You only have the 1st level of barren planet extreme colonization for free with the Yor. With the first level of extreme colonization you can set the colony but you have significant production penalties. To get the full potential out of a barren planet you'll need to get Advanced Barren colonization. The same is true for Iconians (aquatic, toxic (?)) and Korath (toxic). Hydro
My custom races aren't so well thought out, which is a shame. It's more fun to role play if there is a back history! Hydro
Nice use of paranoia as a guiding force in a race’s view of the galaxy! You’ve also done a great job integrating Super Breeder into this – kind of a Super Breeder Lebensraum? The pre-history works very well, too. Also, I think your use of English actually helps the narrative. It has a different cadence and has a use of words that suggests this is an alien race. So, no need for any apology! Looking forward to more! Hydro
I don't use scouts - don't have time. My colony ships do my exploration. I may take a pause in the colony rush to build a few cargo survey hulls (after I get Sensor 1), though. They serve to see the galaxy and grab anomolies. Later they make great sentinals to make sure Bad Guys aren't sneaking in. Hydro
Question 1: do folks play Evil because of the bonuses or because you like to laugh maniacially and enjoy Blood Makes Grass Grow? Question 2: If Good weren't so whimpy (or Evil had serious long term disadvantages, which doesn't seem to have now (and I think it should)) would that change your mind? Question 3: What would convince the Dr. Evil's out there to play good? Hydro
Don't place one or two. Place a bunch. That way the AI can't nullify all of them. You get a higher espionage level by having had spies on the AI's planets for a number of turns. The longer the spies are in place and the greater number of spies the faster this will increase. You'll get a prompt when you hit the next 'level' of espionage. Hydro
I generally play the alignment the race starts with, which means that I role play each race as the designers intended. This makes it more fun for me. Overall, I have to agree that Good is more of a challenge. Hydro
You can deal with that by doing periodic saves (say, every year or half year). Then if you have a great game you can re-open the save files, get screenshots or other juicy info, and then do the AARs. I tend to save the games and will occasionally will go back to refresh my memory. Plus, I very rarely get to finish a game in one sitting so I have to have game saves anyway. I just need to remember to save the games, which is easy to overlook when the early game turns speed by. Just a thou
In many of my games ship level wasn’t very critical since all it did was increase hit points, and not that much either. However, in my last game the AI seemed to be stuck technologically. There was no incentive for me to upgrade my weapons, so I had medium hull ships running around as my primary ships with 12/0/0 attack and 0/6/0 defense the whole game (7+ years). Many of the battles were somewhat even, and by the end I had quite a few med hulls that were Level 50 to 71 and with HPs tha
slabster, I never played DL much so I'm not very familiar with how it works, so I'll take your word on it. However, in DA I don't see any additional attacks in the combat screen that seem to be attributable to engines. It seems to be weapon-per-weapon resolution. Any 'extra' attackes in DA are on the strategic screen. Hydro
Overall I really liked Super Breeder. Summary of Super Breeder advantages: • Quick starts economy due to fast population growth • Allows very fast production of colony ships or transports since population will be quickly replaced, and the economic hit is not as hard since populations are quickly replaced • Get higher influence since it is partially based in planet population Incidental advantages of Super Breeder: • Harder to invade Super Breeder worlds since po
I played Civ4 for a while, but it kept crashing my system and required a hard boot. I got tired of that so it is now shelfware. Engines - only affect stragetic movement. I don't think they're intended to play a role in tactical combat. Sensors - I get the feeling that accuracy improvements are built into the weapons progression. Sensors, again, are strategic (e.g. - big map). Glad you are enjoying GalCiv2. Are you playing Dread Lords or Dark Avatar? Hydro
Oops - typo. Mea culpa. And I did rely on the manual. I'm not sure what you mean on dividing up the tourism, though. Do you mean: 1) Race’s Tourism $$ = 1bc per 1B pop in galaxy * (# sectors controlled by race by influence) / (total sectors with racial influence) or 2) Race’s tourism $$ = 1bc per 1B pop in galaxy * (# sectors controlled by race by influence) / (all sectors in galaxy) Or something else? The difference is in 1) all tourism $$
