Twirlip

Reply to Selling specific ships Idea in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

At least at anything at, say, Normal or above. "La la la, I'm neutral in this war, don't mind me parking right next to your most critical starbase or my radioing the Constructor ship to get ready..." "...OK boys, strike the colors, haul up the new ones, and fire away!" If this were a multiplayer game, this would be even more abuseable vs. an oblivious AI (one player feigns neutrality to get the ships into position, the second uses 'em to blast targets and gives 'em bac

Reply to planet message in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Every single time I've seen the "Alien Archeologists have magically bumped up a planet's PQ to 30+", it has been in a system already controlled by the AI.

Reply to Scoring Question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I was genuinely shocked at how many points the game awarded me for a Conquest victory -- my suspicion is that conquest gets a substantial bonus of some kind over, say, Cultural. This was more so because I actually hadn't invaded most planets, but had let influence do a huge part of it. (Additional note: The text for a Conquest victory even reads as: --begin quote [i] Paving the way to victory in the blood of their enemies, the %s Civilization has emerged from the galactic race victorio

Reply to Draginol exploit in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

*chuckle* 50 months? Was this just because that was the max on the slider -- you can type a higher number, you know -- or was that the longest they'd go?

Reply to Diplomacy Suggestion in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It'd be pretty nifty. SMAC had something like this, if memory serves.

Reply to Luck! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hm, I might have to try this attribute again. I've been toying with a Technologist / PQ +7% / Research +20 (IIRC) combo lately.

Reply to Trade Goods - what happened!?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

C_Ruppel: It would be interesting to have trade goods be cancellable... but as that would greatly increase the power of the owner (e.g. "Bwahaha, I'm taking away all your morale- and influence- boosting trade goods, and pumping up destabilization too!"), I'd suggest that in that case there be something to counter-balance it such as allowing an expensive reverse-engineering. (Actually, it's a bt interesting as it is now -- who enforces the intellectual property laws that make it

Reply to Selling specific ships Idea in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yeah, I've suggested things like a "mark for trading" option. I don't know whether or not there's the slightest chance anything like that will get in. Otherwise, Darkrenown's suggestion makes sense -- rename it (by clicking the ship's name in the status bar) to something distinctive the Gift Ship. Incidentally, it would seem reasonable for an AI to get irritated with you if you're giving arms to its enemy within its sensor range.

Reply to Bug in 1.03 - Good races researching Evil Techs? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Good civilizations shouldn't be able to use the evil techs -- Life Force Power ain't exactly easy to justify without a might-makes-right outlook -- but I'm not convinced that it wouldn't be Evil to take advantage of Good technology. After all, there is no good or evil, only power. ;)

Reply to weapons in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Starship bonus = bonus to attack and defense, as well.

Reply to 1.04 AI cheats on tech tree, gets free techs from nowhere (bug?) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

One way the Altarians might have gotten loads of your tech is by invading a newly arrived minor. KILL THEM. KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT HESITATE. Or at least, sometimes it IS extremely important to kill them ASAP, because when they appear they will frequently have substantial tech. Once, I saw one appear with *all* of my techs except the one I'd just finished researching, if memory serves. If you're the tech leader and this happens, obviously they're a threat to you. In

Reply to Peace and Attack Treaties need Minimum Time Limits in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Whatever was given wasn't being held in escrow, and you shouldn't expect to get it back. You should expect that the violator has a worsened reputation, however, and that the agreement including related payments is terminated. You might also argue that the UP should be able to impose sanctions, but it's already bizarrely strong. For instance, why do you need to be in the UP to trade?

Reply to Peace and Attack Treaties need Minimum Time Limits in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It would be good to have a streamlined interface for negotiating a peace with an alliance, and possibly on behalf of an alliance as well. Mind you, making peace with an alliance should be fairly expensive as all the members of that alliance will likely want a cut. And how might things be distributed? Perhaps tech goes to all, money in proportion to population... planets and starships are trickier as they're far harder to divvy up. Proximity? Divvying up would be easier if it were a

Reply to Anyone notice minor races get lots of techs super fast? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Plus, from what I've read, their intelligence level -- which also governs how many race points they get, et al -- is always at intelligent. In other words, if you play at levels below that, the minors should make more efficient use of their resources than the majors.

