So it was a SpecFor bioweapon! LOL

Yep, that's right Sherbert. Notice the sophistication of the device: it even has Ray making up some rationalisation to show how not playing is actually a GOOD thing and thus reinforces the message to all the other affected individuals. And you thought Jedi mind tricks were good.... LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

Theoden - One small problem with your twelve-step process:



Steps 5 through 11, inclusive, total seven beers. If you already had that second six-pack started, might as well finish it...that bumps "Think about GalCiv" down to Step 17. But after 12 beers, the hard stuff starts looking like child's play...so, figure 2-3 double shots of tequila (insert Steps 17-19). After that much alcohol, you'll be ready to either order another round (Step 20) or fall asleep on the bathroom floor (reset Step Count due to complete loss of short-term memory)...

(Vomit smiley debated here, but left off in deference to Cari. We're not depraved. Well, not completely, anyway.)

There's nothing wrong with a vomit smiley if it's used in context...

Alex


~SDC~

Hahaha! Great job, Sam Ben! That actually makes a lot more sense!

P.S. I can call you Sam Ben, right? Spelling out Samurai every time seems tedious.

While you guys are out looking at other games -- can you please tell me if you find any good games that don't require 3D graphics accelators?

My wife gets angry with me when I go to my office to play video games, so I'm restricted to games on can play on my laptop when we're watching TV.

Thanks,
Cypher

I know how you feel! My wife gripes when I go to the office, too. It's definitely a woman thing.

I'm at work right now, so I can't recommend any games that don't require 3D accel. All I can say is I enjoy playing older games. I think too much emphasis has been put on adding 3D acceleration in games, so much so that they've forgotten to actually design a fun game. The older games didn't have high-end graphics, but relied on solid gameplay to be marketable. Games like the Might & Magic series, the old Forgotten Realms series, Star Control (SC2...not SC3!!!), etc. are excellent choices, although some are hard to find. I love playing Star Wars: Rebellion, although I know some didn't like it. I still play a few games every once in a while. Nothing like building a couple of SSDs and laying waste to the pitiful Rebellion. :SinisterSmiley:

Cypher: what kind of games?

I spent a couple hours on Yahoo Chess last night. That was a lot of fun.

Theoden - Thanks for the tips.
Vincible - I like strategy games (obviously) and RPGs. I've played through Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale / Planescape already and enjoyed them...

I also need a game that runs offline, since I don't have network coverage in the family room....

I'd be up for trying Star Control / Space Empires - I guess... but I was hoping for something different.

What I really need is to hook Mrs. Pax on a game, so I can play guilt free. The only thing she seems to really like are Tetris-clones though...
-Cypher

I'm probably like a broken record here, but Starcraft, even in single-player, is really good.

A lot of people really like Age of Wonders, which is a mix of RPG and TBS. I don't know anything about AoW 2, so it may require 3D acceleration, but AoW 1 definitely didn't. It can be played multiplayer.

I'm sure you've played Civ, MOO, etc. Hmm... if I think of something else I'll let you know.

Cypher- If you like RPGs, go get KotOR. I just finished it, and I have to say that it is the kind of game that NWN's single player should have been (if it was a Star Wars game LOL). It's got all the best parts of BG2 and NWN all rolled together with Star Wars goodness!

Just call him Ben.

Going back to an older topic, I managed to submit a neutral alignment game. It was a 1.11 game ending at 40 alignment and it was a fairly mixed bag of good and evil events (the evil ones just weighted heavier).

Perhaps, as someone suggested, if alignment goes past a certain point, then bringing it back to center is not enough to qualify again as neutral. I don't know. I do know that I had the effects I reported, with some scores I would have expected to be in the neutral or pure good range chalked up as chaotic good.


- Sirian

A few players hopping around between empires didn't seem like a worthy topic either, but that got whole reports dedicated to it. I guess where you sit determines what you see. It's your column and your choice how best to serve the interests of your readers.



Eh? You must be referring only to the "weekly spotlight" feature.



Twice, both right at the start of our empire when we posed a bit of a mystery, coming out of nowhere to appear on the first page. You encouraged us to open a thread here, to establish relations with the rest of the community. Not a peep about us since. In all that time, nothing worthy of comment from our doings? If you say so. Your column, your editorial judgement.

Half our potential membership has not even arrived yet. Some were burned hard by MOO3, some are busy with other games and activity. Some are waiting to see if GalCiv "has legs" and will hold our interest over time.

Smegged is one of those who hasn't arrived. He doesn't even have the game yet. He is not our most diplomatically sensitive member. He's from down under, and is known to be able to emulate a drunken roo from time to time. It was bad form for him to come here and criticize. I apologize for that. But then, FotR tolerates Pontius (the same guy who openly suggested I was a liar, in another thread, for reporting a game experience he had never seen) calling us pipsqueaks? That too is bad form. I'd like to respond directly to that, but won't, at least not here inside your thread as your guest, but you may soon have some bad blood between RB and GROSS to write about if he doesn't reign in the abrasive remarks.


I'm sorry to see a lot of the Fellowship taking a break from the game. Hard to understand, when I've had it for less than two months. I haven't even had time yet to try out all the main strategic combinations: political parties and bonus picks crossed with map size and habitability. I guess where you sit determines what you see.

The Metaverse itself seems to be a mixed bag. I wonder if the thirst to compete may lead some stars to burn hotter than they otherwise would, and burn out sooner. Does the good done by the Metaverse in motivating some players outdo the harm it does by demotivating others? I'm not sure we know the answer.


