Lavitage

It's because the AI rush buys colonizers and ends up beating you to most of the planets, then going into massive debt.

There was a bug where the size increase of components for hullsizes above tiny didn't apply to core designs. So, core ships that were amll or bigger got to cheat. It's fixed now, but if you're not patched up to date...

I'm finding large maps too long, so I'm trying to get comfortable with standard. Using 4 opponents right now. (I always used 7 on large)

You know how, as you go up in hull size on the custom ship screen, ship components take up a bit more space? The default ships used to avoid that restriction. Their components would always take up the same space as they would on a tiny ship. But as Sole Soul pointed out, they fixed that.

What exactly do influence points do?

[quote who="kryo" reply="1" id="2035580"]Custom maps are predefined maps with fixed stars, planets, starting ships, etc. They are created by hand in a text editor, or through the map editor that comes with TA. Unfortunately you cannot define custom dimensions, only choose from the sizes offered in the game already.[/quote] I was worried that this would be the answer. Damnit. The map sizes progress nice and smoothly right up to the point where they're a bit smaller than I like,

I want to play a normal game on a map size between medium and large (thinking 6x6). I notice a custom map option, but if I choose it, I never get the option to set parameters for it or anything, and instead go to some really oversized map.

[quote]thirty randomly placed spies on your worlds[/quote] That's what you fucking get for leaving mega events on.

I just blasted one of his starbases, worked great.

Drath aren't even in the game. I traded for some of my would-be target's cheapo techs so that when I started taking his planets, I'd get the good stuff, only now he sends me away when I try talk to him, saying he's "too busy", so I can't do the declare war treaty.

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You know how, as you use larger and larger hulls, the components take up slightly more space? Autodesigned ships aren't affected by that. All their components take up as much space as they would on a self-designed tiny ship.

In before a flood of people agreeing with all 7 of your points, despite them being sarcastic.

[quote]Have you cutomised them to use all available build points they have? Not only are they much more unique and challenging you can boost the weaker races quite a bit to be more competitive. [/quote] Wait, do the AI races not spend their points or something? It never occured to me that I'd have to, I assumed they just spent the ones you didn't assign before game start.

Don't skip the DL campaign because of the changes, skip it because it's bad. If DL rules were still current, I'd still recommend avoiding that campaign. Adjusting to TA after spending some time on the DA campaign isn't hard.

If you NOTICE a planet's population going apeshit, it's easy to take care of. If you're using a bunch of unboosted farms, replace a few with cash buildings. When a farm disappears, the people it was supporting die immediately. If you're using a farm on a food bonus tile, replace some other building with a normal farm, THEN replace the food bonus farm with a different building. Or, just use transports or colony ships. You need some production for both though. T

What those buildings do is shove more money into the pockets of your citizens. With your tax rate, you then skim a certain amount of that extra money off the top for your own greedy little self. I'd cram that planet with labs + a tech capital + a coordination center. It's crazy to even have the option of building an economic capital on such a world. If you're not building your economic capital on your homeworld early, you're doing it wrong.

BAWWWWW threads about the highest difficulty levels being too hard are the greatest.

[quote]if you thought population magically appeared on the ship without impacting the homeworld you are a giant moron.[/quote] Protip: Just because a mechanic makes sense doesn't mean it'll obviously be in a game. I mean, these colonizers can fit what, a hundred million people on them? The realism boat sailed. There's nothing moronic about expecting other leaps of unrealism like not affecting the home planet.

Those negative numbers in the domestic stats window are still there, and routes still don't grow over time. I guess this is just one of those bugs that people haven't been loud enough about?

Drath

Trade seems to be bugged. When they fix it, it should make a difference.

EDIT: Ignore this post.

[quote]for example look at civilization. the fun is the multiplayer-part.[/quote] [img]http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/8579/laughingelfmanff1.jpg[/img] Civ4's multiplayer is buggy, and boring and gay even setting the bugginess aside, and Civ4 as an overall game is hurt by the fact that multiplayer considerations were factored in when balancing the game. It's just not possible to make a good multiplayer system in a turn based strategy game. Best thing to do is go the

I've heard JK is a normal event, not a mega, is that true?