Reply to AI cheats rather plentifully in this game. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Starts do vary extremely wildly in quality. For instance, on a Huge/Tight map, you might find yourself in the middle of a monstrous cluster with a PQ20 Earth and many PQ15+ planets within easy reach... or you might find yourself in a outlier system three sectors away from the next nearest star. Since GalCiv doesn't have an option for you to save/load maps, and the variance is pretty high, that's likely why you can use Ctrl-N rather than the usual exit game / set up another game / restart situa

Reply to Qeustion about ship strength? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The Excalibur is the most powerful warship class, by far, but it also requires a truly obscene amount of research as it's very close to the end of the tech tree. A fair bit before that are Overlords, Avatars and Rangers, in decreasing order of power, which are all stronger than Dreadnoughts (with Rangers being only somewhat more powerful -- slightly more hp, faster, longer range, +1 defense). If you look in the Data subdirectory of your Galactic Civilizations directory, you can find the ship d

Reply to How to take over planets? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

And put your transports / coombat transports in a fleet along with their escorts, and move the entire fleet at once. If you invade with n transports not in a fleet you get n tiny attacks. If you invade with n transports in a fleet you get 1 large attack, which can greatly reduce your casualties, plus also saves you money if you use a non-traditional attack as you only buy that once, and the advantage gained is relative to your advantage factor, not some absolute bonus e.g. it's more va

Reply to Don't "fix" trade goods, fix leasing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Oh, and do we need a "Deficit Hawk" political party? ;)

Reply to How do you use a terror star? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Just attack the star system with the Terror Star as if it were an ordinary ship. Fwoosh, no more star system.

Reply to Don't "fix" trade goods, fix leasing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I wonder if there should even BE an instant-buy option, versus, say, a somewhat inefficient "rush build" option -- e.g. +40% production rate, +100% cost (make up whatever numbers seem reasonable to you). Essentially, it'd be an inefficient way of locally boosting spend rate. Just-settled frontier worlds couldn't instantly sprout defending warships or terraforming improvements, while core worlds would still be able to build things with unusual speed.

Reply to Ships Scrapping in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yep, you can trade them to an AI. If they're really obsolete, you won't get much -- e.g. don't expect a single BC for a defender when the AI has battleships -- but at least you'll save the maintenance costs.

Reply to Trade Goods - what happened!?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In particular, the risk of loss is particularly high for larger maps and earlier trade goods. * Minors start with a pile of cash and less to spend it on, since they don't go on a massive colony binge like any major has to do on a Huge/Gigantic. * Minors will be less likely to be crushed early on a larger map since it's less likely that anybody finds them that fast. * There's a two-tech path that yields two trade goods (tri-strontium and frictionless), another two-tech path that

Reply to Need help guys in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Dreadnoughts *are* significantly more advanced than Battle Cruisers, which if memory serves are also weaker then Frigates, Battle Hammers, and Battleships. As for the Phoenix hp, it's likely a combination of War Party, tech, and experience. As to how extreme values can go... on a huge map, I once had Excaliburs with attack slightly greater than 500, some ludicrously high defense, a movement of 25 and hundreds of hp. ;) Short of a few heavily-pumped up antimatter missiles or another p

Reply to Suggestions to Improve Espionage in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Perhaps the information regarding relative strengths -- military, economic, et al -- should be inaccurate. Espionage and trade ties would reduce errors in their estimation. This would also need to apply to the AIs, of course. Incidentally, do the AIs ever hide their technology on the trading screen? It might be a nasty surprise, at least at higher levels, especially if one hides the fact that it has a spiffy new ship class.

Reply to Should the Good/Evil spectrum be weighted? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I could see a morale penalty imposed if your trailing average morality is sharply different from your overall average morality, and the latter's extreme -- e.g. people getting upset if you started making Evil choices while your society was Saintly, or vice versa. There'd need to be a lot of numbers filled in to make it a rule, however.