JustinSane4

I think I may have been unclear on something - I'm not saying I'm behind in tech at all. I'm usually in front of the AI by borderline abusing tech trading and playing with a lot of AI opponents. Many times I'm ahead in every way. What I'm discussing is a late game situation when both the AI (usually the last one or two remaining) and I have basically reached the end of the tech paths we've focused on. In this scenario, like WIlly stated, a Massive ship with a huge atta

Good summary :). And it's possible I've been too categorical in rejecting defense techs as a valuable option on higher difficulty levels. I can see where clearing out orbital defenders is a valuable function, and beyond that, I think that the window where Good defenses work may be long enough to use the invincible ship strategy to conquer one, maybe two empires if you really focus on hitting it early. You've got a lot of well worked out strategies that you're passionate abou

Roxlimn, you keep using your experience on low difficulty levels to prove that you are right. Fair enough - these are clearly strategies that you have used a lot and with success. The problem is that you then try to use that same experience to prove that other posters in this discussion are wrong. You offer no evidence for why these methods would work on Suicidal other than that they work on Tough - sorry, but there isn't really much correlation. When opposing fleets g

It's very difficult to use a military starbase array offensively, though I suppose you could use one defensively and then try to have an attack fleet pick off enemy planets one by one. It really places you in a defensive crouch if you're reliant on such an array for the most part though, even if it does leave you militarily invulnerable within the array's area of effect.

First, I think you should speak a bit more respectfully towards Sole Soul. He's one of the most knowledgable posters on this board when it comes to game mechanics. Now to substance: You've actually got some very interesting ideas about using defense only ships. In particular, I intend to try using defense ships to take out orbiting defenders. They could also be efficient for taking out stray ships, starbases and things like that. On the other hand, all at

Some great games coming out of that settings group, and that was certainly one of them pndrev :).

What is the third homestar planet trick?

I know some very good players have put effort into farming Hyperion Shrinkers with little or no success. If someone could figure out a repeatable method of getting other races to build Hyperion Shrinkers, that would be a score mongers dream.

I haven't played on Maso in quite a while, but in Suicidal freighters are not likely to be nearly enough to stabilize an Iconian post-colony rush economy. They could be a component, but not a solution. Overall, trade revenue simply can't compete with internal economic development - more people, more economic buildings, better morale, higher taxes and more passive economic bonuses. The one exception is of course the Korx, but even there I've always found internal development

They aren't so good about building Tech Capitals, but minors just love Economic Capitals. The first thing I do after researching Trade is make sure every minor civ gets it, even if they can't pay anything for the tech other than influence points.

All things being equal, Evil alignment is superior long term to Good in Twilight (and vastly superior in DA/DL due to the MCC). However, I think the situation is a bit more complex than Evil>Good in Twilight. Timing windows matter in this game. An small advantage early can be more important than a large advantage that comes later, since it accelerates your development relative to the AI opponents (which can give you the chance to execute some strategies before the AI gets

Very cool :).

Situationally, the Populist and Universalist parties can be very powerful in addition to Federalist and Technologist. Populist gives +10 Morale and +10 Diplomacy, and that combination works beautifully for a few Diplomacy focused techniques that can be very powerful on Suicidal. The Universalist party is actually my favorite. It gives +25% luck, +10 pop growth, +5 econ, and +10 defense. The econ and pop growth are very useful early game and luck makes a massive differe

That home world is amazing.. and congratulations on a fantastic achievement. These ZYWs you all are pumping out really are incredible.. more than 5 times what a good ZYW score was considered a little over a year ago :).

What does Courage do? And on topic, I have to agree with everyone else: Super Diplomat, Super Hive and Super Breeder are the best, unless you're going for ZYW, then Super Annihilator. I personally do like Super Warrior, and if you're more concerned with winning the game than getting the highest possible score, I think it can be comparably effective to the others. For MV purposes however, it falls short.

It is a Galactic Wonder that gives +75 morale on the planet it is built along with +5 research and +5 production. The Shrine of Tandis would be a good choice also on this planet btw. +25% production, income, influence and morale.

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="8" id="1916237"] No need-I was itching for something new to test. Military rating is giving me a headache. [/quote] Outstanding :). Thank you and I can't wait to see what you come up with!

In Twilight, I often go good when playing as the Iconians (and obviously as the Altarians). For the Iconians, they have some powerful early research and production buildings, but tend to have early economic trouble. I always want Harmony Crystals built early so I can get my tax rate up while maintaining 100% morale, which means I want to research Xeno Ethics as fast as I can. Since the Iconians start good, they've got to pay 2,500 to go Neutral. If you're already havin

I usually find creativity kicks in roughly twice a year with 50% luck and 25% creativity. Now that it's been mentioned, I have noted what may be a disproportionate number of creativity procs on the turn I finish researching a tech, so I think there may be something to that. It's the type of thing that is very difficult to empirically test. Maybe someone can convince Loupdinour that it's more interesting than espionage is :).

First, Sole Soul is exactly right on the game mechanics. And I did not know that the Suicidal research multiple is *2.64, though that feels about right. As to optimal build planetary econ buildouts, I usually go with 1 farm, 1 morale building, 2 factories (to build the stock exchanges faster), sometimes 1 starport (I hate wasting the production capacity of the initial colony square, since it can be very useful for getting a military starbase array up for score-building purposes) a

Submission for Team B Settings Group 3 (challenge) Medium Map Suicidal Score: 30,450 Time: 2 years Race: Iconian v1.96Twilight, timestamp 10/25/2008 12:27:15 AM Alignment: Very good (not that this matters, just thought it was interesting). I enjoyed playing that settings group. I usually avoid very slow, so it was an interesting challenge :).

Great to have you back Neilo! And I'm thrilled to have you on the Bladerunners! Look forward to seeing you in our team forum at the tyranny boards :). Good game Galefury. The experts might it look easy, but any ZYW with multiple opponents, no ARC and no special abilities (thus no spore) is a achievement that merits some pride :).

Best wishes for a succesful graduate school hunt Dystopic :). And Silverbeacher, thank you. You're right - it's in the screenshot :).

It looks like I left out a setting for settings group 3 - sorry. There are 0 minor races in settings group 3. Has anyone already put time into a settings group 3 game with different settings on minor races? If so, we might be able to grant an exception there, though I hope we've caught this early enough to avoid that problem :).

Great couple of episodes, those :).