CraigHB

Reply to Interested in buying SOASE in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

[quote]I also just spent quite a bit on money for new hardware for my PC, and I'd really like to see what it's capable of.[/quote]I don't think the Sins is going to push the limits of your machine like other games can. It has nice graphics but they are not terribly demanding. It runs fine on my laptop computer with a few settings turned down. On my desktop system, it always runs smooth will all settings maxed. My desktop is a decent system, but not top of the line

Reply to Please Fix Impulse in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I experienced a lock-up in the "verify" phase a couple times and had to exit and re-start Impluse to continue operations. This was with the older version of Impulse with the orange background. Otherwise, I haven't had any problems with it. I disable the fast-start. It loads a ton of stuff on system startup with that enabled. BTW, I really liked that orange/black background, wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Reply to Totally new in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I agree with what GW is saying. I've been playing since the original release of DL as well. I've never played any of the campaigns all the way through. I started a couple, got rather bored with them, then never tried one again. I think the sandbox games are most interesting. Since there was no option when I started playing GC2, I started with DL and have enjoyed the new features and additional complexity of the game as the expansions came out.

Reply to Culture flipping and reloads in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Planetary influence does not immediately take effect after a game loads. Actually, the root of the problem is that the game does not incorporate influence bonuses initially. It takes some event in the galaxy to cause a recalc, like a starbase being built or a planet being acquired or any other event that affects influence. In a quiet game phase, it can take several turns for this to happen. You can force a recalc manually by

Reply to Planet Colonization Strategy? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yea, TA is so much more interesting, I've pretty much forgotten about the previous versions of the game. But yea, I imagine in DA, you could build heavily with less concern.

Reply to Can you unload a transport or colony ship on al already owned planet? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

You can build ferry ships by putting several advanced troop modules on a cargo hull. With max miniaturization, you can build a ship capable of clearing or loading a planet in a few turns. You can also build super colony ships by adding advanced troop transport modules along with a single colony module.

Reply to Is there really any use for the flagship? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I put the flagship on auto-survey right away and forget about it for a while. After I've built a few basic survey ships and all the initial anomolies have been found, I put it on auto-explore because it has better sensor range. Once I have eyes of the universe, I usually delete the flagship since the survey/scout ships I've built do the job more efficiently. So, it's very useful to me at turn 1, but depreciates as the game progresses. I have yet

Reply to Planet Colonization Strategy? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I don't see how it would even be possible to fill all tiles on all planets right out of the gate. In TA, the maintenance costs for factories and labs are high so you'd end up in a hole you can't get out of. I add those buildings as population levels increase which provides the economy to support them. Economic buildings are going to be the first ones to build. However, they're less effective with low planet populations so y

Reply to Change log for 2.01 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks a ton for the continued updates. Still enjoying the game greatly after playing off and on since the first release of Dread Lords. You guys are the best.

Reply to Is the AI updated to recognize and utilize the new options? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I've been playing large galaxies lately and I've been trying games with various extreme planet settings. It's a very nice setting they added. I think what's going is that with frequent extreme planets, the AI is not able to grab as many planets out of the gate. So, they have less research horsepower and it takes them a lot longer to get to the extreme colonization techs. I think you would need to raise the dif

Reply to ANOTHER VENDOR SPYS ME OUT - updates only via impluse :-( in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I'd like to comment on a few topics brought up in this thread; I couldn't agree more with the post about how Windows is a horrible operating system. I've spent way too much time over the years dealing with mysterious problems and doing reloads when all else fails. As long as software developers insist on releasing products exclusively for Windows, we're stuck with the POS. I hope to see a day when something comes along to break the

Reply to Installing Impulse - Server not available in Stardock Support General Stardock Forums

Been finding my around the client and just wanted to compliment Stardock regarding Impulse. It seems like a really well done application. It works great so far and blows away SDC. I'm not displeased at all about the migration. Nice work Stardock!

Reply to Installing Impulse - Server not available in Stardock Support General Stardock Forums

Okay, I found the problem. I didn't have the "Update Root Certificates" Windows XP component installed. I checked it back in and Impulse is working now. That requirement isn't obvious at all. Good thing I saw it in one of the Impulse forum pinned threads.

