Belanos

Reply to I wonder if.... KABOOM ...... oh crap...... in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Man, you really need to upgrade your video card. I had a 9550 not too long ago and I couldn't play squat. It's hopelessly outdated.

Reply to Tech trading nerf??? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I'm sure we'll see another rebalancing in the next patch, there has been a fair amount of complaining about it on the forum. I do prefer it over what it was like in the vanilla game though. Then it was way too easy to trade your way to tech superiority. I could trade a colonization tech for another one, plus get 2-4 others and a bunch of cash. I never even bothered to research them, I just traded. Now I have to put a bit of effort into it. You can still make some deals here and there, and if you

Reply to Just want to mod the custom race portraits and such in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

If you want other portraits, just put some in your MyGames/DarkAvatar/GFX/Portraits folder. Then just cycle through the selector until you come across it.

Reply to Colony Ship Designs in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I really wish Stardock would make the Galactic Guide Book easier to get, so it would actually be useful on large maps. The winner should be able to spam scout ships and they're all able to survey, & when there is still stuff left to survey. Either that or have anomalies appear randomly throughout the game, instead of having them placed only in the beginning.

Reply to GalCiv II : DA vs DL questions in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I also noticed it cost $10 more at walmarts then online here, whats up with that? There's more cost involved in getting the game to your local Walmart than Stardock shipping it out themselves. There's going to be at least one middleman, probably more, getting a small piece of the action. AFAIK Stardock doesn't deliver straight to the stores, they deal with distributors who do that for them. And sometimes they'll deal with sub-distibutors.

Reply to All AI's, all missles? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

...at much greater cost per component, meaning that you'll have higher build times and increased maintainence. Missile based ships do tend to have higher attack ratings, but they cost a whole lot more to build. Mass drivers, on the other hand, are cheap even into the late techs... only special mass driver techs like the nano ripper and black hole generator buck the trend. I hadn't considered the cost factor. Still, missile weapons aren't any more

Reply to Guard/Sentry? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

however what about the sentry? the name implyed somthing along the lines of a patrole. i assumed it was a patrol that would stop and ask for orders similar to guard every time it saw something... but i cant get it to go back and forth. What exactly does this option do? It's basically the same a Guard except it will respond to any ships that come within range, not just enemy ships. And no it won't work if your ship is moving, it has to be standing st

Reply to Guard/Sentry? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The Auto-Attack function, the last I checked has your ship run around trying to attack enemy ship, even running into enemy territory. It does not allow for percise strategic control. It's still a form of automation, which the previous poster was complaing about. If it works as you say, I've never used it myself, then there's no need to conduct a war on your own. Just put the ship on auto-pilot and it will take care of your enemy for you. And it would on

Reply to All AI's, all missles? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

So what's the problem with that? I go for missile techs myself. They give the most bang for the space they take up on a ship. For example, the Stinger gives you 2 attack and takes up 18 units of space. For Lasers to give you 2 attack, you would need 2 of them, requiring space units of 10 each. The Rail Gun will take up 24 for 2 attack. It would just seem to make sense to go for that weapon type myself. With the amount of space you save, you can even add some defence down the line. At least earli

Reply to An idea for the next patch in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

You do realize there's are two threads devoted to ideas for the next patch, started by Stardock themselves don't you? You're more likely to get your ideas noticed in them.

Reply to Guard/Sentry? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

So you select the "Patrol & Attack" feature and have your ship/fleet run between these stations looking for enemy ships to attack. We already have an Auto-Attack option, what's the difference whether the ship is moving or standing still?

Reply to Wide screen monitor or 4:3 monitor? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

What's Vista have to do with running a widescreen monitor? HDCP support. Vista will downres HD video unless both your video card and monitor support HDCP, as I recall. I see. Which is only an issue for videos then, and not much of one. There aren't very many HD titles out there yet, and who really cares whether your favourite TV show gets downgraded, if you're connected to a tuner card. It's even less of an is

Reply to Wide screen monitor or 4:3 monitor? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I use dual monitors and have run GCII at 2560x1024 across both. You must have a pretty decent video card to pull that off. I tried it with Civilization 4 using an ATI X800 and the game ground to a halt in no time. Though my new GeForce 7950 might have better luck with it. How do you get those kinds of resolutions anyway?

