Voqar

There are ways to move your 'my documents' so that windows will use another location, like on another drive if you have multiple drives. I think you can change the location with TweakUI or one of the other PowerToys for WinXP (MS extras that give some power back to windows users.) A simple google search should yield some options. It's pretty standard to use my docs or app data these days, especially with OSes like WinXP that facilitate multiple users on one box. Of course

The ideas I like: 1. Can only trade tech you researched yourself. Best idea so far. You really shouldn't be able to acquire tech from others and whore it around. Yeah, it limits you, but due to the utter cheese factor some practical limitations need to exist. 2. Blueprints. Second best idea. Acquiring tech from someone else should not be full acquisition, rather a large amount of research discount (maybe 75-80%, where the remaining research time represents assimilating

There are no terror stars. If you want to conquest you have to do so via conventional conquering instead of cheese spread.

Lol i tried to play it on normal earlier......i must be doing something horribly wrong...i get pounded =P....Back to the Newb Table for me... "normal" is actually a beginner type of setting. The AIs are a notch or two below "intelligent." You have to play on "tough" or higher to play against "intelligent" AIs. <img src="http://images.stardo

Early exploration and expansion is a core fundamental part of the genre. Why limit early expansion, especially in a space based 4X like GalCiv2 where there is always a limited number of habital worlds. It's not like you can just colonize endlessly. I can see hindering expansion in a game like Civilzation, because there is a lot of landmass and you can build a huge number of cities just about anywhere - and it can be beyond ridiculous to pump out settlers nonstop. Civ doesn't have a

I love starbases - they're a huge part of this game. Asking to have them removed or optionally not included seems like an abomination of an idea. They are simply a part of building up your space empire, along with acquiring and developing planets, building ships, spreading influence, etc. Resource starbases are supposed to have huge impact - you're supposed to be motivated to acquire them, develop them, and defend them. Starbases have maint costs and you're limited in how

I like the grab scrolling too - it gives you much more control and you waste a lot less time moving the mouse away from where the action is. I don't use edge scrolling at all with GalCiv2. Consider that anytime you're doing something on the main map you probably have the view centered or close to centered. If you use edge scrolling you have to move the mouse way away from the action, hope to get a decent scroll (that doesn't need a reverse corrective edge scroll) then you need to move the mou

Sounds great! Is there anywhere to regularly get patch versions that are in testing? I've seen Frogboy link them a few times in other posts.

I thought that was an excellent review (probably because it mirrors my thoughts) and they gave the game a very appropriate score.

If you build economic starbases (can build them anywhere - ie, not on a resource) and their radius overlaps a planet and if you build mining modules on them, you can get production bonuses that apply to every planet within the radius. These are the bonuses that show up in the details screen. You can have multiple econ starbases multi-overlapping multiple planets and stack up the bonuses if you wanna get buck wild crazy too.

Ummm. I don't think the minors colonize in GC2 - at all - ever - it's not in their code. Probably because it's monumentally annoying when a so-called minor develops stronger empires than majors. They do build ships and they do build lots of constructors and they can control resources. Basically, IMO, minors are fodder. Trade tech with em, sell useless tech to em for easy money, and hope they're near you so you can acquire their juicy PQ15 worlds early on.

Agree on rally points. Combined with the governors for switching production and/or rally points around they can help you greatly streamline on any sized map.

The problem here is, in terms of the OP, that in MOO/2 all weapon damage was equal. This isn't the case with GC2 because there are 3 types of weapon damage and 3 types of defense - 1 for each type. It's not very reasonable to expect to outfit one ship with significant amounts of all 3 weapons types, as that'd be unbalanced, even if it feels right or would be more visually/design pleasing. At the far ends of the tech tree you might be more able to create a ship with decent amounts of

Even if colony ships cost more or you had less starting cash you would still start out the same way - in a rush to colonize the best worlds around you asap to beat the AIs to it. It's a core feature to this game and pretty much every space-based 4x game. Expand is the 2nd of the 4 X's, ya know. Yeah, the expansion rush at the beginning is kinda disap

I would add, since the forum is bombing when I try to edit, that conquering always takes more effort and time in these kinds of games. I can beat Civ (IV) in two hours if I go for a peaceful victory like space race and avoid conflict along the way. But if I elect to win by domination and conquest it will always take much, much longer due to the extra micromanagement and extra time to fight battles. (I might finish faster with the right map and other conditions, but on average conque

F. None of the above. I'm playing more WoW than anything, which is kinda sad. WoW is one of the best games ever for the most part - in terms of raw gameplay it's amazing (til you hit 60 and the game turns into EQLive) - but, WoW has, on average, the lowest quality players of any game, sport, event, or humanity in general - ever. The immaturity is almost unbelievable. I guess I could consider it amusing - but it's actually not even funny - just pathetic. And the saddest thing of a

I haven't really had this problem. It can be a problem and has been a problem for me in the past but essentially if you wanna conquer the galaxy you have to plan for it and be ready to support it for extended periods of time. Have a lot of planets for building ships and have a lot of high pop (within reason) planets for building a constant stream of transports. In my conquering it's transports that slow me down - lack of them, that is. So you have to be dedicated to cranking them o

So, if you don't like the way things are done in GalCiv then, quite simply, don't play it. Ranting like some armchair dev know it all doesn't do anything except bring on the abuse by those who like the system. Create your own game or go play something you DO like.

The manual helps. Look around for similar threads here (might have to sift thru a lot of pages) with the advice you're seeking (that's been provided repeatedly). #1 thing you absolutely must do when starting a new game is: bring up the screen where you manage taxes, industrial capacity, and production sliders, and crank your industrial capacity up to 100%. This is critical or you'll get blown away in every game. You usually set your taxes higher too, within reason (don't totally c

I've seen the beta test plans that the folks at SD listed out ages ago when GalCiv 2 beta developement had started to kick in and ppl were invited to test. IMHO, it was one of the more *open and thought-out* software testing document I seen. I been in other betas (from A-title developers and publishers) before and *none* had that sort of detail. <br/

I love the lack of copy protection because I pay for my games and don't like being pre-punished for piracy that I'm not involved in. I also hate having to put a CD in to play a game that I've paid for - it's one of the worst things ever in the gaming industry. I deal with Starforce to play some games that I must play, like UFO: Aftershock, because there simply are not enough games of that type, even though I hate how Starforce or Webtangents webdriver work. I remove Starfo

HP increasing about as effective as attack/defense increasing. Your ship is more durable so it can fight longer, getting more out of the weapons it has. Getting crazy gains due to a possible bug is another thing!

All the points the OP presents have been discussed many times. This forum seriously needs an obvious search function - not that anyone would use it or it'd prevent this! 1. Would be nice but it's very fluffy to me - units that get xp works well enough. 2. Tactical combat is long, tedious, boring, and repetitive. It was fun in MOO2 on rare occasions til you had fleets of 50 ships fighting enemy fleets of 1 to 50+ ships. 3. I think some extra modules could be added and wil

CivFanatics is the best Civ site, IMO. Apolyton isn't bad but the format of that site is an html massacre and their forums are no better (could have the best quality content in the world but it looks terrible to me). I've mentioned GalCiv2 a few times over there (particularly when discussions of AI came up) and had it linked in my sig. Civ IV and GalCiv2 are both excellent - it's a great time for TBS gamers. I'm into XCOM-esque squad based games and have had a l

Not really because I like the flexibility to forge my own ship designs and develop my own planets regardless of race. I wouldn't want to feel like I had to play a particular race to get a particular ship component or building.