Just an idea to throw into the melting pot re pop growth: players seem to reject the value of the relevant trade goods that increase population and morale, which are inevitably linked. If you cant do without speed (I tend not to need it on small maps), I would suggest giving the trade goods route a try. You'll need to collect the set: Aphrodisiac, Virtual Reality Modules, Regenerators, Ultra Spices etc but these can be purchased from the AIs during the game. I am surprised at the relative pop growth you can generate this way, in addition to ensuring your spending is set to keep morale as high as possible.

Having high general morale boosters and pop growth boosters and setting the spending so morale is at 100 on all the planets early works well for me too.

The thought of giving up speed on a large map is a little too much for my tiny brain to grasp right now but maybe I will try the setting Ray discussed on a tiny/small/medium map soon. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Vincible, I put a question to you on the strategy forum in the economy thread I recently started. I am confused about planet morale boosters.

I am playing a small map now. It sure looks funny after those gigantics . . . like my eyes improved or something. LOL.

Well, I finally broke into the Top 25! I even took a screenshot of it! Since I'll be gone for a few days, it won't last long, but that's okay. I'm just happy I made it here!

Another Small/Maso for me. I don't seem to have time for much else. When I get back I think I'm going to start a Huge/Maso.

I worked on a new website today but it really hasn't gotten very far. It'll still be at the same place as the current one, I'm just trying to work out some kinks.

It's sleepy time here in ole Virginia, so I'm going to bed. Hold down the fort for me, guys! Onward to 3 million!

Wow, long day for me.

GOTM was delayed because, after playtesting yesterday, I decided the maso game I'd originally planned was impossible. I wanted it to challenge the best players--and boy, it sure would have--but I do want people to survive long enough to have something to write about other than "I settled two stars, then the Dregnin invaded and destroyed me."

Congrats on top 25 Theoden! The medal looks good on you.

Rick, I'll head over to the strat forum now.

[Message Edited]

Just tried the old trick of buying military ships off an AI's planet before invading it and guess what... the AI said it ain't trading ships with me when I have transports near them!

Never seen that before! It's a good one.

~SDC~

Finished up my Maso Huge. That was a nice warm-up.
I'm all ready for the Maso GOTM, vincible.

~SDC~

Heeeeeeeeeeeee's back!!! Welcome back Ray. Time for hobbits to party. The organic vegetarian pizza and spring water are on me today.

With Ray back and Theoden in the top 25, life is good for the inhabitants of middle earth. Onward to 3 million.

Thanks Ray... I do try to make my story's intersting.. I'm glad you like it so far.. (By the way.. I have nothing planed.. for the story) I just get an idea to follow on and then start typing and see where it takes me 1 line at a time.. As I hope everyone can see now that BlueSteel was really roleplaying before.. he's just a character.. just like Smeagol is.. I simply play the charactors as I see them.. I'm not very imaginative so thats why most of Blue's story's were based on the goings on in the metaverse from a mitery mans point of view (he was / is after all an ANZAC ..) smeagol on the other hand is a totaly different kind of charactor

Good to know the AI is still being tweaked.

It seems like they're just making minor changes, though, and ignoring the big primary issue of the AI's absolute helplessness against a cultural assault.

Oh, I don't know, on maso one has to stay alive long enough to launch the party palaces.

Welcome to the Fellowship, Craig Wilson!

Good to have you join the team.

As I've noted in my still incomplete Galciv blog, the three areas where humans routinely give the AIs the runaround are diplomacy, starbases and tactical combat.

These three areas need some more work to give the AI more of a chance against experienced players.

I'm hoping we will see some solid AI improvements in the Nov patch.

I was just noticing the team score on the metaverse is the summ of the team's personal profile scores (not metaverse overall scores). Is that correct?

The metaverse overall score sure seems inflated compared to personal profile scores. This is presumably due the different rate of block decay?

Congrats to the FotR for 2.8 million but my small maso with a score of 29k only added about 1600 (1.6k) to my overall score, which means I probably added "hundreds" for the team. Doh!!! LOL. Looks like I need go back to bigger maps so I can help FotR reach 3 million.

The experiment I was doing can end on the small map. The 1.11 maso scores are about 5 to 10% higher than they were on 1.10. The big bumps in score (50 to 60%) are only when one plays on 1.10 and submits on 1.11. Those should be pretty rare now. It is nice to get one version figured out before the next arrives.

OK, back to large or huge for the next game.

Yes, I believe so. I got about a 15% difference in my results because of all those old blocks decaying.

Metaverse listing scores have a decay rate of 5%/mth whilst personal profile scores decay at 10%/mth.

Yes, empire scores are a summation of personal profile scores.

Such a strange system. It seems so artificial to break things into blocks.

If they didn't break it into blocks, the square root divisor would just get larger and larger. That said, if I do nothing for the next fortnight or so, my score will increase to over 200k....

Alex


~SDC~

Is there any logical reason why we have BOTH metaverse scoring and personal profile scoring? It would be easier if we just had both decays running at the same rate. Either 5 or 10% would seem to work but why both? Duh, . . . it just seems one score is less complicated than two. What great mystery am I missing here?

What is the advantage of keeping the square root within a block system as opposed to a system of invidually aged games?

Even if for some reason you wanted to penalize games played close together, there are still much better ways.

Check out the latest news on 1.12 by Frogboy on the front page.



Can't wait.

~SDC~

Looks promising! . . . !

Log . 845

[Message Edited]

I wonder what kind of improvements are going to be made. I believe Frogboy said something previously about improving AIs defence of their planets. That would probably reduce the AIs' vulnerability to alpha strikes.

~SDC~

Hi,

I have been busy playing GalCiv.. my score stats for the last week..

Masso 4 Smeagol 0

Seems that i've lost my touch.. gigantic maso definatly seems harder to me in V1.11 than it was in V1.10

I'm not going to give up though...