Franco fx

[quote]1) Separate out planet quality from planet size. One planet is Eden, but it's the size of the Moon. Another is a gas giant, but it's like Mars. Your dream planet is to find an Eden the size of a gas giant. Needless to say, the number of planet tiles would not be tied to PQ anymore, but size. Size and PQ both increase morale.[/quote] Lots of good ideas, but for #1, if we want any realism, a gas giant sized planet can't possibly be ideal. I would like to see it possible to settle

Well, well I have not gotten around to the memory test but when I saw that the latest release addressed some crashes I decided to give it a try and it appears that it is fixed. I played for over an hour with no crash where previously the crash came in less than 15 minutes. I will still do the memory test at some point since it is probably an issue to some extent.

Thanks, I have since figured out the bootable floppy thing. I will run the test to see if there are any memory problems. The thing that gets me is that until the final beta I have never had a crash problem with GCII and the memory parity crash has never happened with any other program. It would seem that if it is a memory problem it would be random and not relative to a single program

How do I go about using the utility? It seems there is a pay version and a free version. I dl the freeware and ran it but got no display or results from running it

I am getting a memory parity crash when I try to use the ship designer. I had this problem with the 1.9 beta and now it persists in 2.0. Is this a known problem? Any ideas on how to fix it

[quote]I know, but no time to be nice folks[/quote] It is always time to be nice. It is just a modestly priced game and is not worth getting your bowels in an uproar. If the finished product is not to your liking stop playing and move on. No matter how well they finish up it is only a matter of time before interest wans for most people.

I would like to see an explanation of how the AI has been programed use the revamped espionage. I will definitey like the ability to get overall intel but I wonder how or whether the AI will use the info.

I assume that extreme environment means requiring environmental techs to colonize and does not include extremely high PQ planets

It would be a quandry. Planet or base defense would depend on massive fleets to intercept any potential enemies. Any ship that survives or slips through would have the ability to devastate a colony or base from orbit. MAD will be the order of the day and punitive reprisal will be the strategy. There will be no defensive super powers. All will be vulnerable to attack from orbit Hopefully war will be discouraged by the difficulty in getting boots on the ground. Highly m

PQ 26 unlikely to be a home planet. The environment is so friendly there are few extinctions and less need for intelligence to survive. Hence, intelligent, sentient lifeforms are less likely to develop and/or survive.

cari I have both SDC and impulse installed and they are not in sync. Impulse shows DA as fully updated but SDC prompts me to update to an earlier version (1.80g.100 vs 180g.103). If I update as sdc requests and then open impulse, it prompts me to updtae to .103, and so the circle goes. I know that I can ignore SDC but is there any way to fix it so they are in sync? If uninstalling SDC is an option, that might do but I have gathered that SDC is still useful at this poin

[quote]Simmons isn't really space opera,[/quote] Yes, Simmons is not known for space operas but there were four books in the sreies which told an epic story and took on some of the qualities of space opera as it played out, particularly in the last two. Hyperion (1989) The Fall of Hyperion (1990) Endymion (1996) The Rise of Endymion (1997

Three worth checking out. I loved them all. Dan Simmons: The Hyperion series and his Illium, Olympus books Peter Hamilton: Nights Dawn Trilogy Verner Vinge: Zones of Thought Series - A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness In The Sky

Too much effort to please. Stardock has always been excellent at fixing bugs that break the game and far too willing to "balance" the game to the whims of a faction that will never be satisfied. IMHO every edition of GC has been okay as far as balance goes on the first day of release. Most of the balance tweaking has made the game at best no better and often worse than the original. The tech bug is a case in point. The too powerful, toggle off, toggle on faction says

My personal opinion of China today is pretty favorable compared to years past. The old fears of a backward and dogmatic culture are fading IMO the current government more resembles a corporate government than a communist government. Communism has proven to be a failure because it does not recognize the human need to rise above the pack. It is fine for starving masses but when bellies are full the people demand lipstick and levis. I truly believe that there is upward mobility for Chinese

I played a huge map last night and noticed this. Since I usually play smaller maps I wasn't sure if it was a bug or not but it is darn sure discouraging. It must be scaling with map size

[quote]Most predominantly, though, one thing that always bothers me is that, as far as I can tell, influence will never cause a minor race, or a starbase, to flip.[/quote] In GCI most of the minors would flip (one or two would not) but starbases have never flipped. Since mines will flip I agree that it would seem that starbases would also be subject to flipping. It is also odd that the minors like to build influnce starbases but apparently cannot flip your planets. What's the p

Peace mongering and in praise of the AI I usually play small maps and go for cultural victories. I enjoy the wars but I don't have the time and patience for larger maps and the agonizing process of conquering everyone. I recently tried a game on immense galaxy with a custom race that I had designed to hopefully be a peacenik race. No super ability and middle of the line abilities in econ, ,tech, moral and influence. I assigned them the Universalist politica and scaled back agre

Colonizing a tiny/small map with 2-3 opponent races: JMO but the smaller maps are just not big enough to have a game with 5-6 races If you choose econ and influence abilities you will not have $ problems as long as you watch your improvements. You will get a nice tourism bonus to tide you along and your flagship will find lots of treasure. Your home planet will be sufficient to build all colony ships and you need a couple of planets building constructors. I build facto

The eternal "too powerful" mantra. If you think it is too powerful, don't pick it. I don't know if the AI ever uses it but if they do, it make the game more challenging, which is what the too powerful faction wants, isn't it? It's fine the way it is imo. When I want a challenging game, I play on suicidal with all abilities zeroed out and everything toggled off that can be toggled off. Then I play blindfolded with the sound muted.

[quote]If some one were to kill one of your family memberd or rape them or harm them in a similar way would you want to see that person dead.[/quote] I probably would, but it would not be my privilige or choice, it would be the privilige and choice of the state. There is no justification for allowing the state to take the lives of it's citizens. The DP is not a deterrent for crime and in many cases it is preferred by criminals to life w/o parole. I believe there are c

I got a CTD on full screen due to Windows defender running at it's regular scheduled time. I figured no matter and switched to window running as I usually do anyway. The only minor problem is that the 1280X1024 screen runs just a tad to the left and this cause the game mouse pointer to be off just enough to aggravate me.

Exactly what is it yopu are looking for that would not be served by a small map, one opponent and low difficulty. I can play a game in an hour or so or a few days

[quote]Do I try to update DA to 103 via Impulse and hope that changes the status of TA to Installed? Or do I go through a similar process to what Hollow Man noted in Reply #10, above?[/quote] I downloaded the DA update on impulse and TA without deleting the beta. Both work perfectly as far as I can tell so far. There was no option to uninstall the beta TA on impulse.

I have been using impulse without a problem. The TA DL went perfectly. I do have a question re impulse. There are a lot of updates available on impulse that are not on SDC. This includes updates to GCI and GCAP along with updates to some other minor games I have dl on sdc. Are the updates of any value or are they just something to sync with impulse? Is it worthwhile to run the updates?