xpyre

I personally don't think the races are at all balanced... Just try playing the Altarim, then as the Yor on a tiny map with 9 opponents and try telling me the Altarim are ok. The Drath and the Yor are strongest in several ways. Both get Ion drive which is a huge bonus during planet grab. Both get bonuses that you just can't get any other way (miniturization for the Yor and defence for the Drath). The AI plays the Drath dreadfully. It plays them as if their defence is th

Agree with both posts above, at first I was trying to figure out which techs led to "Battleship", "Dreadnaught", "Avatar", "Overlord" etc. These are all standard ships which if you DO research the right techs will pop into the list of available ships. Having said that completely forget them. In this game you NEED to design your own ships. The predefined list are rubbish and that means designing your own colony ships, constructors, transports, sensor ships, survey ships as well as warships. <b

Mistoffeles The Yor message is easy to explain. The surrender is triggered when their position is deemed useless. You are the human player and are flagged as "At War", there fore you get the message. It doesn't matter that all the damage is being done by a third party... nor whether they started the war with you. In essence all the message is saying in game terms is "one of the civs you are at war with is surrendering... and in this case (based randomly) it is not to you".

If I was a developer I'd despair at posts like this. Please separate bugs from game mechanics. You may not like the game's rules but these are not bugs. That you don't want sliders for spliting production is not a bug it is meant to be exactly like that. The save game problems you've had could be bugs. You've probably got old video drivers (most save game issues seem to be related to that). By your own admission you've not even played a single game yet you want to come on here and

I enjoy playing all 3 alignments. I've probably played 5 games as Good, 10 as Evil and 20 as Neutral. If the game is about role play then I think you should stick with the one that suits what you're race is about. However if you are min-maxing for me (based on suicidal/no tech trading/conquest only/random map sizes) there is only one winner. My observations are: Evil On tiny maps there is a tendency for quick conquest, in which case Evil bonuses are better tha

Morghenes I've found the same. It needs to be tweaked so that they attack before you get to just roll them over as before. At the point where I've got the biggest econ & military I would expect a warning followed quickly by a mass attack from all races not of exactly the same alignment. However if they start winning to the point where someone else is the leader it needs to redress itself.

Random name. I agree that you need to be able to carry on with the game without micro management. However the whole game is about choices. So there needs to be a simple way of selecting one strategy above another. Maybe have government policies e.g. racial harmony, racial tolerance, racial segregation, racial subjugation, racial slavery which affect behaviour rather than micro management. Also you could have buildings which post racial incentives on a planet to draw a particu

Star Dagger. It is the main reason the civs with ion drive Yor, Drath etc are so overpowered. They immediately start with a speed bonus and if you research up to impulse it is so big an advantage in the planet grab it is not funny.

I agree that there is very little to disrupt your position if you get ahead. Along with more outrageous random events, there needs to be a everyone likes you less when you are in front. You could call it the USA syndrome or something. It should mean that pirates/terrorists target you, diplomacy is harder, nations start to act together against your interests, no civ surrenders to you. This actually would improve the earlier parts too to stop you being steamrollered by a runaway civ, as everyon

Maybe it is just a dumb idea.

Mismatched Purely a suggestion, but any strategy which moves production away from 100% does not seem ideal to me. I use that as a sign I've probably over spent/under invested. (Rush buying ships is so expensive in comparison to rush buying factories). I set the production slider to 100% on turn one and it stays there the whole game. If I'm only trying to get to 2 or 3 planets (which is all you can rush build without meltdown) you may have a point but unless you've got everything se

Defences are very expensive. Are they too expensive? Well hey are certainly too expensive to just put them on every ship as a matter of course and I think we can all agree that we can win by ignoring them. The question is, “is this ALWAYS the best strategy?” Having played with and without defences a lot now (mosty recently in 1.2 - which doesn't seem to have altered the balance as much as predicted). I feel I can impart some of my experience on the subject. It is only based on

Fools seldom differ eh weepy? I guess mine is slightly more pragmatic in that it is "people tweaking" rather than the "AI learning" ... otherwise it looks like the same idea to me.

I think it would be cool if population was held for each planet on a race by race basis separate from the ruling race. E.g. Earth administored by the Terrans may have 900M Terrans, 100M Altarians, 10M Torians, 1M Yor. As invasions take place the balance obviously changes. Eg After the Arceans take over maybe the above would be 500M Arceans, 100M Terrans, 10M Altarians, 10M Torians, 2M Yor. Each species would thrive on different types of worlds, these may be hidden fro

Thanks

Tiger8 Just like to add my support to all the ideas in your post.

Franco Fx- Don't stop at xeno Econ, keep going all the way to Galactic Stock Exchanges. GalacticNoob- IMHO Xeno ethics and going Neutral is not that helpful to your ECONOMY in the EARLY game. (Although it is hugely beneficial in winning!) If we are considering the later part of the game 2 years + into the game, then you could also consider farms + morale techs + morale trade goods. I nearly always am able to run my economy on 80%tax, 90+% approval with lots of 20M+ po

Kosty, that must be the dumbest suggestion I've ever heard. As I said it is a random selection. I only have to press Ctl-N to get another set of opponents. Once the opponents are set then no amou

Mascrinthus - what does it matter? Sorry I know it changes the calculations a lot. But in the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem that important - certainly not to bump the same unanswered thread 4 times. It works that way- get used to it

If I'm equally advanced in the weapons techs (can only happen if I've captured a tech as I stick to researching on one branch usually) I use a mixture as it is harder to defend against. Otherwise it is just the biggest bang per buck. This is usually guns as the cost of weapons on that branch is lower than the others. The formula for defence is based on the full value of the specific defence + Square root of the other two. (E.g. If you have 1 point in each then the defence is 3 agains

I like lots of your ideas in the OP. One thing that I think would be cool is to not have population as an amophous blob but as a race by race basis. E.g. Earth may have 900M Terrans, 10M Altarians, 1M Torians, 220K Yor. As invasions take place the balance obviously changes. Eg After the Arceans take over maybe the above would be 500M Arceans, 10M Terrans, 1M Altarians, 1M Torians, 200K Yor. Each species would thrive on different types of worlds, e.g. Mars may be ideal fo

Similar but totally different. The Arceans have been attacking me with transports with 0 troups... Amazingly they still kill some of my population... Guess it is just from fear!

Spot on gmjapan. But one of the problems is you need to have a crystal ball in whether 500 or 1 is the right number to put on a colony ship. If the planet has manufacturing and research bonuses (making it more useful for those purposes) then 1 is the best number early on. If it is going to be an econ planet then 500 is the best number. I head for small/medium PQs with small colonies (and use them for manufacturing/research) and the big PQ planets with big colonies and use them for e

Not tried the mods bit yet... Setting a rally point is an icon on the bottom left of the map on the top of the framework. IIRC it is a sort of down arrow. It is kinda hidden as it is sort of an icon in relief on the framework rather than a big button.

puntarenas: Have you looked at the options in the interface section on 1.12. There is a tick box that affects behaviour, I don't know if ticking it or unticking it gives you the way you would like it to work, but it may be worth a try.