ColdSteelRain

Something from the OP that no one addressed -- you may have a second copy of a program on the old drive, but if you don't re-install it, it may not work properly. Some programs are pretty sensitive about this, some aren't. I recommend reinstalling, copying any data over if you need it, and then reclaiming the space from the old drive. Also, if you connect your old hard drive to the same IDE channel as the CD/DVD drive, the performance will be pretty bad. The IDE chan

[quote]a 20 million dollar company paying annual taxes of 160,000 dollars is a drop in the bucket. well...what is the percentage of 160,000 dollars of 20 milllion dollars. It is like asking a millioniare to pay 8000 dollars in tax in a year.[/quote] I'd advise you against operating your own business or being an accountant. ;) I could be wrong, but I think SD is a $20M/yr company in revenue, not profit. There's a difference. Depending on the business, gross profit is more li

Very well said, Phazon. It's nice to see a post advocating a positive position that doesn't bash someone or try to make the case that PC is better than console. While I agree with the thrust of your post, I'd like to point out that the only significant difference between PC and console power is age and packaging. There isn't any technical reason you couldn't add a mouse and keyboard to a console and run an excellent strategy game on one. I think that with the next

Hi QXel, Welcome to the GC community. I'm not a dev, but I can answer #3. If you look at the top of the improvements list, there should be a couple of boxes. The one that's checked by default is to only list the newest type of each improvement, but there's also a box that will show all improvements. If you check that one, then you can build older technology. I thought there was a way to do waypoints, maybe by shift-clicking the destinations, but I might be confusing this wi

I agree. Trade used to be a good income source, but now it isn't worth researching, much less the cost of a freighter or an economy starbase. It doesn't seem to get any better than about 6 bc/month, even after years of operation. I'm pretty sure I had routes in the 30's in DA, if not more.

I think the graphics card is pretty weak in the Gateway. Any time you're using a video card with shared memory, you're not going to be running games well. That said, you could get this box, and see how the software you want to use actually runs. If it isn't good enough, add a better graphics card later.

++ I thought the in-game alarm clock (and the one-button update) were two features in Civ IV that just about every game should have. Until that gets added, though, I'm using "Alarm Clock 1.0" by Scott Moore, a freeware program for Windows. You can get it from Download.com. I can play in full-screen, and when the alarm goes off, it grabs focus until you hit snooze or shut it off. Kind of jarring, but effective.

I don't remember my first game, but it would have been something keyed in (and converted) from a book of BASIC games or from a magazine. Probably Hammurabi or Trek, possibly Life. My first computer was a Southwest Technical Products Corp kit built around a Motorola M6800 CPU and 4Kb of RAM. No disk, but I did have a cassette tape interface and a 40 x 20 character video display connected to a TV. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to my rocking chair......

[quote]The only thing I know is stardock pulls away all their staff for something. Just after a big release of their games.[/quote] Well, I suppose they could do what other developers do and reassign all the original team to a completely different project (or fire them) and hand over the maintenance of the code to a few people who haven't ever seen it before. Give 'em a break. They provide better support than any other game developer, and better support than I've gotten on maj

It isn't uncommon to have a page just flat time out, and then the next several pop right in.

[quote]Release a build that doesn't crash to desktop.I've played an awful lot of Galciv2 builds and not one of them has been without CTD errors. I understand that the game is complex, and that complexity breeds errors, but consistantly releasing new patches, all of which contain fatal errors is a shockingly poor effort and works to undermine Stardock's entire anti-piracy policy.I remember reading the origional Stardock-Starforce drama just before I bought a copy of Galciv2 and hearing "By releas

The short answers are: - People don't like software that has to phone home to work. And you don't know exactly what info it's sending. - People get really upset when they want to play a single player game and can't just because the Internet isn't available. Think about people traveling and not at home. - People get ticked off when they upgrade their PC and have to reactivate the software because it thinks its on a new system. - People don't like the idea tha

I don't buy a lot of games, just because I don't have that much time to play, so I'm pretty picky. IMO, GC2:TA is definitely going to give you the best value. Now that the tech trees are different, you [I]really [/I]have to play each race differently, so there's even more replay value than in GC2:DA. I wouldn't be concerned about any bugs in the release; you can count on SD to issue timely patches, and it isn't uncommon for a new feature or two to also be included.

You can also right-click on the TALaunch.exe file and select "Pin to Start Menu", if you don't want to clutter your desktop. Of course, if you play as often as you [I]should[/I], it'll stay on the start menu anyway ;) .

Zydor has a good point. This seems to be too much angst when we're talking about a $50 game. If you were spending $16M to install JDEdwards, you'd have a lawyer review all the contracts before you agreed to buy it. If I'm spending $50 for a game, or just about anything for that matter, and it doesn't work out, I take it as a lesson learned and move on.

I'll grant that those are decent components, and you save a bit with the rebates, but without a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and operating system, you're still a bit short of a usable system. I was thinking of a system spec'd at least to the level of the Ars Technica "Hot Rod" (see their system guide here: http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200803.ars/3), which is closer to $1,600. The original point, though, is that consoles are much less expensive than PCs, esp

I'd also point out that if you have an older PC gathering dust, you might consider loading that one up instead of your main machine. Ubuntu (and any Linux distro that I've tried) work really well on older, less powerful hardware. I'd also caution you to expect a steep learning curve. Ubuntu and the applications that come with it [I]look[/I] a lot like Windows, but it really isn't.

[I]Ass, gas, or grass, nobody rides for free.[/I] Crude, but succinct.

You'd think anyone playing this game would have learned patience...

I delay it as long as possible due to the expense. I think researching it in the early part of the game would put me too far behind in other techs. If I can hold out to the mid to late game, I flip (or invade) the planets and then research the tech within a few weeks instead of months. Of course, I just started a game where it looks like I've only got 2-3 usable planets nearby, so I'll probably have to focus on this sooner than I'd like. It'll depend on how fast the AI expands; I may

Maybe it should factor in the percentage of the troop module capacity used. For example, you'd only be able to get half the maximum damage if you only filled your troop modules to 50% of capacity. Putting in a single trooper would then only let you get less than 1% of the effect, at best.

Just because the game allows it, doesn't mean you have to use it. This game's middle name is "Flexibility". I agree that using reseach output to build ships doesn't make a lot of sense from a simulation point of view, but then being able to completely flip your economy from social to military production in a week doesn't jive with reality, either. So, if you want to play the game as a simulation, just add some house rules: - set the mix of mil/social/reseach to someth

Sorry for not being clearer. I'll load sparrows if I need the ships earlier; if I think I can wait, I'll hold out for stingers. It really depends on what the other races are doing, where I need to focus research in order to meet other goals, etc. I usually don't try to push the missile research further until the arms race heats up. Even then, it's a balance between just building more cheap ships, or bumping the tech. That's what I really like about this game: even if I'm planning t

I play DA and a little different strategy, usually going for a tech or alliance victory. As a result, I focus my fleet on being strong enough to deter attack, but not necessarily strong enough for a military victory. In the early game, most of my effort is focused on economy and research. Once I see someone registering on the military power graph, I focus research to get missiles and first level mini. I then build a tiny hull with one missile and pump several of those into orbit arou

You can actually collect quite a lot of information about another civ without any espionage investment. (From a story point of view, this would be info from trade and diplomatic missions, and public sources.) Most of this comes from the "Speak To" screen: - Treasury - Colonies (even if you can't see them on the map) - Fleet inventory - technologies (not precise, but at least what they have that you don't) Info from the foreign relations screen on treaties and i