CityMan

Bleh to people with super fast connections. :) Mine is definitely going to take more than 7 minutes. According to SDC, my transfer rate fluctuates between 10KB/sec and 170KB/sec. Well...actually, people who downloaded the expansion when it was first available probably had the whole pipe to themselves. Now that more people know that it's available, it makes sense that it could slow down.

Since it's Krynn, we have to assume it's Super Spy. It is possible that it has +50% luck though, if the OP let the computer pick the starting traits. Luck is quite powerful, but is it powerful enough to negate his obvious advantage? Hmm...sqrt(159)...so basically that is 12 defense against 30 attack coming from several ships. With +50% luck, that means the minimum role is half the max. I still wouldn't think that is enough for the Krynn ship to win with just a scratch. Then

Wow, in my fairly long experience, I've never seen the AI build ships with defenses that high and so skewed. Usually, the AI builds heavily offensive ships. I am in agreement with you. I would have expected that you would be winning with minimal losses. I even tried the Kryo FleetSim (is this accurate for DA?) and you should have an extremely high chance of winning. Hmm......... Did you look at the combat log? What happens?

Does anyone know if it is completely random? Is there a % chance of stealing? And if successul, how does it determine what tech you stole? Is there any way to increase the chance?

I remember reading somewhere the AI, even the minors, won't trade away their economic treaties until the 2nd year is over. I've never tested that theory though. The first 2 years is usually the hard part of a game and when I fiddle with the trading window the most.

[quote]Taking some things I learned in DA and going back to play a DL game, I can now conquer the entire galaxy on Suicidal, Gig, Abundant All without building a single colony ship or a troop transport every game....My last 487K DL game on the metaverse was done doing this.[/quote] Funny. I haven't played DL in a long, long, long time, but I'm actually curious to try this strategy. But the nice big holes you talk about only reinforce my point. Even if it's not just about tech

Oh, funny. I have built junk ships before on a planet to keep it from being invaded. But I haven't thought of sending a huge wave of them to create a virtual wall. That's great. I could definitely see that working. I have to admit though that usually when I realize an AI vastly overpowers me, I'll just quit the game. That means I totally lost control of the game. If its military vastly overpowers me, then its economy and tech probably does too and I have a slim chance or no chance

I never even tried any of the campaigns. I just went straight to sandbox, even when I used to play GC1, years ago. I don't know why. I do usually play the campaign in games, even multiplayer games with singleplayer mode tacked on. Hmm...Maybe I should give 'em a try.

Does anything trigger the event or is it random? In all the games I've played, I had this event happen only once. I was freaking out until I realized it only had 1 planet and no ships. I killed it that very turn and was disappointed to realize that was all it was.

It's hard to say. There are so many possibilities. Hmm...at tough, I think it is possible to tech faster than the AI. I played mostly tough games a month or so ago. I'd just build up a nice empire and a huge fleet before rampaging through the AI. I'd just kept building and teching, until I realize that I'm so powerful that the rest of the game is cleanup. I still wouldn't be leading the military rating chart, but in practice, I could usually win Tough without losing a single ship.

The military rating is not an accurate representation of their might when they go to war. The AI puts a huge percentage of their ships in orbit around their planets, and never use them for anything else. It's easy to kill the ships one by one and then send in a transport. The AI isn't as good as a human player at general combat either. As a result, you can be far behind in military rating and still cruise to a victory. The AI doesn't take full advantage of fleet sizes either

I looked through the AAR. Thanks for the writeup. Interesting just how different your medium map experience has been from my own. For me, I do a ton more in the first year. First, I finish my colony rush far earlier because I don't research the extreme colonization techs. They are far too expensive to research at that stage in the game. I steal them from the AI when I invade their extreme planets. If I conquer an extreme planet without the necessary techs, I just buy a far

I usually play with normal research rate or slower. I'm not fond of the faster research speeds. Techs go by too quickly, especially weapon techs and ships become obsolete before you have a chance to even build one. Yup, I have noticed that smaller maps seem to fit the all-labs strategy better. It's basically the same reasoning for why all-factory works better on larger maps, except in reverse.

