CraigHB

Reply to Which "benchmarks" do you aim for? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Please don't take any offense at what I am about to say, PeskyFly, but do you really feel that the number of games you have played makes you qualified to offer advice with such authority? I see you offering advice to people who have, from their metaverse medals, played a lot more games than you have. Those players, I am sure, will dismiss your advice out of hand, but I do worry about new players who may think you know more than you actually do. You may want to add a di

Reply to The Death of Morale Buildings in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Morale Building Improvements: (version 1.7 beta 1) These are modest, but positioned at a critical spot in the development cycle. Entertainment Network (the 1st level morale tool) - increased from +5% to +10%. Multimedia Center (the 2nd level morale tool) - increased from +10% to +15%. Other morale buildings, colony morale ratings remain the same. All that nerfing done to morale buildings in past updates and now they're moving them back to wher

Reply to The no moral building strat in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Each update they just ruin the game even more. They just keep tweaking the stuff that made the game fun and great to play. Don't get me started on *that* topic. In any case, I agree. I play with limited use of morale buildings. I do use them on high class planets that can support a 20b pop, a sprinkling of VRC's, and a lot of stock markets. Otherwise, I build one farm and no morale buildings. I did try to determine what's better, stock

Reply to Which "benchmarks" do you aim for? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Tri-Quan Training and Aphrodisiac are my special project milestones. Restaurant of Eternity and Galactic Showcase are also up there. If evil, Artificial Slave Center is high priority. Tech milestones are Xeno Ethics if neutral and Terraforming if not (for Orbital Terrafomer). After that, it's weapons, Psionic Beam if evil, otherwise I just run up the missle branch. In Dark Avatar, colonization techs are a real biggie.

Reply to TechTree - the order of things in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I still have 'small' hulled ships... and OUT OF NOWHERE, my custom race opponent (The Judicators, I know...lol. what a cool name ehlol) they "found" some "Ranger" class ship with crazy high ballistic attack rating and SERIOUS armor... OUT OF NOWHERE... and now... my 3 ship "fleets" have no effect on this thing... Look at their weapons. Build fighters that defend against their weapons and fire with weapons they have no defense against. You'll kill them in no

Reply to Removing the minimap "swoosh"? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Oh, okay, didn't see that bottom part. Need more coffee

Reply to Removing the minimap "swoosh"? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

So, for those that wish a no-glare minimap for Dread Lords , here it is: WWW Link Thank you very much, but when I opened the zip file after dowloading the link, there was a bunch of files in there, but no MainWnd.dxpack.

Reply to How do I form alliances? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

You can't make them get close by giving them presents. You *can* get them friendly which may help obtain close. The best thing I've found (as stated above) is to build a much larger militar so they grovel with close relations. If they don't have the Alliances tech and they are close, you can give them the tech and form an alliance in the same meeting, important in Dark Avatar where you can only see them once every couple months.

Reply to Windows/Video slow after playing in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It may be the game consumes more memory than it should or the game is doing something that causes Windows to fail in releasing memory. So, yea, it could be the game's fault, but it still could be Windows not doing what it should. You would have to compare it to another data base intensive game like Civ4.

Reply to Disable Automatic Upgrades? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, that would be even better.

Disable Automatic Upgrades? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

It's a drag when your economy crashes because the game awards you some social tech and all your planets go into upgrade. Is there a way to globally disable automatic upgrades in Dread Lords? I saw a mod for it in the library, but a note says it disables upgrades for the AI as well. Don't want *that*. Sure would save me from a lot of redundant mouse clicking.

Reply to Removing the minimap "swoosh"? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I've always wondered why that mini-map distortion was there. That mod works great. Any way to get that fix for Dread Lords?

Reply to Question in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

You only have to download once if you use SDC's "archive" function and store the files somewhere. So, if you have a friend with a fast connection, you can get the files that way. To download the files, right click on the entry in the list of packages then select "Archive Application -> Download and Archive". Copy the .sdc files downloaded to SDC's BACKUP directory. To install, copy the files into SDC's BACKUP directory then use Ctrl-R or or right click and select Restore

Reply to Question in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Stardock Central is pretty cool that way. It fetches the serials and handles activation. To do a clean install, all that's required is a login (and you probably have one since you are posting here). However, a decent connection is required to use SDC. The downloads are big.

