Noctilucus

Reply to Uncertain Spell Research in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Of course, the random element shouldn't be too big. But some variety in the spell research tree (or at least in the order you can research them) would work fine. Cfr. MoM where you also had a random factor determining which new spell became available next. There could be some more intelligent mechanics rather than just a random factor, e.g. if you could research "offensive fire spells" you don't know exactly which one will come out but at least you determine the direction you want to

Reply to For this game to be truly epic... in War of Magic Elemental Forums

1. Wide variety in how the game evolves (and therefore huge replayability), for example by having the AI respond and act in very different ways. Here I particularly want to mention random map generation + a sandbox mode as opposed to only a limited number of scenarios. 2. Plenty of different units and spells, cfr. Master of Magic. From what I've seen being discussed here on the forum, both seem to be well under way to be satisfied :) Also, having different victory

Reply to Uncertain Spell Research in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

I really like DrGuppies idea, you indicate in which direction you research but you can't say which specific spell will be found.

Reply to What spells do you want to see? in War of Magic Elemental Forums

Spells that give you information about the other empires; I would like to see a more intricate mechanism than for example Master of Magic where you just had to bring a unit within range of an enemy's city to see the military units defending the city. The same with those graphs we're so used to where we can track our economical, military, research and other progress versus other empires: while it's very useful information it's a bit too easy, so let's see some crystal ball spells :) Wh

Reply to Kzinti Empire - offical empire thread in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Snarkotamus: your avatar will soon become so enamoured... that it culturally flips to the Kzinti Empire [e digicons]:grin:[/e]

Reply to When will DA and ToA price drop? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hehe, Murphy's law as it applies to prices... PenicillinX57 : I've seen somewhere else on this forum a remark that seemed to indicate that Stardock did not plan on competing in price with all the retailers, don't take this as an official point of view though. But that happens more often, the

Reply to Alittle help in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Have you checked what keeps your pc busy, is it the processor working at 100%, is all of your 512 MB RAM being used, is the hard drive spinning like crazy? This may be a first indication of what goes wrong. Also have a look at the different threads on the forum related to this kind of issues, sometimes just unchecking 1 particular setting in the graphics options solves this kind of things.

Reply to How-to Federation? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Do you mean you researched the Federation government type? This has nothing to do with other civilizations joining; it is a government type like all the others and has an effect on the political party bonus (e.g. +X% on economy if you chose Federalist as political party). Alliances are independent of any government type, though researching advanced government types will improve your diplomacy skills which in turn improves your chances of getting an alliance with other civilizations.</

Reply to Kzinti Empire - offical empire thread in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Snarkotamus" reply="22" id="2054634"] I play a swindle, so I only have to worry about the 3 planets for the first year. After that, I kick in the War Profiteering and my economic problems are over... [/quote] Poor AI :) By the way, with regards to the 20K "barrier", how exactly does this work again? I've seen a lot of mention of the 20K but as far as I can remember (and the search function doesn't really help a lot) no full explanation...<

Reply to How do you beat the mission where the Korath turn on you?? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

What's the name of that scenario again? Long time ago I played through most of them and the description sounds familiar; if you give me the name I can check whether I actually played it. Some of the scenarios require some counter-intuitive tactics (e.g. not expanding in the hope of delaying the Dreadlords attacks, sending waves of small fighters to keep the Dreadlords busy, etc.) Edit: if you post the name and don't

Reply to Oppression in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Landisaurus: that could be slightly harder to implement though; I like how it goes against GalCiv II's mechanic where morale would slowly decrease over time (in case you were in debt or too long at war). Ynglaur: so the conclusion is that the black market always thrives? I think that's pretty much consistent with reality :p

Reply to Magic System suggestions in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

On the other hand I would think a lot of development time (and hence cost) would go to creating these tools that allow players to create their custom graphics for additional races - I'd rather see that time being spent on game mechanics :) I would already be happy with something like the custom race creation in GalCiv II: a wide variety of parameters to fiddle around with, without any need for custom graphics (I'm obviously talking about the race setup, not the ship designer aspect).<

Reply to Oppression in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

True, but it would be nice to see a slightly more complex mechanism than the one we had in GalCiv II where you simply had happiness, population growth and taxes; I really like how Ynglaur's suggestions enrich this aspect. Another thing is to consider oppression in captured areas, which could work in a similar way as Centurion or Master of Magic as you mentioned it: some people are more resistent to oppression or will revolt faster. Or something a bit akin to Alpha Centauri, if we cont

Reply to Autosave on lost focus in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Yes, there should be a limit to how many autosaves are kept. There's more than a few games out there that tend to fill up a huge amount of hard disk space with autosaved games due to the sheer number of saves generated.

