Chris, I mentioned in another thread "To bralex" that I don't consider myself a fan even though I've read the books and seen the movies. I must have missed the reference to Tom B in Book 1. Sorry to disappoint you. Now most surely, a Tolkien fanatic like yourself must feel some affinity for a LOTR empire. The link to join is right up there in the first post.

Sergey, very interesting stats. Seems like you are right. However, we must remember that you probably belong to the power gamer category. Stardock is perhaps catering to the rest of the players who could be taking up to 40 game years to complete their games. Personally, I finish mostly between 15-25 years.

Once I have tried to win as soon as possible. I managed to win in 2187 (tiny, crippling) and was very disappointed when got only 1800. I didn't submit this game.

One more comment about Masochistic difficulty. I found it is very boring because I should micromanage sliders very often and the final score is not worth those efforts. That is why I avoid Masochistic difficulty (I have only tried Masochistic with tiny rare planets.

Masochistic has been made so difficult (quite a gap from Crippling) that players really have to make every little thing count (or be cheesy). However, I see no quantum leap in points awarded.

Crippling is probably the most efficient if you are going for points - challenging but very rewarding point-wise.

Great conversing with you, keep on posting. Good if you could also share some of your favourite strategies with us

About my strategies.

Map sizes: tiny/small or large/huge. Once I have tried gigantic, but it seems that my PC is not well fir this 1-3 minutes per turn from mid game. Now my favorite became large.

Start:
party +20 economics
bonus
speed +1
research +20
PQ +5

Tight clusters, abundant planets.

Ctrl+N to get some isolated corner cluster.

First period:
Colonization: after few turns with military 75-80 to make first colony ships fast military 40-50, social 10-20, science 40-50 until end of colonization.
Sciense - communication, translator, diplomacy and rush diplomatic translator.

Second period:
Go for buttleships and if I'm lucky to by some tech from majors directly to dreadnought in the same time research or by tech to rush Galactic stock exchage, gravity accelerators and Tri-stroncium steel. I use two governors: one for good planets 19+ (initially) and another for the rest.

Third period:
Make a lot of battle transports on the planets with poor morale and grab strategic planets from 1-3 majors to achieve influence dominancy. Make peace and try to get the rest of planets with influence building SB.

Final period
After getting absolute dominancy (military and influence) rush into science to get The terraformer after this I colonize all 14 planets to get more population and possibly adjust allignment.

Then grow pop and researching all tech.

Any comments are very welcome

Oh RayChua, when Galciv allows multi-citizenship I will happily join The Many Col...I mean, The White Council. Until then, my mission is to stir up the other Empires, have fun playing, maybe help improve the game (although I'm not as clinically helpful as He Who Shall Not Be Named), AND GET TO NUMBER ONE (of the small maps hehe).

Sergey

Thanks for posting your strat - very thoughtful strategy; I can see why you win a lot!!

I don't want to clog your thread, but I just read the Bralex thread. Didn't realise The White Council is invite only...so thanks for the invite...most appreciated.

Sergey: I agree maso maps are too finicky to be fun. But perhaps just go easy on the 'small' map- the 'tiny' map is MUCH more fun. Good strategy!

Sergey,

The Trade Goods and Culture domination combination has worked to devastating effect in previous versions. It would seem that you are still able to employ it to great effect in 1.04 Crippling. I curious about your racial picks, though. Why do you favour +5PQ and +20 research?

Chris,

Go for Small maps rather than Tiny ones. There is a fellow who is going nuts over Tiny, 57 won so far.

Why trade goods:

Diplomatic translator to make more profit from early tech trade (in 1.04 you can get good profit)
Gravity accelerators - the extra speed always very useful
Tri-stroncium - in this case I don't build ships improvement.

So, I don't use trade goods for trading, but for there bonuses.

Culture domination after getting strategic planets from majors work very well for me.

Why +5PQ:

PQ with SE and HI (20%) With additional +5PQ
15 18 18
16 19 20
17 20 21
18 21 22
19 22 23
20 24 25

So, very soon you have +1 PQ for all usual planets (excluding only PQ 15)

Why +20 research:

Again, to make profit from tech trading.

With Galactic stock exchage and extensive tech trading I can have 100% spending for very long period.

Thanks for those insights, Sergey. Tech trading is indeed becoming the next uber strategy.

