Starstriker1

Reply to Galactic Civilizations III in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

3D maps would be a very poor choice. Aside from strict realism not being a virtue in and of itself, it's a feature that complicates and confuses game information and manipulation for no real gain. The current map already doesn't have accurate approximations of distance, where it can take longer to cross a solar system than to go between them, so it's already pretty easy to see the 2D map as an abstraction of movement costs created by gravity wells. It's pretty easy to extend that to the idea tha

Reply to Rangers luck runs out! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

As far as I can tell, they usually come around when your military is lagging behind significantly... and come more often based on luck.

Reply to It's about time the AI shows some APPRECIATION! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Never played the campaign mode, I just track down everything Frogboy/Draginol posts about the story. :)

Reply to It's about time the AI shows some APPRECIATION! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Naw, the Drengin would be quite the opposite. They're ruthless and bloodthirsty, but they're anything but stupid. I mean, hell, they apparently were patient enough to wait tens of thousands of years for a stargate to fly its way down to the Torian homeworld at sub-light speeds in order to launch their invasion. The Krynn are more of the "Jihad! Jihad NOW!" folk.

Reply to It's about time the AI shows some APPRECIATION! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Eh. Without a huge overhaul, I just find the UP to be little more than an random event that won't make a big change to the gameplay. Worst comes to worst, you lose your trade income to get around their stipulations. I'd forgotten about the trade embargos... a neat feature that really, really doesn't serve a purpose as it stands. There seems to be a lot of those. It isn't remotely effective because you gain as much from the trade relationship as they do in most cases, and trade routes di

Reply to What do you want to see in 2.0? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

*AIs should be using the new ship components better. Yeah, they'll OCCASIONALLY use the new hull boosting components as part of their ships, but that's rare (despite the HUGE advantage it gives). Moreover, I've never seen them use ANY of the following types of ships: -Cargo hulls boosted with HP modules to turn them into powerful, makeshift battleships. They don't have many weapons, but they get ridiculous amounts of HP if you build them correctly. The downside is efficiency, since they're w

Reply to It's about time the AI shows some APPRECIATION! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Oh, yeah, that, absolutely. There are lots of small tweaks that'd improve the current diplomatic AI. Weighting military might partially by the success of the civ in war would also be helpful (if they win wars despite having a lower military rating, it might be a good idea to take that into account)... along with giving them the ability to know when they aren't doing that hot. ...I can't count the number of times that I've got a message along the lines of "have you come to grovel for pea

Reply to It's about time the AI shows some APPRECIATION! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Unfortunately, it's development heavy enough that the chances of ever seeing it in GalCiv 2 are close enough to zero that it really doesn't matter, especially given the work that the espionage system and AI still need. Fun to think about, though.

Reply to It's about time the AI shows some APPRECIATION! in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Neat ideas. Just to throw out a more complicated one (that could only possibly see the light of day in something as distant in the future as GalCiv3)... One of the problems with the diplomacy system is that it's fairly easy to exploit the relations between races. You have a nice little indicator of whether they think you're the best thing since elvis or if they want to serve you as part of their next potluck lunch. It also doesn't translate well to the human player or (should multiplaye

Reply to Innovation Complex ??? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

The innovation complex is a super projects unique to the terran tech tree. It has something to do with ship speed... I believe that it gives +1 speed to all ships built on the planet, which is a very nice early game boost. Yeah, you can only build one. You'll probably want it on earth, and you'll want to get it early so you can take advantage of the additional speed in the colony rush. As for what bonus tiles will effect it, the short answer is that it benefits from none of the

Reply to USA Bombs Iran ???? in Everything Else GalCiv2 Forums

...to play the devils advocate, what if not striking first resulted in the Iranians striking first? We are, after all, dealing with a regime more than happy to undermine and dominate its neighbours and has a president that wants to "wipe Israel off the map". Worst case scenario, no preemptive strike occurs and the Iranians are thereby able to develop a nuke and use it on, say, Tel Aviv. Not to support the Bush administration or its generally incompetent approach to world affairs, but th

Reply to Hyperdrive? in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

That sounds like the event he's describing. It's a real kick in the nuts on a large map...

