CraigHB

Reply to Planetary invasions - reality check in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

It's really just a numbers game with sci-fi symbology attached. The symbology could be applied in any other way and the game would still be the same. I doubt we'll ever see changes for reality's sake and from a marketing perspective, there's no reason to. The game has never claimed to be a simulation of any kind. You can rationalize or criticize, but it is what it is and probably always will be. I have played simulation games there were very realistic. I've also gotten bored with t

Reply to Noob Guide in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]The game's balance seems to swing wildly between races. I've yet to play a game where the Arceans ever became an impressive, driving force in the galaxy. The Torians have wasted me several times now. The Altarians could steamroll me. But the Terrans and Drengin break like twigs before my fleets. [/quote] When starting a new game, check your race intelligence is not set to random. Even though the overall difficulty slider sets race intelligence, you can still vary it for each race wit

Reply to Out of memory on save in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]That shouldn't happen with the latest beta, as I changed the way that games were saved so that it saves to a temp file first, then moves the AutoSave to the PreviousAutoSave.[/quote] Good to hear you guys are working on this. I've learned to deal with it since it's something farily predictable and has been a problem since day 1. I can get an out-of-memory error when saving after just a few hours during a heavy invasion. However, I never encounter the problem otherwise. Wha

Reply to Spin Control Centre Question in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]I imagine that having a military starbase with ship-aiding modules will stack with that? [/quote] Don't see why that wouldn't work. Military starbase ship assist modules do enhance ships in orbit and should stack with the SCC. Could be worthwhile if a planet is located in the right place and enough military starbases can be built around it. Though, you're talking a good number of constructors. Might be better off applying those resources to better ships for the SCC.

Reply to I'm not very good, but I want to get better! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Believe it or not, the easiest game is gigantic/abundant because you have tons of planets to make things like building ships and making money easier. The problem with gig/abun, is there are soooo many resources, it's impossible to manage without a a good system. It took me quite a while to work up to it. Conversely, a harder game is one with a small number of habitable planets and most or all of the races enabled. I would suggest playing with as many habitable planets as possible, bu

Reply to How do I tell my Ally to attack another race??? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Not really and it was version 1.4. [/quote] Correction, version 1.3. And BTW, the change to alliances did not impact the AI's ability to form alliances.

Reply to How do I tell my Ally to attack another race??? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] don't get me started on the abortion they call the new espionage system. I have to disagree with you on this point.[/quote] All right, you got me started. And I meant abortion because that's what it is. The problem is that the espionage system just becomes an expensive pointless contest of who can spend the most on spys in a an economy that has already been squeezed to the limit. It's not fun and is really just an irritant. The actual damage you

Reply to How do I tell my Ally to attack another race??? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

More involved diplomacy has always been something people have asked for a lot. There was big talk by Stardock of improvements in DA versus DL, but the only thing I've noticed is a couple new treaty types. Otherwise, diplomacy is pretty much the same minus the ability to trade whenever you want. I think there are lots of things that can be done to expand the diplomacy aspect of the game and sadly, we didn't see much in DA. In fact, I think diplomacy took a turn for the worse. Hopefully, we'l

Reply to Fleet Upgrade in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]I just think having a fleet upgrade option could be very usefull in the game and by the sounds of it others agree. [/quote] "Thanks Hithesius, I'll gladly take that"

Reply to Fleet Upgrade in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

You can upgrade a single ship without removing it from a fleet, but you can't upgrade a fleet. There's another recent thread talking about upgrades and I mentioned a more generic upgrade panel. Something like that could cover situations where you want to upgrade a subset of ships, for instance, a single fleet as suggested in the OP. That would also be a good place to put an option to buy all or a subset of ships currently building. I agree it's nonsense to expect ships to be renamed

Reply to How do I tell my Ally to attack another race??? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Obviously, you're not going to be able to bribe a race to attack one that has either got a much stronger military or has good relations. In that case, getting an enemy to declare war on you is the only option for allied assistance. Parking transports is not the only way to get an enemy to declare war. Influence starbases can also generate hostility. BTW, if your enemy is also allied with your ally, it cancels. If the enemy declares war on you, there will be no response from your ally. I pa

Reply to Hard restarts in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]ATI's site just shrugs at you and says "I have no idea what f***ing card you have, but it ain't the one you just downloaded drivers for."[/quote] Yea, hehe, I gave up on attempting to get drivers from ATI's web site. I ended up going with the drivers from my laptop maker. My laptop runs GC2 nicely with Intel Core Duo and ATI Radeon. Though, it does suck the juice and get pretty hot. You very well could be overheating. With mine, I have to be careful the vents are not obstructed.