Reply to Windows/Video slow after playing in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not sure about this, but I think what's happening is the game is consuming all the virtual memory and Windows is not freeing it up after the game closes. I think it's a Windows problem and not something that's necessarily the games fault. I used to experience this on an older machine with less memory, but my new machine has 2GB of physical memory and doesn't exhibit the problem. That doesn't really help you, but at least it gives you a possible reason why you have to restart.

Reply to Playing with lots of planets - how to financially survive the first year? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

As someone previously stated, do NOT put all factories on your homeworld. I put all factories and a manufacturing capitol on my home world first thing. Then I build a few labs on bonus tiles as soon as I come across them. If you get those survey ships out there quick, it's not a problem. For the first few months, I think it's better to get ships out than concern yourself with economy. That falls into place once you get enough planets and population. <

Reply to Question about RP in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

NLC's cost twice as much, but only provide 25% more RP's than Discovery Spheres. NLC's used to be the same cost as Discovery Spheres in earlier versions of GC2, but they changed it. Makes them pretty pointless now. I put them back to the same cost when playing modded games. Otherwise, I build Discovery Spheres first and only use NLC's on bonus tiles later in the game.

Reply to I apologize in advance for this noob question in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I have been learning with the Yor Collective... I love sentient robots Good race to play. They get a hefty miniaturization bonus and nice starting techs. In Dark Avatar, they get the super isolationist ability which slows ships in their space. It's really powerful. I may play as them, but I don't play against them. That super isolationist ability is a killer to go up against.

Reply to Complaint: Silliness in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The OP is not the first person to complain about the humor. However, we want to make a game that we like to play, and I'm afraid that we all like the style of the humor. We actually ask people at interviews if they like the Simpsons and Monty Python. You got my vote. I've enjoyed the humor since day 1. After all, it's a *game*. Games are supposed to be fun and humor is fun. The humor *is* a little sophmoric, but that's fine. I like the game doesn't take

Reply to Playing with lots of planets - how to financially survive the first year? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

If the economy is tough in Dread Lords, it's brutal in Dark Avatar. I've played a few gigantic/abundant games in DA and barely manage to colonize at full steam. I keep approval on the bleeding low edge and build lots of survey ships right away. Those cash anomolies keep you out of the red until your economy gets going. At first, I don't build much other than a few labs when I come across bonus tiles and a few ship building plantets. I don't do any major building until I've got an economy go

Reply to I apologize in advance for this noob question in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Its that building that makes each new colony cost you money when you first colonize. It causes you to have to plan your economy against this cost when you have no income. I've found the initial cost rarely to be a limiting factor. Most of the time, it's the cost of building that gets you. Planets start to break even pretty quick as the population grows so get as many planets as you can, but only build on them what you can afford.

Reply to Any reason to keep morale > 65% in peace times? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

try playing without any morale buildings at all. I think you'll find you do better (or at least, no worse). I don't use them for the most part except on really high class planets that can spare the tiles to them for high populations. Seems to work pretty good and it's less stuff to deal with building.

Reply to Dark Avatar Download SLOW in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I went for that deal through an email Stardock sent me. I think it saved me about $20 as opposed to buying each expansion separately. I bet they'll send you that email if you ask them.

Reply to Complaint: Silliness in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The bridge collapse doesn't surprise me. I've watched several educational shows about America's bridges and they're very high maintenance structures. It's actually pretty scary how many are behind the curve in that regard. In the US, it's pretty easy for things to fall through the cracks and for those in charge to keep putting things off until there's a disaster. I could see this as a problem in other countries as well. Unfortunately, the US Federal government does not enforce strict regula

Reply to How do YOU call your ships? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I'm so boring, I use ship names like -fighter1, -transport2, -constructor3. The dash in front puts them at the top of all the lists.