LTjim

Reply to Influence lost after re-load of saved game in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

This also allows a player exploit, of course.

Reply to Leaving the "Galactic United Nations" from the start ? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I have never left the UP. I would be interested to read any experiences in games that did that, especially early.

Reply to HELP in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

You can restart with Control-N until you get a HomeWorld with a couple bonus tiles that you want, and not ones you do NOT want. A 3x research and/or a 3x production tile with a morale bonus tile is a good start. A 7x tile is sweet. The first thing I would suggest is to make sure your spending slider is at 100% and keep it there as long as you can. 100% morale helps build population, but is less important than other aspects. The Super Diplomat can be helpful, bu

Reply to HELP in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

What about the taxation and spending sliders? What do you do with the miner ship? What race do you play? Please, more details! BTW, is this DL, DA, or TA?

Reply to HELP in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I think you need to provide more info as to the game setup, and what you are doing in each early turn. My first guess is that you may have left the "sliders" in the original 3-way division among research, ship, and planetary buildings settings, and have perhaps also not moved the tax and spend sliders from their initial positions. Other contributing causes could be that you have not made use of your opportunity in the game setup to improve the abilities and or s

Reply to Anyone a Fan of the Tech Victory? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I ran a cakewalk as I said but goofed. I researched all the way to the last tech and handed it all over to the minor, but forgot the minor would not research the tech victory tech if some other techs had a higher priority. What I needed to do was research EVERY tech but the tech victory tech and THEN hand it all over to the minor. Maybe I'll try that Wednesday. Wasted too much time on it tonight already.

Reply to Anyone a Fan of the Tech Victory? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I once had a game won on influence, with the surviving major race AIs huddled on single worlds. Then at the last turn, I gave everything to a minor race except for one planet and one fleet in orbit. I waited a dozen turns or so and the game did not end, so I convinced myself that minor races cannot win an Influence victory. Maybe I will pause my latest Suicidal, and fire up a cakewalk tonight with one major race AI and one minor race with tech on the faste

Reply to Anyone a Fan of the Tech Victory? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I learned the hard way always to disable the research victory at Suicidal, unless I was resolved before the start to win that way. The AI bonuses at Suicidal are so great that any AI not continuously involved in costly wars will get that victory before I can win a different way. If I try to keep all at peace so that I could get an ally victory, one or more of my allies will win before I could finish off the last non-ally. If I keep the galaxy in multiple wars, th

Reply to Dealing with an excess of custom opponents in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The only solution that I found for random was to delete.

Reply to Do you use defense? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I do. Defense, esp the right defense, beats weapons for a while in the game. The wrong defense, though, may wel not be worth it. A good case could be made that, if one faced all three weapons types in likely near-term enemies, that pure weapons wpould be better. Later in the game, one can probably see which AI one will soon fight. In battles between full tech or near-full tech fleets, my personal experience is that I lose one-third the hulls that the ene

Reply to How does espionage works? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Assuming like TA is like DA, espionage comes in two flavors: passive and active. You can probably get a better and fuller description at the galciv2 wiki (Google is your friend) but here goes. If you go to the espionage screen, you will see that each race has a box with 4 slots or openings. If you have an unassigned spy, toggle the spot under the box that places the spy. To remove or reassign, toggle that box. This is passive spying, and those spies cannot be n

Reply to Favored Political Party? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

As I play Suicidal (DA), I generally take either Technologist for the reasons laid out by Sole Soul, or Universalists and add a point for Luck, as described by Maiden666. In race setup, I always max out the economy picks. That and Luck are the only ones I always take. The others I vary from game to game on whim or game direction intent.

Reply to Trading influence for cash. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

TA, DA, or DL? What difficulty level? I was able to make such trades frequently before I got up to Suicidal in DA, but no longer. I still try, sometimes, hoping.