Reply to Dealing with pirates in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Very nice, it's not often that someone can turn this event to their advantage :) By the way, getting one event or the other also depends on your playstyle and how that causes the galaxy to evolve. For example if you tend to cause a lot of wars, chances of getting the peacekeepers are higher. There are other circumstances that tend to trigger the Dreadlords or similar events. Which reminds me I should play a few games where I go for the aggressive war-mongering route...<

Reply to Kzinti Empire - offical empire thread in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Awesome start though it's also extremely risky to plunge into debt. Not that I speak from experience, the largest galaxies I play are huge and then any +300% bonus tile is already rare though in those galaxies at least 1 or 2 planets get the benefit of some +700% tile. Though I still have to have the luck to get one of those nearby my home planet so I can grab it in the early colony stage.

Reply to cake walk is increadable hard early on WHY is it this way? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Well, as whismerhill explained, this is because on suicidal you suddenly have very competent allies which makes a huge difference :) In sandbox mode increasing the difficulty will make the game harder for you, don't worry about that. <

Reply to Autosave on lost focus in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

An autosave per X turns sounds like an easy and solid solution, maybe to be sure switch between 2 autosave names (e.g. first save in slot A, then slot B, slot A again, etc.) If in the worst case your last autosave has become corrupted you still have the previous one (of maximum 2*X turns ago) to return to. Also I just want to comment that my experiences with GalCiv II have been very positive in the aspect of regaining focus (whether it was after alt+tab, another application su

Reply to Important features that no game should be without. in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

[quote who="Ron Lugge" reply="25" id="2049206"] your 21 is almost offensive too. How do you justify limiting design options? Becauase I have yet to run into a finite-resource system that works once the resources run out -- it ends up just ugly once resources run out. I'm going to guess his point is the same. [/quote] Exactly that was my point, once resources run out you typically reach a point where whichever "sitting duck" happens to have the best

Reply to cake walk is increadable hard early on WHY is it this way? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Are you talking about a game in the campaign, since you mention the dreadlords rushing to grab other planets? If so, which campagin, what is its title? "Cakewalk" dumbs down the AI so it should be easier than "easy" unless some other factor (galaxy layout and starting position, race of the opponents, ...) makes a difference between both games you played.

Reply to All factory? I messed that one up! in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Sole Soul: no offense whatsoever taken, thanks for the clarification, fellow empire man - in my haste my explanation was too much of a shortcut to be correct.

Reply to Recruiting centres? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

10% is the correct percentage. Maintenance cost is 1bc so if you don't have something more urgent to build the recruitment center is quite early on a good investment (as soon as the basic tax income of the planet is 10bc these centers pay themselves back), even more so if you don't have fertility centers to increase population growth. Hard to say if they are as important as research and industry buildings though; just see them as a decent way to increase your populat

Reply to Painful difficulty level in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I've had the same experience moving from challenging to tough (in DL, DA and ToA); suddenly I wouldn't be able to keep up with or stay ahead of all AI's - usually one of them would pull ahead in the weapon race. It seems to be a bit of a snowball effect: as long as you're the most powerful race in the galaxy everything seems to go smoothly and even an occasional outburst of war is easy to deal with. However if you let the AI outrun you and either - start extorting money or de

Reply to All factory? I messed that one up! in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Well, one comment to that is that in Twilight of the Arnor, focusing a planet to research will only cause 80% of the social / military points to go to research whereas before this worked with 100% efficiency. Everyone seems to agree that this was the developers' way of making all labs / all factories harder to play.

Reply to Magic System suggestions in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

Interesting and detailed ideas! Personally I'd like to see different types of magic rather than the classic 5 elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Life/Death) Or at the very least more original creatures/races and spells than the ones we've seen in every magical game so far (you know, elves, trolls, dwarves, fireballs, etc.) Custom spells remind me a bit of Master of Magic's mechanics where you could forge your own super weapons. Through a simple