Counterintel

I'm going to be seeking a custom built gaming PC soon and I know there's a ton of websites out there that offer custom building a system. Im just wondering what some people think are some really good sites that theyve used to get their killer systems. Im looking more for good prices then the most bleeding edge Graphics cards and CPUs (Im not lookin to shell out 4 grand for a machine, so I wouldnt be getting anything bleeding edge anyways). And lots of case/cooling options are

Yeah I would agree, it does seem rather cheap and economical to make a sudden switch in ethical choice. The way the tree is set up now, I think would not only welcome new techs to that branch, but I think it asks for it. Once you research the whole 3 techs it takes to get the full line done, you suddenly have 3 wonders to build, and that seems somewhat off to me. I too, support a more expanded ethics tech tree or system. With unique tech tree's per race, expanded tech

How does mining asteroids work? I looked in the gold edition manual for it and it just said it added 'resources' to a planet. I assume it means production. Also, how does upgraded mining bases work? The manual said at the 3rd (highest) upgrade, you can get up to '20 resources' for a colony. Does that mean if the planet is say, right next to it, it will recieve +20 production bonus (I understand the reductions based on distance)? I assume its 20 shields and not 20%. Does it s

So, im still learning the game, im doing well, moving up difficulty levels and so on. And im about bored as hell at work so, i thought I would ask.... What do *you* think the most clutch/key thing to do/build/have/control/etc to ensure your victory? Obviously, a strong economy comes to mind, but strong economies are kind of assumed so, no strong economy answers! What would be the 1 thing you couldnt live without on your path to galactic dominance? Just making a fun/b

I too support the strat of building less-than-highest-production factories initially then upgrading once the planet has sufficient production.

Most of your income is from taxing citizens. Citizens, obviously, need planets to live on and time to breed. So it's important to lay a groundwork and realize that youll need lots of citizens to have lots of economic growth. Citizens take a long time to breed, so in the beginning, the key is not digging yourself into a hole by building monster production colonies, because your people cant breed fast enough to keep up, even with +pop growth bonuses its very difficult. Early in the gam

I am not sure if this is viable in the upper half of the difficulty levels, but picking on a weak race early as possible works well for me too. Though sometimes i get beat to the punch, but still. Colony rush. Economy/infrastructure. Early cheap military. Dominate weak/crippled civ.

Oh, yeah definitely. The Duration before they become unstoppably powerful must be very long. In one of my earliest games that event occurred within 1-1.5 years into the game, and it took me forever to figure out how to handle it, so, the duration is most adequate for almost any kind of researching/hording you need to do. I consider it a simple declaration of first target. Ive never seen em get out of hand myself, but, im sure the idea is to encourage you to get up in their ju

I used to play reactionary tactics while i was learning stuff still. Only built military when provoked or felt absolutely necessary. Since then I've learned to identify when Im pissing someone off and can see the future engagement coming, but even though im not preparing for full blown war, having several defender type ships around certainly does its job of buying you time, intimidating crippled or struggling civs, and is great for taking out minor races after the colony rush if you ha

I too wonder of the effects of this event. Though, when it happens in my games, it might as well declare war for me that turn because Im all up in their kool-aid faster than they can say "Incoming enemy fire".

I have read the wiki page, and it was much more informative than i expected it to be, so thank you very much Iztok for pointing me to it. Much appreciated.

so, as long as colonies are remaining above 41% approval rating, there's really no danger or reason to alter it? I do notice occasionally my colonies seem to stop growing (at a whole number like, 9.0b out of a possible 12.0b, or 12.0b out of 16.0b), but never compared the stopped growth to whether they were unhappy or not. Does growth require minimum levels of happiness to continue growing? Meaning: In order to obtain 12b people via growth on a colony, does the colony

I kinda forgot to mention but, Im just asking in regards to the current version, not the beta for the expansion or anything.

So, here's my situation. I know that happiness, morale, and approval all exist but, other than 'low = bad', the fact they exist is about the extension of my understanding of this statistic. I know low happiness can cause defects in certain situations. So, I'm wondering basically the following: Are happiness, morale, and approval 3 different things? What is the benefit of high happiness/approval/morale rating? Other than just lowering taxes, how can

Zyxpsilon, you certainly shouldnt feel bad about being overwhelmed or missing important pieces of data when just starting out in this game... I've yet to really start turning up the difficulty because it seems like every time i play, i learn something new, or go to the forums and find new info there. The game is very involved with a lot of depth, however, I will say its comfortably less involved than say, Civilization IV where I feel like I have absolutely no clue as to what is going o

My thoughts would be perhaps they *want* you to have that tech for some reason. Perhaps they dont wish to waste their time giving you things you want, unless you take things they want you to take as well. *shrug*

Fantastic, thank you Kryo. I have seen these different buttons but never realized you had to use both to get a proper rally function. I'll certainly be watching the video since i had completely forgotten there were tutorial videos. Thanks again!

Some random tidbits that may have eluded you in this line of questioning. Aquatic, Toxic, barren worlds etc each have a tech to let you colonize them. Those particular tech bars are divided into 2 halves, 2 different techs. The first tech lets you colonize that type of planet at all, however, the icon next to the planet goes from a red dot to a yellow dot. That means you *can* colonize it with a simple colony ship, however, it recieves only 50% of productions on that planet, so it bu

I would be interested in this as well, usually I have 2-3 colonies dedicated to constructors for a while just to create a surplus, and having to assign each one to a location gets old quickly (especially if theyre producing quickly). In general I just straight dont understand the rally point system, never seems to be anything i can do with them (for ships at least).

You do indeed get what you pay for.

Excellent, thank you very much.

The Super Breeder Ability reads "Super breeders can grow their population quickly if their approval is 100%". Im just wondering if that is per colony or per civ. Meaning, will this boost my population growth for my whole civ if my civ's overall population rating is 100%? Or does it mean if any particular colony has a 100%, the growth rate for that 1 colony will be boosted? Thats all im wondering.

I just wanted to take a few moments to let a few thoughts loose onto these forums. First I just want to say Im a long-time gamer, since the days when computers were measured in MHz (286/66 DX2 ftw!), and have dabbled in every genre ever created. Pc Gaming is my hobby, and my escape from my mundane reality. I have not hardcore played GalcivII, I did not purchase it until the gold edition came out. I've always been lured into other projects by my friends to join them elsewhere,

To get really fast ships doesn't require excessively long build times. Keep in mind I utilize the speed abiilty, for a base +2 movement, and I primarily go for the engine techs for the free +speed to all ships, raising their speed without raising their production times. Starting with +2 speed, then gaining another +2 from some relatively easy researching is causing my first wave ships to move 3X faster than the opponents, which is extremely significant considering the production time d

Awesome! Thanks for all the feedback guys It appears the general consensus is, no matter what your tastes are, a balanced home world is ideal. No major stacking of 1 type or another seems very popular. Several factory type buildings, then a variety of economy/research/misc buildings is the pattern. And to answer MrVegetable's unsure statement of the pop cap: even in DA, the