random50

Reply to Beginner Question -- Colony Ship Rushing in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Depends on the map size and number of habitable planets IMO. If planets are *very* limited (ie less than half a dozen per race) then you probably can't afford to wait and rush buying is a good idea. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it. I'd go further and say as a general rule of thumb, rush buying is a very inefficient use of BC and should be avoided (but in such a complex game it's easy to come up with specific situations where that rule doesn't apply!)

Reply to Tech Trading under the new patch in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Now my 'allies' begin to pound on my door in an attempt to trade for some driver tech. They only offer one tech, and a useless one at that (the exact one escapes me at the moment, but it shouldn't matter, it's useless to me). I counter and they laugh... fine, no trade. This goes on for a little while, every few turns or so, an ally approaches me for a trade to get driver tech from me. As this goes on, I notice their techs... suddenly it seems that they have the first f

Reply to Download and offline play in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I prefer patching the old fashioned way (downloading an update directly to my PC and extracting), but I've come to accept that this is the new model, and that most people like it. I'm not so sure about that. Accept it, sure. Probably most don't even give a crap either way. But I suspect the minority that dislike it far outweighs the minority that like it. I'll buy DA even with all this faffing about, because I'm sure it'll be worth it and bec

Reply to Download and offline play in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Ah ha! Clearest explanation I've seen of the process. Thanks kryo. (Apologies to original poster for hijacking the thread...) To confuse matters, I have two different hardware profiles for my offline PC selectable at bootup...one for games, one for everything else. In the past I've had problems with other online activation type software because the different hardware profiles generate different machine IDs (or whatever its called!) Do you happen to know if the same will occ

Reply to Pointless Buildings in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Can't speak for the galactic resort, but the secret police center was *supposed* to work differently. The morale bonus was meant to be added to the base and so be unaffected by population. This would make it pointless on low population worlds, but *very* useful on very high population worlds. Unfortunately it was broken, and last I saw (many months ago!) Frogboy wasn't even acknowledging that it *was* useless so I doubt it's been fixed.

Best way to play and update offline? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I've searched through several related threads, but I'm not really following how updating offline works. My home computer isn't hooked up to the 'net, nor is it likely to be. What's the most hasslefree method for downloading DA, and then updating in the future? I do have net access elsewhere and could also install Stardock Central there (though I wouldn't use that computer to play the game)

Reply to DA - producing money - a testbed results in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Here's something I noticed with DL which I doubt has changed with DA...the formula eventually stops working. If you have a well developed game several years in on a large map, you'll probably find the formula overestimates the income. I never managed to isolate the trigger. I did run a test on the lowest difficulty setting where I did almost nothing for several years and the income never dropped from expected, which suggests it's empire size related in some way. It doesn't show up as a blip

Reply to Extra population versus Extra economy buildings in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

This would force the player to turn down taxation and loose all that income from his happy worlds How does it *force* you? Just leave them unhappy whilst you get a few entertainment buildings down.

Reply to Conquering Suicidal in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The Mind Control Center is *still* broken in DA too?

Reply to DA - producing money - a testbed results in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Hi Iztok This may not account for all of the discrepancy but...the exact multiple is sqrt(population_in_millions). That 34.5 I found originally by experiment. It is roughly sqrt(1000), but not quite which might explain some of the differences! Then of course there's rounding. I have no idea how many times or where in the calculation rounding (which in Galciv usually means dropping the decimals) occurs. As you observed, population doesn't have that big an impact on t

Reply to Conquering Suicidal in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Tech trading off is going to be much harder than on at suicidal levels, at least early on. At lower levels, it's true the AI benefits from tech sharing, meaning you can't get that huge a jump on them (unless you also trade extensively). At suicidal, whilst it's true they'll all develop slower, they will likely *all* be much quicker than you. That blitz strike to take out other civs in few turns is much harder when their weapons tech massively outclasses yours.