Lord Metal, you are picking map settings that make the human advantage in 'creative trading' more useful. With 9 AI (and minor races), you can mass trade and eventually get a good deal for each tech you research. Now imagine a map with 3 AI and maybe 2 minors. Let's say 2 of the AI have a completely different alignment from you, so it's very hard to make friends out of them. Let's even say it's a small map, so the colony rush is over quickly and the aggressive AI starts extorting you for mon

I've been tackling suicidal games lately, and after finding that my usual gamestyle doesn't work well enough, I've been trying out other strategies. I have won a couple suicidal medium/common maps (50 to 75 total planets) now using all-factory, but I've also lost on smaller maps. I am avoiding larger or abundant settings though (too much micromanagement). I have some questions. 1) Is there a minimum number of planets you need for all-factory to work? I'v

I agree. It's a nice touch in Sins where the AI message you if they think you raised their bounty. A similar behavior could add some risk to using spies in this game.

Does this also hold true when there is only 1 AI left? By process of elimination, it should know that it is you who is placing all the spies. Can minor races place spies? Can they even make spies? There should be diplomatic consequences. In many cases, it wouldn't matter, but if you are trying to buy time to build up your forces, it could be a problem if the AI declares war before you are ready.

Good point. In other games, the unit doesn't start moving as long as you hold the right button down. You can move the mouse around to see the time required for various destinations. This would be a good suggestion for the GC developers.

This is going to sound weird, but I don't care in the least if a publisher/developer/whatever makes any and every attempt possible to make money. While the gaming industry is huge, it's extremely tough. You see good development houses going under all the time and developers work some ridiculous hours. If selling subpar additional content can garner a little more money to fund their development efforts, that's fine with me. It always amazed me that people have a huge issue with ingame

You seem so fixated on the bad examples, that you fail to see the positives. History does not back up your point. You just conveniently picked some examples and skewed it with your angry, bitter viewpoint. There are plenty of cases where history proves you completely wrong. In any case, the gaming industry is still developing and constantly changing. Something that didn't work in the past could work very well in the future, and vice versa. History is not a good argument bec

Why are you constantly and endlessly harping about Horse Armor? My guess is that you bought it and were disappointed by the purchase. So now you decide to 'fight back' against the concept of micropayments? Give me a break. There are bad deals everywhere. Just go to the local mall, supermarket, street corner, 7-11...everywhere. Just because you bought the Horse Armor and was unhappy doesn't automatically mean that every micropayment is a bad deal. What do you use to gauge w

The modding community isn't quite so unselfish as you think. They get online 'cred', appreciation, a community, a hobby and for some of them, a job in the gaming industry. Yes, gamers get these mods for free, but it's only free of charge. To some extent, it's like giving out samples. Samples are free, but there are other motives. When a developing house releases mods, expansions, etc. the primary motivation is money. They already have the fans, online 'cred', community, etc. They

It's definitely worth upping the difficulty until it provides a suitable challenge for you. Until fairly recently, I played easier difficulties and while it was fun for a while to rampage unchecked over multiple AI at the same time, it gets boring. Now, I actually have a chance of losing every time I play and it makes it so much more fun. There are times when every single move matters, so I spend a lot more time thinking and strategizing. At easier difficulties, I could just attack a

There is a world of difference between a mod that is just a reskin and what Frogboy is talking about. He says, "An enhanced economic engine, updated graphics, new diplomacy options, a more serious metaverse system." That is not just a mod. The best way to describe it would be a mini expansion. Subscription fees don't work well for games other than MMO's. Practically every online gamer has experience with MMO's and they expect a lot of content, constant updates, etc. if they are will

Heh, it's a wonder that I can dress myself in the morning and not shock everyone with clashing colors. I guess that's why I normally stick to one color and the rest neutrals. Might be boring, but at least I don't look silly.