Well it all kind of falls together. Getting the SCC requires a trip up the Diplomacy branch of the tech tree which is a benefit in and of itself when it comes to tech trading. Also tech trading can be used in multiple ways. Certainly one way is to get techs you haven't researched but it's more common use is to get cash from the AI's for mundane techs and in this context is probably more correctly referred to as "tech whoring". This is part of the answer to your going bankrupt problem.

But the SCC alone along with psionic beams and a little bit of miniaturization is all you need to put up 5 or so cargo hulls full of psionic beams and that's enough to ensure your "apparent" military superiority for a decent period of time. Certainly it also doesn't hurt if you trade for the AI's fighters prior to taking any kind of action. In fact in many cases you don't even really need the SCC, you can just trade for all the AI's armed ships leaving them with none and you with enough of an advantage to pretty much do what you want.

However in either case the AI's will respond and if you let it go too long then they will build enough ships to overcome your superiority and so there is an element of proper timing to this as well. You don't want to put up your SCC and the ships under it too soon before you really need to use that military advantage or you'll lose it and gain nothing for it.

Note that with a decent enough diplomatic advantage and having a few techs to trade that the AI values highly you can actually get the AI to trade you *planets* for a tech. Things like Expert miniaturization for example can usually be traded outright for an AI's planet *plus* some cash. You can also get a planet for enhanced and advanced miniaturization together. Using those three techs alone you can get 2 planets from each of the 9 AI opponents and suddenly you are well above the AI's planet count, however you do need the diplomatic advantage to swing the deal.

Also extreme colonization, heavy gravity and aquatic world colonization are usually worth a planet each plus some spare change. However the other extreme colonization techs (toxic, barren, radioactive) are worthless to the AI's.

Diplomacy is really pretty much "the dark side" of GalCiv2. There's a lot you can do with it but if you go too far down that path it's hard to go back and it can take out the fun that you used to have just slugging it out with the AI.

Spin Control Center.

I have rarely, very-very-very rarely, been able to trade for AI warships or planets at DA Suicidal.  Even when I sprinted down the Diplo tree, I could not seem to manage it.

I do tech whoring a lot at Suicidal.  However, I have found that the minor races run out of cash quickly unless I get Trade, Eco, and Banks onto their hands pretty early.  That means I have to research those and/or get them in trades with major AIs.

Obviously, you manage it, and likely others do, as well.  I have not.  At least, I have not done in it in DA.  Are you speaking of DL or DA, when you relate how you have done it?

Both, although the timeline is slower in DL than in DA.

One thing to do is to exclude races with inherent diplomacy abilities which are the Drath at 30%, the Terrans at 25% and the Krynn at 25%. It seems (to me anyway) that the Terrans have some kind of "extra" diplomatic ability even over and above the Super Diplomat Super Ability so I always exclude the Drath and the Terrans. Also you clearly don't want to include a race with the Super Diplomat Super Ability. Of course you can make life easier for yourself if you take the Super Diplomat Super Ability but I usually don't do that either.

I do in general want the Krynn in the mix and they are usually the most difficult in my games to manage however the point is that I usually have at least Expert Diplomacy if not Majesty prior to talking to the AI's (usually by Mar 8th but in general no later than April 1st) but I also need to have Diplomatic Translators. Also note that there's a one turn delay between completing a diplomatic tech or building a diplomatic wonder and the AI's actually realizing that your diplomatic advantage has increased. They actually seem to go by the timeline graph in your civilization manager.

Spin Control Center, the most important structure in the game, at least for me.  I'm so down the dark path of diplomacy, never to return.

Hey Craig, long time no see, how ya doing?

Hi Mumble, been busy, but have some free time lately.  Doin well.  Good to see ya!

You know, I have to say that the more I think about it, the more I think psionic beams are overpowered. Not just in comparison with 'normal' weapons, either, but compared to the Psionic Missile and the evil mass driver weapon (Psionic Shredder?), it's just far beyond either of them. If I intend to go evil, I will always focus on beam weapons regardless of what the AIs are using, and this is, in my view, a bad thing, as I like the rock-paper-scissors weapons system of GalCiv. In my current game as the Drengin I am fighting four AIs at once, and am winning most of the battles thanks to my ships with psionic beam, even against the Iconians  who are technologically far beyond anyone else (they have the missile after Photon Torpedoes is, highest logistics of any race, and large and possibly huge hulls).