Reply to YOR Super Ability has to change in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not all that surprised to hear the AI is designed for "small move" ships. I am surprised to learn Frogboy thought people would limit themselves to those type of ships though! For me it wasn't a question of trying to cheat the AI...I just was too impatient to wait forever for the ships to get where they were going on gigantic maps. I'm looking forward to the rebalance. It should make gigantic maps more "epic". Attack a large peaceful and weakly armed civ at your peril because by

Reply to One aspect of Terror Stars I'd like to see in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I've commented on this before, probably on the thread you started earlier! I agree completely. Military starbases *could* be a fantastic and interesting part of the game, but at the moment they're not even nearly worth the resources. Being able to move them, however slowly, would go a long way to correcting that. The AI isn't good with starbases as it is, though (pre DA at least, I've not played the beta) so making them mobile may make that problem even worse. BTW, are the

Reply to If I See Another Post Asking for MP, Tactical Combat, or Carriers, I WILL SCREAM!!! in Warfare GalCiv2 Forums

Bring on the tac combat! In most games the AI is poor at tactical combat In your opinion. Many on this forum would disagree. Which games out there have good tactical combat AI? I've never seen one!

Reply to If I Purchase a Ship, Why Do I Have to Wait Until Next Turn For It? in Economics GalCiv2 Forums

Turning vaguely serious for a second, it'd make things a bit too easy if you could just buy your way out of trouble when the enemy invaders come a knocking. Unless you're suggesting immediate appearance but a 1 purchase per shipyard limit.

Reply to Ultra Cheese Supreme in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Can it really be considered cheese if the AI uses the strategy too (defenseless defenders)?

Reply to Space Ranger 2 Fans in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

It's the pirates that are causing me problems, not the dominators.

Reply to Space Ranger 2 Fans in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Oh crap. I've spent the last 6 weeks swimming against a tide of work. I *finally* managed to get ahead last week, and then Space Rangers 2 happened. Great game. Plus on top of all that, finally there's a game that's a serious challenge on *normal* difficulty.

Reply to Space Rangers 2 is now on TotalGaming.net in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Oh my word! I almost bought this game a while back, but the retail version was Starforced and I couldn't get an answer *for certain* I'd be able to use the no dvd hacks floating around. Now this. Beautiful, just beautiful. By all accounts it's a game that *really deserves* to be played by a wider audience. Now if they could just persuade someone to translate the patch (which apparently adds a ton of new material) things'd be absolutely perfect... (random50 - never f

Reply to Are Starbases too puny? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I get where people think that military starbases should be able to defend themselves, but they aren't meant to fight, they are meant to boost the attack and defense power of nearby ships, it's up to you to defend your starbases. So why have an enormous bunch of modules specifically designed to make starbases defend themselves? I get what

Reply to Are Starbases too puny? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

What you guys are saying is like saying an oil rig in the ocean should be able to hold its own against a battleship. Bad analogy! Since when do oil rigs receive all sorts of military upgrades? If you're going to have an entire branch of the tech tree devoted to equipping starbases to defend themselves, doesn't it make sense tha

Reply to Boost your economy in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

As you realised, 100B is never economically worth it. However, on a high class enough planet, it *is* often worth building more than one farm. A better option is to find a high class planet with a good farming bonus tile (300% is ideal). You may well end up not reaching the food cap population and having 40% morale, but that doesn't matter as long as the rest of your planets have decent morale to make up for it.

Reply to Are Starbases too puny? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Yep, way too puny. They shouldn't be invincible by any means, but they *should* be powerful enough that if you keep them upgraded as far as you've reached in the tech tree, then it'll take a concerted effort by several fleets to take them down. That said, it would be much better if they actually fought along with your fleets. Then there'd be a point to upgrading them. As it is, right now it's a waste of time since they can't survive long term alone, but then they can't contri

Reply to Anyone here read any Iain M Banks Sci Fi? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Yup Banks can push out those Skiffy novels pretty fast, although I don't know if it is quite 6 weeks, perhaps with some of his earlier books, but these days it seems to take him a good 2-3 months per book Am I missing something?! I love Iain M Banks books, and to a lesser extent Iain Banks books (!), but there seems to be an age between rel

Reply to <3 Luck in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

i'm tempted to try modding a civ file to give 95% luck or something and try out a game to see how will it turn out... no time yet though. anybody did this already/plan to do this, drop us a story! I have done this, except I didn't mess about with 95%...I put the bonus well into 3 figures. (500% IIRC). I then CTRL-ned 20 times and compared it w