Saber Cherry

Reply to Population Growth Racial Trait now too strong??? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

(@#10) Right! Now if you want factories full of 6-week-old birthing machines, you have to choose it as a racial specialty ("Hereditary Fetus Molester"). 3% is still insanely high, and a "+Growth" pick still makes gestation rates even more insane, but with the "square root of taxpayers" economy I don't think growth is nearly as valuable as economy picks. It would compliment soldiering picks well, though. Still, the patch has been out 1 day, and I'm sure the murky waters will settle

Reply to Releasing the Dogs of War!!! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Let's call it the "Political Rubber Band". You can do whatever you want, but you never know when you stretch the rubber band too far, and it snaps back on your finger to cause a big owie This dates back to Civ 1, 2, and 3 - the AI was always happy to sneak settlers into that one unused square in the middle of your nation, and found "Jodhpur" (yeah, G

Reply to 1.1 Beta - why is everyone so beastly to me? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

What does a peace treaty do, if it doesn't stop rivals from stealing your planets? And BTW I agree - the AI loves to steal planets with unescorted transports. So a single tiny ship with 1 attack on top of each world - basically, the same as the default Phalanx fortified in each city in Civ 1 - is a necessity, and again, it's cheap and boosts your "apparent military strength".

Reply to Space Empires 4 v. GC 2 in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I think Space Empires IV is far better than GalCiv2 1.0. GalCiv2 1.1 is a totally different animal... No matter how good GC2 gets, there will be some fundamental differences - each series is vastly better in certain specific areas. The concepts of units, mines, fighters, carriers, satellites, drones, sun exploders, special tech-trees, mobile repair bases, multiple resource types, remote mining, ringworld construction, and highly spe

Reply to that way of ground combat must be changed in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I think the current situation is realistic. When an alien invader wants to exterminate and colonize your planet, you'd have to be stupid to sit around and pick your nose. I don't like the weird lottery thing. And it would be nice if species with similar atmospheric requirements could coexist (like in Space Empires IV, and in MOO2 [where everyone breathed the same atmosphere except silicoids]). But as long as invading a planet kills

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II: 1.1 BETA released in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

It's a beta, so there is that likely hood of a crash. If you don't like unstableness, don't take the beta. Windows ME was not beta, and crashed far more often than Windows 95... "Beta" and "Stable" are not really antipodal. I suggest using the beta, as it looks far better than 1.09X

Reply to 1.1 Beta - why is everyone so beastly to me? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Saber Cherry - if I'm reading you right, the ship bonuses from military starbases factor into your military strength rating. I guess this is a good way of improving your military reputation quickly. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that! What I meant to say is that I believe the AI only calculates strength based on "number of armed hitpoin

Reply to 1.1 Beta - why is everyone so beastly to me? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I don't know how the AI judges military strength, but it is a huge factor in the game. Whether or not you are attacked, what kind of ratios you get in trade deals, and whether or not an AI will even consider your proposals are all linked to your strength. So, build a military base near your capitol, upgrade it to +1 attack and +1 defense, and put fleets of cheap little 1att / 1 def / 2mov fighters near it. These will not only boost your military rating, but serve the real role of a

Reply to Mines, Layers, and Sweepers in Warfare GalCiv2 Forums

There would need to be check-and-balance against offensive mode mine layers. Perhaps limit the number of engines that can be put onto a mine layer type of ship hull? Yes - I think mine layers should be very, very massive; allow only 1 or 2 engines; and have the engines 3x the normal size and co

Reply to GalCiv II: v1.1 BETA Change Log in GalCiv Journals Stardock Forums

Sound like this is the patch I was waiting for. Thanks for listening to the comments on the forums! I only wish this could have been the game version that went out to reviewers.

Reply to How to never lose a battle. in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

The overwhelming superiority of offense over defense (in the hands of a player, not in general) is due to the low HP of ships. Multiplying ship HP by 10 would eliminate the exploit.

Reply to Unit Cap SUCKS Big Time... Any workarounds? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Well, if you have that many ships, you need to have way of countering them. It remembers me MOO1, where you can have stack of 32K small fighters. Very annoying if you didn't know how to handle them Grav beams or megablast cannons. Damage carries over versus bonus to hit, you choose <img src="http://

Reply to stupid crap in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

What an incoherent, trolling post. I think he's telling the truth - he really isn't a nerd. Ever seen a troll wearing glasses?

Reply to Brief question / problem regarding AI settings in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I've wondered the same thing. Someone replied and said that the overall difficulty overrides the individual difficulties, but your observation contradicts this. I have absolutely no idea. A blind guess - maybe setting the overall difficulty yourself overrides individual settings, but when the overall setting autoadjusts, nothing actually happens...

Reply to Gal Civ nay sayers turned believers in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yep, it's me. I don't want to gush too much about Doms2 because I've already mentioned it some other threads

Reply to Loving my job lately in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

The only people who vacation in Texas are people born there, and people who have never been there before.

Reply to Gal Civ nay sayers turned believers in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I could not stand turn based games on the PC. Ahh, how you've missed out. Master of Magic, X-COM, Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Total Annihilation, Kohan... it makes me cry. Welcome to the re

Reply to AI - Emperors new clothes in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

patsy11 said: The games I know of that have the best AI are indy titles made by small development teams on small budgets. Namely Highway to the Reich (Amazing AI) and Dominion Wars 2. Is it a coicidnece that indy titles have great AIs and mainstream titles have poor ones, not if the mainstream is using the AI of RTW as a yardstick.

Reply to Could a core design element of this game be broken? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

If initiative was based on ship speed, the problem would still be there, or maybe even worse... unless the AI started designing fast ships. In real space battles, the ones the government hides from us, both sides fire at once. That's more realistic...

Reply to Copy protection follow-up in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Intel in the last few years is a great example of what happens when marketing, rather than engineering, decides a company's direction. They're finally switching back to engineering-based policy, after missing their forecasts by billions of dollars. You're on the right track.

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II, Copy Protection, and Piracy in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

I'd love to see StarForce get shut down over something like this It's a great example of racketeering - "Pay us protection money, or we'll make you suffer".

Reply to Fuzzy math and game development in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

That's because you are rounding all floating point calculates down! If you would just add 0.5 to all floating point calculations before typecasting to integer then you round off to the nearest which I think would make more sense. Then in your example 8 * 1.1 = 8.8 -> 9. Also a non-optimal defense of 8 would have an effective defe

Reply to Fun with data tables in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I agree - the 'pedia is nicer-looking, but your tables are far more useful.

Reply to Star Control Mod? in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

If you email it to me, I'll host it. saber marionette cherry[at}yahoo{d0t]c0m ... with underscores instead of spaces.

Reply to Making a GUI to generate custom map XML code in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

FYI - you have to put http in front, or the link will break (as above).