The White Council Invitation

from Stardock Forums
The intent of the White Council is to band together a community of gamers who are interested to Galciv regularly and to contribute to improving the game while being useful members of this forum.

The pre-requiste for a White Council member is basic commitment to the above purpose. There is no requirement for you to be as clinical a finisher as "I can win in my sleep" Staffa or have the workrate of Sergey the dark horse/black sheep. :)

You might ask as to why you should join the Council where you could be a regular contributor by yourself. The White Council is an opportunity for you to belong to a small community within the big Galciv one. You would also be assured of help or assistance from your fellow Council members as needed.

If you are keen to join the Council, follow this link and click Join http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/empires.asp?id=329
11,825 views 625 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
RayChua: Just a clarification. By regularly I usually play a game or two a week, but I can see times where I might skip a few weeks, though I'll always be present in the forums. Does that qualify?
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
You are more than welcome, PT.

Slitherin, if you mean skin colour - Most definitely not! There is no place for racists here. I'm Asian myself.

The White Council is a group of Wizards in the Lord of the Rings (Saruman, Gandalf) which I thought would be a cool name considering the LOTR easter eggs in Galciv.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
*Sigh* I can see the future. The White Council starts with good intentions... Yet it finds out about a cheesy game ploy known only to He Who is Not Spoken Of, and which leads to thousands of game points, and before you know it, it becomes the Council of Many Colours.

Popup Target, you can be the Radagast of the soon-to-be-renamed White Council.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Thank you, RayChua :)

Just submitted my first metaverse game (I played several before it), a pretty good score for normal :)

And don't worry, we've already stowed all the Palantiri away and researched anti-corruption nanobots ;)
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
If I'm not mistaken.... didn't Saruman get stripped of his color by Gandalf in the Two Towers book?
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Forceinfinity: Of-course he did (but in The Return of the King as I think), and it seems all too likely that AFTER The White Council becomes The Council Of Many Colours, that they too will have their colours stripped from them and get blown away. Oh, Gilthoniel A Elbereth! (:(
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Away from us, Wormtougue.

Wouldn't that be a good nick for you, Chris? :)
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
RayChua, it has a certain ring to it. But Wormtongue would never have uttered Elvish! I think perhaps Tom Bombadil would be better. Hmmm, yes....
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow...
Yep, just call me Tom B from now on.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
My letter to Admin RayChua:

Dear RayChua

I am requesting to join your empire on GalCiv.com.
I've only submitted once yet (which does not seem to be very relevant for the purpose of The White Council). I play my games slowly and not every day. Furthermore; I'll be a father in some days, so my time will be quite limited.
Nevertheless, I wish to join the council, because I follow the forum almost everyday and am very interested in the progress of the game, especially when it comes to diplomacy.
It could be a great job of the council to collect all kind of valuable suggestions of the last months and to prepare consistent and meaningful wishlists for the developers.
It wouldn't hurt me, if you decline my request for membership. I'm going to follow the board anyway and will speak up from time to time.

Sincerely,
Gezz
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Welcome to our new Council Members, Popup Target and Gezz.

Gezz, congratulations on your impending parenthood. I'm also a proud father of a 5-mth old daughter. I can tell from your post that you are going to be a committed Galciver. Submissions to Metaverse is encouraged as that is also part of the Galciv experience which we should support. However, I welcome Galcivers who play but do not want to submit for their own reasons.

Council members, we should be getting our new icon once our Wizard of Transmutation, J4 sends me his very cool icon. Gezz, you can be our Wizard of Lore, specialising in Galvic Diplomacy. :)
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Welcome to the Council, Sergey.

As I mentioned in my email to you just, I have no doubts as to your commitment to Galciv (I can't keep up with you! The silver medal is yours. :) ). But is there any reason why we not had the privilege of reading your posts in the forum? Hopefully, by joining the White Council, we would get to read about your Galciv exploits more.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Thank you RayChua for accepting my request.
It is strange, but I didn't get e-mail from you.
I think that main reason that I don't post into forum is that I don't feel that I'm ready to post something valuable and interesting.
I found something strange about scoring in 1.04. My last game with score more than 6000 was finished just two turns before Beyond Human victory. I have checked that if I continue and make science victory then score will be only 1800.

PS. Sorry for my pure English
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Your english is fine, Sergey. Really look forward to you posting more :)

Yes, Brad mentioned (and most of us do agree) that tech victories are quite easy in the bigger maps. So the scoring for tech victories have been reduced. Military victories gives the best score now in 1.04.
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
will send new logo tonight, tell me if you like it RayChua.

Thanks, Joe
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi RayChua,
Quick question, you won't kick me out cause I'm playing Evil will you? I'm playing gigantic and I wanted to try out evil all the way this time to see if Fundamentalists appear.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
Nah, White doesn't stand for Good in our case. Council Members are free to play according to their own styles.

How can we hope to contribute to improving the game if we are constrained to a single alignment?

If you noticed my games, I was pretty evil myself.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree that tech victory may be easy, but usually it takes more time than military, so "quick" tech victory should give score comparable with military achieved for the same time.

Also I have found that it is still worth to grow population in certain limits to make higher score, so the time penalty is not sufficient.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, there is also a school of thought with some Galcivers that scoring should be independent of the victory type and more weighted towards factors such as how fast the game is won.

There is still value in having a good population. Basically, the pop time penalty was put in to discourage blatant pop milking. I can't put a finger to it but I would guess the penalty only starts to hurt after 30 game years or so.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
RayChua, The soon-to-be-renamed White Council is doing pretty good in the rankings! Congrats. And if you are a fantasy reader maybe check out some of my favorite trilogies (not actually High Fantasy) Garth Nix: starts with 'Sabriel' and Cecilia Dart-Thornton starts with 'The Ill-Made Mute'. Cheers. :)
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks Chris. I was going like Tom Bombadil who??
Only found out about that character using Google. Seems like you are quite the Tolkien fan.

Trying to distract me from Galciv using fantasy books, eh, wouldn't fall for it.

Thanks though :) . Fantasy is my favourite genre. Haven't been reading much lately.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
RayChua: I'm sorry but my jaw just hit the ground. I was SURE that your connection with the White Council, and your earlier post about Ents etc meant you were a Tolkein fanatic. Your knowledge of Tolkein must come from the movies. Just goes to show you can never assume. I haven't read much lately either since I got Galciv; still BUYING the books but just not READING the books. Oh well, must finish my small map- I want to OWN the small map market. Just stay away from the small maps...please? ;)
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm sure that time penalty start hurts later. There are results from my game, I finished with military victory after I have researched all tech excluding final frontier:

year pop score
2197 2005 4058
2203 3537 4838
2212 6033 6048
2217 7330 6418