Zydor

Reply to Gigantic maps are not playable in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Memory leaks happen, very annoying, but they always will from time to time. Eventually they get stopped, fair enough, but why do Stardock still delete the old save file before proceding with a save routine. Its insane because if something goes wrong in the save routine (eg no memory left) you lose the game completely. Of course there are ways round it, but why build in such a guaranteed problem ? At the start of a save, rename the last save to a temp name, if it works, great, delet

Reply to DA Memory Leak on Gigantic Map in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Whenever a memory leak or similar issue surfaces it has this deletion effect. GalCiv deletes the current save file before creating the new one. Net effect is that when it finds it cant complete a Save routine, you lose the lot. I have never understood why they do this, its not rocket science to rename the old save file to .... whatever ... before doing a save, if the save routine goes wrong at least you have the original. Rename it and move on. With memory leaks present, after the save

Reply to What would you pay good money for in an expansion? (The unofficial inquiry) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

At present GalCiv is a "Brute Force" game, gather a large population and massive Fleets, and essentially your done - unless the in game balancing of Mega Events catches you out. There is little tactical finese in deep space - the areas between sectors - and at times around star systems are pretty much window dressing and void of action. From a game development viewpoint these areas cry out for some kind of activity - Long Range deep penetration by small highly mobile and well armed

Reply to How do you guys deal with a superpower? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Its not offensive really, just ignorance of his own very shallow and very short national history extending only 240 years or so - and being founded and largely populated by those "crappy little countries". As for so called "cheese" - this is a game, its not the search for the Holy Grail. If it allows certain actions, do them and enjoy. If it doesnt, tough. Lets not continually try and build something profound and meaningfull out of a 4X game. Geez, get a life and enjoy it for what i

Reply to G4 Gives Dark Avatar a 5/5! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Ditch the Marketing Budget guys - just print "Dont believe parochial old us - watch this Link" Win - Win, their Site hits go through the roof for free, and with the old Marketing Budget you could roll out GalCiv III (hint,hint). Amazing video - and well deserved by the GalCiv Team - Nice One People Regards Zy

Reply to How copy protection creates pirates in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Much of the copy protection saga in many Companies is - fundamentally - caused by the internal Bonus system linked to inappropriate Revenue goals. Those goals are virtually always as a result of the targets a CEO is set by the Shareholders. The latter are in it purely for the money - so it all cascades down the line as each layer sets it goals for the next layer under them. That always produces short term greed, and driving down the numbers of pirated copies is always erroneously seen by the

Reply to UGO Gives Dark Avatar an A! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Its already clear that DA is a shoe-in for some Major Awards at the end of 2007, so start looking for a new Trophy cabinet guys These are awesome reviews that more than compensate up for the Huge, Huge, effort and innovation put into DA. The other Major TBS Titles really do now have to sit up and take notice of the culture behind the Stardock success and the close integration with its fan base.

Reply to IGN Gives Dark Avatar a 9/10 and an Editor's Choice Award! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

From IGN that was praise indeed, and with an exceptional score rating to match. All well deserved by the dev team, well done all - you should be justifiably proud of your efforts, we are That'll put some Major Titles on the spot, because if they dont release quality Expansion Packs as well - instead of the usual revenue targeted drivel - a very large number of Gamers will point to Stardo

Reply to Five Reasons Windows Vista is good for gaming! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

For every successful business there are Legions of people lined up to slay them, bad mouth them, and demonstrate the Company's obvious evil intent to rule the world - much as most commentators would like to .... but the Company got there first Windows V3, V3.1, win 2000, Win 95, Win 98, XP etc - all were deemed by the doomsayers as the end of mankind as we know it, as they demonstrated Microsoft

Reply to Antivirus in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I have always used Norton's since its earliest times on the PC. Works for me, never had any long standing issues with it, and its current incarnation of almost "fire and forget" when using it is excellent. Its par for the course these days to knock the top products almost because they are there, but whatever way you come at it, you cant knock Symantec's standing in the anti-v world. You can even download their individual virus fixes for free even if you are not a subscriber, and Corporates hav

Game Save File Eaten on Saving Game in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Whenever there is a game crash due to memory problems - the "save aborted, out of memory, try increasing vertual memory and save again" message - the current .sav file is eaten. (whichever .sav file was last saved before the memory problem, is eaten, beit autosav, quicksav, or a custom named game-sav file). Nearly always increasing vertual memory is not an option - especially if you have it set to the maximum vertual memory XP will recognise anyway. (I have 2Gb Ram and 4Gb vertual memory on t

