That sounds like "how many freighters does it change to take a lightbulb?"

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Minors.. what minors.. I have them turned off... I duno if thats cheese... I think it could actually make the game harder.... LOL

If you trade with AIs, it is cheese in the early game. In the late game, they struggle to survive as everyont wants their worlds and they seem to not have the resources to do research.

I agree with JT, I think minor turning the minors off would make the game harder.

As for trading with the AI, I fail to see how that is cheese no matter when you trade with them. They certainly trade amongst themselves.

Of course they stuggle to survive at the end of the game they are minors after all. I find it in my interest to prop one of them up as a permanent trading ally just in case things get nasty with the majors. Sort of like the USA and Oz

I am wondering: with all this talk about cheese, why hasn't any RBers shown yet? After all, theirs rules are all about making things fair the AI i.e. avoid cheese

I normally define cheese or lack of cheese depending on why you're doing it.

If someone CTRL+N because they don't like their starting position and they would have more fun with a better starting position then fine. If someone CTRL+N to optomise starting positions purely so that they can win quicker or get a higher score and thus a higher ranking in the Metaverse, then that is cheese.

I have no issues with people using any cheese tactic, so long as they are not repeatedly using that tactic to enhance their metaverse standings.

Paul.

~SDC~

LOL

I start a protest sit in....

Protect the AI's they are an endangered Species...No cheese.. no cheese...

{Drengin} Wheres the cheese...

hang on... whats that Drengin doing... why has he got drool running down his face matting up his fur.... arghhhhhhhhhh.
gurgle.... help..... he's eating me......

Yes, it takes 8 freighters per planet. I usually pick a minor as my trading partner and then later switch off to the new minors who I can then trade my TGs for mucho bcs. The trade money they receive just keeps coming back to me via the trading of TGs. I protect their planets because it I receive both ends of my trade route (my gain and the minor's gain). Besides that, I know that any trade bcs are NOT going to my enemies (read as important).

I only say it is cheese because you can get 10 techs to 1 from a minor (in some cases), or at least substantially more than you get from trading with a standard AI.

I guess it's some of both. I only have so much time to devote to playing games. I don't usually want to play out a loosing position just to see how far I get. So when I get a start with 3 yellow stars in my starting sector, and it turns out that the Drath have the second one and one of the minors is in the third... CTRL N! By extention, I use CTRL U to determine if the game is one I want to play. I will take games that "challange" me to see if I can manage a win. Some of these turn out to be the most fun! I just don't want the "boy are you hosed" games unless I have a lot of time and I'm feeling good that day.

I've done several of the things mentioned here (such as ctrl-N). One other thing I'd do on tiny maps is save/load when colonizing planets to get a good/evil event. Not to get a specific event (e.g. a PQ one), just to get any one so I could define my morality. I thought of it as turning up the frequency of random events, so that if I wanted to play ultra-good or evil, I could actually get there. So I didn't really consider it cheese.

Of course, others might disagree.
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If we all agreed, we wouldn't need to post. We would know that everyone agreed with me. LOL

Hehe, LOL ... nice disguise Damoose!

LOL I thought you'd never notice. After the moose heads stopped working I had to think of something else.

That has got to be the strangest sight I have ever seen. An undead moose dressed in a Dregin suit snacking on some Qwerk from starfleet. LOL LOL

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

All this talk about cheese and snacking is making me hungry! LOL

On a serious note, I fail to see how trading techs is cheese when diplomacy is a major aspect of the game and diplomacy dramaticly affects how much you get in a trade. It seems too many people confuse great tactics with cheese. If the developers thought tech trading with minors or majors was cheese they would never have implemented it in GalCiv.

I feel that trading Techs for cash or techs is not cheese.

I consider buying your way into an alliance with an AI, minor cheese. But ... the game was designed that way and I will play it that way.

I feel that a player or AI should not be allowed to submit a bribe for that which he can not pay for. For example, the last turn of the game a player bribes two AIs for 100 BC for 99999 months. This is very stinky cheese. But ... the game was designed that way so ... play it that way.

Perhaps an Alliance win should be after they have achieved a stable alliance for sometime.

Everyone has their opinion about what is cheese (even if they are wrong)

The important thing is don't cheat because if you get caught most of us won't care if you get booted.

The most important thing is have fun!
If you like cheese use it and have fun. If you do not like cheese then stop worrying about someone else using cheese and ... have fun!

Pointless change, since the AI never breaks an alliance and a human wouldn't cost himself the win by breaking it unless he was going for the higher Military score. There's some strong potential for cheese right there, too.

~SDC~

One funny thing about alliance victory is that you can have an alliance win with all AIs when they are at war with each others.

I didn't know that.

Actually it is easier that way I think.

Truer words never spoken.

Oh my God! He's using a Drengin skin to eat people under false pretences!

(takes a deep breath)

CHEEEEEESE!

Well you just need to make all alliances in the same turn. So you will have the alliance victory before the next turn start. If you don't do that, you will be dragged into war.