Hyper Computer Trade Good in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Does the hyper computer trade good increase focus-created research? Or, does it increase only the research generated by research buildings? (DA)

Reply to Changing Colony Ship Hulls Without Killing People in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I have rarely, very-very-very rarely, been able to trade for AI warships or planets at DA Suicidal. Even when I sprinted down the Diplo tree, I could not seem to manage it. I do tech whoring a lot at Suicidal. However, I have found that the minor races run out of cash quickly unless I get Trade, Eco, and Banks onto their hands pretty early. That means I have to research those and/or get them in trades with major AIs. Obviously, you manage it, and likely other

Reply to Changing Colony Ship Hulls Without Killing People in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

You are far better than I at managing and balancing research and production. In DA, at Suicidal, I have been unable to get to SCC, to research and build ships with enough power, and then get them into orbiting the SCC planet all quick enough to make the AIs "cower." When I have tried that, I have either gone bankrupt or been attacked before I could get there. The time I think I got closest, the colony rush by the AIs had already left me with what app

Reply to Changing Colony Ship Hulls Without Killing People in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

On the cargo-survey HP matter, this seems a matter of playing style. I only play DA Suicidal, and my style is most often to stay out of wars as long as I can. Thus, an early game warship is of low value to me since, if I am in a war then, I have failed at the strategic level. Also, since I prefer the larger galaxy sizes, and since anomalies periodically re-spawn in DA, the ships remain more valuable to me as harvesters all game long than as stop-gap semi-warships.

Reply to Changing Colony Ship Hulls Without Killing People in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

ALL my survey ships are cargo holds, other than the flagship one starts with. I just accept that the hit point bonuses one gets at some anomalies will be ~worthless. How else in the early game can one get enough engines and life support modules into a hull to go and grab far and, potentially, to become emergency colonizers of constructors? With that said, I do keep track of the flagship and often convert it to a warship much later, and all those gains help there.

Reply to Invisible legacy bonus weapons - Bug? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Remember to name and save a design that is displayed to have weapon values despite having no weapons actually installed. Then, in your next game, build a ship of that same design by name.

Reply to Espionage Q in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I play just DA, though I started briefly with DL. I did not buy TA after I heard that the AIs had to be tinkered with by the player to make them expand. Perhaps, then the coding was left the DL way in DA and TA. That is, that espionage would not let one theft a tech from minor races. In one game, I got to the almost the very end, and then gifted everything but one fleet and one planet to a minor race just to see what would happen. They did not build

Reply to Espionage Q in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

--- Bump --- I am beginning to think one may not be able to spy-steal from a minor race. In one test game, I have had a spy on each of the 8 or 9 minor race homeworlds for over 100 turns w/o a single tech gain, though I made sure each had at least one tech I had not researched.

Invisible legacy bonus weapons - Bug? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

In some games, the UP resolution passes that puts weapons on all transports. That is, all transports get weapons w/o the player needing to add or pay for them or even use the space points. Or, for that matter, to research the weapons. What I've noticed is that if I use those same designs in later games, the weapon values are still there! That is, if I had a design called, say, "Invader2000Sp8" in the game with the UP resolution that gained 1 point of weapons i

Reply to Changing Colony Ship Hulls Without Killing People in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Colonies have a negative cash flow until they reach a population level where the taxes offset expenses. Thus, near-zero population colonies take longer to reach the "break-even" point, and the treasury is often limiting later in the colony rush phase. For this reason, I use the instant conversion trick only for choice mine anomalies (red or green), and only rarely at that. Still, you make a valid point that one could get more engines and/or range with neither

Reply to Espionage Q in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I don't know about TA for certain, but it is simple to view any planet of any race with a spy. Simply go to place the spy on the planet. That act will reveal the planet. Then, if you placed the spy, simply remove it again before the end of the turn. As in your reply to me, the boxes exist for the minor race, so I guess it should be able to be done globally, but I have never done so. In the case of the minor race espionage Q that I had, I would like to steal

Espionage Q in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I play DA, but the Q probably applies to TA, and maybe DL. I know that techs can only "stolen" from an AI empire if a spy is placed on a planet. Can one steal a tech from a minor race that same way?