Jeff Graw

Reply to Would people want Mega events? in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I like that last one!

Reply to Manual update: Super Abilties in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

While those sound kind of cool, some of them do seem super unbalanced, Super Hive sounds really powerfull. Is it the overall or the planetary approval rating that needs to be at %100 for Super Breeder?

Reply to At least.. we need .... Hot Seat mode! in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Although it sounds like you have no software development experience, you do have the right idea. When you have your base design you make it in a way that allows change in certain directions so it will be easier later. The trade off is that flexible design usually means more initial development time. I'm fairly certain this has been said many times, but the market for multi

Reply to At least.. we need .... Hot Seat mode! in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

we'd have to make several changes to the interface in order to handle true hotseat mode including changes to the main menu, options screen, setup screens, diplomacy screens, end game screens, etc. We'd have to re-write the turn handling code. We'd have to re-write the ship moving code. We've have to re-write the message handling code. There would be several hundred (if

Reply to Dark Avatar beta eve.. in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I haven't had a chance (although I'm going to, asap) to play the beta yet, so I've just been going on what I've heard on the forums. Something you said seemed to imply to me that dealing with enemy spies was a tedius process, but It seems I misunderstood you. I still don't see why you need to add multipliers onto the planet screen though; seems like it'll just breed more micro-management and clutter. It’s not as if those buildings are a game play necessity.

Reply to Would people want Mega events? in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I would love to see a mega event that gave a race some super advanced weapons tech not available on the tech tree, along with a new genocidal leader. Or how about this: A militant faction of one of the races has seized power and unveiled a new battle station with enough power to destroy a planet. Or how about this, the mother of all mega events: A portal to another dimension has been opened, one which has been conquered by an evil version, perhaps improved (genetically modified

Reply to Dark Avatar beta eve.. in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Then will have to increase the duration of a turn from 1 week to 1 month (as many have asked) so that you will have more time for all that micro-management. Yuck. At first, I tried to eliminate every agent placed

Reply to Gamasutra interviews Brad Wardell in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

It was so awful I can't remember the full name Birth of The Federation.

Reply to master of magic 2 in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I don't remember exactly why, but something about MoO2 made me forgive the increased end-game bogging. I found a lot of cool ideas in MoO 2, but nothing that was able to undo the damages done by the bloated planetary management screen, which was, IMHO, the root cause of the bloating.

Reply to master of magic 2 in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

If huge armies were to be graphically represented (and possibly in 3D) during every battle, don't you think this would make the game slow, bogged down etc? This is easily fixed by giving the user the choice to skip tactical combat.

Reply to Gamasutra interviews Brad Wardell in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

GS: As a developer, what do you think about the XNA? BW: Oh, I love it. I'm not a real game developer; I'm a gamer who learned how to program so that I could make the games that I wanted to play. I figure the more they open it up for more people to make games, the better off we all are. Wow, Brad's a very humble guy.

Reply to master of magic 2 in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

But balancing the game out would make it bland and dull in the long run. Maybe, but that's not a given. Take Starcraft; perfect balancing, three interesting and unique factions. I think that late game bogs applies

Reply to New moral desisions would be nice in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

If we want to get technical, you can have survivors if you choose information warfare.

Reply to master of magic 2 in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Sid Meir's Civilization spawned a huge array of competitors in addition to its own big-name series. MoM was every bit as fine a game in its day as Civ, IMO. I've yet to see a 4X game that had as nice an RPG component as the different wizards and magic schools in MoM. This may sound like heresy to a lot of you, but I would say that MoO, MoM, Galci

Reply to Official Tactical Combat Discussion Thread in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

If you type your email into a forum, be sure to use to do it so that it can't be recognized by spam-bots. For example, mine: hurleybird -at- gmail -dot- com.

Reply to Three things the game needs! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

It doesn't matter if you beleive him or not. Giving him the benefit of the doubt is the humane thing to do.

Reply to Invading starbases in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Hey, here's a solution to the "too weak starbases, even after upgrading them with combat modules" problem. For each new module that you build, increase the starbase's HP by 1. Problem solved.

Reply to Official Tactical Combat Discussion Thread in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Hey Uhlek! I actually first played Starflight (on a Genesis emulator) sometime around 2003, and I thought it was awesome. Then I discovered that there were also DOS, Mac, and Amiga version of the game, as well as a sequel, Starflight 2. I quickly downloaded SF2 for DOS, and at the time could only get it working on an old 486 color laptop (I had yet to discover DOSbox). Playing SF2 on that old laptop was the most engrossing gaming experience I ever had. While the story wasn't as good as

Reply to Galaxy Level Fleet Management Screen in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I believe the current upgrade system is either one ship or all ships of that particular class are targeted for the upgrade. Sometimes due to money or other activities, upgrading all ships in that class is not the best option. I can't agree more. Why oh why can't I upgrade ships at a starport instead?!

Reply to Impact of economics on decision to go to war in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Don't forget that how smart the AI behaves will depend a lot on your CPU power.

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire Pre-Ordering begins in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Unless there's been some change in the policy of either Paypal or Stardock, you should be able to order without a credit card via Paypal. But you need to have money in your Paypal account though. Thanks, I'll try that.

Reply to Rebalancing costs for Dark Avatar in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

That's actually a great idea.

Reply to Stardock Please Revive MoO! in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

Now I'm much more confident I don't have a good context to follow Jeff's arguments. Not only I do I basically miss the MoM as MoO1 to MoO2 edification thing, It's pretty simple. Look at the diplomacy, graphical style, and menus in MoM... a lot of that stuff is like MoO 1, and diplomacy is pretty much copy and pasted from MoO 1. Then look at heroe

Reply to Stardock Please Revive MoO! in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, that is more complicated, but that's not the 'combat' part, is it? Anyway, I get what you mean now.

Reply to Stardock Please Revive MoO! in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

The avatar comes from Tyrian, my favorite top down shooter. Knowing more about other games might help me and other readers here reassess our take on the larger database-in-space genre. Jeff, can you recommend any web articles (reviews, etc.) that are related? I can't really think of any articles off the top of my head. The