Personally, I had quite a bit of success with Federalists, +30 Econ and +60 Diplomacy in 1.04.

I have to agree with you that Maso is fast losing its appeal for me as well. The difficulty is making it more work than fun. I will perserve for a while longer and see.

I think Federalists, +30 Econ and +60 Diplomacy is a good choice for tiny/small maybe medium, but how without speed boost for larger sizes ?

You are clariyovant, Sergey. I am in fact right now struggling with Large because I am not speed boosted. I may have to go without either my Econ30 or Diplo60 or less of both and choose Speed+1.

I would like to request membership to this elite organization. I just hope we get fireworks from Gandalf!

Follow the instructions in my first post, jus4golf.

4 games in a single day, eh. Not bad

Yes, old Gandalf promised me that he will drop by one of these days and do one of his dragon specials for all of us.

Well maybe i'm too cynical but...







~SDC~

Don't worry, Ellestar, I'm sure 'poly will continue to dominate by sheer numbers

Oh, and thanks for the enlightening posts, Sergey

Well all is good. But... Then i posted my info about economy on Apolyton, noone even said a word. Say, Za H found some errors (well i got this info from Encyclopedia, maybe i trust too much to official sources of information), he keep it to himself, and told about that only afer a while. Well i know why noone responded - THEY WAS TOO BUSY GETTING 1ST ON METAVERSE.

And now i see that RayChua founded an empire and talking something about being useful blah blah blah, on the other hand he immediately got a Sergey Pakhomov - second score player to his 'contributors' team. Good contribution to an empire score, i agree with that.

So, don't tell me about score please.

~SDC~

I just have learn relationship between miltary and alliance victory.

At some point of my last game I could achive in one turn both of these victories. The results are:
alliance 3976
miltary 4968

So, it seems that in 1.04 the only choice to maximize score is military victory.


PS for Ellestar: RayChua immediately got a Sergey Pakhomov. This is wrong. It was my desire to join RayChua empire, because for a long time reading the forum I found that RayChua posts were very interesting and useful.

It's ok. I just don't like then someone (RayChua in this case) trying to talk about high principles to lure people into his empire, and then not following them.

P.S. If you think that it's a useful info (for GalCiv'ers or to improving game) how to get most score from metaverse... Perhaps you choose right empire.

~SDC~

Well milking a score is ok for G.R.O.S.S. because it's their main agenda - to be 1st, but it's looks *strange* for this kind of empire.

~SDC~

Just a comment on tech trading. That is a very profitable strategy now, to be the tech broker. But it does have its risks:

1. It requires the human to be willing to concede a technological edge. Some players are from the "I'll hold my tech to myself until the day I die" school, so it is not a strategy a lot of people will like because of that principle.

2. It requires a good knowledge of the map to know as many races, both major and minor, as possible. The more the merrier, and more profit.

3. Getting a +diplomay pick or making diplomacy techs and diplo translators is important here. The better the diplomacy, the better the deal.

4. Good relations and trade are a plus. The more the alien likes you, the better the deal. Sure, you can have a war or two along the way, but the more wars the human is involved in, the harder it becomes to get better deals. Unless your version of tech trading involves invasions to take tech and alien concessions at the peace table.

Overall, I have not played enough v1.04 to tell if tech trading is near the total cheese that trade goods were in 1.03. My early assessment is that it is profitable, but not overly unbalancing.

My impression is that it's finally in a sweet spot. It's not as profitable as it was back in 1.02, but it's not such an exercise in futility as it was in 1.03. I never was a trade good abuser, but I had to count on getting a few to keep up with the AI in research since they were so cheap about paying cash for techs in 1.03. Now, with TGs bumped down a little in their value, but techs bumped up some, it's a more balanced wheeling and dealing game.

Thanks RayChua and hi all,

and how fast things have developed in just two days..?!! Thanks for the title, hopefully I can stand up to it (which I suspect).
Thanks for your kind words as a father of a girl. We wished for the same, but well, a boy is also a child to be loved in the end
So, what do you think of my suggestion to collect, filter and merge suggestions for improvement? How to do it? A seperate site for the sake of pellucidity (not sure if this word explains it)? Or...?
Regards

I play crippling, and tech trading is still VERY profitable. In fact I couldn't win without it. I start with 20% diplomat, and rush buy Dip Translators (now 50%?!). Then search for those Alexians before someone extorts all their money.