LTjim

;-)

The disease/plague event is generally a great opportunity for the player. Best I've been able to tell, the AIs will complete their current research project BEFORE turning to research the cure. This means that every AI will be impacted in direct proportion to their research numbers but vary depending on their progress towards their current project. A simple tactic is to place as many spies as possible on AI research structures. One much stronger but somewhat-g

Probably true. I just have never played the Korath or a custom race with that super-ability. You're right, though, I probably should.

Do spore ships use the same hull size that the constructors and colony ships did? (I have never built a spore ship, so I don't know.)

Are you sure they were upgraded? Could they not have been decommissioned and new ones built of bought instead?

One possible exception is to declare war on a different race, but one that either has the super ability that gets others to declare war on those that attack/declare war with them, or have extremely good relations with them. For example, in DA, if anyone declares war on the Altarians, the Drath will generally declare war in support of the Altarians.

Note that you can "turn off" mega events. Alternatively, do as I do, which is to leave them on but have auto-save on for every turn and when the Jagged Knife type event happens, simply reload from just before the event.

The troop transport parking tactic as also been discussed a lot. That is, how do you get into a war with an AI w/o triggering other negative effects? For example, attack the Altarians and other races are likely to declare war on you, etc. The answer is sometimes to park a troop transport or three near the target AI's planets. Note, though, that sometimes the AI will pretend to ignore them if your military is a LOT stronger then the AI's is.

The Jagged Knife produces a clear path to victory in many games, because you can invade them and gain techs and Planets that had belonged to other races w/o upsetting any other AIs, who had been weakened by the event. I won enough times that way so that what i do now when I get that mega event is to reload a save from just before the event, and play on from there.

The "influence border" basically depicts the limit of where an empire's influence projects out at a certain value. The effect that is most apparent to players is the unhappy face symbol when it appears on a planet or mining base. If that appears, then the colony or base has some probability of switching to the empire that is imposing the influence upon it. The influence value is a summation of the effects of population, bases, influence buildings, and racial val

The Yor were one of the first races I won Suicidal sandbox games with in DA. IIRC, I used military starbases so that all enemy ships had to approach my planets and bases at speed 1.

Before you give up, could you answer a few questions? 1) Keep track of the number of turns so that you can tell us here how long it is before you get to this point. 2) What are your start settings, in terms of race picks and political. 3) What are the positions of your sliders for spending, etc? 4) What are your first several moves? 5) What are the first 5 or 10 things you research? 6) What are the first 5 things you build? 7) What are t

In an old thread, one player stated that he always got sensors very quickly and then built a cargo hull filled with nothing but sensors with the intent to "see" every anomaly and habitable planet within that expanded sensor range. I have never tried that, so I cannot confirm that it works or is helpful.

TerranEmperor - Getting the hang of this beast does take time. What race do you use, what racial picks, and what political choice? I ask because you will likely do better if the race and picks match what you see as your game strategy. For example, colony rush in crowded galaxies goes better when you start with extra planet types you can colonize right at the start and have production and cash bonuses. Oh, and don't forget that you can always hit Control

Every game and layout is different, of course. so specific advice may not work from game to game, which makes the game have replay value. Let me add a few tips, though. - the larger the galaxy and the higher the anomaly setting, the more value there is in additional survey ships. For example, in a very large galaxy with anomalies on "abundant" I generally research sensor and ion+impulse engines early and build at least three more survey ships. The cash flow and lit

I always turn off tech victory in Suicidal. The AI bonuses are just too great.

A DA game I started today had another hard to fathom set of events. My Homeworld and the other planet in my system BOTH had 7x research tiles. I had chosen technologist and maxed out the racial research picks. I had a custom race that started with the second research building. The galaxy was the largest one with stars and planets on the lowest setting (rare). I rush bought research buildings on both 7x tiles and concentrated first on Planetary Improvements (r

THis may be the thread you were talking about: https://forums.galciv2.com/361996/page/1/#2358331 Despite kryo's answer to me saying the bug was fixed, I still see the same colonization behavior in my DA games. I admit it is possible that scouts I never see spotted the planets. It just never seems like it. Note that kryo never denied that all the AIs start off knowing where all the mining an

Have you ever seen it for a high PQ planet that requires no tech to colonize? You can always do a test. Generate a custom map with a high PQ planet in one corner and watch what happens. If you want, make it a one planet system but, if you think the developers coded so shrewdly as to enable AIs to prioritize based on stellar cartography numbers, I think you're giving them far too much credit. For that matter, do all AIs even begin with stellar cartography?

What you said sounds reasonable and you are probably correct, but I have never done a test of it and have not seen any posts that another did such tests. I could do tests, but the effect would be small in any case.

Not sure if I can find any of them, but let me describe what at least one player reported. He had a map with a high PQ planet in one corner, and sent ships to monitor the corner. No scout ships came anywhere near it, but AI colony ships went right for it. He repeated that test but colonized the planet. Again no scoutships came along, but now no colony ships did either. As for knowing mining anomalies, in almost every game I come across 1 or 2 speed construc

My answers did not include things from TA, as I do not own/play it. For that matter, I think there might be some fleet bonus module in TA. I seem to recall some mentions of something like that, anyway. As for the Defense +10% effect in DA, I have never tested to see if there is any effect. That is, how the math is precisely applied. It could be applied to the hitpoints, for example, or to the die rolls themselves, or like racial traits.

What he said! I have DL and DA, but never bought TA for the reasons he stated.

I never build scout ships. If one is going expend the resources to build a ship, I think it should be one that can DO something. The only reasons the AIs build scout ships is it is an attempt by the developers to level the early game some. You see, scout ships have ZERO utility to AIs because they begin the game knowing where every planet and mining anomaly is. This has been proven in player tests and documented in this forum. On survey ships, if the setting

The "Luck" trait affects combat die rolls. One can add "Luck" as a racial trait, and also as Universal political type. They are additive in effect. IIRC, they work by reducing the band of possible die rolls. Thus, if the possible values of a weapon roll were 0, 1, 2, 3, then one Luck level would take away the lowest one-fourth of the possible outcomes, so in my example, there would be no "0" roll. Two levels of Luck would prevent either 0 or 1 as outcomes. <