maudlin27

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] You also fail to see something I pointed out earlier about finite resources; these large companies that have gobbled up the smaller development shops who made the great games of the 90's, i.e. EA, have a finite resource pool of developers and other assets. That's fairly specific to the industry, it is after all art, and you do need talented artists and programmers and creative people and its not like digging a ditch where u can just go out and hire more diggers, speed up production or ta

Reply to Real benefits of ToA? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

- New tech trees - they seem to limit the number of techs each Civ has, e.g. Terrans can only use beam weapons, which takes 90% fun out of ship designing... hardly a good change. -new ground combat interface seems much less immercing than the previous one. -game seems much less stable (though it may be a fault of my friend's computer that I played on) New techs: They introduce many new and unique techs, while you can still obtain most of the old ones. As a result it vastly incre

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] All thats really being said is that PC gaming is not a viable product for publically traded large development companies. Nor is it viable for start up capital driven private companies looking to sell and go public. There are exceptions to this but not alot. But for developers with a artistic motivation to produce games it is perfectly viable for private owned companies to produce PC games [/quote] You see this just can't be the case. As long as a company can make profit at a reasonab

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] example might be a teacher whose paid 30k a year, that teachers value to a student could be much higher on an academic or even "life lesson" scale yet our society, in general, will deem that persons value in the dollar amount of their salary [/quote] Well with anyone who is employed, you would hope the value that they provide through labour is greater than the amount you are paying them, or else you'd be better off not employing them/employing someone else! [quote] A person

Reply to Pirates are eating themselves! in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] Rationally, no one should ever buy a game. Ever. As long as there are free-loaders stealing them. Why buy something when you don't have to and when other people don't? It just doesn't make sense from a logical perspective. See, "Random-guy" already buys games. "Pirate-guy" is the only guy who would consider stealing it [/quote] You evidently have no understanding of the concept of rationality. It is perfectly rational for someone to pay money for an inferior product than one they

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]His has never tried to sell his art but its all over my house, to me it has alot of value and worth but if i tried to sell it i probably couldn't get alot for it. Just an example that the worth or value of something to an individual can be different than the economic value of something[/quote] Or to put it another way, the value you place on his art is significantly greater than the value that anyone else places on it. How is capitalism undermining that? All it means is that you will

Reply to DIABLO 3!!!!!!!!!!!!! in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Regarding fans of blizzard, IMO it's something they've earnt. Almost every blizzard game I've played I've really enjoyed, and thought was great at the time, hence why they are one of the few companies I hold in very high regard. Bioware is the other, with them having come out with numerous games which I've found are all amazing (baldurs gate 2, nwn, jade empire). I'm a bit sad with bioware atm because they've joined with EA (meaning I get treated as a potential pirate if I buy their games), and

Reply to DIABLO 3!!!!!!!!!!!!! in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Given how much of an improvement WC3 was on WC2, I think we owe it to Blizzard to wait for diablo 3 to come out before dismissing it as a diablo 2 clone with improved graphics.

Reply to 1.95 bugs in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Not a 1.95 specific bug so much, but the crash on placing spy bug is just as bad as before if not worse - happens 95% of the time now if there's been a significant delay between my new attempt (at placing a spy) and my last one. Disappointed it wasn't fixed given how frequently it's occuring. Another (not 1.95 specific) more minor bug: Ability bonuses from buildings don't work if the building isn't a galactic achievement/trade good (e.g. cathedral of valour's soldiering bonus). The cathedral

Reply to TF2 Pyro update review in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

I never could get to grips with the pryo (prior to this update) - I'd use him, and find he would lose to say a soldier 1 on 1 at close range, while at medium to long range almost anything could kill him. Meanwhile the soldier I found was good both at short, medium and long range, meaning I clocked up loads of hours (and kills) with the soldier, and hardly any with the pyro. So I'm glad to hear about the suppressed air blast for the pyro - it'll make life much tougher for me as a soldier

Reply to Military Starbases in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

IMO they're not really that great, although it depends on the situation and your race. For example on tiny+small maps they can be worth consideration, since you don't need so many to cover your planets. They're also good with say the arceans since they have access to cheaper constructors, and of course with evil races who don't have upgrade costs. However I'd say actual combat use of them (in my case) tends to be restricted to a specialised strategy where I use stacked military starbases cou

Reply to KOTOR2, another unfinished game in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] Yes its a shame... but I am so glad galciv does NOT suffer from this problem. The game is released when its ready. not before that [/quote] While I can't speak for the original galciv (started playing it after various patches), TotA was most certainly not released when ready in that you had a number of bugs (some of which had cropped up already in DA for example) which even now haven't been addressed. The tech tree costing was the most obvious one, which has only now been reduced, wh

Reply to Bioshock DRM Limits Removed in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Great news. I might actually consider buying bioshock now (although I'll probably have to wait till I upgrade my computer since I can only meet the minimum requirements). I just hope EA listen, since mass effect and spore are two games I really want to play, but refuse to atm due to the draconian DRM measures they've put in place.

