JustinSane4

I never met a minor race either. Random minor races in my experience always means no minor races :(.

Great game Itzok! :)

Do we risk more attrition through inactivity via a month hiatus than we'd suffer because of not taking a break? Personally, my initial instinct would be that like a shark, if the MVL stops moving it starts drowning. I'd guess those that would like a month off would be at least equally likely to return to the league for round 10 as they would for a round 9 starting at the same time, and it also seems like there is probably benefit to maintaining forum activity. My initial instict is usually wr

I've noticed that tournament scores are in fact submitted to the Metaverse (this actually dropped my Metaverse score, since tournament games are scored at maybe 1/4 the value of DA Metaverse games).

Thank you.

I vote yay. By the way, I was joking about starting a new empire. Two empire memberships is quite enough, and you do a better job of running an empire than I ever would. :)

Even missing the reference completely (I've never heard of Star Control), I've got to say that the "New Alliance of Free Stars" is a spectacular name for an empire. I may have to start that myself. :)

Wow.. I knew it was good, but when you look at all the new features together, I don't think any expansion comes close. Outstanding work. Thank you very much! :)

I think it's an impossibly high standard to expect any AI to evaluate the relative worth of a trade in vastly varying game situations with the same balance an experienced human player is capable of. One thing I like about suicidal is that everything gets harder, diplomacy included. If they took that away, to me it would detract. Suicidal is supposed to be punishing IMHO, all the way around. It makes it so much more satisfying each time you win that way. :) It's too broad a statemen

One general thing I just thought to mention: On Suicidal, if you expect to get a "fair" trade from an AI without massive diplomacy bonuses, you're going to be disappointed. However, since humans are capable of much more subtle and effective use of many technologies, even if you've got to give up a lot more than you're getting back, the trade can often benefit you. Additionally, if you are playing with for instance 7 AIs, you may have to trade 4 techs to get 1. But if you trade the same 4 tec

Personally, I just want to thank you and the other devs for taking the time to get this as close to perfect as possible. While I wish Metaverse had been enabled for the last beta, I can understand that you wanted to balance Immense galaxies first. Even still, if you need an extra week to get it to where you want it, thank you for taking the extra time. :)

I used to always use all labs or all factory on suicidal until I started playing the TA beta. The mixed labs/factory approach that seems best there worked so well I've adopted it in DA also. Basically, I go nearly all factory for production buildings, but labs on research bonus squares/tech capital planets. I believe Mumblefratz has championed a similar approach. If there is a tech I need, I go 100% research until I get it. With my new playstyle I've usually got a decent number of planets a

Getting very close there KzintiPatriarch! Congratulations!

I tried a similar approach with the TA Krynn and only got 2 relatively useless techs for a huge investment. Maybe it's a difficulty level thing? Or just random variation?

Personally, I like the trading as it is. The human player can do well with it, but it takes focus in both race design and in-game strategy, which is as I think it should be.

One serious problem with changing it for the Twilight expansion is that every competitive Metaverse player would avoid Twlight like the plauge, since scores run so much higher with the MCC than without. I think Stardock would rather that the most experienced players made the move to Twilight. Seems like it would put something of a damper on enthusiasm for the expansion if the best players didn't use it. It would be nice if Neutral (PQ bonus?)and Good (no upkeep on all original colony buildings

Starbases have not changed, and there is no special structure allowing a larger sensor range. If that is a concern, I would recommend researching to Sensors V and building the Eyes of the Universe, which adds +10 sensor range to ships, then putting a tiny hull ship on each world. Please do consider the expansion however; even though those two things haven't changed, there is a whole lot of good stuff added. The new tech trees are especially fun.

Nice game Silverbeacher, congratulations. :)

There are a lot of empires you can join in the Galciv2 Metaverse. Beyond that, there are a lot of good empires you can join. It's really tough to go wrong. Out of all these excellent options, why should you pick the Galactic Diplomats? Very simply put, there is a huge volume of knowledge on this game within our empire. If you want to improve your level of play, no matter where you are at now, there's pretty much certain to be something (probably a

This is looking like the best expansion I've seen for a game. Thank you for everything you've put into it, and I can't wait to see the finished product! Are there any balance changes being made to the races' (Thalan specifically) tech trees? It's be a pity if they were left as clearly the weakest race in the majority of galaxy settings, since they are also one of the most interesting races. There has been a lot posted on the relative weakness of the Thalans in the Beta Reports forum,

0 year conquest using MVL settings for this round is certainly possible. Neilo and I both did it, though his score was 4,000 higher. I do not believe 0 year tech victory to be possible with this round's settings however (though I'll be impressed if someone proves me wrong!) :)

What bugs would those be? Significant enough to account for a 1,500 point difference in a 13 point game?

These scores are just getting ridiculous :). Great job!

I would be curious to know what difficulty level those of you who are saying the Thalans do not require rebalancing are playing on. In my experience they are clearly weak compared with the other races on Suicidal, but I may well not be handling them optimally. Desmond, have you had success on Suicidal with the rapid expansion approach? I agree that is probably the best way to play them, but even still they seem markedly weak.

Fantastic game Wyndstar!