Reply to engines are too big in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The game mechanics of ship movement and processing during the turn "cycle" in DA are fine, even on Gigantic, if anything I had the impression it was a bit faster. Such slow turn times are without doubt a consequence of having an older/slower cpu/graphics than is expectation for the developers - I suspect the former in this case as GalCiv graphics are not resource eaters as such, in that SLI is not a game pre-requisite and runs fine on "standard" video cards. A 2 min turn tim

Reply to engines are too big in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Now who didn't see this coming? They just cut the cheese, so to speak. Regretably many of us did. I still remain hopeful some rebalancing will occur before going gold. This is not about so called "cheese" - an over used phrase thats usually well wide of the mark, as in this case. I have a great respect for GalCiv2 and have hugely

Reply to The High Command Hegemony in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Please do not misread this as a negative view of the proposed Council, it is not, it is however a dose of realism. Apart from good intentions, agreeable exchange of views etc - the Council will not get past first Base in making changes / instigating improvements, unless it carries Brad along with them. It appears from a previous post he is not in favour of the Metaverse in the long term for future Game Titles, albeit the existing status quo would seem to be supported for GalCiv. The Co

Reply to Metaverse Server Down? in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Just to start and finish a game - you could use Cntrl-N to create and store up a few to play if you are going away off line anywhere, if you needed to. You just upload the endgame on return. Dont need to log in once you have started a game via the metaverse server Regards Zy

Reply to No AI Fleets in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The AI does seem to be slow in forming fleets - have also caught them with stacked ships, and noticed on many occasions with my scouts a dozen or more stacked on a tile, and remain like that for a long time. Now when I spot them like that, that Civilisation are history More often than not they form proper fleets, it does seem strange tho when that happens (using GalCiv 1.4X) Regards<br

Reply to Metaverse Server Down? in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Still down - just tried it - must be a real hassle going on

Reply to "We know what you're doing..." in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The developers originally put this in to prevent people from staging strikes against galactic resources (it was in a change log and thread discussion a long time ago), but it causes lots of false positives on the "we know what you are doing" message. If they did indeed do that, then it was an utterly pointless exercise, and would deter no-one abo

Reply to Speed Limit (mega?) event in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

No pun intended, implicitly or explicitly. I repeat once more - overcoming slow movement on the maps is not rocket science. This is not about "beating" the AI, even the most Dire Software Company realises that an unbeatable AI is stupid and sells zero games. Deduction, the AI can be beaten - big deal. The point I have made here - consistently - and in the Yor Super Ability thread - is that games exist for the enjoyment of the Player. If you lose that principle, and steer development

Reply to "We know what you're doing..." in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I have seen it at times when deploying to attack an AI. When I first noticed it, I made a point of doing something obviously silly in deployment etc to see if it picked it up, most times it did. I still dont understand the reason for it though. If I've been "spotted" deploying, so what? I'm still going ahead with the attack plan, its a software game not a rehersal for WW3. Now, if they had built in consequencies for being "spotted" on deployment, different ball game, could be fu

Reply to Gal Civ 2: GameSpy PC TBS of the Year in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Huge Kudos to the Stardock Team - GalCivII scores high on player involvement and enjoyment, thats why it succeeds. Lets hope Dark Avatar keeps going down that Path, if it does GalCiv will start tapping on the door of being an enduring Classic Game. Have a wonderful Christmas Stardock, you deserve every second after the great job in 2006 Regards Zy

Reply to Speed Limit (mega?) event in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, the large empty box inviting an "X" gives a subtle clue .... But thats not the issue. This goes to the heart of the Core principles on which the game is founded. AI programming is limited by the processing power available to most people, that situation will remain for a number of years. Until that balance is redrawn, the sheer impossible practicality of programming more than eight moves ahead - measured by any sensible non-parochial factors - for the AI will remain. T

Reply to Gal Civ II makes IGN's 10 Best PC Games List! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Wonderful news for the whole Dev Team, well deserved praise - particularly Brad for his AI work. Stardock !! Regards Zy

Reply to Speed Limit (mega?) event in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Not come across this one yet (4 parsec Mega event) - but I hope and prey that does not happen on a Gigantic map for an extended period of time - it would kill the game. As a generalised observation, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the whole movement strategy in the game. There are more and more speed restrictions appearing which on the face of it appear to slow things to a crawl. Wait and see how the final game turns out of course, but if the trend continues in this way,

Reply to Grammar nazis, do you really believe the map is the territory? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I believe the so called "grammar Nazi" is out of place on forums of this nature, and only serve to inflame and incite silly arguments. Its a gamers forum, not a PhD dissertation. The self seeking Nanny Brigade are becoming far too prevalent these days, and I for one want to get away from the freaks in my time off, not get pounded by self seeking comments, and picky silly comments that add nothing to the topic in hand. Attention to detail in writing and expression are without doubt very