Installing Impulse - Server not available in Stardock Support General Stardock Forums

I got an email saying GC2 version 2.0 is now available. However, after installing Impulse, I get a "Server not responding..." message when I try to log in. Is the server down or am I having some kind of problem getting this application to work? I haven't had any trouble with Stardock Central.

Reply to What are the differences in difficulty? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

You can see exactly what advantage or disadvantage the competition has by selecting a race in the "choose race" game setup screen then clicking on the edit button. Under Personality, you can view and adjust the advantage/disadvantage for that race. Selecting a game difficulty presets these values for all races. Selecting a race intelligence presets the values only for that race. At "challenging", the AI has no advantage or disadvantage.</p

Reply to Stardock Announces "The Gamer's Bill of Rights" in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Turns out I couldn't install it because I'd never registered my original games with Stardock Central, although I tried, it was a confusing process that I never quite got through. [/quote] I had no issue at all with the registration process. I can install all the game components and expansions without any serial number information or disks. All I have to do is install SDC and it fetches all of my registration info after prompting for&nbs

Reply to Stardock Announces "The Gamer's Bill of Rights" in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Well stated. I try to avoid games that violate some of these statements so I hope publishers that conform to them get better sales, but so far, it's only Stardock. I've been screwed by #1 a couple times, that's a biggie for me.

Reply to Clues you've been playing too much Galactic Civilizations II in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

123. You swear your mother in-law is a drengin with a human disguise.

Reply to Kryo? 250 win medal??? in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not seeing any medals in IE6, does is work for IE7? I'll be upgrading to IE7 when I move to XP SP3, but I'm not going to run and do it right away. It probably won't happen until my "important" softwre (not games) requires it. I really hate upgrading, it inevitably leads to headaches I'm never in the mood to deal with.

Reply to Do the Torians have any hidden bonuses? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Ok so I checked the xml and I didn't see anything that would make up for the fact that the Torian get only 8 ability points. It seems quite clear to me that they suck. Any custom race with the Super Breeder Ability can easily outstrip them.[/quote] You haven't mentioned which game you're playing which makes a difference, but in any case, not all races are created equal, custom race included. The developers have never made any claims they're supposed to be either. On

Reply to Performance difference DL vs DA in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I haven't played DL in quite a long time so I can't really compare it to TA as far as maintenance costs go. You may be right in that maintenance costs are more similar to DL. Planet counts definitely are. I'd have to play a DL game to say and I don't think that will happen, I'm probably not going to play any more DA games either. [quote]By the way, most active Diplomats have moved over to Tyranny of Evil. Magnumaniac, DethAdder and myself along with Justinsane and pe

Reply to Do the Torians have any hidden bonuses? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

There aren't any "hidden" bonuses for the races. All of the inherent abilities and starting techs can be seen in the race setup screens, but you can also view them in the RaceConfig.xml file as mentioned above. When playing against them, they can have additional boosts in economy and production depending on difficulty level. However, those can be seen in the race setup screens as well. The only thing I've found that isn't ob

Reply to Performance difference DL vs DA in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Another thing to consider is to bypass DA entirely and go directly to ToA. It's something that I'm giving serious thought to as well.[/quote]That actually might be a good idea from a performance perspective. I've found that TA is faster in some areas than DA. One thing to consider is that a gigantic/abundant galaxy in DA yields around 700 habitable planets. An immense/abundant galaxy in TA yields around 500 habitable planets. So, right there, you're going t

Reply to Any updates on Stardock 4X fantasy game? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

From the home page of the Journals; [quote]Right now, the team is working on the "unnamed fantasy strategy game" sometimes called "not-MOM" (not Master of Magic). It's a totally new graphics engine that makes use of multi-core CPUs and GPUs but will still run fine on lower end hardware thanks to built-in detection that will determine "how much stuff" to display in real-time. That game will go into public beta early next year and its release date will be largely based on

Reply to Performance difference DL vs DA in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Can anyone give me an indication how much better the performance (frame rate) of Dark Avatar is compared to Dread Lords? With the same (graphic) settings, how much faster does DA go?[/quote]I'm running an 8800 GTS 512 MB and it's barely loaded by the game at 1680x1050 resolution. That's with all video options enabled and 4x AA. Video performance shouldn't be a concern at all with your card. However, the performance difference between DL and DA