Skellt

This is a really disappointing discovery. As a casual player I really don't like the idea that every time I shut down a short gaming session I am giving the AI another production round. On the other hand, as a programmer, I totally understand the trade offs of fixing difficult bugs versus adding new features. A game shouldn't force you to think about how frequently you stop and start the game, and how that is going to affect your experience. I just wish I hadn't opened this t

"I will say this much for sure: if you're using military starbases, getting one point of defense on your ships has ALWAYS been useful. I beat the Dread Lord campaign with that." Could you explain that a bit more? Is it because you only get the ship defense boost if you already have some defense on the ship? That was confusing me in the DA campaign...

More paragraph breaks please slabster. It's really hard to read your posts, and yet they are so full of useful info...

"if you dont plan ahead then you reach the point of total economical collaps." A good example of this is when you research a new factory or xeno lab tech. Your planets, by default, will automatically start upgrading to them. They have both higher maintenance and higher production. As was pointed out above, higher production means higher spending. So Just by researching that one tech you can take a balanced economy and send it deep into the red. Best to think about how you a

I totally agree that the new espionage system is not fun. Every AI, even your allies, love to spy on the leader. So right when you ought to be having the most fun as you start to conquer the galaxy, you get inundated with spies. I was spending a full 25% of my budget (500 bc/turn I think it was) and still had 11 spies on my planets in the DA campaign. I never got to spy on anyone else the whole game. My other beef is that spying should be separate from sabotage. Allies spying on ea

In the DA campaign you start each mission with 2 levels of asteroid mine already researched. However, if you set the miners to automatic they will flit about the galaxy only building level 1 mines. They seem to prefer to run 50 parsecs to an empty field than to upgrade the mine right next to them. In one game I found that I had to manually control them to get them to bring all the level 1 mines up to level 2 mines. In another game I did notice some level 2 mines (+10 mp), so I can't f

I have to agree that DA's espionage system is not providing any fun for me. Bottom line is that I wish I could play without it. I don't like having to search for a choice tile to occupy just to start gaining info on an opponent. Then 2 turns later I have to do it again, when he nullifies the spy. Everyone is asking for more abilities for spies, but I think the system should be really straightforward: If I am spending more on espionage than you are on counterespionage then I