Reply to Media Ignores Gagging Sound From Canada in Current Events Stardock Forums

I'd disagree with the assertion that it's fearmongering. The slippery slope argument is a very, very valid one. Police states don't form overnight, they form piece by piece, each argument reasonable, and each measure only involving a small sacrifice for the greater good. Orwell wrote on the subject often (ie, Animal Farm and 1984). By the time it's made illegal to Think Bad Thoughts (tm), that will already seem like a reasonable step. There's overblown rhetoric out there, but I don't t

Reply to Media Ignores Gagging Sound From Canada in Current Events Stardock Forums

Artysim, I agree that the event you're linking to is appalling, but as I posted above I'm not sure that criminalizing hatred is the correct way to deal with the problem. The only use I can bring up for it is as a transitionary step between a society that tolerates hatred and one that does not, but even then I have to question whether it does its job effectively (Re: sweeping the problem under the rug) and whether its worth the risk to free speech in general. The bigges

Reply to Media Ignores Gagging Sound From Canada in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Kudos for bringing up the topic. I've seen it go through an editorial or two here in Canada, but even up here there hasn't been too much in the paper. I disagree with many of your conclusions, but that's neither here nor there. I am very much opposed to hate speech legislation. I haven't read the Steyn article, and it could very well be full of the most repulsive, hateful bigotry that has ever been written. Regardless, the state should not be involved in denouncing it</e

Reply to Thalons gonna need to be nerfed. in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]I don't think juding a races strength by the way the AI plays them matters for much. It seems to differ based on who's computer is running the game. Some people have their biggest problem as the torians. Mine tend to be the Krynn or Korath (and suddenly Terrans my last couple of games). On the other hand, there do seem to be races that are universially weak, like the Korx.[/quote] Not what I'm seeing! Currently, the Korx have some of the most advanced warships in the galaxy, and

Reply to Attack or Defenses? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]My in-game watching of laser-shields battles makes me believe attack generally trumps defenses. The cause is watching my 1/2 (1 las / 2 las def) ships getting trumped by 3 las / 0 las def ships.[/quote] That's not a fair comparison, though. Your typical defense is going to be much, much SMALLER than the corresponding weapon. I'm willing to bet that the ships you were fielding were significantly lower tech, weapon and defense wise. In general, defenses are better in small engageme

Reply to GC 2.0 feature request thread in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Don't you think it's a bit too early fort that ?I mean talking about game which development will start 2-3 years from now ?[/quote] You're thinking of GalCiv3. We're talking about the planned 2.0 patch for GalCiv2, which has already been budgeted for as a major overhaul of several major gameplay elements, like espionage.

Reply to My Generation: We Can't Fix Sh*t! in Life Journals Stardock Forums

I think part of the issue is specialization. There's simply so much to know, and we only focus on specific parts of it. Often, we trade breadth of knowledge for depth of knowledge, which makes us really reliant on someone else knowing the stuff we didn't bother with. I've got nothing to back this up, but I'd suspect that the previous generation put a lot more value on being independent and self-reliant.

Reply to GC 2.0 feature request thread in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Starstriker1 - I seem to remember Cari calling that an bug - one that benefits the player, but would be nearly impossible to fix. It wasn't even addressed because you HAVE to micromanage it to make it work, so if you cared enough to use it, you deserved the bonus.Mainly, I use it during the colony rush. Getting a few free points can really matters that early in the game, when ships are really slow and getting there one turn ahead of someone else is really important.[/quote] Sure

Reply to GC 2.0 feature request thread in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I'd like to see the pathfinder automatically make use of the "choose the direction of planet launch" feature to move ships faster through friendly space. Players can already do this via micromanagement, moving two entire tiles for free if they path through a friendly world. With multiple planets in short range of each other, you can turn a cluster of worlds into a fortress defended with only a few fleets at once. It adds a neat territory control element where you can cover a wider area with less

Reply to Latest Impulse screenshots in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

Damn, that is a pretty slick looking interface!

Reply to Update next week in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Perhaps trying to crunch out two major strategy titles in such a short time was poor planning, but I can only imagine how frustrating it is to the developers to get flamed for being lazy while they've been working their asses off for 7 weeks. Personally, I'd be livid. Of course, now that PM2008 is out of the way, I can only presume that Stardock will be back into their regular pace of post release support (especially with some of the stuff planned for the 2.0 release). Hopefully, they'l

Reply to First Try at ToA: The Terrans in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

I was asking because I find those techs to be utterly invaluable for creating powerful ships. While it takes me a while to get to integrity grids (it is expensive after all), the cheaper HP boost tech that comes before it is well worth the price of admission. Most races have a version of this... those that don't need to trade for it. The standard HP boost tech will add 5 HP at the cost of 3 space (regardless of hull size) and 50bc. As a consequence, you can stuff a ship full of these wi

Reply to First Try at ToA: The Terrans in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Did you mess around with the terran hp boosting techs? Integrity grids are fantastic.... if a bit expensive to build! :D