Reply to I'm not very good, but I want to get better! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I love this game too. I tend to post a lot about what I don't like and neglect the things I do like. It's a wonderful intricate game with tons of different ways to play and lots of ways to enjoy it. It's a hard game to master. I'm so amazed that every time I play, I find new ways to improve and new things to try. So hang in there and just keep playing. You'll discover a lot of little things that add up to a better overall game. Also, like Mumblefratz said, post here about specifics and we

Reply to Upgrading all ships of a certain type? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

When upgrading all ships, I select a lease option on occassion so that's available in DL, should be there in DA as well. In DL, I can save an upgrade using the same name and get the upgrade panel. DA does not provide that "feature". However, I quit doing it because I ran into problems on occasion. Now I just do what they recommend and use a new name. I append a number to the ship name and increment it every time, then upgrade ships from within the game. An option to upgrade

Reply to How do I tell my Ally to attack another race??? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I never seem to have any problem bribing one race to attack another. If you attack a race, I don't see any reason for your allies to automatically jump in. You're the aggressor. If you want allied help with a war, park a bunch of transports next to some enemy planets. The owner will declare war on you and your allies will respond with a declaration of war against your enemy. Or, you can bribe your allies to attack an enemy.

Reply to Mind Control Center prevents planets from defecting to your civ? in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I play both neutral and evil about the same amount. Planet revolts are not totally disabled after the MCC is built, it's just the probability is a lot lower. Planets do flip, but it takes about 10 times longer. In any case, it makes planet flipping a futile thing to attempt when playing evil. In DL, the MCC claims to increase the probability of a planet going your way. In DA, the claim is not there, probably because developers opted to remove the claim rather than fix the problem.

Reply to Spin Control Centre Question in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yea, works good. Easy to setup and can really crank up your military rating. When it comes to diplomacy, the only thing they really understand is a strong military. An SCC with a bunch of "paper tigers" around it does the trick.

Reply to Forced to trade techs? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Recently I've been playing with tech trading off. Like the previous post states, they AI are way to liberal about trading techs amongst eachother. It's like you're up against all the races combined. I like the game better without it. As far as the event, it does seem logical to disable it with tech trading off, but I'd like to disable most of those UP events.

Reply to Thinking of picking up GalCiv II: Gold edition in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I like TBS a lot better than RTS. TBS gives you time to think about what you're doing. I've enjoyed GC2 quite a bit. I like the sci-fi aspect of the game. Commanding fleets of space ships is much more fun than armies of humans. And, you get to design your own space ships too, very cool.

Reply to The All Lab Approach in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Craig, who are you playing as? The cost in xeno Ethics is directly related to your "moral compass" at that point in the game, that is, a "good" race that decides to be evil pays 10k, neutral 2.5k, and 0 for good; or flip all that for an "evil" race. A "neutral" moral compass pays 2500 to go either direction. I wasn't aware of a difference. It just seems I always end up paying 10K to go evil and 2K for neutral. I never noticed a difference between races. I

Reply to The All Lab Approach in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

The only alignment related special project I've seen them build is the Temple of Righteousness. No doubt evil is the best. Being evil does make you a bit of a bigger target but I'm not suggesting this even comes close to compensating for all the goodies that evil gets. Neutral and evil far outweight good. There's just no reason at all to play good other than an easy time with the other goods. Neutral actually used to be on par with evil before they

Reply to How do YOU plan your home planet? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

You should recognize the research center, multimedia center, banking center, industrial sector, and manufacturing capital. The ones you probably are not recognizing are the Omega Defense System which doubles the hit points of ships in orbit (Planetary Defense Techs), the Quantum Power Plant which provides a planetary manufacturing bonus, and the Articial Slave Center that provides an empire-wide 50% military production bonus. That one is obtained through the Concepts of Malice tech available w

Reply to How do YOU plan your home planet? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

All factories and a manufacturing capital to get ships out right away, but that's probably not a good way to go for sparse galaxies. I always play abundant and I rely on cash anomolies heavily in the beginning.

Reply to The All Lab Approach in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

You can build too many labs making it possible to spend more than you make on research. I try to work it out so I get close to the break-even point when spending and research are placed at 100%. Otherwise, I'm wasting money on labs I don't really need because my economy can't support the spending I've made available. Conversely, with too few labs, I'm not doing the reasearch I can afford. In Dread Lords, don't overwrite any of the "free" racial bonuses. Otherwise, points are wasted.

Reply to How fast do you build up your planets? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Money is so tight in this game, tighter than Bin Ladens asehole at a 'we love George Bush' convention!! Most of my planets will have markets, markets here, markets there, markets almost everywhare! + 1 farm and 1 morale building. Not untill mid game will dare to put 1 factory on each planet to speed the upgrading to stock markets. Yea, money is especially tight in DA, but not as much in DL. I put all my bonus points into morale, population growth, and economy. I