Seth Gaines

Can we please do something else with the Iconians? in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The bonuses for the Iconians make no sense. Why are they +50 espionage? The Krynn are spies, not these guys. Frankly, in addition to not making sense for this race, +50 espionage is totally useless. I'm happy to get my espionage bonuses from anomalies. Please redo their bonuses with something a little more in character. They get fewer optional points than anyone else, so they're very hard to customize. The 'Super Adapter' ability can either be ok

Reply to Homeworld Bonus Tile Request in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

If you're playing the right race, and especially if there is also a morale bonus tile, food can be very useful. I've gotten up to 34B, with morale in the 80s. Great planet for mass troop transport production.

Reply to Korx Have No Armed Ships in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The Korx and Altarians were not building warships in a recent game. I gave them some, and they did use those, but even with infusions of over $100K, they would not build anything armed.

Reply to Ahhh. The disparaged Thalans of TA in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I've found the Thalans to be pretty tough in most games. They tend to flip planets with ease, even if you turn influence victories off. They generally also have a fairly large navy. They're very tough to invade, because they can often flip planets back if you take them, and if they start colonizing worlds in your space, you can pretty much kiss those planets goodbye.

Reply to Racial Balance as of Beta 6A in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I've had good games as the Yor, Drath, and Krynn. I cannot ever get off to a good start as the Arceans. Their economy seems really weak at the beginning, and they have by far the longest recovery time from crash of any race. The speed penalty is pretty bad. I am always out-colonized. I want to play these guys, but it just isn't any fun. I find the Thalans to be pretty dull, honestly. You can't build anything for the longest time (I play with very slow research). I consider the

Reply to Beta 5 - Experience anomaly still not working in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

And why would you not allow them XP anyway? The only way any unarmed ship could get XP is a survey ship through anomalies. What difference does it make what level they are? A level 20 transport dies automatically, just like level 1.

Reply to Ascension Starbases in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Perhaps it's due to the destruction of the previous base? I had this issue in Beta 5. I think the original owner was able to reclaim it. I also noticed (as the Yor, if that matters) that my starbase was listed as having 0/5 modules, but that sending a new constructor did nothing.

Game very unstable if reloaded in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

This has been an issue for me with an older XP laptop running earlier betas, and now my new Vista desktop running the latest beta. If you go back to the main menu from within the game, it will let you start a new game or load a save, but will nearly always crash on the first turn. Loading a save of the current game from within the game works a little better, but things still happen (e.g. placing a spy crashes the game, all ships give you the 'lost in space' message when you try to mo

Reply to Food Distribution Center in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

But what happens when you have level 1 farms on a planet where you don't want to use level 2, and then research level 3 farms? Wouldn't everything auto-upgrade? Then you'd have to go around and decide which upgrades to cancel. On a big map, that could be a huge pain.

Reply to Precursor Defenses Event in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I've never been able to figure out what a lot of the events mean. Many of the population ones are written and structured in a way that would lead you to believe that the population cap of the planet will be affected, but it seems to actually be population growth. My assumption on the event in question is that it's a percentage bonus to the planet's research, like the Solar Slammers one. But I really have no evidence to back that up.

Reply to Twilight: Drengin Gambit in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I know for a fact that the AI doesn't put up with influence starbases, [B]if[/B] they are in their space. They complain about them, and then they declare war on you. I have never had trouble with building them just on my side of the line in mixed systems. Then again, I've never found them to be all that terribly effective, even as the Krynn.

Reply to Building Progressions in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

A lot of people have mentioned this, and several have asked for a way to 'obsolete' buildings. I'd like to get rid of the clutter in build lists.

Reply to Sure you can kill fleshlings but can you balance your budget? in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I tend to leave the tax and production at the default. You can cheaply research a few of the econ techs pretty early, and if you get the military tech that gives you recruitment centers you can make out okay.

Reply to Warship becomes starbase in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I've had this happen as well. It's really frustrating.

Beta 5 - Experience anomaly still not working in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The 'Captain's Log' anomaly still does absolutely nothing. I found about 8-10 of them, built out a nice medium warship and upgraded my Flagship. Total experience = 0. This anomaly has never worked, in any game. Why can't the experience just be given immediately, not supposedly awarded on an upgrade?

Reply to Game no longer fun - keep on running out of money in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]It's absolutely pathetic.Your strategy?...Probably. First, 45% morale is bad. It means that your population growth is very low and on some planets of yours you'll even lose people.But since people = money you're dooming yourself. Try to maintain 100% morale as long as possible (double growth!). Finance your early expansion with tech selling, anomaly hunting, and other forms of diplomacy.But get your morale up, that's the key to a healthy economy.[/quote] I know about morale, but

Reply to Game no longer fun - keep on running out of money in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The beginning of the game is now incredibly frustrating. The economy absolutely sucks. As the Korx, I was able to colonize a grand total of 5 other worlds before my economy tanked completely. Even with taxes as high as possible (in keeping with 45% morale), and my economy at 0, I'm losing 45bc/turn. After about 80-100 turns, I'll slowly start to break even, and can raise my economy up to something like about 20%. By the time I produce another colony ship, a few hundred turns may have passed

Reply to freighter command broken? AI giving in too easily? in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It is not the mega events that are a problem. It is the surrendering. I'm kind of amazed that you haven't had frustrating AI surrenders before this. They love to give up on the second turn of a war. The Drath will completely screw up any game that allows surrenders.

Reply to The Space Between in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I like having a lot of room between the tight clusters, mostly so the AI will leave me the hell alone while I am in my 100 turn economic crash. That said, the distribution, especially on immense, is crappy. Most of the clusters end up crammed together on 1/2 of the map, there's a little bit of stuff on 1/4, and 1/4 is just empty. If they were more evenly distributed, you'd still have a lot of space, but you wouldn't end up with 6 close neighbors. There's always one guy who ends up with half

Reply to Espionage Crash in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Actually, loading a save from within the game (at least a save of the same game), seems to screw everything up. If you launch a ship after loading, and attempt to give it orders, it will give you the out of range message. You have to quit the game, and start fresh.

Reply to Arnor bug in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It will always hang if you accidentally 'blind' navigate your ship into a star. Happens a lot when I'm using ships to explore. The 'Find' button will not work in these circumstances.

Reply to Phantom Damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It had been a turn or two. The ship had 2hp left, and survived the battle. It was in the fleet until the next turn. Having trouble reproducing it, mostly because of the insane damage the defender does. It generally does 40-60, which kills the ship outright.

Espionage Crash in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

If you load a saved game from within the game, and immediately attempt to place a spy, the game will crash, at least for me.

Phantom Damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Playing as the Yor, I'm involved in a few wars. Invading a Korath planet, I stole Hardened Hulls (I have tech trading off). This increased the hit points of my attack ships from 23 to 26. I then attacked a Krynn planet. They have absolutely insane defenders, with attack around 120 and defense at 30. I destroyed the defender, but it did 23 points of damage on its shot. The next turn, my badly damaged ship was gone. I suppose it had something to do with the bonus HP not being applied consis

Reply to ok time to start a list of bugs for beta 4 in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

No, it's just flavor. The Thalans have a 30% penalty to growth. I think there might be a race or two out there with bad diplomacy.