Reply to So what exactly is this whole EA stuff about? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]The truth is that business is rarely as simple as a single supply/demand curve. There are often actually many curves that play a role in constraining the price point, and often the curves are not very clean, as they usually based on statistical estimates. A good businessperson should take all of the constraints into consideration, and not blindly follow a simple supply/demand/profit chart[/quote] When the effects in question may be having only a very marginal impact, there is lit

Reply to So what exactly is this whole EA stuff about? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote]Frankly, these companies create their own piracy problems by charging too much for their games.[/quote] That should never be a justification for piracy. The games will be priced at the amount that the company feels will maximise their profits from the sale of it, as with any other good in this world. Thus pirating that game because of this is tantamount to stealing. Yes an increased price for a game will lead to increased piracy (the benefit of piracy increases), but that shouldn

TotA could really use some more reviews in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

The reviews that TotA has been getting are very impressive, typically between 90-100%, resulting in it being one of the top reviewed games recently. Unfortunately many gaming sites which aggregate all the review scores will often by default list a top scoring game only if it has received 10+ reviews. TotA has as yet not achieved this, and is currently just shy at 9 reviews according to gamerankings. It therefore might be an idea if stardock look at encouraging some of the sites/places who review

Reply to So what exactly is this whole EA stuff about? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

The whole situation is just so depressing - companies are actively paying money to reduce their sales and encourage piracy, and alienating all of their remaining customers, all in one stroke. Quite how they can possibly think that something that discourages legal purchasing of a game and encourages using a crack for it is a good thing I'll never know, I just hope that they pay a bit of attention to real figures instead of whatever they're currently basing their decisions on, and stop ruining all

Reply to Best Super Powers for Custom Race? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

First strike is the best ability IMO. If playing aggressively obviously it's a big advantage allowing you to crush your opponents. Meanwhile if playing defensively (e.g. going for research and/or influence victory) it's also invaluable since if you do end up at war with someone you can hold them off with a tiny force where otherwise you would have been crushed. Obviously if you plan to never be at war with anyone then it's worth going for another ability, but I find such situations fairly rare (

Reply to So what exactly is this whole EA stuff about? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

EA decided for Mass Effect+Spore to make you only be allowed to 'activate' your game 3 times (activation occurring when you install on a new computer or your current computer changes an unspecified amount). Furthermore they decided that you would have to connect to the internet to confirm your game was authentic every 5 days in addition to initially to install it, and if you failed to do this within 10 days you'd be prevented from playing it. After a massive backlash they dropped the 5-10 da

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

"Yes, I realize a "monopoly" is technically ONE company and described "two or three", but I couldn't find a better word at the moment..." Oligopoly (a few) or Duopoly (2). Although in the UK a monopoly is defined as having >40% market share IIRC so you can still legitimately call something a monopoly even if it isn't the only company in the market if based on such criteria (although technically it wouldn't be a 'true' monopoly)

Reply to Starports in every planet in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

In a word, no. There are some situations where you might want a starport on every planet, but there are also plenty of situations where the best course is not to build a starbase. A few quick examples: If you want to be able to respond to an attack/invasion from anywhere, and don't have the military strength for a ship in every planet, then you want a good network of starbases. This allows you to buy a ship and get defences within 1 turn of spotting an invasion fleet. The second

Reply to Thalons gonna need to be nerfed. in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

[quote] I'd like to see how you're booming the Yor economy. Only way I ever manage it is with lots of empty tiles, and every world built up to 16-20 billion population. It's doable, but I usually end up in the "getting by" rather than "booming" economy bracket [/quote] Stick to the initial manufacturing+research buildings (the upgrades are less efficient), focus on most of the economic efficiency techs and the pop growth techs initially, this should give you a powerful starting position with

Reply to Thalons gonna need to be nerfed. in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

I like the Yor. They have some of the most efficient buildings available, along with a nice population growth rate.

Reply to TotA - Things I miss in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

I don't understand the objections to this. It would be as an option, which you could choose whether to have or not have. So if you want to exploit the tech trees, by all means go ahead. At least let those of us who hate races using other races unique techs be able to prevent it without having to disable ALL tech trading.

Reply to Attack or Defenses? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

I'd favour the all attack build - the one with just 8 attack and 48 def has the problem that their attacks (especially when ships are in fleets) will easily outstrip your defences, meaning that the relative damage you deal to them for each damage point they deal to you is much lower with the 8 attack build than the 56 attack build. I tend to go for defence when I am confident I can outtech my opponent, such that I can get a high defence (compared to their attack) and still have time to