Tod Jones

I took the issue from another angle and decided to test how the Thalans would play as an opponent, and more specifically whether I could just rush them early on and take them out. I played a large galaxy, crippling, very slow tech and no tech trading as the Korath. Luckly, not only did I start out adjacent to the Thalans, but I also had a precursor library on my homeworld. Now I didn't just go straight for planetary invasion which I probably should of, but I did have to balance my econ

[quote] I just tried my new beta with this game. Playing Terrans and having 50% economic bonus (30 race abilities, 20 government.) and I was bankrupt in no time. Before I had my forth coloney colonised I had to have my taxs set all the way forward so that I had 49-50% happyness and spending all the way to 0. I was still at -12 BC a week. I don't know if this is a fluke or bug yet, has anyone else had this kind of trouble? [/quote] I was earlie

[quote]One last thing the new penalties are really nice to mix things up... Now another opinion. Korath should also have a diplomatic penalty like 30% cause all they want is to kill everyone off. The Thalans should be 20% not 25% cause they are not evil... well not evil yet depending on your future choices... Ya they are new to this universe and as you said not the creative but still dont make it that bad... [/quote] Weren't there quite a few people complaining before about the Dren

[quote] The Altarians could use a few more alignment techs, and they don't get access to any of the standard good, evil, or neutral techs. I realize they're still under construction, but you only get additional techs if you pick "Good." [/quote] They get the normal neutral techs, they just aren't placed after the xeno ethics but in branches associated with the type of tech that they are (Neutral shipping after trade, etc). Has

[quote] Ok, why don't the Korath get a penalty as well as the Drengin, if not a steeper one? I think if Korath get a penalty- it could be in military and social production due to lack of slaves... [/quote] Probably because the Korath didn't get a speed bonus. And military and social production penalties wouldn't be in keeping with the races strengths. The Korath still use slaves anyway, they just don't want new ones (they can cl

[quote] I #3 invasion tactics. right now there is an exploit where if you use mass drivers or some other detrimental attack but fail in the invasion .then planet quality does not drop and improvments are not destroyed. this should happen regardless of success or failure. and here is why.knowing that i can attack a planet with 16,000 troops ,and use only a invasion fleet of 1000 but use mass drivers ,i gain all the benefits of this tactic and cause massive enemy casualti

You forgot to mention that the Stellar Forge appears to be fixed and that the Terrans and Drengin now get speed bonuses (and the Drengin a diplomacy penalty).

In DA, it was the Krynn, mostly because I liked the morale bonuses of the race. Also because it was convenient to just to put counter-espionage on every planet early in the game and not have to worry about the computer spying on you. In TA, I'm going to have to go with the Korath Clan. Good military production and morale, strong ships, dark influence, very little maintenance and spore ships. Their weak research line can be upgraded by going neutral and getting Neutrality Learning Center

They are also missing hyperwarp on their tech tree. I'm going to do a bit of mind reading here and say it's probably intentional and that the designers intend the Krynn to be more of a turtle race like the Arceans, if nothing else to counteract the incredible morale and influence bonuses they get. I know in Dark Avatar they were one of the most powerful races due to their bonuses despite having a mediocre super ability. Of course I could be wrong here, but it does seems a reasonable dis

[quote] My favourite part of TA is stealing other race's unique techs in order to enhance my strength or eliminate weaknesses. There are some deadly combinations to be had, like playing the Terrans and combining their warp bubbles, the Impulse, Warp and Hyperwarp speed bonuses and the Arcaeans' navigation techs. You end up having decently fast ships with no engines with all that extra room for weapons. Can't wait to see what I can do with the Thalans. <br

[quote] It also smells a little fishy in terms of AI fairness vs. the player... like all the AI races actually know who the players are in a game, before any official contact, and they're making backroom deals based on that information. The player isn't privy to that info about un-contacted races in the game. I thought the GalCiv AI is supposed to be programmed so it doesn't have any artificial advantage the player doesn't have, at evenly-balanced difficulty settings.[/

Ok, I got a chance to play a game as a Drengin part way through a game (the game hangs up when doom rays and nightmare torpedoes are used, either I'll have to wait for the bug to be fixed or played all the rest of my games on super slow tech) Race: Drengin Political Party: War Party race abilites: weapons +20, economics +30%, hit points +10%, soldiering +50%, morale +45% Large, no technological victory, allow surrenders, mega events enabled, 1 minor race, disa

[quote] Ha! It sounds like the Terrans are desperately trying to avoid the cuts of Occam's Razor. Rather than the simplest explanation, the one that allows the denial of things in Heaven and Earth that aren't dreamt of in their philosophy. [/quote] I think you have that backwards, the Terrans are effectively using Occam's Razor to avoid opening the huge can of worms that the alternative would imply. Which to me, is giving humans

I'm going to have to add something I missed earlier as a difference between the Drengin and Korath. The Korath are missing the planetary defense techs. That means the Drengin actually have +40 soldiering bonus on the Korath as opposed to just a +10. The Drath still beat the Drengin out by a +5 soldiering bonus when both races fully tech out, but considering that the Drath are running at a -30 penalty to population compared to the Drengin, that still makes the Drengin the best race to use for inv

[quote] Hmm... if the Korath align as Neutral, do they get NLCs? [/quote] Yes, I've used them myself. Ironically, at least three of the four evil races (Drengin, Korath and Korx) usually have more to gain by becoming neutral than they do by staying evil.

[quote] I think that, before I continue to argue for the quality of the Drengin or if they do or don't need any buffs, I'm going to have to finally play the Korath. Your continual comparison between the two makes me curious. [/quote] I played the Korath in a couple of games and I have compared the Drengin and Korath tech trees carefully, here's the differences between them. Korath get a +10 moral and loyalty bonus from corrupted Genetics, and

Of course it's hard to make a direct comparison as to creativity's power because we are always aware of when creativity triggers, we usually don't keep track of how much time conventional research bonuses save us though. The randomness of creativity and the fact that both research bonuses scale to your empire or your project makes it even more difficult to figure out how good creativity really is. I think you'd almost have to time some of the tech tree advancements with and without crea

[quote] However in DA, playing with the Drath messes that up because they're always inciting wars against you. You either need to take the Drath out of the game or make a special effort to waste them as early as possible. You can also disable super abilities, but that takes a lot of fun out of the game. [/quote] Or simply don't play an evil race and make a special effort to setup trade routes and make treaties with the Drath and improve your diplo

I haven't play tested the Drengin, but looking over their tech trees, shouldn't the Drengin have some sort of mind control technology to quickly subjugate alien civilizations (possibly giving a morale, economic and/or production bonus)? This should be a nice reflection of the difference in strategy between the Drengin and the Korath.