Cryptomancer

Reply to Beta testing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I somewhat disagree. Strangely, you are all forgetting an important dimension here. We are not really paying Stardock to beta-test since we are participating interactively in a special kind of evolving "beta", where the user can offer suggestions that effectively impact the creation-process of an unfinished game. Stardock does listen to its customers and does try to integrate their suggestions, whereas in most betas, the non-employee testers merely experiment with a game that is completed (or al

Reply to Building in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Kilotons or Megatons?

Reply to dregin net in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

See the link within a thread below, initiated by Avatar T-Man, which designates 0.66.090 in its title. That's the most recent build posted.

Reply to gigantic has major issues... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

1) & 2) : Those ship-movement problems have been fixed by Admiral CariElf in an internal build, beyond Beta 1Z. Future testing, starting with Beta 2, will show if the ship-movement mechanics have become 100% reliable.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks, Technician. Since I'm consistently losing at "cakewalk/average-neutral", I'm going to downgrade to your "cakewalk/average-good" level.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks to the Commander and to the Arthurian Mage : your generously informative comments have reassured me. I particularly enjoyed the end of the Commander's posting : "So even players who think they found a way to beat the system [will] quickly get pummeled [in the finished gold version]." The gauntlet has thus been thrown : Will the AI programmers at Stardock succeed in devising genius-level AI-strategies & meta-routines to outsmart the gimmicky manipulators who like to win by exploi

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well...if that's the way to go to "win" at GalCiv, I quit! If one has to devise clever tricks to exploit game imbalances or the AI's fatal flaws, I'm going back to chess. That's why Blizzard released a patch to tone down the power of those creep-mines : some clever little sadists were exploiting a design miscalculation to spoil games by the abusive repetition of a trick, with the intent of winning at the expense of fair gamesmanship. Well...OK : it's a valid ethical choice : "Life is not always

Reply to 1z is much better in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"It's like going to the mall and suddenly realizing you're buck naked..." : I'm always perplexed by your choice of images, citizen Tytan. :notsure:

Reply to Stupid Question perhaps but... Still... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Totally...I totally agree. :notsure:

Reply to Colonized planets in same system don't display correctly in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I have noticed that those arrows seem to be unreliable : sometimes, some planets are ignored when one tries to view all the colonies' production-screens by using the arrows. I think Admiral CariElf is aware of this problem.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In my (limited) experience, if I set the two production sliders at around 33% each, the lower-class planets won't have enough production points to produce anything, in their first years of existence as a colony. To make those lower-class planets productive (to build there a research-lab or a colony-ship, for example), I must set one of the production sliders high to give production points to those poorer planets. So, I tend to develop according to a colonize-or-civilize alternation: during a yea

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks for your comments, Arthurian Mage. I never colonize below class 10 : if I read you right, I could try below that. My spending is never under 45%...Yea, I was aiming to eventually ally myself with the very powerful Arcean in my Sept. 10 game.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Sorry if I took some time to answer you, LJ : 33% (tax) / 50 to 60 % (spending) / 35% Research + 65% of one type of production. I read your suggestions with care, MN. My survey-ship does become a powerful warship, but I could pay more attention to those vortices & storms...Attacking alien colony ships with it has gotten me into trouble : premature wars...You're probably right but I'm a megalomaniac when it comes to the amount of Space : I'm fixated on gigantic maps. I don't mind if I t

Reply to I think I've figured it out.... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

:notsure:

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

And to add insult to injury, the Arcean is comparatively more advanced in Technology, despite the fact I had spent all of my initial 10 skill-points on Research! I have built research-centers on all of my colonies...but of course, while I was doing that, I was not mass-producing one colony ship after another. It's the colonize-or-civilize dilemma. Seems the "average" Arcean succeeded in doing both much better than me...I just gave him a Defender ship to charm him : as things are developing, it s

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Those are design & programming issues which are beyond my level of comprehension...I'm just "pissed" this afternoon because the Arcean, at cakewalk/average, has so many more star-systems & colony-ships than I, relatively early on in the game, on a gigantic map...If I had set-up the AI-players as "idiotic" & "dumb", I would have felt like an abusive moron. :notsure: Thanks for your comments.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

To illustrate your point, citizen Technician, in the current game I am playing on a gigantic map, I have just met the Arcean (which is a "neutral-average" race within a game set-up on the easy "cakewalk" difficulty-level). The Arcean has 29 stars, I have 12. He possesses 34 colony ships in Space whereas I only have 4! Either I'm really incompetent as a logistics strategist, or the game, as you suggest, might be too difficult for "casual gamers". And that's on the easiest setting: "cakewalk"! :

Reply to Three bugs and a question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Good point. I don't mind having the button labeled "find" if it effectively acts as a "next ship" button.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

That's why the release of Master of Orion 3 has been delayed : it had become too "overly complicated" for the "casual gamers", on whom the financial success of a game often depends...Personally, I like "complicated" and I do not wish that games are "dumbed-down", but I understand that marketing and financial necessities must often prevail.

Reply to Beta 2 status report in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

As Darth Vader, dark Lord of the Sith, once said : "Impressive. Most impressive." >:(

Reply to Alliance victory in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A lowly lieutenant cannot comprehend the esoteric & arcane metastrategies of a coruscant Avatar. :notsure:

Reply to Does anyone have a working SmartException? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks for the info, Arthurian Mage. Before I removed it on my XP system, in early August, it was located at C:\Program files\Common files\Stardock\Smart Exception, which was set-up by default because I had never been aware that SE had been installed until it had created problems after startup & reboot. I never installed version 0.90 because I was frightened by the problems I had experienced when trying to uninstall and purge all traces of the previous version. I even had to go into th

Reply to Does anyone have a working SmartException? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've just sent an e-mail to Admiral CariElf concerning this whole thread. I'll wait for her expert opinion on the SmartException business before reinstalling it. I run a very clean OS : I'm afraid reinstalling SE will mess with it. Have you not written, LJ, that you considered rebuilding your OS because of SE's failure ? I'm not ready to go that far to serve the SmartException daïmon. :notsure:

Reply to Does anyone have a working SmartException? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks, Lt. Lucky Jack, for your very credible point. I am fully capable of revising my opinion on a subject, so your technical argument convinces me to reinstall SE. I will do so immediately after completing the present message. I have two small questions for you: 1. Why did you indicate Windows ME when I had mentioned Windows XP as my computer's OS ? 2. Under what folder & file-name will that "exception report" be located ?

Reply to Three bugs and a question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks again for the info, Arthurian Mage. You might be right concerning turning off autoturn. When I did that, the green rings of autopilot replaced immediate movement. Maybe I'm being incompetent and stubborn, but I want to micromanage each ship movement in the early stages of a game. I don't want to see green rings when I right-click. I want to see obedient ships that immediately go where I want them to go, one after the other, like docile sheep. Then, and only then, should the turn autogener