Oh yea, it sure it is! It even has the super-creative name of icon.jpg! LOL... You sure you don't want to use the bottom view of that dusty ole boot instead?

I'm not positive, but I believe it sets it to icon.jpg regardless of what the actual file name is.

Your avatar, for instance, links to icon.jpg as well.
In any case, I forgot to thank you for finding something so fitting.    But I think I'm happy with what I have, for now.

Yes, all of ours link to icon.jpg. His IS actually a copy of the "no avatar" image. Maybe he hasn't used a shoe for his avatar b/c "Sole Soul" is actually Ex-President Bush ! No... Bush would be unable to spell "believe"!

Space Monsters, These would make an interesting additions to the game, rather than anomolies space monsters would appear on the map and would do all sorts of effects. These are the types encountered,

Space Ameobas (like the ones from Star Trek), if one goes near a planet it would attack the planet and turn it into a Toxic World.

Energy Monsters (giant living balls of energy) would have effects on star ships, Blue Energy Monsters when in contact with a ship, disable the ship's sensor, life support and engine componets. Red Energy Monsters can disable weapon and defense componets and make them usless, also they could drain the ship's HP. Black Energy Monsters (although rare) would have the ablilities as both the Red and Blue Energ Monsters.

Space Worms, these large beast (which resemble a cross between an Earth Worm and a Manta Ray) eat asteroids, anomolies , so when they are only a few parasecs away an asteroid field or anomoly they devour it within a turn (if it's an asteroid field). They are completely harmless at least if yor ships aren't in sight.

Grazers, giants space squids that live in heards and attack anything that they find a threat. Herds would consist of females that are about as big as you average Light Cruiser and one male that's the size of a Battlecruiser.

Well that's it, comments, opinions, ideas?

Seems like that would be difficult to code. However, I do want to see the space sharks from GC1 come back. There's nothing quite like the thrill I got from releasing a worm from its anomaly right in the middle of enemy territory and scooting back to watch the carnage!

Hmm, that gives me an idea.

Space Lamprays, these leech like creatures the size of humpback whales, would come swarms that would hide in Asteroid Fields inside an asteroid and when an unsuspecting Space Worm attempts to eat the asteroid, the swarm burst out and (like a group of pirhanas) would attack the Space Worm and eat it whole within minutes, after that the Lamprays are gone and all that is left of the Worm is a skeleton, picked clean. To tell if an asteroid field is infested, look for an Asteroid with thousands of holes.

Interesting thought. Maybe have any space shark that attacks a spore ship die instantly: that green stuff in the ball CANNOT be healthy! Also, have a small module you can add to your ships called a Space Shark Repel Unit: Space Sharks will not attack any ship that either has the module or is in a fleet with a ship that has it. Maybe also have upgrades that increase the range of said module to 2, 3, or even 4 squares that a shark cannot enter. Hvae the same thing for starbases.

I was trying to remember the names of those things, I loved seeing a super powerful space shark pop out of nowhere.

You could also have a Space Shark Scent Unit module: it would make the Space Shark chase you around (like catnip to a cat), you could then lead it into enemy territory, destroy your own ship, and let it go wild on the enemy.

Haha, lol.. I can see the direction this is headed in. How about a Space Sasquatch (Yeti), it leaves Subspace Footprints, they have very rarely ever been seen (except for some badly photographed recordings, which many think are fake). If you find one, who knows what will happen?

Hey don't make fun of my idea.

Opss, double post.

Actually, a better way to do this is to have the module make the shark follow one square behind you w/o attacking. You could turn the module off to get it to leave, but even when off it would protect you from attack. Maybe have a "hunter ship" module that you can put on a ship and use to tame the sharks. Engage a shark in battle, and instead of using your weapons, the module would shoot a little tranciever into the monster's brain, allowing you to control it. High up the tech tree, of course.

Actually a Hunter Ship would be a special class of starship with special anti-space monster weapons.

That's a good idea. The hunter class would have an innate advantage over Sharks. I will rename the module the Controller Module.

Wow!!!

Our Nazi friend SS (Sole Soul) (LOL) has alot of Karma!!!

I wouldn't have expected a Nazi to have so much Karma!!!

(Just joking mate)

Maybe they should put some type of Nazi party into GalCiv3!!!

LOL!!! Sole Soul (who from now on I'll call SS) wouldn't hear the end of that one from me!!! LOL!!!

I'm pretty sure a majority of us call him SS...

...I know I do 'cause I can't remember if it's Sole Soul or Soul Sole whenever I'm replying to something.

That's a lot of different types. I thought the point of having ship design is to have some real freedom in building your fleet. If one type of ship counters another, what do the Hp/damage/etc stats matter? You may as well just have regular Civilization-style units, where you research tech and you get a unit that has stats X, Y and Z.

That's patently ludicous. There are any number of TBS games with functional combat systems; if you feel that GC2's combat system doesn't work, they could look into any of those.