Reply to Wide screen monitor or 4:3 monitor? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks for all of the replies thus far, hope there will be more to come. Unfortunately I do not plan to spend more than € 350 on a single screen. Do all games, also the ones from 2 years ago, support widescreen monitors? Which manufacturer do you prefer? Besides galciv2 (of course) I wish to play fps on this screen. Most games these days do support widescreen monitors. Even games as far back as Neverwinter Nights 1 will support them. And if they don

Reply to Wide screen monitor or 4:3 monitor? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Only problem with wide screen monitors are that they offer less viewable area compared to their 4:3 brethren. Go and compare 19" wide screens with 19" 4:3 monitors and you'll see what I mean. You can't compare the two based on that number alone, you need to consider the overall dimensions. My 22" widescreen is exactly the same height as my 19" 4:3, but a few inches wider. That figure is based on the diagonal of the screen, so trying to compare the two u

Reply to Wide screen monitor or 4:3 monitor? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

wide screen ('vista ready') vs 4:3 (usual format) monitors. What's Vista have to do with running a widescreen monitor? I have a 22" Acer and I have no problems running it on XP. You just need a graphics card that supports that resolution, it has nothing to do with the OS. Anyway, I swear by my widescreen. I actually have both types, for those programs that don't support widescreen, but I rarely use the 4:3.

Reply to Your ideas for the next update! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

It would be great if we could lock in our empires's morale rate and let the taxation slider float to compensate. Until my economy really gets going, I set my tax rate so that the overall Morale is 45%, just above going into the red. But quite often I find myself going in and making an adjustment every single turn, which can get rather annoying after awhile. It would save me alot of micromanagement if I could just assign a certain Morale percentage, and let the game make the minor adjustments on

Reply to This game is a pig! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

If your Norton is as old as you suggest, your subscription probably ran out and it is not being kept up to date any longer. No, the subscription renews itself everytime I do a system reinstall and put Norton back on the machine. In fact, I believe all I need to do is uninstall/reinstall to continue getting updates. The dates aren't kept up at their end, they only activate when you install the program. Strange setup really.

Reply to This game is a pig! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

1) Do you have the Allow AI to use extra CPU cycles option turn on? This does exactly what it says and on a non dual core machine it will slow the game especially with all the AIs you've got in game. Right! That's one thing I hadn't considered. No wonder it was maxing out my CPU, I told it to! I guess I'll be turning that off until I get myself a dual core. 2) GPU Throttle. On or off? This had more to do with crashing

Reply to Your ideas for the next update! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I would really like to be able to move the pop up window that ummmm pops-up, when a constructor reaches a star base. It askes if i want to upgrade but sometimes i can't see which start base its refering to. Speaking of which. If I send a Constructor to a base but there aren't any more modules available, the game doesn't even tell me what starbase it's referring to. It just comes up with a generic message that gives me no indication where that Constructo

Reply to Guard/Sentry? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Ditto on the patrol thing. There's alot of borders to cover in this game and being able to have a ship sweep an area on a regular basis would really help keep an eye on who's coming and going.

Reply to This game is a pig! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

i have recommended specs and game l---a---g---s my memory (512Mb, ddr1, i think) is bit old, though I don't understand how they can even list 512 as recommended. That should be considered a minimum these days. Xindows XP is going to use up almost half of that on it's own. For any games, 1 gig should be the recommend with 2 or more optimal.

Reply to This game is a pig! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Norton!! nurf it and get Zone alarm security suite...works a treat! Only runs 1 process and that's for a firewall. anti-spy and anti-virus. I don't like Zone Alarm, it's constantly popping up windows and getting in the way when it's updating. At least Norton is discrete when it does it's thing and there's no reminders or announcements for this and that. It just quietly does it's job let's me know it's finished in an unobstrusive way. The public system I

Reply to This game is a pig! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

oh come on. 9 major races and 8 minors. in a Gigantic map. Do you have ANY IDEAS how much work is gonna be needed, and how many resources to run that later in the game, with all those ships, all those planets, all the interactions...? Just admit it, you're pushing the envelope just a tad here. Yeah, I'm sure I am. But

Reply to This game is a pig! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Sure, there may be room for improvement in the optimization department. But from what I have seen of this game - and the devs - that is, and always has been, a priority. I certainly hope so, in the next patch. I've read a number of threads by people who have mentioned that DA is much more of a pig than DL was, even though the specs really haven't changed. So hopefully they'll be able to bringing it back down a bit to waht it was. I've also bee