Shamgar

[quote]In terms of Software, where the black market price is zero.nothing, you have to change the the free market price to match the black market price. Basically give your product away for free. Now, you have to build an infrastructure around your product. Like support contracts, merchandise (e.g. sell some Drengin masks, good for Halloween) or just a plain donation button. The last one actually works very well, lots of people like charity.[/quote] I thought this was a joke, b

I play with mega-events turned off because of a similar frustrating "pirate" event early in my DA experience. Other events did add to the flavor of the game, but that one did kind of end the "fun" for me. I would not call it "cheating," though, since that event hurts the AI just as much as the player. It was just that at that point, you had more to lose. If the human player is *losing* when one of those events happens, it might instead serve to save his skin by bringing down an overwhelming oppo

I like the changes, and see them bringing some freshness and variety to the game. The development of the different race tech trees would seem to be on a straight trajectory from the way GalCiv2 expanded upon GalCiv, where you could only play as the terrans. Most of us will probably work to become somewhat familiar with each race's tech tree, but then settle in on a favorite race to play most of the time. I agree, balance will be an challenge for the developers.

The arguments of play balance might be reasonable if we were only talking about the Xeno Ethics effects, though I still think good to be slightly less attractive. However, no one seems to even attempt to argue that the "ethical choices" are balanced at all. As it is now, playing "evil" it makes sense to postpone researching Xeno Ethics until the colony rush is over, so as to get all of the great bonuses. The one wanting to play for "good" had best get Xeno Ethics as soon as possible to "stop the

For those of you who are beginning to flame one another, I would like to propose three ethical choices in accordance with the present GalCiv2 universe: 1) Apologize for unkind words, and determine that in the future you will addess issues, not attack persons. Result: You will be thrown off the forum for one week, and all Stardock products will cost you double the normal price. In the future, you will be given the opportunity to purchase a product which causes left-handed people with blu

I do play on the metaverse, but regardless ... looking at the final score is part of the game for just about anyone, I would think. What I think we are looking for is the opportunity to play as "good" without penalty. If someone wants to play a harder/easier game ... well, that's what the "difficulty level" is all about.

I'm reading these comments with great interest, and appreciate the thought going into them. I remain one who sees the present system as unbalanced and unfortunate. While other aspects of the game have been carefully changed and tweaked for balance and playability, the ethical aspect remains virtually unchanged from the begining of CG2. Unless we are willing to say that this aspect, alone, was perfectly done from the start, we should all welcome a refinement to the system, if not a wholesale over

I share Honshu's frustration with the present imbalance away from "good" toward "evil." I have played many games, mostly as good, but also quite a few as evil and some as neutral. Playing evil in the TA beta has impressed upon me just how much advantage there is to the "evil" choices I have been ignoring. I can understand that SD has been busy with other aspects of gameplay and balance, but I hope that this neglected aspect of the game will be addressed, hopefully sometime before GC3! I

Like the others, I wait until things develop a bit before considering such colonizations. It takes way too many "weeks" to get the appropriate techs in the beginning stages of the game, less time the further on in the game you get. And, once I get the first half of the tech, I immediately get the second so that those worlds are not limping along at 50%.

[quote]These random events are one of the most annoying features in this game. Why do good choices always have bad consequences? Why is evil always rewarded? Life doesn't work like that. To be as controversial as possible, I will give some examples from the previous century. Herr Hitler, we have found Jews in Germany. Comrade Stalin, the farmers do not want to form Collectives. Chairman Mao, the people are wanting more economic freedom. I would argue that each leader went with option 3 but in ea

I usually play the game with lots of planets ("abundant everything"), and I get the impression that most of us play that way. For some variety, I decided to try the complete opposite. I went to the largest map size, made everything rare (except asteroids & anomolies, made them abundant), with the most races possible (including maximum number of minors). It made for an entirely different kind of game, and it was lots of fun. Technologies that I generally ignore (like life support) all of a sudden

I agree with those who call for stronger SB weapons & defense. Now it is necessary to defend them with fleets, but (especially with increased maintenence costs) that can become pretty expensive with a large number of SB's late in the game. Even less worthwhile are the modules for military SB's once you get past the early game. Even the highest levels give only a +1 or +2 to defense or offense ... when ships and fleet numbers are into the hundreds and more. What good is that?

