Vangkao

The one thing that bothered me the most was the fact that Spore Creature Creator wouldn't allow me to have Alcohol 120% installed on my machine if I wanted to play it. The game would crash to the desktop right after the splash screens with no indication why. Like I said in my Amazon review, I spent hours trying to fix the problem before a friend told me to uninstall Alcohol 120%. The game ran fine then, but I refuse to uninstall my prefered CD-Burning software because EA thi

Seems like Spore reviews are almost exclusively reviling the SecureRom DRM EA included. Last time I checked, there were 96 1 Star reviews complaining about the DRM to only 11 4-5 Star reviews. Check the external link for more info.

Ok, I'm playing what I believe is the final Campaign Mission of Dark Avatar (It's the one in the gigantic galaxy with the Yor on your team, and the Thalans, Arcaens, and Iconians as neutrals, and you have to defeat the Dread Lords and Korath) but for some reason my capital planet has no "city" tile on the map. I figured that it was just a minor graphical bug, but my max population reads 0.00 but my current population continues to rise. When I stoped playing, the planet pop

Kryo: Thanks, I'll do that. Achronous: I suspect that is what my problem was. I didn't realize that my hard drive was down to less than 2 gigs free. After a marathon session of CD/DVD burning, uninstalls, and simply clearing out the dross, I've had a much smoother Post-release TotA experience. :P

I'm also getting a crash in my games. Here is my debug.err file: Debug Message: Version v1.91 Twilight of the Arnor last updated on: Thu May 1 12:15:51 2008 Debug Message: Checking DX Version. Debug Message: *********DXDiag info follows.********* System Info Time: 5/9/2008, 09:43:26 DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) Machine Name: KAO9 Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp.080413-2111) Languages: Engl

The one thing I hate about the Jagged Knife event is in TotA, they can do a lot of damage to your worlds before you retake them. Nothing is worse than retaking your prime research or manufacturing worlds only to find that the Jagged Knife in their infinite wisdom built a Harvester on a 300% Manufacturing Square, or a Central Mine on a Research Square. Neither of those can be removed though any means, including Invasion Tactics. :(

I got this too. I had a really great game going too. Oh well, time to start another great game. :P

[quote]Personally, I'd like to see a League of Non-Aligned Worlds (direct B5 reference) able to vote in the United Planets. They should get a vote, if you ask me. [/quote] The only problem with that I can see is the sudden inclusion of a faction that has several 16 Billion Pop worlds. Suddenly, the major factions would become minor players in a UN run by the I-League. Granted, a major faction tends to become that in most of the games I play anyway, maybe that would be what wo

[quote]PSUs without a power switch on them are pretty pathetic TBH. They disappeared for a few years but appears that they're coming back since people missed them. [/quote] They sure beat having to unplug your computer. But if you need to restart from a hard lock, just hold the power button for five seconds. That should shut down any computer, laptop or desktop.

Like many here, I find the Jagged Knife mega event to be a boon at best, annoying at worst. Most of the time, it allows one to take worlds from factions you don't want to war with. Even if most of the worlds taken are yours, you can usually retake them back in short order. Even in the worst case scenario where the Jagged Knife become a threat, they can usually be beaten back given enough time. Worse, the AI factions don't react to losing their planets to what amounts to insurgency in a reali

I've got a screenshot somehwere that shows a literal CLOUD of Paulos constructers around my homeworld. It's even worse than the Inf SB spam because the cloud is dragging the speed of the game down. I doubt the AI is able to realize it, but in a way constantly buying spammed Inf SBs simply encourages them to build more so you will be forced to buy them too. There needs to be a way for the player to demand the dismantling of foreign SBs.

I've tried moving away and all it does is give an autopilot path as if my fleet/ship is out of move.

