SirPleb

Reply to Why am I always behind in research? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Elestan" reply="8" id="2867133"] IMHO, there should be some hysteresis to the approval ratings, so that the population has a little longer memory of ill-treatment (and, on the other side, a little more forgiveness of temporary hardship). Having the turn of the election be the only one that matters exaggerates the people's manipulability to the point of parody. [/quote] I second that. It would make the game more realistic and more interesting, requiring more

Reply to Noob Haylp - Not Sure What I'm Doing in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Note that you can only upgrade ships to another design which is based on the same hull (cargo, tiny, small, medium, large, huge.) As you research further you'll find techs which allow for smaller and stronger components, making it possible to fit more stuff into a given hull size. You'll also discover miniaturization techs which allow a given hull to hold more stuff. Note that you don't absolutely need to put one or more engines into a hull. You have a base speed (varies by ra

Reply to Why am I always behind in research? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Elestan" reply="4" id="2863294"] Never add more than one farm, and be careful about putting farms on farm-boosting squares, as if the population max goes over 20B, it gets very hard to keep them happy.[/quote] What is the reason to keep people happy? In the game I'm playing out at the moment (going for score and nearing the end) I have an overall happiness of 26%. It doesn't seem to hurt anything. No planets are growing at this point but neither are there any negative co

Reply to Jon Shafer, Lead Designer of Civilization V, Joins Stardock in Elemental News Elemental Forums

I think that this hiring decision may well explain why Elemental was released in a condition which surprised almost everyone except some Stardock employees. I hugely applaud Brad for his post-release recognition that Stardock had blind spots pre-release and his acknowledgement that mistakes were made. Yet this hiring choice indicates to me that Brad has not yet figured out where things went wrong with Elemental. To me, Jon Shafer has demonstrated similar strengths and

Reply to Dave Stern Joins Stardock to Oversee Creative Storytelling in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="MRW1969" reply="3" id="2861335"]I have also seen a frightening rumor that you've hired Jon Shafer - formally of Fireaxis... If true - whatever you do - dont let him near Galactic Civilisations - he ruined Civilisation...dont let him ruin that as well... [/quote] I searched this and it is true. See http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/01/04/exclusive-civil

Reply to Dave Stern Joins Stardock to Oversee Creative Storytelling in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

This is welcome news! Adding more storytelling and lore implementation skills is bound to have a positive effect. Yet I think that the greatest weakness at the moment is not in this area. Adding a developer who is as passionate about quality and performance as Brad is about story telling and who can deliver in those areas would, I think, have a much greater effect. Brad is a better visionary and story teller than he is a programmer or a UI developer. He needs to add

Reply to My anomalies don't re-spawn (they do now) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Glideslope" reply="6" id="2856330"]It seems that for anomalies to re-spawn, you must set your likelihood of random events to something besides none. Although not definitive, with this set to none, I made it to the end of 2233 without re-spawnage and have been using this setting for quite some time now. As Sole Soul alluded to, the rate may be relative to your likelihood of random events setting. [/quote] Thanks for the update Glideslope! It is good to know

Reply to Why do you have to massacre the entire populace of enemy-controlled planets when you invade them? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Also note that Information Warfare can be used when invading to convert some of the defending population to your side.

Reply to Next Laptop in Personal Computing GalCiv2 Forums

I agree with everyone saying go SSD. I have a one year old 17" notebook with a 160G Intel SSD. I have Windows 7, 4G actual mem, and an 8G pagefile on the SSD. The SSD is showing 98% remaining life. Not a chance I'll use all of that at this rate and I'm a fairly heavy user. I also have a larger capacity 7200 rpm second drive, the drive which shipped with this notebook. I use it for large one-time stuff such as archives and movies. But all my intensive HD use is on the Intel S

Reply to Decommissioning in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Depends on your ethical alignment. If good some are retrained for newer ships and others are retired with a nice pension and full benefits. If neutral they are retired with your heartfelt thanks for their service and a minimal pension. If evil they are sent to the crusher along with their ships (generally known as retirement with extreme prejudice.)

Reply to My anomalies don't re-spawn (they do now) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

One more thought: Do you set anomalies to "abundant" at start of game? That's the only setting I ever use :)

Reply to My anomalies don't re-spawn (they do now) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I'm playing ToA 2.03 and can confirm that anomalies do respawn. I wonder if they won't respawn until some condition is met? Perhaps all existing anomalies must be explored (removed) before any new ones spawn? Do you have your survey ships on automatic? And, do they have sufficient range to reach all parts of the galaxy? I wonder if there's a time limit? Seems unlikely but I haven't played beyond 7 years in a game; they're still respawning at that time.