I'm not so sure it would have worked "astonishly well" with better AI. Towards the late-game, changing your entire army's attack/defenses requires a massive quantity of money. During that time, your attack is stalled or your defenses are ineffective. Sure, if you could do it, it would work, but if you could do it, you probably had the economic advantage anyway and are going to win a priori.

It just makes an already existing economic advantage even more advantageous.

No; they never said that. It would be using the same engine, but that doesn't mean anything about its gameplay.

You can mod CivIV into something not entirely unlike GC2. That doesn't mean that CivIV plays a lot like GC2.

That idea seems in need of some form of regression. It's the beginnings of a good idea, but I don't think it will work in this form. TBS games work best when they abstract concepts down to simple forms that create complexity through their interactions. There's some significant simplification that this idea could use, to distill it down to its essential features.

I always just call him (or her, I doubt that any of us actually know!) "Sole". As for the Nazi thing, the Waffen SS were a fairly small component of Hitler's overall military and dictatorial machinery. Still, you do have a point...

Oh, and Alfonse, it stands to reason that two games with the same engine will play in the same manner. As you yorself said using an analogy with Civ 3, you can change the techs, units, improvements, and other "moddables" to something sifferent, and it will not change the play style. That is dictated by game engine.

Also, I have another one of my "culture metrics" worked out.

Libertarian vs. Authoritarian: You can be libertarian by being Good or Capitalist, having a Star Democracy or Federation system of govenment, pursuing an alliance or technology victory, and through the usual ethical choices, improvements, and techs. Libertarians get morale, research,  and creativity boosts, get more money from trade routes, and have a higher pop growth. They lose loyalty, courage, and production, however. Authoritarianism is acquired by being Evil, having an Imperial or Republic system of government, pursuing a military or cultural path to victory, and the series of choices, techs, and imps that I will cease to mention because they are included in all metrics. Authoritarians get more culture, loyalty, courage, production, and soldiering, but lose research, creativity, and trade.

UPDATE: This just hit me after I got my third "blood trade" ethical choice while playing as the Yor. In the XML, add a field that defines what races the event can apply to. This will prevent such... inconsistencies with a minimum of alteration.

+1

Nice

With regards to governments: I nwant there to be more of them, I want them to be moddable, and I want there to be requirements, possibly based on civ metrics. i.e. you could not choose a Theocracy if your race is Scientific, or an Empire if you are Libertarian.

Has this thread gotten the attention of the Stardock people yet?

I don't see the Korx making an ethical choice out of corporate corruption, either. It also might be nice if Stardock put their ship part models in some format OTHER than those accursed "x" files. (I wonder... did whoever came up with that format do so before or after the TV show... )

It would have worked astonishly well to the AI's advantage... the MASSIVE problem is that the AI has absolutely no clue how to change what it needs to research, and also is absolutely terrible at changing what types of ships it should build.

And what you are forgetting is that it is cheap to research all defensive tech trees, the real research multiply factor is (only?) for the offensive tech trees.

Take for instance on Suicidal, the AI has SO much research ability, it could shoot halfway down one of the defensive trees in an extrememly short period of time to counter what the player has going at it. And if the AI would then actually make a ship using that equip, it would actually make the AI seem extremely well managed, and make it seem to know what's going on.

The AI would seem coherent, other than the seemingly incoherent blobs they are now (battle-wise at least).

Granted, the word 'astonishly' is a bit overboard, as I would prefer to have the 20+ different classes of starships along with the ability to add 3 weapon / 3 defense types to each, as well as No-Class for an overwhelming difficult tactical combat scenario...  but any improvement is welcomed with open-arms.

Okay.

Defenses have always been cheap.

While they're still cheap in TA, the extra ~50% factor that's applied to "military" techs is applied to defenses as well, and hence they in fact cost more in TA than they do in DA.

Secondly, weapons are ridiculously cheap in TA as compared to DA, even after applying the cost increase modifier to them.

I for one enjoyed it more when weapons were more costly.

I would have to say they read most all these threads on a regular basis. They probably don't reply here, since it's usually hush-hush on upcoming games until they decide to release an official statement.

If they haven't read any of this, they are probably waiting to finish Elemental, in which they will print out a huge stack of all 1200 replies (by then)... and read them 1 by 1 while sitting around Frogboy's Round Table.

Even so, though, on top difficulty, when my research slider is set to 75%, I do about 7% of the total research in the galaxy (just regular planet building). By end game, I can research down almost all the way to the end of a defensive tech tree in 1 turn. It would probably take the more powerful AI's less than 10 turns to reach near the end in Mid Game.

So if they actually were able to change their research priorities and actually built spacecraft accordingly, to defend against the player and other civ's, the combat system wouldn't be so bad. My current game, Torians were 2nd most powerful military, and I am 7th most powerful, and I destroyed every one of their ships, without a single loss...(EDIT: well maybe a few) it's somewhat (what's the word) strange.

Since I have the feeling combat will remain 'somewhat similar' to the way it is now (no Drastic Changes), hopefully they get this right in GC3.

WHAT happened to the Space Monkeys, and Galactic Worm Kangaroo's conversation.. That was one of the best and most hilarious things I've read to date! Hopefully they add some of that in!