Belanos

Reply to Always a negative income starting the game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Finances at the start of a game before you even do anything are basically a total desaster and typically i will spend the first half hour of each game desperately trying to wrestle my finances into the green. That is just normal for Galciv. It doesn't have to be. I'm never losing money because I constantly adjust my spending in relation to my taxes. If I'm showing a loss, I simply turn down my production. There are times where I have it down so low that

Reply to Should I get the expansion? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hello, In my games, spies I place are usually killed in 1-2 turns. So Other than a temporary disruption, I learn nothing of the enemy, and it has no real benefit. That's not always the case. I had one game where the Terrans did nothing about my spy and I was able to reach an Advanced level in no time. If they do take them out quickly, just keep trying. The longer a spy is in their territory, the higher your level becomes. One method I've seen mention

Reply to Confused about MPs and TPs in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

That is very helpful. Will two research labs cut the amount of time required to research an item in half? Well that would stand to reason. Though there may be some ingame mechanism that allows for a certain amount of wastage. I'm not sure about that. Will two factories cut the amount of time required to produce one item in half or just give you the ability to produce two items at the same time? <b

Reply to Should I get the expansion? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

It's great. But if you only managed to play into 20 turns on Dreadlords, maybe it isn't for you. And what do you mean there wasn't any espionage in Dreadlords, certainly there was. No actual spies, but there was a slider that you could adjust for each race. Now it's a bit more direct, you need to actually place agents on a planet in order to get your espionage levels up. As for what's good? Asteroid Fields are a great addition. Even lowly planets can become industrial powerhouses now. O

Reply to Nivida Help in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

if Nvidia makes the Nvidia 7600 for a PCI slot, and at a reasonable price, but other cards do you suggest for a reasonable price and a mem range of 256 MB, and that fits in a PCI slot. You only have a PCI slot for video? Good Lord, you are in serious need of an upgrade! Sorry, but I can't help you on that one. I assumed you had at least an AGP slot. Even that is on the verge of becoming obsolete. You may as well forget about the 7600 and go straight for

Reply to New Game Settings Questions in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

1. Besides blowing away the prefs.ini file, is there any way when you start a new game the ability to set the galaxy settings and race properties back to their default settings? If not, I would think a 'default' button would be a great addition to some patch. None that I know of, And I agree, a default button would be nice. Though after you play it awhile, you get a feel for what you like. 2. When I select a new, uncha

Reply to Confused about MPs and TPs in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

MPs are are Manufacturing Points and are used for... well, manufacturing, not currency. Trade points are what's used for currency. I'm not sure though if there is any conversion to credits or, if so, what the rate is.

Reply to Economic Treaty Trade in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

There was a bug in the original version of DA where the AI mistakenly overvalued your economic treaty very early in the game. Patch up to the latest version and this issue has been fixed. And be prepared to sell your soul for pretty much any techs or treaties after you patch. Trading has really been tightened up. The AIs are now as tight-fisted as Scrooge on Christmas Eve.

Reply to Nivida Help in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

and citizen I'm a picky gamer so I don't buy everything that is out. BTW, citizen is a term here that indicates posting status. It isn't anyone's name. Most people here are called citizen. As for being picky, you can't be too much so if you're still using a 5500. Do yourself a favour and get an Nvidia 7600. Your games will love you for it. It's a good solid card for a reasonable price and should still be relevant for a couple of years, at least until D

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

There is a gold edition demo being made. It hasn't been released yet, but when it does, you should be able to use it to test how your machine performs. That's not really a good indication. Things get much slower towards the end of the game. Mind you that has more to do with CPU and RAM than video cards.

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

In fact I think the Tech Trading is set too easy. I've had planets give me the tech to colonize their planets when I was close to their enemies. Have you actually installed the latest patch to your game? The difference between the default game and the patched version is like night and day. The fact that an AI is giving you a colonization tech makes me think you haven't patched. They never, ever, part with their colonization techs anymore.

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

I wouldn't mind seeing the odd permanent wormhole in the game. I think it might add some interesting strategies.

Reply to Spending slider in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yep, the sliders/focus suck IMO. Skilled workers going back and forth between the private and public sectors, at the whim of one person?! Heheh. There's no such thing as a public/private division in this game, it's all public. It doesn't even have anything to do with employment levels, you're just providing resources to each area. You can have the same number of scientists working on a project, but if they can invest in better equipment and have mo

Reply to Nivida Help in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

ok citizen thanks for that info, But the card works great. Have it your way. But just forget about ever playing games like Oblivion or Neverwinter Nights 2. Or any other modern game aside from GalCiv 2 for that matter.

