Simplicity2

Reply to Beta 1.1 Eve in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

For those of you who don't like the starting positions, you REALLY need to not use "Tight Clusters". Huge and Gigantic galaxies on Tight clusters rarely start off with good starting positions. Set it to "Loose Clusters", and you'll be much happier, I guarantee. The Tight Clusters option is like playing Archipelago maps in the Civ series. I wonder whether the clustering algorithm takes into account the size of the galaxy enough. The amoun

Reply to GalCiv II: Size Matters in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I don't like using military starbases on the offense all that much either. But the AI does, and I have done it. It's pretty effective. It's not that tough to have two or three fast constructors around under your fleet. As for speed, the bases can actually INCREASE your speed (you wanted fast warfare) with speed bonuses. Building a highway of military starbases to the frontlines is something a lot of people do already anyways if only for the starba

Reply to GalCiv II: Size Matters in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I'll say it again. Small ships are grossly more powerful due to the way military starbases work. Would you rather have a fleet of two large ships with +2 to attack, or a fleet of 7 tiny ships with +2 to attack from a military starbase? The fleet of seven gets a total of +14 more damage each "round" from that starbase. The fleet of two large only gets +2. If military starbases increased the percentage of damage that a

Reply to Gameplay Example: Computer AI in transition in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

One thing to note with the change in logistics: fleets of small ships benefit much more from military starbases than fleets of large ships do... That said, I personally find that the larger hulled ships are actually not that much larger. When I can only put one more weapon on a medium hull than I can on a small... It's kind of unsatisfying already. It's nice to have smaller ships be a strategy, but larger ships SHOULD be advantageous.

Reply to Playing with numbers in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

A suggestion ... You might consider diminishing returns for multiple resources. Owning two influence resources is currently significantly more powerful than owning one. Owning three influence resources pretty much ends the game as no one can withstand the influence onslaught. Even when you don't have much focus on the influence techs. But owning 2 or 3 influence resources is not that uncommon in huge and gigantic galaxies... So, maybe making the secon

Reply to GalCiv II v1.1 Dev log in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Wow! Great, great additions! Good work, guys! This is what I call customer service! My three biggest questions about the additions would be (in order of importance): 1) Can we still follow the whole path of trade routes into the fog of war on blind exploration mode? These routes can reveal unscouted planets. 2) As someone else mentioned, can we upgrade from the fleet manager? Here's some ideas (or support of o

Lawful/Chaotic Alignments in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

I think it'd be interesting to add the concept of Lawful vs. Chaotic alignments in a future expansion. (Okay, so I'm a D&D geek). Lawful alignments could get a bonus to their logistic ability, get more UP votes, and a diplomatic bonus. Chaotic alignments could get a bonus to their miniaturization ability and ignore all UP laws without penalty.

Reply to AI Bug. Colony ship spam. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

If it was just a case of planets running out and they had remaining colony ships, that'd be one thing. But a single planet had a full starbase (what's that ... 8 ships?) in orbit. And every other planet had a colony ship in orbit. They had more colony ships than there were habitable planets anywhere near them. And yes, I know about the minor race influence base spam. That was my last post... <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_

AI Bug. Colony ship spam. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I was playing the Yor on a 9 player huge map on "Intelligent" AI settings for all of the AIs. After the main initial colony rush, I noticed the Torians had no defensive ships at their planets, so I bee-lined for Planetary Invasion (maxed the research spender) and took a Torian world with a transport. My next transports were stopped by a massive influx of colony ships that the Torians suddenly decided to build like crazy. But wha

Reply to Starting Positions flawed? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Okay, I had this problem until I realized that it was my own fault. Turn OFF "Tight Clusters." If you keep the stars in tight clusters on large galaxies, the stars are REALLY tightly clustered and you get islands of stars that are very easy to be blocked into.

Influence at non-border worlds? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Is there any point in building influence improvements at non-border worlds? Does having high influence planets in your core affect your influence borders at all? I think there's a concept of civilization influence vs. planetary influence, but I really can't figure out how it factors in... Does anyone know?

Reply to Where are the morality checks and events so beloved in GC I in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Ummm... There are MANY morality checks and random events in each game I play. Why do you think there's an alignment in the game? There's no way to module their frequency. It's random. But for me, at least, they're fairly frequent.

Reply to AI Bug? Influence base spam? Minor civ confused? in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

That hadn't even occurred to me, actually (that the minors don't even get influence). So that makes it even *more* pointless of a strategy. I was thinking that they did have an influence sphere, but that they were just building the bases too far from their own civ for it to have any effect. But I guess it wouldn't have an effect wherever they built it...