[quote]In my honest opinion, taking any racial ability besides 30% morale bonus and like 40% economy or whatever the max economy bonus is is a waste. The nerfing of economy makes these two picks even more valuable. [/quote] If this is the case now, then I would say a modification of the balance is needed. If taking morale/economy bonuses is a practical necessity for playing the game, then a serious player does not really have any options in selecting racial bonuses ... which defeats

Many of us have been frustrated with the OOM errors, but they definitely have decreased for me. And, in the rare instances I get them now, I usually do not lose the game. It takes a few minutes, but I hit the "OK" on the button that announces the memory error, and the game comes back. Then, I am able to save it successfully and continue to play. (BTW, I am playing on Vista, and have 2Gig of memory.) For me, the quality of the game itself (and the obvious efforts of the develop

I like a lot of the ideas put forth here, especially the idea of long term, ongoing effects. However, any expansion of the ethical aspect of the game without making it balanced would not be a good idea. As many have pointed out, it is now heavily balanced toward evil, and that needs to be fixed before doing anything else.

[quote]what do we do with terror stars after they are built [/quote] Blow up star systems. Along with any fleets that happen to be in them. You move the TS adjacent to the star of your choice, and then "attack" the star. The TS cannot defend itself, so be sure to have a strong fleet accompany it, or you will never reach your target. The TS moves as slow as can be, only one square per turn. And be sure to have your fleet hightail it out of the star system on the turn of

In a beta game, I managed to take out 4 or 5 systems with a TS. You do not lose the escorting fleet, either. Keep the fleet with the TS as you move it to the star, and on the turn you are adjacent, first order the fleet to "move out at top speed," far enough away (cannot remember exatly how far, but out of the star system). Then, detonate the star with the TS, and say bye-bye to the enemy worlds, and any of their fleets that were foolish enough to be in the star system at the time. On the next t

[quote] Wow ... this expansion pack is a dream come true. I had a blast with the custom races in Dark Avatar, I am going to have even MORE fun making new techs and tech trees. One question about terror stars .... namely ... I don't get them. You need space superiority to use them (since they are so fragile), and if you have space superiority, why not just invade? Its probably cheaper, and you get new territory as well .... Dano

I don't know, maybe you are really annoying. In fact, *I* declare war on you. ONLY KIDDING!!! (I couldn't resist it) :LOL: I've had games that have gone that way too. Maybe it is a "perfect storm" sort of thing where everything just happens to conspire against you at once.

[quote]any race I've ever chosen before starts out neutral and it's up to me to choose an alignment as the game goes on. [/quote] Different races begin at different alignments. The Torians, for instance, start out pretty strongly "good." In my last game (as Torians) I took every "evil" choice to get good planets, and they were still on the "good" side when I researched Xeno Ethics. I think the "starting alignments" in DA are as follows (someone feel free to correct me if I got

The additions sound like fun, of course, but you always have to consider the "AI" situation. Any time you add in an element like this, you have to get the AI to "understand" and properly execute that aspect. That is, I am sure, no small task.

I have the same problem, pretty consistently once the game gets a few years in. I haven't tried the "zooming" idea, but will do so. The "workaround" that I discovered is less handy. I found that if I do a quicksave (even with the missing turn button) and then reload the game, it completes whatever cycle it was stuck on and the turn button magically reappears.

The OP is correct, from all I can see, and this has been discussed frequently in these forums. A few rare individuals have tried to make a case that good is in balance, but I'm far from convinced. The only real debate is whether evil or neutral is best. I have been playing "evil" in the TA betas, after playing mostly "good" in my metaverse games. I have been a bit surprised how much advantage is gained by the evil choices, now that I am taking them myself. The conventional wisdom is that playing

I'm not running the Star Trek mod, either. Though now that you mention it, it looks like it might be fun! :)

I had the same problem, and e-mailed tech support. They gave me a new registration number to type in, but said I might not be able to post past saved games. As a matter of fact, it *did* make the old games "postable" (is that a word?), for which I was very thankful. I, too, was frustrated with spending time on the game and then not being able to submit it to the metaverse. Next, before starting a new game, I followed the same proceedure that DethAdder mentioned above - started a game under a sec