Metaphase

Reply to hypercomputers; what tech? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I do find it odd that it just appears down there while the other weapons and defenses don't offer any outside bonuses like that. I figure it's just a way to help offset the fact that missiles are the 'best' weapon in the game (personal preference not withstanding). They are very powerful and the final weapon is the best size / damage ratio of the 3. The draw back has been said to be that researching missile defense is cheap... I guess they decided to toss this in as an added bonus. It does

Reply to Unhappy home world? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

1-2 farms can be a very good thing on your average planet, but it also depends on how you like to play. There are a few posts that talk about the pros and cons of the high tax/low pop and the low tax/high pop strats. I'm somewhere in between, I like the added influence and available soldiers of planets so I put at least 1 farm on most planets unless their PQ is too low. Any more than that though, (unless I'm using an influence strat) and I don't feel that the required entertainment is

Reply to Slow Technology Games? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

What do you mean by 'working'? As far as I can tell the function works as it is intended to. If you mean that the AI isn't keeping up with you, all you can do is raise the difficulty so they have more resources with which to pay for research. The AI also seems to neglect research when it is at war, so if you are constantly fighting with them and getting far ahead in research, that's a possible source of it also. I often play very slow tech games since it pressures me to actually us

Reply to Need help with allies/war in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not sure, but I think if tribute has very recently been paid to maintain peace, that there is a time period that you can't ask them to go to war with them. That's my theory based on seeing those options vanish from the available options. I could be wrong. All I can suggest is try again every turn and remember you can 'try' to pay the Drengin to leave you alone or attack your friends in a pinch. Peace when they are leading is usually quite expensive however.

Reply to Ahh! I thought that was defended! in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I pull back on the mouse wheel to minimum zoom to check things like that. Try it and see if it helps at all.

Reply to Do I get commission for getting friends to buy? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

How about a friendly pat on the back? ... ... ... Don't look at me. I don't have any stock in Stardock... although... Anyway, nice work. Make them all join your empire in the metaverse, that will be something at least.

Reply to AI does not value +diplo techs highly enough in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I always thought diplomacy was far too powerful, which is why I mostly play with tech trading off. For my first metaverse game I made a small map on crippling and went diplomatic since my character (The Space Pope) is to be my good character. Anyway, I got a horrible start and lost out on all the possible colony locations as my 1st 2 star picks happened to be the homeworlds of other races. (I hate starting Terran) I barely made it back to Sol in time to grab Mars from the AI and was still ab

Reply to Is it just me or are Star Bases way too weak in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Overall anything that gets attacked and can't initiate will be toast in end game, especially since you can't form fleets with the starbases. I don't know if that would 'unbalancing' but that would help the situation as well. It would be nice to be able to feed it a few more HP as time goes on though, agreed. Last game I didn't even bother with starbase fortification and just had fleets defend my starbases as well as planets since it takes so many constructors for the limited protection agains

Reply to Buying Resource nodes? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

+ AI is much less likely to trade away mining starbases. If you were playing 1.0X, then yes, this is different now. As far as 1.1 beta 4 I was usually still able to get them at ~25,000 BC I would expect different races to value different resources more and you might want to see if it is a well upgraded starbase. It's usually much eas

Reply to missles need to be added to this game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Current day nukes would have no affect on the earth's orbit whatsoever. The earth just has way too much mass. Definately a negligible impact on the Earth's axis. The largest threat on the planets' population (outside the blast radius) would probably be nuclear winter that would ensue basically because of all the smoke and dust kicked up into t

Reply to Defensive planet-based improvments to weak? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Hah.. I've had conquered the planet with my lonesome guy. Even though the AI had a planetary defense building... Well technically 1 million lonesome guys... *adjust glasses* Still pretty hilarious though.

Reply to Howdy Neighbor! in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

They probably sent a colony ship (one of many) over to your system since it had so many planets and I'm not sure to what extent it discriminates higher and lower PQ. It does grant them range benefits if they plan on going further in that direction as well. I do find it annoying too, since you are hard pressed to keep relations with them (if you wanted to) sharing borders like that...