- Sirian

[Message Edited]

"He is not our most diplomatically sensitive member. He's from down under, and is known to be able to emulate a drunken roo from time to time."

Who, me

"It was bad form for him to come here and criticize. I apologize for that."

No need to apologise for me Sirian. I can apologise for myself. I'm sorry if I offended. I have enjoyed reading the metaverse reviews in the past, and my comments were more a light-hearted jest than anything (especially with the headlines "Nothing Going On" :P). I had hoped that the excessive use of smileys and extreme adjectives would indicate that. But if it didn't then meh, I'm sorry. I am a guest in this thread and on this board and I don't want to tread on anybody's toes.

Anyway, it's nearly time for bed, so I'll cyas,

Smegged

Wise words from the Jedi's most prominent diplomat. Three letters sounds about right, Theo. I can call you Theo, right?

I can't speak for the others in the Fellowship but most of the time, I ignore/skip over his posts. Pontius crossed the line with me too many times.



Well, I started playing this game a week after it went gold so it's a good 7-8 months or so. A personal record for any game by far. I give the Metaverse credit for that. The Metaverse does have its shortcomings but whatever they are, it kept me in the game and forum for a long, long while.

And I will still be around as the developers are still pumping out expansions and updates, but will just not be playing as much.

~SDC~

Sirian and Smegged:

No need to appologize for anything. I never took offense to anything you have said. I'm glad to see Realms Beyond doing so well and wish you all the best. I haven't written anything specifically about RB simply because it is difficult to write about you. There are many colorful overlords in other empires, and the banter between them gives me great material for the Review. However, your empire is focused on strategy and gameplay, which is certainly not a criticism but is very difficult to write about. Rest assured that your empire will see it's day in the sun, maybe soon.

Regarding PontiusBruinPilot, the only thing I can say is he is an enigma. He's really not that bad, but he is very, very passionate about what he thinks. He has some very good points to make about the game but sometimes you have to sift through some of his rantings. I personally don't have anything against him but when he gets a little rowdy, I mainly just let him roll. Really, there's no arguing with him, since he really doesn't admit defeat. However, he certainly creates quite a bit to write about in the Review! My suggestion for dealing with Pontius is chat with him until he gets to be too much, then simply move on.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

To the Fellowship:

I'm sort of out of the loop right now, as real life is taking a big chunk of my time. I did manage to submit a Tiny/Maso, but doubt I'll be around much for a few days.

Take care, everyone. Remember to spend plenty of time with family and friends. I wish you all a safe and enjoyable weekend.

Yes, RB is being watched already. All in good time.

*Gerakken sneaks off to observe other events in the Metaverse.*

Welcome to the Fellowship Halls. The views expressed in this thread are specific to the individual poster and may not reflect the views of the Fellowship as a whole. The Fellowship takes no responsibility for comments made within this thread by nonmembers. Thank you for not advertising.

vincible. One more game to vice admiral. You are really squeezing a lot of mpts out of those large masos. Nice job.

The count on the bug thread for 1.12 is over 140 so I am sticking with 1.11 for a while. Learned my lesson on the survey ship bug a while back. Someone please let me know if there is a scoring change with 1.12 but I haven't heard about it so far.

My question for the ring-team:

Is it random when an AI is "militaristic"? I just finished a huge maso with 5 pure evil incredible AI. The Torians had the best start and were "militaristic". Having more than twice the planets that anyone else had, they got rather annoying with the extortion thing. I had to pay bribes when they were hostile . . . or else. Finally as I got more evil and started giving away techs to keep the Torians off my back and bribing them to war, they became trade dependent on me (who else would trade with these militaristic bullies? LOL). After that, life was better. Any better ideas on dealing with militaristic bullies who get a good start? I really don't like being extorted but I also don't like to lose.

ric: footnote - I dont think there is any scoring difference in 1.12. Regarding your Torian problem - I think you found the best way out of the dilemma. I find that if an AI gets a flying start in resources (eg several good planets in their starting sector, or adjacent) they will really come for you, no matter what. This is magnified on a small map, of course, when they're in your face from the start - I will sometimes have to simply abandon games because I cant get any leverage on them.

Yeah, when the AI is strong they will throw their weight around. It used to be that if someone declared war on you, you could bribe all the other AIs to go to war with the strong one so that on average only 1/5 of their transports headed your way (basically harmless) but thankfully that loophole is closed. Now I think your way is probably safest--kiss up to them until they piss off everyone else, so you get all their trade. You can help the process along by bribing them to attack everyone else, but you've got to be careful to make sure they don't get too powerful. You can really help the little guys keep up by preferentially trading techs to them, and by getting the most important military techs from the front-runner and giving them to everyone else.



That doesn't explain my "chaotic good" game where my alignment was 50 or 51 throughout.

I thought of something else. What if the ranges are skewed? What if Neutral is, say, 35 to 50? Chaotic Good 51 to 89? Chaotic Evil 10 to 34? Or something like that. That is, Neutral being skewed toward evil, with Chaotic Good getting more than its share of range.

Has anybody posted a Neutral result with alignment in the 51-60 range? I just had another 50-something Chaotic Good game. I played in the 30's almost the whole game, and only got up to about 55 or so by the end, and it called me "good". Go figure.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/galciv/no-picks.html


- Sirian