I've used Creativity in the last half dozen games I've played and the one thing I've noticed is that it only seems to kick in when I have less than 10 weeks left researching a tech. Sometimes it will kick in with more than that, but those times are few and far between. It also seems to depend on how many total weeks it takes to research a tech when you start researching it. The higher end techs almost never get done early while the mid-range techs will get a creative finish somewhat m

Thought I better add that I can do about 5-6 save&loads before the game crashes and my computer reboots. The first several times, Windows gave me a message telling me that my video drivers caused the crash and needed to be updated. I checked and lo and behold there was a new driver for my video card. So I updated the video driver and it fixed it so that when the game crashes and my computer reboots I no longer get that message from Windows. :P Quick edit: I'd post my own deb

I wouldn't mind seeing more variaty, especially since I tend to go with the 'Luck' ability. I'm getting tired of seeing the same old Rangers and Corvettes.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this bug. I've got an immense game going where the Iconians and Torians have been at war with me for almost two decades, but up until recently have only been able to perform Starbase denial attacks on each other. I finally managed to get a fully defended resource base in Iconian home world territory and managed to take their homeworld only to end up being reduced to attack/save/load. I really want to finish this game, if only to wipe that smug smil

Heh heh, I just got an interesting kernal of an idea from that. Say you're at war with a faction and you manage to flip one of his asteroid mines. Instead of immediately sending resources to one of your planets, you can opt to have the mining base send large chunks of rock at high velocity towards the former mine's assigned colony. It could damage/destroy random planetary improvements (maybe even requiring use of a technology to recover the sector), as well as kill population/reduce a

[quote]Remember though that Stardock makes its money building application software. They do not need Gal Civ II to be profitable, they do not need to treat us as human beings, they do it merely because it is Brad's first (or maybe second) step to world domination... [/quote] World Domination? I think you underestimate him. GalCiv2 is desi

[quote] Um, then why am I able to use Mini-Soldiers as Yor long before I trade/steal Shock Troops? Good question, you shouldn't be able to. The Mini-Soldiers invasion tactic requires "Shock Troops" and no tech in the Yor tech tree file has the internal name of "Shock Troops". [/quote] Maybe one of the Terror Drones techs provides that tactic? It makes sense, considering that is essentially what a Terror Drone is.

[quote] Starhammer sounds a lot more interesting that Death Beam, IMO, and is a reference to a similar weapon in the "Starhammer" series of novels by Christopher Rowley. That, in fact, is a compelling reason to not use Starhammer as the name of the weapon in this game. [/quote] Considering the fundamental differences between the actual Starhammer and a Terror Star, I don't think there will be much of a problem legally. The Starhammer was a MASSI

Um, then why am I able to use Mini-Soldiers as Yor long before I trade/steal Shock Troops?

Each expansion to the beta makes it better and better. Just started my first game as Yor with the Krynn Consultate as a opposing race, and I have to tell you it's nice to not be picked on right by everybody from the start for once. :P The new tech trees are great, and a lot of fun to explore. But they still need a lot of tweaking to get the bugs out. My poor Yor still have a hard time keeping Mining Bases close to enemy territory without building hordes of Influence Bases around the

I get the same thing EVERY time AVG decides to update. If you don't wait until it's finished, it will alt-tab you back out AGAIN when it brings up the "Ok" window. So it's just better to wait until it's done. My system is also pretty old and cobbled together, so it also sits at a black screen anywhere from 30 seconds to a full minute before the game comes up again. Just wait it out and it will come back, eventually.

This isn't a major suggestion, and it won't affect gameplay, but I suggest changing the name of the final module of a Terror Star from "Death Beam" to "Starhammer". Starhammer sounds a lot more interesting that Death Beam, IMO, and is a reference to a similar weapon in the "Starhammer" series of novels by Christopher Rowley. What a TS does looks a lot like it "hammers" the star, causing it to supernova, so calling it a Starhammer Beam wouldn't be out of place.

I don't know if I can handle the drengin as anything but "Angry Space Monkeys". (:(