Dano13

Reply to Spore Ship AI weakness in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I find spore ships interesting, but certainly not overpowering. You still need space-superiority to use them, and when was the last time you lost a war when you had space-superiority? All they allow you to do is eat an empire quickly, once its defenses have been stripped. To me, the most overpowered ability is Super Diplomacy, at least when I use it. The game is not difficult at all. Before I had Super Diplomacy I could barely win on two levels below 'Intelligent'. Now I am slaught

Gamespy Review for DA 5/5 in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Kudos Stardock ... looks like you hit another one out of the park! http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/galactic-civilizations-ii-dark-avatar/764302p1.html

Reply to MoO-Mod? in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

Here is a link for all the governor's/heros as well. I use them to make custom races ... http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_lordbrazen_archive.html

Reply to Spore Ship AI weakness in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Another weakness I have seen in the AI using Spore ships is that it tends to rely to heavily on them ... i.e. it grabs a whole bunch of planets with spore ships but doesn't follow them up with actual transports. So the AI winds up with a bunch of planets all with zero population. Dano

And the Surprise in the Dev Chat was .... in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

If you buy DA now you can download immediately! Sweet ... a game being available BEFORE release I don't have the chat log link. Perhaps someone can post it so you can see for yourself. Dano

Reply to Anyone keep a record of the Chat log? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Wow ... that was really weird. For some reason I thought Yesterday was Wednesday - I think it was because of the following insane logic 1) There was going to be a surprise announced on the dev chat 2) DA was released to beta testers a week early - this was a surprise 3) Hence it must be the day of the dev chat 4) Hence it must be Wednesday Yes ... I order my life around Stardock ... So? Dano

Reply to Five Reasons Windows Vista is good for gaming! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Yeah ... not to mention that if you like PC gaming then you won't have a choice. You HAVE to get this meaningless OS. Hell, I would prefer giving Microsoft the money for a Premium Vista downgrade just to KEEP my current OS as long as they guaranteed me that they would support it (i.e. put directX 10 in it etc, etc). Dano

Anyone keep a record of the Chat log? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

For the chat log last night, is there a log somewhere I could read? Thanks Dano

Reply to Five Reasons Windows Vista is good for gaming! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

From what I have read, do I hate vista? Absolutely As a PC Gamer will I buy it - Well, I will have to won't I? But I will hold out until the bitter end. A good chunk of Vista is MS's attempt to woo the Media companies to get into bed with MS. Did you know that Vista spends a lot of CPU cycles so that it can spy on you? It literally does an internal poll over and over again to make sure you are not using some sort of dodgy hardware that will allow you to copy that protected

AI - Roleplay or Play to Win? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

One of the HUGE advantages that a human has over an AI is that we can see their thoughts. What I mean is that we KNOW for a FACT what they currently feel towards us and towards others. Barring any random event, if we are close to someone we can pretty much leave our border's undefended. The same can not be said of an AI vs a player. The AI has NO IDEA of what we really think of them (usually Empire Food- at least to me, though we pretend to be their best buds). Consequently we are u

Reply to Long time DA beta testers review/opinions on the expansion in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Here are my thoughts - I have been playing a lot using Custom Opponents. It works pretty well, and I have even been able to apply negative modifiers to certain races (like soldiering etc) by directly editing the custom race files. It works pretty well. I still think that Abilities and Economic advantage should be separate from the race personality (since you set the difficulty AFTER you pick your opponents). I have tried playing around with the Abilities and Economic advantages but

Reply to AI WARS & And Release Dates! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Feb 14th!!!!!!!!!!! Yay! Now I will have something to do on Valentine's Day

Reply to Attacked by one, attacked by all X-( in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Actually I am glad that there is this element of uncertainty. Before DA, all you had to do was keep an eye on your diplomatic relations and you would never be caught unaware. That seemed to eliminate most of the tension in the game. Dan

Reply to Can't upload profile pic in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks Kryo ... you rock! Dano

Reply to The AI is why i still play this game. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I love the AI in GalCiv 2. I played Civ 4 a couple of games, but honestly I was too bored to continue (even if it is a top notch game, just not my cup of tea). The one thing I LOVE about GalCiv 2 that I HATED about Civ 4 is that the AI in GalCiv 2 act like people. The same cannot be said about Civ 4. eg. When you are putting the boots to a GC2 AI they will frequently plead for peace. I never had this happen very much in C4. In C4 the AIs were unreasonably demanding

Can't upload profile pic in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hi All, For some reason it is like pulling teeth trying to get an avatar on these forums. Everytime I try to upload a picture into the personal icon that is the correct size (both in file size and pixels) without fail I get the Your upload succeeded, but the image(s) have been corrupted. Please check the file and try again. This happens no matter what pic I try and upload. If any kind soul has any suggestions it would be much appreciated. Dano

Sensors Question in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hey there, If I give myself a Sensors boost in the Racial abilities, will that increase the sensor range of Ships, Bases even without putting sensor tech on them? Will it increase the sensor range of ships? Also - If I am customizing my opponents and I give them a Sensor Racial ability, will it react to threats in this increased sensor range? Dan

Reply to Super Abilities of the Races in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Much appreciated

Super Abilities of the Races in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Can anyone tell me what the super abilities are of the default races? I checked the manual and didn't find it. Thanks Dano

Getting an Avatar in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hey all This might be a little OT, but how do I get one of those Knacky Avatars beside my posts? I uploaded a photo into My Account, and it is there, but its not doing anything (I uploaded it as Personal Photo, should it be Personal Icon???) - I tried to do a search of 'Avatar' and well ... I am pretty sure it caused a global brownout Dano

Reply to A suggestion to Stardock for DA if there is time before the final build. in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Hey - it could be worse! We could have had MOO3's representation of land battles - Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Dano

Reply to Favorite and worse super ability in your opinion? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I think that Super Diplomat is by far the most potent abilities, at least in the hands of a player. I am not convinced that the AIs know how to use this ability. Why is it so great? Well, making everyone do whatever you want is pretty powerful. Even if an empire is very powerful, and hates me I can convince them to waste their energy on multiple wars while I build up. As they continue to war, more races come to hate them and soon I have pretty much isolated from the rest of the comm

Reply to Defining Race Personalities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I think Robert Foley is correct i.e. that the AI personality templates have statistical dispositions (i.e. choices made by a combination of overall strategy that the race enjoys as well as coin-tosses). Should the coin-toss mesh with the particular environment, then the overall behaviour of that AI for that game might be effective, but not characteristic of that race. Hopefully someday we will learn the tendancies of the AI templates so we can build more effective custom opponents.<br/

Reply to Defining Race Personalities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I just thought of something else - In order to determine the meanings of these AI - templates, I suppose we should separate Aggression, from the personality, since Aggression is set differently than the AI template. This means that the AI template is even MORE ambiguous than our game observations. I.e. how do we talk about the strategies that an AI uses INDEPENDENT of aggression. In this light it seems we know the following - Thalans - Like Influence, will launch a p

Defining Race Personalities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I am having a HOOT creating my own custom opponents (as you can probably tell from my various posts). Anyway, I know the devs are really busy here - but I thought that we could work to establish what exactly a "Torian" or "Krynn" personality encompasses. Afterall its difficult to create a custom opponent if you are unsure what the personality template you assign it encompasses. Anyway, I will start. These are based on my observations. Note most of my observations come from Pre-Dark