Reply to Elemental: War of Magic v1.1 Change Log in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

This upgrade shows why I bought the game pre-release. When I bought the game I didn't know if the first version was going to be fun. The September release was worse than I'd considered might happen and I haven't played it much. But I didn't worry. I believed that Stardock would make things right. Stardock is the only company whose games I will buy before seeing user (not reviewer!) feedback post-release. Stardock (particularly Brad) have shown the ability to acknowledge mistakes and t

Reply to Galaxy Setup - the Key to a Good Game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="11" id="2841821"]Of course. Why wouldn't it be? It's a setting allowed in Galaxy Creation. [/quote] Well that was silly of me! I thought I saw a message come up when I first played a Metaverse game and tried that setting saying that Metaverse games could not use a setting above normal for tech rate. And when I set it higher than normal, click Next, then click Back I know it does reset to normal. So that's the setting I've been using.

Reply to Galaxy Setup - the Key to a Good Game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Mumblefratz" reply="9" id="2840994"]Very Fast Technology Rate[/quote] Mumblefratz, is an accelerated technology rate possible/allowed in a Metaverse game? Assuming your settings are for such a game of course :)

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="33" id="2839965"]At this point, what interests me the most is what SirPleb's final score will be-and therefore how accurate my prediction will have been.[/quote] I'm making steady progress at about 5 turns per day so it will be some time before I finish the game. The slow rate is because: 1. Immense galaxy and a very large number of ships in transit toward the core each turn. 2. Since GalCiv2 doesn't continue running while in the background

Reply to Elemental is junk in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Wintersong" reply="27" id="2839600"] Quoting Annatar11, reply 26 I believe the auto-reply when sending in a support ticket tells you not to reply to it because it will push it to the end of the queue.Something like this: ***THIS IS AN AUTORESPONSE TO THE EMAIL YOU SENT TO sales@stardock.com.*** Thank you for emailing Stardock Customer Support. Your request has been received and you will receive a reply from our staff soo

Reply to It’s not the game’s problem, it’s a player problem in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I've stopped trying to play anything online. There are too many players with vile attitudes and manners. Too many people hide behind their handles to be nasty in ways they wouldn't dare in the real world. Such behaviour sucks the fun out of online play for me before I even find out whether a particular game might be fun.

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="24" id="2834548"]SirPleb, consider the possibility of passing 10 trillion population by, say...October 1st of Year Zero.[/quote] This does make me realize there must be a lot I don't know yet. I think I'll wait for my current game to finish before writing about it after all. That will be a while, turns are very slow.

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="24" id="2834548"]Just wanted to make a single point by itself. SirPleb, consider the possibility of passing 10 trillion population by, say...October 1st of Year Zero. [/quote] Holy Smoke! If I could do that I'm almost certain I could pass 2M score. Wow.

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="22" id="2834543"]Especially considering that, very generally speaking (that is, for the turns where research matters), techs cost more in TA than they do in DA, even for the same galaxy size, if a 700% tile would not have made or broken your game, then you probably don't have as good of a game as you think you do-but this much is probably obvious already from the fact that you didn't Swindle planets during Y0.[/quote] I'm certain I don't have nearly as go

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Since you are in the planning stages of a new game Mumblefratz, I'll try to post a writeup of my current game so far in the next day or two. It is possible that some of my approach may be of interest even to the veterans here. Population growth rates are of great importance to my game. To give a quick preview of what I mean, my population passed the 10 trillion mark on June 1 of year 1. Edit: And it reached that level without any fertility clinics and without any morale boosti

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Mumblefratz" reply="16" id="2834464"]Actually to get the kind of research needed to do everything as soon as possible a +700% research tile is pretty much required.[/quote] Wow, that's likely to be a lot of ctrl-n time. I'm guessing now that I've taken a somewhat new approach to things. A +700% tile would have helped me but would not have been a major game changer. [quote who="Mumblefratz" reply="16" id="2834464"]it's certainly not out of the question to recontact mos

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks for all that information Sole Soul! [quote who="Sole Soul" reply="13" id="2834430"]SirPleb, since the ZYW fad took over, and perhaps prior, it has been customary to refer to the first game year as Y0. That is, if your score for Dec 22 Y0 was ~600k, you stand a decent chance of cracking 2M. However, if it was, as you said, Dec 22 Y1, then you quite simply don't. Semantics, I know, but clarity of communication is vital.[/quote] Absolutely vital! I am using

Reply to Base Growth per race in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Mumblefratz" reply="12" id="2834207"]The Dread Lords AI however was a much different situation since you could actually easily gain 160K BC's *per turn* from them and that really is a major game changer. Even hybrid strategies that used only 1 or 2 DL AI's could fund 20K or 40K extra cash *per turn* which still totally undermines the economics of the game.[/quote] That sure is a game changer. I'd consider even just a onetime chance to grab an extra 10K BC's at turn 8 (first c