Reply to Metaverse Scoring (hehe and i wanted to test out my character ect :) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

That makes more sense. I hadn't looked into the scoring since I would rather enjoy playing the game than try to milk the system for points... Although I guess more competitive people get their kicks that way. I prefer to emerse myself in games to escape the drudgeries of reality. Metaphase

Reply to Dominating AI Races? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The top races are quite varied in the games I've played on a range of maps and from normal to crippling. With the higher economic bonuses I'd say the Drengin have gotten much better, though I can't reliably make that assumption on ~8 or so full games. I've seen the Altarians, Torians, Krox, Iconians, Yor, Arceans and finally the Drengin pull ahead to be the biggest threats. Last game was the first time

Reply to Metaverse Scoring (hehe and i wanted to test out my character ect :) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Isn't a shorter game better? I don't mean to make it artificially short like playing tiny galaxy with one opponent, but based on your settings, faster would be better right? If longer games got higher scores, you could get to a point where you practically have won and extent the turns by not acting like signing up the last alliance, etc. Well in any case, I'd like to learn to post with my character too, I just made one and played a game. <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T

Reply to Nooooo!!! I should have read that trade screen. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Ouch. BTW, you didn't colonize anything but Mars? ^ ^; Look on the bright side, you won't be making that mistake again anytime soon.

Reply to Renaming Stars? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I asked for it in one of those wishlist topics. Here's hoping.

Reply to What causes a 'stacking' mentality...? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I can see a reason not to just have it randomly form fleets when ships are stacked since it would have to later evaluate all of it's current fleets to decide if it should break them up or re-organize. Although that's not hard to do for us, that would be quite a bit of excess processing to perform. I think that they should be a little more efficient though in forming and assigning these fleets as this can obviously be taken advantage of. The "guardin

Reply to Simple question re: Metaverse scoring in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I would say that the AI is incredibly aggresive and effective when it comes to colonization. Depending on their starting locations of course, consistently out colonize me in the initial grabs, the economic bonus is a big help. Besides that however, I find the AI does have its problems in this as it doesn't know when to stop. In my current game almost 1/3 of the galaxy was left to the Drengin at the start, it's theirs and they're power is i

Reply to Mind Control Center in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I don't think he meant that the NLC is between research acadamy and the invention matrix, but rather that they follow the research acadamies in his strategy, which I do when I'm neutral also. ^ ^ They are more powerful than discovery spheres but according to the discription, only by 2 TP which is also as always, just potential. Getting them that early on though is pretty incredible.

Reply to Early campaign weirdness - enemy with weapon tech builds only unarmed ships, etc. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, morale is a huge bonus, happier people, makes more tax payers faster and the ability to set a higher tax rate in general. I think the 100% bonus is a bit odd, but since morale caps there it could be a bonus since you could theoretically have the potential for morale much higher than 100% that you'd never get any benefit from. If you try to get full morale for all your colonies for example, some will just be happier than others so you'll be losin

Reply to A few gripes.. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I didn't want to travel up into areas in which the AI gets artificial bonuses either, but when you think about what the AI does best, micro-managing its finances and sees that little or no production and research points are wasted, it basically already gets what I would consider an economic bonus. If you want more of a challenge as I did, you simply have to go higher in difficulty with the way things are now. The AI is good, but no matter how much wo

Reply to Indestructible Starports - Whose Crazy Idea Was That? in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Must... learn to... get rid of... basic... horrid... starports... I'll get to it after I finish this game so that I don't mess it up. ^^; I just took 4 planets PQ4-6 and just found out about this update... Had I only known they would be even more worthless planets than they already were I wouldn't have done it! Had to happen on my fir

Reply to Best Tile Bonuses on a single planet in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

PQ 30 planet with 6 300% research bonus tiles, 4 100% research bonus tiles, 2 700% manufacturing bonus tiles, 1 300% manufacturing bonus tile, and 3 100% manufacturing bonus tiles. A 300% food bonus tile and some other stuff. That is just wrong. Isn't that like a sin against um... the god of fairnes

Reply to Turning off "go to next ship" in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I've been asking for the ability to toggle that option too. I also thought the find button would be better suited to 'find next ship' rather than center on one you've chosen which you pretty much always know where it is anyway since you click on it or it auto centers... I'm know plenty of people have pointed out how hard it is to control fleets and stacked ships. It's even in the reviews of the game I've read. I'm sure they'll address it