Darwin Storm

Darwin Storm

Joined Member # 696206
21 Posts 31 Replies 4,887 Reputation

Some other good alternates, these are a bit more often the beaten path than some of the classics already listed, but excellent reads because of their originality. Neal Asher - Skinner (excellent, one of the better alien settings I have read), Gridlinked (this is the first of series), Cowl.These novels are excellent, good imaginitive backrounds, decent characters, and a good pace for action. Eric S Nylund - <

79 Replies 72,907 Views

First, if you are new to the series, drop the ai down a bit to make it easier. Secondly, early one most the races trade tech, so can you. Its a good way to keep up with the neibhor races. Later, people become more specialized and don't share, especially military tech, but early on sharing helps. You obviously want to pick up a few good planets to start, but don't forget to upgrade what you have. I usually buy a factory outright on a new planet, it really speeds up development. <b

2 Replies 3,023 Views

There are inbuilt relations depending on race. As a neutral race , you are less likely to experience problems. Also, they are fairly miltaristic, like the altarians and drengin. If you have a weak military, they frown on you, if you have a weak military and they don't like you because of race or alignment, they will often attack.

5 Replies 6,005 Views

Remember, the AI is designed to act similarly to humans. A good player would take advantage of a war on a weak side. Especially on tiny galaxy where each planet is precious. Each side really can't afford one of their opponets to pick up all your planets. The higher difficulty level requires a better defense to stave off aggression. There is a tech, if you arn't prone to military buildup, which makes your fleets in orbit look several times more powerful than they are. It wont save you in war, bu

7 Replies 9,763 Views

Sure, gameplay. It wouldn't be much fun to have a map with billions of tiny dots of light, most of which are useless. Further, you can't tell which has planets because they are far far smaller than stars. Also, wouldn't be much fun trying to find fleets of ships millions of times even smaller. Astronomical...... very big... not very practicle for fun gameplay.

25 Replies 16,364 Views

Be nice if each item under each tech was a hyperlink to a pop-up description of what each item received for each tech actually was.

7 Replies 7,224 Views

The altarians are very militaristic. If you are weak, thats a hit. They are very good, if you are not, thats a hit. Additioanlly, if you come from a non-good race, that is a hit. Add em up, and its attack time. I often have problems with them because I play the yor. However, if I shift my alignment to good, they often become much friendlier. Also, make sure you have some military going, otherwise they will subsume you for your own good! : )

4 Replies 7,013 Views

The ships you receive pre-built seem inconsisitant. They often do make the most of other technologies. Finally, they don't seem to have upgraded versions. I really wished that they would allow us to upgrade the base ships.... Honestly, its better to make your own.

4 Replies 3,123 Views

Also, one of the easiest and most rewarding ways to increase relations is trade. If there arn't other tensions, trade can make a big difference. Earn money and friends at the same time. The two games I won culturally relied heavily on a strong economy with lots of trade to keep eveyone placated. Of course, another nice touch is having the galactic achievment, forget what its called, that makes your ships in orbit look several times as strong as they really are.

11 Replies 12,518 Views

I really would like to see a tech tree with each item a hyperlink to a pop-up that told exactly what each item did. That way, you don't have to change the appearance, just link the names, and allows the player to look up what each item of the each tech does at their leisure.

23 Replies 12,987 Views

Frankly, I prefer A. The reason is if there is a choice between adding another campain, more goodies, expanded techs, etc and rounding out teh game more or adding multiplayer, I would prefer the former. Given that stardock still is going to be bound by limited time and budget, new better single player is a better choice.

44 Replies 45,946 Views

I have had several lock ups during a game where the screen freezes and the sound loops over a small sound, ie stutters. I am sometimes able to alt-tab, but the game stays up with the window control bar appearing below. I am not sure what is the cause of this. I recently updated both my motherboard and graphics card drivers as well as directx 9 to the most recent version. My system specs are as follows amd athalon 2800 9600 AtI Radeon with 128 meg rams nforce 2 motherboa

0 Replies 3,330 Views

PQ is different now. Before PQ below 15 was not good, below 10 was terrible. Now, 10 is homeworld class planets. There are better but they are rare. You can also build useful, though small colonies, on class 4 planets. I don't think there is a penalty associated with lower planet quality. The only difference is you are restricted in the number of build tiles for those small colony worlds.

17 Replies 11,476 Views

Your maximum pop for any world is their food production. If you make 5 mt of food, your cap at 5 billion. More farms, more food, more people. You can get the data off the colony manager screen as well as other places. I am not exactly sure on the economic distribution, but I don't thing credits get wasted on idle production. Not positive though. You can specialize planets tough. ie even if your economy is geared towards research, a production planet can "specialize" its economy to pr

8 Replies 10,007 Views

In much the same vein as gal civ 1, you need some sort of military as a detterance. If you have a great empire with not a single military ship, even your friends are thinking, " Hey bob, were are friends and all, but that class 20 planet you developed would be a great summer home. Time for you to move." You don''t need to be an agressor, but it is simply not good strategy to go undefended. That said, you can go certain routes to improve you defense at cost. Dont upgrade engines or

16 Replies 12,101 Views