Reply to Always a negative income starting the game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

You just need to adjust your tax rate/production sliders until you start showing a surplus. It's not that hard to do. Raise your taxes, lower your production sliders until you get into the green. Those are the sliders above your Military/Social/Research ones. Just be careful you don't raise your taxes too high and have your Morale go into the red. As for your planets showing negative income, you might see that on quite a few of them for awhile until you get a few upgrades for your markets. Anoth

Reply to Nivida Help in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

yes it do support directx 9.0c because I downloaded directx 9.c version (4.09.0000.0904) and had no problem with it is working wonderful. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's able to use all the routines that are included in 9.0c and required by today's games. NVidia doesn't even have a page for the 5500 anymore, they start at the 5600. That should tell you something. You seem extremely reluctant to admit that your card may be the issue here, not the

Reply to (Newbie) Pirate Behavior/Countermeasures? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The frigate has Stinger IV missiles (which I have) for a 4 attack, but an anti-missile defense of 7, which makes it nearly impossible to even dent, let alone destroy. The best advice I've seen is to not build anything for awhile and just turn up your research until you have a ship configuration that will take them on. In your case, I'd research the Laser line until I had strong enough beam weapons to tackle them. You just need something to get aroun

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

I'm just asking weather or not DA will work on my system or not. If you're already having problems with DL, you're going to have even more of them with DA. It's a bit more demanding that the original game was. Trust me, you'd be doing yourself a favour getting a new video card. As I said, I used to have a 9550, and it made a huge difference in all my games getting a better one. Go for an ATI X800 or Nvidia 7600. Those are the best availab

Reply to Farm and overpopulation in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

As far as I can tell a planets size only determines how big it looks on your screen. No, apparently there's a morale bonus for all planets 11 or larger due to planet quality. People are happier living on a nice world.

Reply to Newbie Question regards DL/DA in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I have just bought the gold edition of Dread Lords/Dark Avatar, and was wondering if there is any point in playing Dread Lords or can i access everything plus more through the Dark Avatar game. Excuse my ignorance but i am new to the game.regards Yeah, unless you want to play the campaign there's no point to it. Mysels, I never bothered with either of the campaigns, I went strictly for the "sand-box" game.

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

This would allow players who want to do a lot of spying - such as to shut down important planets or just rack up intel levels - to do so without spending a zillion bc on spies that will simply disappear in two turns anyways, while those who don't want to do a lot of spying can just build a few for self-defense and then turn it off. But that's the point of spying, it's supposed to be expensive. If spies weren't destroyed everytime, they would just en

Reply to Farm and overpopulation in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Am I correct that a general corollary to this situation is that one should seldom if ever research advanced farming technologies? I don't think that's the case, just don't build alot of them. There's still advantages to having a a reasonably large population, i.e. higher taxes and planetary defence. You just need to know where to draw the line.

Reply to Tech trading is ridiculous! in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

So to those who still depend on tech whoring, use Terrans. Tech whoring isn't the only way to use trading. Everyone seems so fixated on that aspect that they forget that trading can simply be used to try and gain tech superiority in the game, without necessarily trying to make a profit. That's my approach to it at any rate. In some games in fact, it's just a method to keep up with the AI, never mind trying to get ahead of it.

Reply to Uninstalled the game through Control Panel, big mistake? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

D'oh!!! Don't feel bad. I just uninstalled/reinstalled Neverwinter Nights 2 because I wasn't able to install the latest beta patch. It turns out there was a hot fix for the last patch I didn't know about so all I really had to do was update the game. And that sucker has 7 disks to go through in order to put it on your drive, p

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

For the simplest possible proof, I'll just use the end-line weapons techs. A Doom Ray does 22 damage, has Size 10 and SizeMod 4. A Blackhole Gun does 16 damage, has Size 6 and SizeMod 4. A Blackhole Eruptor does 25 damage, has Size 11 and SizeMod 2. SizeMod is a value added to the Size, and is a percentage of the hull starting size. Components with large Size and small SizeMod are more effective on hulls with larger Sizes. If you don't believe me, there are a d