I'm sure this issue has been discussed plenty of times before on the forums, but I still think that the psionic beam is one of the most unbalanced 'things' (i.e., super abilities, ethical features, unique techs, etc.) in the game.

How did this thread get on this topic anyway?

We were talking about cargo hulls in general and then cargo hull survey ships and then I mentioned I usually put a single psionic beam on my survey ships as well as use cargo hulls full of psionic beams in orbit about a planet with the SCC on it to essentially become immune from attack among other benefits.

Certainly psionic beams are overpowered for where they appear in the Tech tree however I don't believe it to be as "unbalanced" as you seem to, mainly because they are very expensive. And while they can in some sense "hold their own" against higher tech value weapons they can in fact be a sort of trap in that you can spend all your resources replacing psionic beam ships that are actually more expensive than your opponents ships with BHE's on them.

So while psionic beams can give you a decent advantage over the AI's that advantage is nowhere near permanent and psionic beams in and of themselves cannot win the game for you. At least that's my opinion.

Really?

V1.4 can't buy when in debt.  Is that your opinion too?

 

Yes it is.

And your point is?

[edit] Actually don't bother to answer here.

It's obvious that your post here has absolutely nothing to do with this specific thread or any kind of honest question about v1.4x so there's no need further pollute Obz3hL33t's thread with your sour grapes. If you have something to say why not strap on a pair of balls and create your own thread in which to say it.

Apologies to Obz3hL33t for this unnecessary interruption. [/edit]

Well then, your dumber than I thought.  That's the point.

Firstly, as if I care what you think.

Secondly, it's you're not your.

Thirdly, I know that you cannot upgrade ships nor can you buy buildings while bankrupt (bankruptcy being defined by being more than -500bc in debt) in DL v1.40x. You also cannot continue military or social production by using research focus while bankrupt in DL v1.40x. I actually can't vouch for whether or not you can buy ships either directly or via some backdoor method while bankrupt in DL v1.40x as I have never tried that.

If you can demonstrate otherwise please do so. Give us some screenshots that prove your omniscience.

Finally, note that the correct version number of the version in question as displayed in the Main Menu screen is v1.40x although games posted to the MV are listed as v1.4x. I know of no version of the game that ever existed that was simply v1.4.

Ah, then why reply?

ty for the grammatical correction.

We both know that is not true.  Omniscience is not a requirement.  Why expose yourself to another lie?

Because if I don't then I let your baseless accusations stand unchallenged. And while I really couldn't care less about what you think there are those here about whom I do care what they think and when someone, no matter of how little stature they may be, makes baseless accusations against me then I'm forced to respond.

You're the one that's lying.

As I said if you can prove my statement incorrect then do so. Otherwise all you're doing is blowing hot air.

Even if you could do so at best that would make my statement merely incorrect. For it to be a lie I would have to have known it to be different than I've said which is most definitely not the case.

To the best of my knowledge the first place I made any such claims is in reply #1 of the Fall of A GC2 Titan thread where I said the following.

"Finally with respect to the games that I played, I played DL v1.4x pretty much exclusively and in fact am the only person to have ever scored 1 million points in that version. The key point to that is that bankruptcy actually meant something in that version. If you are bankrupt in DL v1.4x you could not produce ships and buildings using focus from research. Nor could you simply buy buildings while bankrupt or continue to upgrade ships continuously while bankrupt. You can do all of these things in the newer versions of DL and DA and without such techniques could not score nearly as high."

Note that this is precisely the claim I made in reply #37 of this thread. which is the following things cannot be done in DL v1.40x.

1) You cannot buy buildings while bankrupt in DL v1.40x.

2) You cannot upgrade ships while bankrupt in DL v1.40x.

3) You cannot produce ships or buildings using research focus while bankrupt in DL v1.40x.

As far as being able to buy ships while bankrupt in DL v1.40x, I don't *think* that you can, at least not directly, however I don't believe I exhaustively checked all possible methods of buying ships which includes using the F1 planet list or by selecting the planet and using the little buy icon on the Main Menu.

