Magnumaniac

Reply to DA 1.50X Race & ability picks in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Specialise in your races strong points to maximise their potential whenever possible. However, I wouldn't recommend using any additional points on trade abilities for the Korx - Economy & Pop growth would be top of the list. The Korx can be an economic giant and virtually buy the galaxy for cash. They get a nice PQ8 as their second planet in home system - use it, and spend a few turns ferrying 2-3 billion people from homeworld to it. That way you have 2 planets generating revenue early

Reply to DA 1.50X Race & ability picks in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Depends very much on your playing style - there is no universal top 3, or even top 1. Most races are well balanced and can excel if played correctly. For me, it has always been the Thalan - but I've played every race and won at suicidal. As for abilities, then maximum economy is probably the only truly universal "must have" - IMO only of course.

Reply to Lost Game Manual in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It's in your installation directory - or you could just click on the "Manual" button from the launch screen.

Reply to Q. GCII DA 1.50X.066 Is Diplomacy Dead? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I think that makes it pretty clear what the new game strategy is going forward. Cool, I never played Drath before.... I don't start the wars generally, the Drengin / Korath / Korx are pretty good at that themselves - but you don't need to be the Drath to do so, it's pretty easy for any race if you've got the cash, just pick the one with the strongest military to start it all off. If the whole galaxy is just getting along too nicely, then one li

Reply to Tech trade impossible? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Suicidal was made 'impossible' because the AI is not longer handcuffed by the cheesy diplomatic system that was a huge player cheat and allowed it to made the ai act against its interests. To the degree that the AI now acts in its interests, the AI was improved; a simple, but effective fix. There's the problem you see, the AI doesn't act in it's own interests (i.e. won't make peace with each other giving human player a free reign to do whatever they want

Reply to Tech trading after 1.5x. in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I'm sorry, is there proof that the AI is giving to each other freely? Any trades between AIs will be shown in the debug file, and in 1.5X there are a lot less of them.

Reply to What do these racial bonuses actually do? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

And as far as I can tell, it does nothing at all. Play for 50 or so turns with a race with Creativity, save your game, open the debug.err file in the application directory and search for "Creative" or "Creativity" (can't remember which is used for certain). This will show you exactly what it is doing.

Reply to Q. GCII DA 1.50X.066 Is Diplomacy Dead? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hence the question.. Is Diplomacy dead?? Mostly, yes - and I don't just mean from the player viewpoint. It is clear in the new patch that wars between AIs go on much longer, and often indefinitely because they are not able to negotiate a peace treaty - you always saw the same sort of behaviour, but to a lesser extent, in games with tech trading disabled. This makes the game much easier for the human player, when compared to pre-patch games with

Reply to DA Cheat Flag in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

If you started them in DA 1.5X, then they will be flagged as cheats - and from what I read into Kryo's responses there is nothing that can be done about those games.

Reply to What does population do? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

So you kind of contradicted yourself in the exact same sentence. No, what Iztoc is saying is correct. Maximum population & population growth are 2 different things. Even the 100 billion cap is not absolute for max population - if there is food in excess of that you can ferry in more pop, but no planet regardless of PQ will naturally grow beyond 100 billion. Not that any of this is particularly relevant since v1.2, as all the changes in

Reply to Pointless Buildings in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Not to mention the Food Distribution Center, or a couple of the 'Hyperion' buildings, or the nerfed manufacturing capital, or the fusion... need I go on?

Reply to Enemy ship stats? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Is there any way to get full detailed stats on enemy ships in orbit of planets? Not easily, but you can do it - make a note of the ship type and reference number, go to the diplomacy screen with that race, scroll down in their ship list until you find the one you want and right click on it.

Reply to The Galactic Diplomats in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

...quite a quick rise and fall eh? Not as quick as the Orcas just was...

Reply to DA Movement bug in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I guess you had them flying through Yor space...

Reply to Why the computer don´t uses engines? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I agree, limiting ships to 3 or 4 engines would have been better than the huge changes in size, and more importantly, cost of engines. Now a high speed scout costs more to build and maintain than a highly armed defender. No surprise that the AI doesn't want to add a warp drive at size 21 and cost 80, when it could add another 3 lasers instead. It also makes the starting speed picks and Gravity Accelerators very important.

Reply to Question: Can you ask a race to surrender? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yes - just ask them to give you all their remaining planets in exchange for peace. It can work if you are dominant enough.

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II v1.4 Change Log in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

It does seem as if some idiots in this thread don't remember their earlier complaints that there was no reason to build morale buildings because stock exchanges were too good, and that, post 1.31, stock exchanges were the essential building. OK - you, and various others here are missing the point entirely. v1.2 - my (and many other peopl

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II v1.4 Change Log in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I am beginning to wonder if I should even get Dark Avatar, most of the changes don't appeal to me. I'm afraid to say that I'm beginning to feel the same way. v1.31 removed a lot of the options for planetary development, and these latest changes remove even

Reply to Official Multiplayer Discussion Thread in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

If it is to be an expansion, please make it a seperate one with no additional single player content - so that those who couldn't care less about MP can ignore it completely.

Reply to The Galactic Diplomats in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Top man Kryo! That was fast - and is a very nice, easy to view snapshot of games played aswell. OK folks, time to think seriously how we can use this to liven up the community a bit. I've a couple of ideas that need a bit more thinking through - and then I'll post something over at The Core for feedback / comments / general derision. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/s

Reply to The Galactic Diplomats in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

The altmeta in GC1 was run more as a short term comparison between players & empires, rather than a long term cumulative representation of score. There were monthly competitions between players and empires that used the data from the altmeta, and in at least one case even inter-faction competition within an empire. This was certainly appealing to me, as a late-comer to GC1 who saw very little hope of ever reaching the dizzy heights of the real meta (although I did eventually reach 3rd p

Reply to News Icons are unreliable in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

In the last turn i got 4 or 5 green icons and nothing else but when i checked in the planet list I found 13 brand new ships and several planets that had just completed their build queue. None of that was mentioned anywhere. Seen this problem regularly with v1.31. Seems to happen after a turn where there are many news icons (which do scroll down a

Reply to The Galactic Diplomats in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Anyone remember the "Alternative Metaverse" we had going in GC1? I'm sure that arose from many of the same issues we are discussing here (which IMHO are exacerbated tenfold by the removal of the 30 day blocks), and gave a much more balanced view of people's efforts (i.e. Chip playing 10 * 30K games would be worth the same as me playing 1 * 300K). Anyone got the nous to implement something similar now? I'm not sure how it was done in the past, but I assume it took a feed from th

Reply to The first turn is the most important turn of the game! in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

My hat is off to you if you can out colonize the AI on suicidal in v1.31. I used to be able to (barely) out colonize suicidal AI in v1.2 but in my first v1.31 I basically got my a** kicked. I think with a lot of work and adjustments I can achieve parity with suicidal AI in v1.31 but out colonize them everytime, I don't think so. Agreed Mumble -

Reply to 70% population growth civilization ability in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I think folks are missing the point. Not at all Mumble - I fully understand your reasons and logic for taking it. I just think that using 6 points for an ability that will only be effective for a small part of the game is not the best use of those points, when the same effect (i.e. colonies profitable earlier) can be achieved with 3 poi