themocaw

Most importantly: the game mechanic is confusing to new players. When I first started playing this game, I knew my eventual goal was to maximize my research and production. It took me a while to understand that the "Production" slider didn't affect how many of my labs and buildings were funded, but how much of a theoretical number based on the other three sliders was being funded. I don't want to have to do that kind of number crunching. I want to know: "I'm funding my labs at 50% efficiency

No. It's an game mechanic exploit pure and simple: I've used it too, but that doesn't mean I'd complain if it were removed. We might as well just have one kind of building: the Universal Producer or something, have it generate both research and industrial points at the same time, because it's all the same thing in terms of the domestic sliders. The option should still be there, but it shouldn't be as useful as it is right now. Two things I am considering. 1. Reduce the ratio

This is my starting position. Already I can tell I'm going to have some trouble, backed up into the corner as I am. My homeworld. Not the greatest. No bonus tiles except to influence, which is nothing to sneeze at. By the way, Super Hive makes building factories ridiculously cheap and fast. 90 bc to buy up a basic factory in one round? 2

The saga of the Starlight Conclave is a strange one in Galactic history. A strange religious cult based around worship of the Arnor, the Starlighters believed that the Precursors had never truly left, but had transcended, rising beyond their mortal selves to become beings of pure energy. Their stated goal as a civilization was to discover the secret that the Precursors had kept to themselves: this Enlightenment, as they called it, would be the end of their long journey. However, th

My first reaction was to say "Well, then it wouldn't be Galactic Civilizations, it would only be one, so then you'd call it Galactic Civilization, and it's not exactly Galactic either, so we should just call it Planetary Civilization, or Civilization for short, and I can't imagine anyone who'd buy a game like that much less make three sequels for it that have made ten kajillion dollars " Snideness

I like the idea, but it needs some tweaking. 1. Redirecting a trade route reduces the amount of money it provides. Merchants want to take the shortest route, it reduces overhead. Diverting it too far would make them very unhappy. Perhaps allow the route to be lengthened only by up to 25% of its shortest distance length before you start taking money penalties, and past 100% the merchants refuse to take that route. 2. Allow only a certain number of waypoints, perhaps two or th

Thoughts on carriers. Fighter Bays could work (functionally) rather like the fighters did from MoO2: A single (or maybe two-shot) weapon resisted by point defense as well as shields/armor/point defense is doubly effective against missile fighters, but missile fighters would be more powerful. The weapon would be quite large (big enough so that putting it on tiny ships isn't feasible) but relatively cheap for its firepower, but it's an all or nothing deal: after a couple of rounds, your

Ideas I like: 1. Allow mutual destruction. This just feels better. 2. Logistics provides a "tactical" bonus. Maybe it's just a first round thing: take logistics + ships in fleet + some number derived from the hull rating of the ships in the fleet + level of the highest level ship in the fleet or something. Whoever has the higher rating gets a universal defense bonus the first round equal to the difference. After that the battle resolves normally. So sure, splitti

There is a pseudo "Get those damn starbases off my lawn. . . I mean out of my territory" option, but since the AI seems to hate selling starbases at any price, it's kind of a non option. They wouldn't even trade me starbase for starbase. I do like the idea of having "Threaten," "Insult," and "Kiss Butt" as diplomatic options on the trade screen, though. I can see the trade screen now: "Your skull will make a good ashtray, human. Or you could give me 300 bc to buy an ashtray

"Are you going to be okay, sir?" "I'll be fine, Commander," Laramie Kinnison said, as she walked through the deserted ship's bridge. "Just give me a moment to say goodbye. This is. . . harder than I'd anticipated." Commander Jacob Meyers nodded. "I'll have Engineering wait until you've disembarked before they flip the switch. Take as much time as you need, sir." "Thank you, Commander." The steel-haired woman smiled at the younger officer. "It's been a pleasure se

That's why I always play with "Blind Exploration" on. That way I don't know what's out there until I actually see it for myself. Which leads to some nasty surprises like discovering I was not only starting off near the corner, but I was backed up into the corner by the Korath. . .

Apology accepted but not really necessary.

Okay, that was my mistake for even mentioning politics on the internets. The possibility that this was a parody of popular perceptions of different groups seems to have evaded some people.

Can't you also set the starting relationship with each race? It should be a setting that goes team-close-warm-neutral-cool-hostile-war-????. That might only apply to custom races, in which case you edit the races, create a custom variant that hates your guts, start a game on a tiny map with rare everything and fast technology, then get into a knife fight in a phone booth with eight other guys.

I had a kind of a hilarious situation in my latest game: I wound up with my research and economic treaties tied up with the runt of the galaxy, Alcont Republic (variant humans, focused on espionage). It wasn't their fault, actually: the game settings turned out to be rare planets, rare habitable (on a huge map, the most planets any empire had was three) and they drew a bad starting position backed up in the corner behind me. I wound up in a war with the United Mankind (variant humans

I'm thinking my next AAR should be playing as Emperor Ross Perot vs. the Democrats (all economy, can't fight worth a damn) and the Republicans (aggressive as hell, economy is screwed up beyond all recognition.)

I find it kinda hilarious that you could win by Diplomacy right now as the entire galaxy is at war with each other, kinda like a giant cosmic school teacher brandishing a ruler and telling the entire galaxy, "Now behave."

That's useful. How well does it work on a two-monitor rig?

Our cast of heroes: 1. The Federation of Trekkers, a bunch of nerds with giant horn-rimmed glasses and Spock ears, who are damn good at technobabble and research, but kinda suck everywhere else. 2. The /b/tards. Insanely aggressive, these trolls and griefers spread out from their homeworld of 4chan to conquer the galaxy with their dreaded Pain Series Spore Bomb. 3. The Furry Fandom. A bunch of sexual deviants who like to dress up as animals. They have the highest po

I just want "print screen" to take a snapshot to a "screenshots" folder so I don't need to alt-tab and paste over, that would be great.

mmm, I'll keep that in mind and start bullying them around more, then. It's moments like these that make me wish planetary bombardment was possible

Think of it this way: the minor races are like the Koreans. They're stuck between Japan and China but they refuse to incorporate into either because of their fierce national pride, and in the meantime, they make some really damn good cell phones (and play a lot of Starcraft). So basically, the only way that Korea would incorporate into either China or Japan would be if they were conquered militarily. On the other hand, they'll happily make trade treaties and such with the US.

This thing's incredibly useful, but I was just thinking how much greater it would be if there were a third button for fleets separate from regular ships. Or maybe there is one and I just suck at GCII

The above parameters were used for the exercise: it assumes a small quadrant of space with tightly packed stars, a random number of planets and stars, and a small number of habitable planets. Unusual features and asteroid resources are plentiful, as are native sentient species (a small conceit on Larth Debeus' part, to test the simulation's ability to simulate a non-human race). Finall

From: Imperial Observer Deca-Commander Plakia Lexshue, Imperial Military Science Center To: Empress Ramaj Abriel, Imperial Capital, Lakfakalle Re: Feasibility Simulation, Operation Tinker ********** Given the current tension with the United Mankind and the Nova Sicily Alliance, it has been determined that the chances of war breaking out within the next two decades is approximately 95%, -+ 15%. Although it is Abh policy to expect victory and to choose death before