Nope, I haven't done any GalCiv2 metaverse. I've looked into it and I have to admit that the instructions aren’t very clear (or I’m a bit dense). I don’t understand generating a ‘character’ or joining a race. When I’ve poked around I haven’t seen anything that explains how it is supposed to work, so I wandered away. Hydro
January 2235 OK, I’m done. The Krynn started to research alliance, and then bailed. The other AI’s are busy playing with themselves. The Krynn capital revolted to me in December 2234 and after that my close relations went to friendly and lots of new negatives showed up: tendency to conquer others, alarming influence (really????), “we know what you’re doing”, etc. Four trade routes collapsed. In short, there isn’t much chance of getting my relations back any time soon. I’m an ally with t
December 2233 The assault on the Drengin continued and I actually lost a ship! What?!!! It seems that two or three of his ships were actually ships that had some good firepower, and they targeted a damaged ship. And it died – the only cruiser (medium hull) I’ve lost. In July 2232 I took the last Drengin planet. I took his capital in May and wanted to draw it out so I’d have as many mining bases revolt due to influence, and when half had I put the Drengin out of my misery. <br/
Hmmm. I've had one or two races declare war citing my 'tendency to conquer others'. Relations are generally pretty shaky, and generally have a counter alignment. If the race is friendly or better my transgressions are overlooked. Usually 'tendency to conquer others’ shows up as a "-" in the relations screen, but only with those who are neutral or dislike me to start with. Taking out minors just fuels their distrust, I guess. Of course, it could be that the AI bands together to take dow
Super diplo, diplomatic translator structure, and a number of diplo techs all help to reduce the cost. The Bazaar might help, too. But I don't know how well this works in 1.5x DA. Hydro
Shifting aliances and last minute saves make for a great game! Have you considered writing up your Epic as an AAR? Hydro
1900 ships! Swarms! Must have had lots of planets to build and support that many. Hydro
Economic policies - actually, the budget surplus was largely due to the huge tax increase by the Democratic congress that was signed by Bush Sr. Of course, this was one of the main reason Bush Sr wasn't re-elected: Read My Lips... Another reason for the economic prosperity of the 1990s was the opposing parties in Congress and the White House: the Republican Congress nerfed many of the loopy ideas of the White House and vise versa. Checks and balances ruled. When the Republicans ran the
Reasons for taking out minor races: 1) Prevent another race from getting them. Eventually they'll all get consumed, so why not be the one to get them first? 2) They generally have above-average planets. This is more important in small galaxies or in galaxies with rare planets. Real estate matters. 3) Good influence bump 4) Will only slightly impact your relations with others (you will get tagged with 'tendencey to conquer others') 5) Generally an easy kill since you have much
Sounds like it's shaping up as a classic Good vs Evil conflict. Some map shots would help, so I hope you can post some soon! How does your relative research, military, etc stand wrt the other races? Also, were the Torians weak wrt the Korath? You don't need much to provoke them, but if the Torians spent too long to develop a military they would be easy victims. What are your objectives? The name of your race sounds a tad ominous... Keep us posted (if you'll f
The role of a president or any leader is to make hard decisions. Those decisions are based on the information available at the time, and because the decisions are hard means there are consequences – good and bad. Each decision is based on information that makes it through the filter of advisors, which the leader chooses. It is quite clear now that Bush and Blair chose their advisors…poorly. As we have seen, the Neoconservative’s advisor’s ideological view of the world is seriously flawed. I call
The use of spies depends on where you are in the game and the AI’s financial position. If they are weak then I see very few spies. Generally I only seem them in mid game and later. In my last few games I get bucketloads of spies, and am spending 13% of my economy to get rid of them (!!!). In my current game (Painful, custom Breeder – documented as an AAR) I am barely able to keep ahead, and the only races left in the game are Krynn, Altarians, and Drath (all of whom are ‘close, but spy