AI Bug? Influence base spam? Minor civ confused? in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

In a game I'm playing now as the Yor, there's a minor race (the Andians) who seem to have gotten it in their head that it's a good idea to build a few influence starbases right next to my capital. Okay, fine. Only one problem. I've never met them, and they are nowhere near me. I've demolished two influence bases already, and there's a train of three or four more constructors going right to the same area that I've also wiped out. I can't figure out

Reply to Implementing player suggestions in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I have a fairly good solution, I think. Currently, you separate spend rate from percent spent on social/military/research. To get the percentage of your total industry in any one field, you multiply the spend rate by the field rate (i.e. military rate). Why not just have the credit surplus BE one of the fields? So you have NO spend rate slider and FOUR fields to devote industry to: |--------|-----------| Credit Surplus: 50% |----|-----------

Reply to Notes on exploration in GalCiv2 in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

Thats funny, most people would like to be quasi-omniscient, but then I am talking about real life here. Being omniscient is only fun for a little while. Then it gets to be a real bore.

Reply to Notes on exploration in GalCiv2 in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

There's no need to scout the galaxy like crazy to find one lowly planet. That planet will still have an influence boundary. All I need to do is scout for the influence boundary. Once I've visited an area with my scouts, then I don't mind seeing influence there. I don't mind seeing influence in the "grey" fog of war. Just in the totally "black" fog of war.

Reply to Notes on exploration in GalCiv2 in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

It's interesting how many people aren't reading my post before replying. I'm fine with knowing where stars and planets are. That wasn't my issue. also if you dont want to know where the other civs start, dont turn the "show influence" button or whatever it's called you basicly have th ebutton there as a "option" Actually, this do

Notes on exploration in GalCiv2 in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

There are a couple of problems I see with exploration in GalCiv2, that I would like to see fixed: 1) You can see where the enemy's territory is even if you haven't explored the map (by turning on influence in the mini-map). 2) You can see exactly where an enemy's PLANETS are even if you haven't explored the map (simply look at the trade routes. If there's three of them going into one space in your grey fog of war... congrats, you just found the enemy capital.) 3) You can au

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

Okay, I can present a simple solution which eliminates the entire problem, and can be summed up in one sentence. MAKE SOCIAL PRODUCTION FREE. Right now it costs 1 bc to convert to an industry point into social/military/research. I'm suggesting that you make it only cost money to convert into military or research. Pros: 1) If social production is free, you aren't really wasting anything by having unspent social production. You're simply not putting

Reply to No diagonal edge mouse scrolling? in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Another vote for diagonal scrolling. Mouse-scrolling the screen is frustrating as it is. But it shouldn't interfere with the buttons at the bottom...

Reply to STICKY: Player Reviews! in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

The game is great (8/10), however Civ4 has raised the bar quite a bit and this game does fall short from Civ4 in some ways: 1) No Civilopedia. The tech tree is massive and it's hard to make decisions about future research when you don't know what the next tech will do for you. What does a Xeno Farm do exactly? 2) Seeing alien influence before you meet aliens. This is bad. It's easy to determine which stars are unclaimed and thus rush for the empty ones. 3) VE

Reply to Launch Day Experiences in GalCiv Journals Stardock Forums

I think the game is in pretty good shape for a release. I've seen a crash-to-desktop, but it's mostly run very smoothly. I *have*, however, been a victim of the Shipyard bug (as I've seen it called in the forums), and I posted my debug.err to the forums. I don't believe it has anything to do with the amount of jewelry added to the ship. I got a CTD after trying to save a design with four pieces of jewelry, a particle beam, and an ion drive. Not exactly a fancy ship. My video driv

Reply to Problem with Shipyard screen in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

I had the exact same problem. Here's my debug.err. Good hunting to the debuggers. Debug Message: Version v1.0 Digital: Bonus Pack last updated on: Mon Feb 20 19:04:13 2006 Debug Message: Could not find a TGN Serial No. Debug Message: *********DXDiag info follows.********* System Info Time: 2/21/2006, 19:18:25 DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Reply to Planetary Improvement understood in GalCiv Journals Stardock Forums

You don't have to have the *largest* military for this be a large advantage. If you have weak ships (because you're a diplomat) then this GA makes those ships viable for defense. But if you have *good* ships, then a 5 times multiplier to those ships makes them just about invulnerable. You don't have to have the best ships. And, as you pointed out, you don't have to have the most ships (it only affects 10 anyways). You're selling the GA as an advantage for dipl