pure stock markets, 2 farms, 2 or 3 morale buildings. I of course plop down at least 2 factories in the beginning, and then upgrade them to stock markets when all is said and done. But there's got to be a better way... right?

Reply to Problem handling Economy. Possible Bug??? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Geez how many planets did you colonize to get that much in debt?

Reply to Doing well in this game seems to depend too much on pure luck. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I research the economy tree first to get stock markets, then I do manufacturing and tech equally.

Reply to Economic Starbases - do they affect tax income? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Using this method I've gotten planets that can produce 2000 MP's per turn. The biggest, baddest battleships can be produced in two turns. Don't discount the power of properly used economic SB's. Note that these same kinds of arrays give a bonus to both production *and* research. I've gotten planets that produce 12,000 RP's per week with this and I've seen folks get up to 20,000 RP's week. Once the tech tree is done (rather quickly at this rate) you can then convert you

Reply to What would you pay good money for in an expansion? (The unofficial inquiry) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Feel free to post whatever you desire in future expansion packs, even if it has already been suggested (that shows that many people want said feature). Also don't feel compelled to browse through the previous pages of this thread. I typically don't buy expansions until the game itself is fixed. More energy should be directed towards that first. But anyway... I don't know what to suggest. I think something more needs to be done with Espionage. Right now

Reply to Oh noes, the evil Drengin Empire is defeating me wholesale.. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

So *why* in the blue blazes does the game think I'm *losing* the war? Every time I try to make peace with them since war is costly, my dialogue acts as if I'm the losing side. And I'd have to basically give them all my techs to get peace. What? Who has their homeworld still intact? Who's got fleets of battleships dominating the stars? Is this a bug or what? What do I have to do? Conquer every single Drengin world before the game acknowledges I'm

Reply to game turns in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Does the AI actually try to win, or are they just there to annoy you?

Reply to Why does everyone want to kill the Korx? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The Dominion of Korx are always the first AI civ to declare war on me. Actually they're the only ones who have thus far, so I would ask you why do the Korx want to kill me? Maybe because they have no face and are just getting confused...

Reply to Very confused about spending, production, tp, and mp...please help in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Hm, I thought the Military/Social/Technology sliders were for dividing the percentage of Production, but you may be right since you can't set them all to zero. I guess it just means you can't have them all at 100%, but you pay for the production regardless. That means the Production slider now makes no sense to me. All I know is when I lower it, I get less money. *shrug* I'm tired too. I've been playing this game every night since I've gotten it, but to be honest I'm getting sick of it.

Reply to Doing well in this game seems to depend too much on pure luck. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I play on Huge galaxies with 5 random opponents. And trading is stupid. Out of everything in this game, economy and tech are the tightest. In the tech tree you can get +30% to social and military production, but only 15% to economy and 10% to tech. But economy is always the toughest thing for me. Like I said, without a great many planets devoted entirely to stock markets, it's hard to stay afloat (and by a great many, I mean 10 for every 1 production or tech planet), much less actually make mone

Reply to Problem handling Economy. Possible Bug??? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I'm no pro, but I've been where you're at. And it's not as though I haven't spent hours here and several other places (GalCiv Wiki, GameFAQs) reading up on the game big time, which makes me feel even more hopeless and stupid. I think I'm right when I say the Altarians can get the biggest Economy bonus in the game, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, I always set them up to have 60% Economy, 40% Morale and 40% Tech. With the Technologists political party, I have 60 Economy, 40 Morale and 60 Tech. With

Reply to Economic Starbases - do they affect tax income? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Nah, they affect the feeble freighter trading routes, though. If you apply all the mining modules, you can get a +24% production/technology boost in the surrounding planets, which is a lot of work for such a small benefit. *shrug* This game's like lifting weights for 12 years and gaining 1 lbs of muscle, eh?

Reply to Doing well in this game seems to depend too much on pure luck. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

My economy planets always had 15-20 billion people, depending on my farming tech. Two farms, always. This usually requires 3 morale buildings at the very least. But that is the end result, which takes a long time. It's the getting there that bites. With Altarians, I have no real serious problems with economy with this method. This is because I start with a +60% Economics bonus, though. And a +40% Morale bonus. The problem with the Altarians is that things take forever to build. I recently gave u

Reply to Doing well in this game seems to depend too much on pure luck. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Funny thing is, I have never played a game with Mega Events turned on. Mega Events has nothing to do with it. There are still events that screw me, though. Currently I am considering uninstalling the game. I've played through 7 games now, the odds are rarely in my favor, and even if they are the game finds some way to ruin it for me. My biggest problems are a) the AI colonizes planets next to mine and then gets miffed at me for having close borders, b) the AI will colonize all the plane

Reply to Your ideas for the next update! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Here's another request, and I think it would make the game easier to play (not easier to win, but less of a headache)... In the Technology screen, the one with all the technologies... some techs unlock weapons, armor and buildings and all that stuff. It would be nice for the techs to not only show what it unlocks, but to show what this new stuff does. For instance, the, uh... Economic Capital! All it says is... New Improvements Economic Capital But it doesn't say a