However on your part there is no evidence that you have even ever *played* a single DL v1.40x game as there are none under any of the three characters listed in your Metaverse profile. Of course you probably have an alternate Username with which I'm not familiar but I can only check things about which I know.

Also what are your motivations for responding in this thread? Are you responding to someones question and providing someone information about a topic they brought up? No. You simply replied in this thread for the sole purpose of attacking me with some vague innuendo while offering no proof of your claim.

That is trolling and you are therefore a troll, so either put up some proof that I am knowingly lying or shut the fuck up.

It's rather funny how things progress.

In the real world you could not continue to produce anything if you had run out of money, either.

Yet, in this real world we are seeing it more and more. All it takes is to print some more money to spread around.

California is bankrupt, yet they keep going. The U.S. is in much the same boat, yet it keeps going. Other countries in the world the same.

 

I thought the old way was more realistic as well. But it seems the devs are going the way of the world, to allow infinite credit and ambiguity where none is due. No penalty for spending more than you make.

It's all a game now - both in the game world, and the real.

But where, and how, does it stop? In the end, there will not always be a rich Big Brother to bail you out. It is a house of cards, just waiting for a little puff of passing wind.

I'm running DL v1.53.  There are a lot of things I'm not allowed to do when my credit balance falls below zero, and I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to buy ships when it falls below -500, either.

In fact I'm in the worst position I've ever been in in my current game because I'm stuck in a corner with 3 species, 2 of which have superior diplomatic skill.  I'm falling further and further behind because I can't buy techs without the positive credit balance to cover the check, and without the ability to buy techs from one I can't trade with the others -- not that with a diplomacy penalty I'd get much for them anyway.

 

I'd give anything to bump into a minor or the Torians right about now. 

Again, you never have a credit balance - you either have cash on hand, or you have a negative cash balance.

In other words, you are bankrupt.

 

Different things happen at < 0 and < -500.  'Fratz seemed to refer to the -500 mark as "bankrupt". Is that the universally agreed-upon term for that situation?

There is some variation based on game revision (DL v1.5, DL v1.53) as well as version (DL, DA, TA).

Most of the time going below zero bc's does not do anything and this is indicated by your balance appearing in orange. Most things that are prohibited are prohibited at the -500bc level and at that level your balance is shown in red. The other colors used are yellow which indicates that your balance is above zero but you're losing money each turn so if you're not careful you will eventually go below zero and green that indicates both that your balance is above zero and that you're net income is zero or above indicating you are in no danger of going below zero.

Ideally everything would work the same which is that going below zero i.e. orange is a warning however you still can purchase something if you so choose but once red you can't purchase anything until at least back above the -500bc mark. However there are both bugs that make this not universally true as well as multiple ways to purchase things and some ways get blocked but others may not.

In fact in DA v1.80g which was a standard for quite some time there was a bug that allowed you to purchase ships no matter how negative your balance. At some point prior or at the current revision of DA v2.01 this bug got fixed but it got fixed at the wrong level and so now as soon as you go below zero you can no longer purchase ships.

The one functionality that seems universally correct is the ability to research tech. In every rev and version of the game that I know of you can research only as long as your balance is above -500bc but below that all research is shut off. However even in this case in all of the recent and even not so recent revisions of DL and DA you can get military or social production by using focus from research even though otherwise all research and production is shut down. I *think* but am not sure that TA has fixed this bug.

The other things like buying buildings is more a matter of there being multiple ways to buy buildings and some get turned off, like you can't buy buildings from the planet screen while more than -500bc in debt but you can do it from the F1 planet list as well as the colony list in the civilization manager.

Then there's things like upgrading ships that you can do in all possible methods even with your balance below -500bc which historically you were unable to do.

Clearly the intent was for everything to work as I described above in the second paragraph because that's the way the game worked in the days before DA was released. Once DA was released and DL was essentially reved to work as a subset of DA was when these bugs were introduced. So to answer your question I would say that anyone that's been around long enough to have seen the history and evolution of this functionality would acknowledge that bankrupt is a balance of -500bc's or less and that the intent of the game is to prohibit research, production and discretionary expenditures until no longer "bankrupt".

Also note that if you stay bankrupt for long periods of time this has a negative effect on your approval. It can take a few years but eventually this forces you to end the game otherwise you begin to lose population.

Thanks for a very detailed and comprehensive answer.