I bought the DA+TA expansion deal last year and saved a few bucks. I have a key code for TA, but I'm not participating in the beta. I'll be playing it first time when it's officially released.
[quote]This thing of the AI surrendering really takes the fun out of a grudge match[/quote] In DA you can disable surrending in the game setup. Surrenders can really mix things up and add an element of chance to the game, but I mostly play with it disabled. Also, when speaking against good alignment, people always neglect to mention the Hall of Empathy that doubles the chance of an alien race surrendering to you. Although I don't play good alignment anymore, I played it a lot when I first
I think new players often feel they need to fill the build queues right away on every world they get a hold of. That can play hell on your economy. Planets make money, do research, and produce with the initial colony. Buildings greatly enhance that, but it costs money. Early game, I build only a handful of planets and don't even touch most of them until mid game. The benefit from initial colonies does stack up nicely once you start getting numbers of them. When conquering planets early gam
The number of habitable planets and galaxy size can really change the way the game is played. I mostly play gig/abun and it's a long game, but I play a quick game with only a few habitables per race every once in a while. It's totally different. There should be Metaverse categories for particular game settings, but I guess that's what the Tournaments are for. Haven't gotten involved with any of those yet.
The question is, are these the crippled Thalans we're going to see in the final release, or are they going to get more work. For them to make such a handicapped entry into TA is disheartening. They're my favorite in DA. In fact, when not playing as Thalan, I take them out because they *are* so powerful.
I would say that DA is one or two levels harder than DL. I'm expecting the same when comparing TA to DA (haven't played TA yet). Just seems to work out that way. In any case, I would imagine jumping on TA as a noob would be a bit overwhelming. I thought DL was a fairly complicated game first time I played it. TA would seem to be over the top. Fortunately, the expansions always leave the original game intact and if I understand the prequisites correctly, you can always fall back to DL to le
I haven't played TA yet, but in DA, the AI smokes me at everything in the beginning. I concentrate on weapons tech and start overtaking them through conquest early to mid-game. Once you take enough of their planets, you can turn it around your way. Though, I don't always win and a lot of it depends on luck. For high diffuclties, you need way more planets than the AI does. There's no way to compete with them planet for planet (unless you drop the difficulty way down). That's why str
Yea, I haven't played Yor that much and I'm starting to really see the advantage of that super ability. Could be my new favorite for a few games.
Thanks, I figured that's what was happening, but wasn't sure. Also, for some reason, I thought it was supposed to handicap ships more heavily.
[quote]BUT, evil gives you SO many options that are simply not available to the other ethical choices.[/quote] Yea, evil rules for military conquest which is the best for Metaverse. Even so, I've posted a few decent scoring Neutral games. Although I still go with military conquest, I like working the influence angle. [quote]So i'd suggest the military bonuses get you that condition quicker.[/quote] You can't really neglect your military rating for any victory goal. There's al
When playing as Yor, I still see the full move numbers on alien ships in my space. Isn't the Yor super isolationist ability supposed to drop moves to 1 for alien ships in Yor space? Does it in fact work properly against the AI or am I not understanding what I see correctly. Thanks.
Evil for warmongering Neutral for influence wins Good for avoiding war and winning through diplomacy
I'm not very concerned about it. I just read they're pushing the release date up to March. There should be plenty of time to get things balanced out with respect to the game's economy. This issue with the beta does suggest things are going to be different economically in TA, which is good really.
[quote]Looks like you should have the silver medal at the next recalc Craig. Congratulations! Better watch out Mumble, I think Craig wants his turn with the shinies![/quote] Thanks! Having a medal is very cool. I was expecting bronze and was surprised to see silver on that last submission. That's one thing that's nice about Metaverse, you don't have to make colossal scores to get up there. Of course, sitting at the top with only a few games on record says a lot. Don't think I'
I wouldn't go so far as to say I love SDC, but I've found it to be fairly innocuous and rather convenient. Although, I wouldn't have a problem with a stand-alone install either. I'd probably still prefer it. I haven't played TA yet, but I imagine it will be a while before I can win any of those games at high difficulty, which is good.
[quote]When you guys play on obscene and suicidal how do you set up your planets in terms of factories and research labs? Do you go half and half or do you have some planets that are all labs and some that are all factories? Or do some of you avoid the quartering production drawback of the economy by going all labs and using the focus mechanic on production? [/quote] I'm not as skilled as some of the other Suicidal players since I've only been able to squeak out a few DA games at that diffic
[quote]Certainly the morale cap of DA makes it more severe than in DL but there still can be situations in DA where higher pops are both achievable and practical.[/quote] Hey thanks for pointing out the effect of food production on the cap. I saw something was going on there and I wasn't sure what it was. In any case, it does make building more than 3 morale resources worthwhile in DA. I've been doing them all anyway because I saw it was still helping the 20b's get higher approval, but I
I don't want to see the screws cranked down on the game's economy. The difficulty is irrelevant. An impossible economy is going to be impossible at any difficulty level. As it is, I have to spend several months at zero spending early in a DA game. So how's it going to help my enjoyment of the game to prolong that or cause me to give up? But you like you said, the game isn't done yet so hopefully these issues will be resolved before the official release. In any case, that's my opinion FWIW.
[quote]But he's not always there. In some games you are him.[/quote] But the thing is, how many games do you have to lose to be on top just once? A lot. I used to play an online TBS game a long time ago and that was always the case. It's more fun playing the AI because you can adjust the difficulty to your own ability. In multi-player, the game difficulty is going to be dependant on the ability of the best player, and that's almost certainly going to be very high.
If GC2 were multi-player, I highly doubt I could ever win. There's always someone better to come along and take you out and that's the guy that always wins. So for me, I'm perfectly happy to play the AI. I can actually beat *them* ;)
Gosh I hope this isn't what I can expect from TA. The econonomy is already stretched to the limit in DA. There really is no margin there. It's not a fun game when you go bankrupt every single time you play. The game is supposed to be fun, not "let's see how much frustration the players can endure".
You mean people actually build all those starbase modules? A fully loaded starbase is just an expensive clay pidgeon. It already takes too many modules to upgrade a starbase to an ineffective rating. Another level would only compound the problem. Increasing the effectiveness of each module by about 100% *might* make it worth the effort. Cut the number in half and I might actually build one up. In the meantime, I'll just protect them with fighters like I always have.
[quote]It looks like you have a pretty good clip going for getting through the games as well.[/quote] I've been working on shortening the time it takes to play a game as well as improving the score and I have a few tricks now. Of course I still have to suffer the monotony of building every single planet, but I've got the whole military rating thing mostly hands off. If only there was a "buy all ships of a type building on all planets" and a "buy all projects of a type building on all plane
[quote]in gigantic games where you usually have 6 plus or minus morale resources[/quote] You'll have to rework your calculations for DA and probably TA as well. There's an approval bonus cap. It's a drag when morale resources don't help you anymore after you've fully upgraded a few. Once I hit the cap, I need 4 VRC's instead of 2 in DL. I don't see any reason to cap the approval bonus other than to just mess with us, but I'm done complaining about this kind of thing.
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That's not good to hear. Ship maintenance is already brutal in DA. I'm usually running in the red at the end of my games because of that. Unless TA provides a better economy than DA, cranking it even higher would not be good.