HighWater

Are the other races having the same problem as you or do they have more than two planets? If they have more planets, you are probably too slow to colonise. I doubt that, so let's move on: Set habitable planets to 'abundant', number of planets planets to 'abundant' and make sure you don't stuff a tiny map with all civilizations -> there will be no space left for uninhabited planets. If you want to play with all the races (both the main races and the minor races) and you want colonis

[quote who="LTjim" reply="7" id="2396954"]Iztok - On random AI levels, I have done that sometimes to get a very different game. That is, before moving up to straight Suicidal, I found that random settings changed which AIs prospered. Unbalancing the AIs helped set up varying huge confrontations in the later game between my empire and the lucky-settings AIs who had crushed others. [/quote] Quoted for truth, although I tend to end up

I have considered it on multiple occasions (I normally play Obscene, but go Suicidal for Zero Year Wins), but in all fairness, when I'm playing, I'm too obsessed with micromanaging my way to succes (or rather to survival, I find that surviving tends to give me the win) to remember the important events and when they happened. I am also too lazy (ironically) to plough through the event log afterwards to fill in the blanks... That said, I'm still considering doing one "some day". (Wanted t

Pretty entertaining story.

[quote]You cannot colonize with a transport, but you CAN cpmquer a planet with zero troops. It's called a spore ship.True, but I meant that if you loaded up a transport with no troops, you couldn't conquer the planet with it unless you upgraded it to a Spore Ship.[/quote] Don't forget Information Warfare, with this assault tactic, I often enough end up with more troops than I started out with after invason. A spore ship actually igves you 1M "fre" citizens upon invasion. <b

[quote]This is as close to zero as you can get and I can't imagine why it would be a problem top lose just one peron from a planet.[/quote] The REAL problem is not so much being forced to put 1 mil people on the ship, but that it won't launch without! It is annoying micromanagement to clear the colonyship of colonists with the arrows and then having to put one back in before clicking launch. This would be easely "fixed" by making the slider not go down to zero, but to 1. Would save a lo

[quote]That's mainly a holdover from mechanical clocks - a lot of things were based on gear wheels with 60 teeth, or multiples of 60. 365 days is kinda imposed by nature.OTOH, quite a few Standard measurements work well for those who have little math ability. Unlike base 10, 12 inches can be divided evenly in several different ways, as can 36 inches. 5280 can be divided in a truly astounding number of ways, including by 11 (but not 7 for some reason). Yes, they are a holdover from a less advance

A very high PQ planet like your PQ26 makes for an eccelent research/manufacturing planet with influence. Make sure it becomes a planet with a high population (round about 18/20 B people -> people = influence) and put your political capital there for the morale and extra influence boost. Fill the rest of the tiles with manufacturing or research contraptions. This way your PQ 26 will be safe from influence conquering and a strong asset to your empire. Make your homeworld your eco capital

You're notably improving, but while upping the level, your gametime has also increased. The last actual ZYW you had was at beginner level. Keep practicing though, you're on the right path.

If you do it properly, they haven't managed to settle a third planet yet, making sure planets, stars and habitable planets are rare, the chance of them even ever find a third planet, is much much lower.

Perhaps he was high on incense, you never know!

Maybe the SENSORS got him. Haha, oh the wit...

[quote]Galactic influence boosting achievement -> nope!What about the Restaurant of Eternity?It has a +20% influence bonus and is a Galactic inflence boosting achievement. Wouldn't it work on a influence bonus tile?[/quote]\ If this did work, such a construction would be waaaaay overpowered, so be glad it doesn't! Either way, they only work for Achievements that have a planetwide effect, not for empire wide achievements. (This empire wide bonus is calculated seperately from planetary bo

You're most welcome. Bribing other races to do your dirty business is one of the better aspects of the game. ;) Offering to attack someone can be fun too, though I haven't used that in ages (and it's not nearly as effective is bribing others to go to war, but it's a way to make some extra cash from a war you were going to start anyhow, can only do it with one race though, after that you're at war).

Another tip in the same catagory: Having over 10k bc in the treasury will cause your trade income to be cut in half, similar to this 20k bc cut in tax. Only solution is buying stuff till your're below those marks again, to enjoy your full income.

As Kzinty said, there's nothing as satisfying AND pacifying as setting the galaxy ablaze, without firing a shot. Setting the whole galaxy up against eachother is a fun business and it buys you valuable time while you pick your first target. Just make sure one party doesn't get too much of an upper hand. (A little upper hand is fun, or the end game a.k.a. clean-up time will be boring.)

Last game I still needed a constructor to boost my range to get the kill, never managed to land a 13 week win anyhow, so used to dealing with some resistance...

Tempted by the scores on Gigantic maps, I tried a Huge map as a warm up, and got a 42000 score ZYW with the Korx. It looked doable on a Gigantic, so I plunged straight in, without changing tactics, only to -almost- get the door slammed into my face. It was not a ZYW (a 1YW I'm afraid, prolonged by a single colony ship that got away) and I crashed at 39550. But I'll keep looking for the trick without reading too much info in this thread. Wanna find out myself how it's done. :D E

It is important how much they like/fear the one you are trying to get them to fight though. It's more expensive to buy someone into a war against a superior military. It's not possible to bribe someone into war against races they like too much. I usually buy the Drengin into war with everyone, as they tend to be cocky and think they can actually win. And then I start some wars between the other races, for good measure. It's relatively cheap compared to how much risk reduction it provides against

I have had no problem yet with demilitarized AI. So far, not a single race has skipped the armed development stage. And the Terrans are actually quite potent in comparison to many of the other races... I've seen this complaint around the forum though, so I'm sure you're not alone.

[quote]Taking the resource from the minors though... I thought they could use them. I can tell you I will be "relieving" them of any resources they claim in the future. [/quote] They can only not (properly) use the influence resource, it still boosts their IP generated, but as stated above that IP can only be used in an UP meeting and they can't attend those. So basically it's pointless for them. The other resources do affect them. That said, sucker-punch them in the crotch as s

Basically it's "Surrender or 'I kill you!'". All in all not so strange that the enemy falls for it and as pointed out, it does have precent in the current world. However that all enemies crumble is a bit strange, in the real world, there'd always be a a ruler too stubborn for his own good...

[quote]Minor civs are immune to influence - they don't generate it, [/quote] Almost true, they generate it, (check the Negotiations screen, they clearly generate IP's, which they can't use in the UP, but you can if you buy them from them, though that's usually too expensive to bother) it just has zero effect on their surroundings. The Minor races are effectively "lifted" out of galactic influence, they can't be affected by other races' influence, they can't affect other races with t

Do you mean an Influence Starbase built by a Minor Race, or do you mean a Mining Base on an Influence resource? In the first case, ignore it, it will have zero effect on your planets/mines etc. so it isn't really worth the hassle. In the second case, blow it up whenever you think is best and immediatly claim it yourself with a constructor. As long as you don't kill off the minor race, there won't be any diplomatic penalties for your aggression. (Though their home planet is a tempti

The costs seem bigger than they are, first of all, you'll pay whatever you have in your treasure to "purchase good" up to 10k (the conversion costs if I remember correctly from evil to good), if you can't pay it in full (say, you have 3k bc), the remaining amount (in this case 7k) will become a lease with no interest, paid off at 10bc (cheap...) per turn, which you may never need to pay off, as it takes ages... Literally.