[quote]I take it the create custom opponents button won't be grayed out anymore in the final relese.[/quote] Hasn't been for some time now, actually. The latest beta versions allow custom races using any of the tech trees.
Oh, nice. I'm liking some of the AI updates that the screenshots are showing off, like the Korath taunting the player. I hope you've got more stuff like that in the works, that's awesome. Glad to know that the AI is going to become much more lethal in the final version. The current versions are a reliable challenge, but they tend to squander many of their advantages. Especially the Thalans... I'm looking forward to being able to have those guys in my game without them just being an easy
I believe that this same speech was discussed on AIGameDev.net. If I remember correctly, I believe that the consensus (or at least a common opinion) was that the two are not as mutually exclusive as the article makes it out to be. Good AI can be fun AI as well.
GalCiv2 Forums
If its too hard to fix, yet an obvious case of severe game imbalance, isn't the simplest solution to just remove it from the xeno ethics branch entirely and/or replace it with something new?
The real question is: are we going to get those as parts to play with in the ship editor? :P
[quote]Woho! Go Thalans!!!Now if we can just get them to go the all-factory strat to save them research time on the labs...[/quote] Honestly, I find that an all research strategy does wonders for them, since they have huge leaps to make technologically, and the research buildings contribute to developing the L2 and L3 versions. Besides, with a good research base, one can very quickly tech up to L3 factories in a mixed strategy, minimizing the maintainence costs.
If you're playing TA, there's an auto design feature you may want to look into. Otherwise, I highly recommend you design your own ships for this. You don't have to create your own look for them, but there are templates you can use in the ship designer. You don't need to grab the stock ships first, they're all sitting in the template list as well. That is, if you're using TA. I don't believe that the base game has the template functionality.
Myep, that's the one. It was pretty damned crazy around here. I don't normally follow hockey, but there was no escaping it.
If you see a drengin fleet with guns, they're almost always super dominator corvettes.
Zyxpsilon, I'm taking it you didn't see the lunacy, riots and all, brought about by the Oilers getting within a single game of the Stanley Cup. :P
Wait, madness has only JUST NOW gripped us? :P As someone who lives in Edmonton, I'm familiar with this madness. You don't find hockey fans more passionate than the Oilers fans... Rexall place is friggin' LOUD.
GalCiv2 Forums
Though it's not quite what you're asking, a LOT of the super abilities need to be looked at again. The Thalans is now downright useless as they barely build factories (with the strategy I find most effective, industrial buildings aren't constructed at ALL until I've developed the research capacity to blitz to L3 from the get go and avoid the maintainence costs). The Iconians have never had a strong special ability (they only get basic colonization techs for two types... the Korath get the ADVANC
My first thought is: more powerful mod authoring tools. While the stuff that GC2 has is fine for tweaking some of the balance, adding new factions, etc... it's very limited. You can only do what Stardock has already enabled, as there's no script backend, no SDK, nothing of the sort that would let you, say, create a total conversion mod or significantly alter core gameplay mechanics. What I'm saying is, give the community the tools to keep games evolving, and they'll do it indefinitly. T
Alright, you've aroused my curiosity. The rest is just slow torture as I wait for monday.
I believe that, in theory, yes. They have access to the technology. However, those are monstrously expensive techs, so I would be honestly surprised if the minor wasted the research time to grab even ONE of the five prereq techs. It would be pretty alarming if they DID get one, though.
[quote]Thank you all for contributing to this thread. Hopefully Stardock will find it useful. StarStriker1, I'm glad you've found the Thalan to be viable.. if you don't mind, have you had success with them on suicidal? If so (or even if you haven't), in your experience have they played as strongly as the other races?[/quote] Nah, I don't play on those difficulties. I don't like messing about with the game mechanics the way Wyndstar does, and I like being able to mess with slightly nono
Technically, the Drengin AI is inherited by the Korath and Yor in many respects, so all those races are significantly improved. I've been quite impressed, in general... I've been playing a four way game against those three. Keep it up, Brad! :D As for your questionaire: 1) I haven't given all the races a fair shake, yet, but the Drengin and Korath seem like they get their military technology alarmingly fast. That said, I haven't played them for AGES. Other than that, I haven't
Geez, Brad, you can't seem to catch a break these days! I look forward to hearing about your publishing arrangements, should you choose to publish them.
Drengi. DRENGI. ...that is AWESOME and you guys deserve a medal.
Sounds like a beast of a machine, Brad. If I might ask, what's wrong about VS 2008? I've been happily using VS 2003 for a while now... does 2008 just not add all that much to it?
The real question is: will Brad put up some notes on AI changes LATER? ;) Thanks, I'm looking forward to giving this a shot!
A denial of service attack? How... petty. The mindset of some of these people is absolutely astounding...
No, I believe that the game will scale the ships down no matter how many parts you add to it. All ships end up the same size. ...Which would be just fine if the damn ships already were barely distinguishable in size.
Yeah, you just brought up another of my pet peeves in the combat viewer. I'd love for ships to scale dramatically between hull types... there isn't much visual difference between a battlecruiser and a frigate, which is a damn shame.
To offer an alliance, you need two conditions met: 1) Both sides need the Alliance tech. You might want to gift it to the other side. 2) The other civ needs to have "Close" relations with you, which is a step beyond friendly. For that, you generally need a comparatively strong military, trade, etc. Those two are the most reliable, but others (like treaties) also work. Check the foreign relatons->report screen to get a breakdown of the factors in your relationship with them.