Horatio

Reply to Iron Man in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

i never reload. what's the point? where's the satisfaction? it's like taking back moves in chess. cheers h

Reply to Major Diplomacy War/Peace Cheese at Intelligent levels in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

okay, maybe removing the "selling attacks" feature would be a little harsh. but i agree that it should learn MUCH faster not to trust you. you should only be able to get away with it a 2nd time if a) your relations are friendly or better and/or b) your diplomacy rating is much, much higher. i stand by #1 and #2 though. there's too many ways to abuse the AI on those. cheers h

Reply to Make Money FAST with Aphrodisiacs! in Strategies Stardock Forums

i do this with all the trade goods...except for diplo translators and i only sell gravity accelerators (sooo useful) to minor or pathetic civs. i'm currently winning a game on "incredible" (large map). this would not have been possible without heavy trade good dealing. it might be good to nerf the value "a little". but it's hard to say...i would like to see the AI put more emphasis on producing trade goods to prevent you from using this tactic too heavily. cheers

Reply to Major Diplomacy War/Peace Cheese at Intelligent levels in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

yeah, these kinds of exploits ave been floating around for a while... three things that are way too exploitable in diplo: 1. player "selling" planets. IMHO this should be removed. but, you still should be able to demand planets and "surrender" a planet when the AI demands tribute. 2. player purchasing ships. again, IMHO too abusable, should be removed. selling ships is okay, as is donating. 3. player "selling" war declarations. as you so beautifully illustrate

Reply to Ship encoder available in Mods Stardock Forums

hmmm...don't work with graphics much, do ya carielf? ;p x' = xcos@ + ysin@ y' = -xsin@ + ycos@ you'd probably have to run some linear interpolation on the result to make it look nice. cheers h

Reply to Love the game, but end game is tedious in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

apparently a more "french" :p AI is in the works for an upcoming version. so hopefully this will be resolved. see the "no update today" thread for brad's comments. cheers h

Reply to No Update Today? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Plus more intelligent tactical generaliship" sweeeeet. i look forward to the possibility of actually losing a war. "But we have also rewritten our internal MP3 player so that it will work even when it's not Microsoft's MP3 player codec" i guess that's why it wasn't working. alt-tabbing wasn't that big a deal though. keep up the great work. cheers h

Reply to Trading weirdness -- a little more documentation in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

thongor, while i find your posts regarding the diplo AI informative and understand your complaint, the last thing i want in this game is for the diplomacy to become any more of a cash cow. i *almost* feel guilty milking those minor (and weaker major) civs dry. i think the only reason my spend slider isn't always at 100% is because i'm too lazy to constantly swap techs and trade goods. btw this is playing on all "incredible" AI. i prefer that the AI be "an obstructive prick" as

Reply to Why do diplomatic events all occur upon loading saved game? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

i have noticed this happening as well. cheers h

Reply to GalCiv needs more documentation in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

- read the front page post about the upcoming bonus pack. it will add functionality to view where all the numbers are coming from. i, personally, view this as a bad thing ( i usually stop playing games once i understand the underlying mechanics - just becomes an exercise in number-crunching ) but "to each their own". - the benefits of each type of gov't are detailed in the manual. - i like how resources are overwhelmingly important. makes the strategy more than "guy with the most nice pl

Reply to Destabilization and Espionage almost useless? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

yeah, but once you hit max espionage, which is fairly fast, it kinda loses it's lustre. further investment doesn't seem to do anything but keep it at that level. it would be nice if you could steal techs, destroy improvements/starbases, or increase your destabilization abilities. cheers h

Reply to The only big thing wrong with galciv in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

does #1 actually occur? have you actually had an AI player extorting from 5 different civs in the opening stages of the game? i mean, i've had the drengins extort cash from minor civs fairly early on, but that's not gonna make or break your strategy. cheers h

Reply to How to suggest changes and get the developers to think about it in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

AFAIK the "tech spamming" problem has already been mostly resolved by Brad in v1.02+ ( at least on higher intelligences ). The AI will now value techs much lower, so while you can still sell techs to all the AIs in one turn, you will not be able to sustain your entire empire off the revenues, nor will you be able to cripple the AI economies. also, since the tribute bug has been fixed, the AI will end up in the "red" much faster, making it impossible to continuously sell them techs. chee

Reply to ship combat - one thing I really hate :( in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

uhhh, i hate to contradict you brad, but fleets do have a use other than convenience. stacking high offense with high defense ships is a valid tactic. so is stacking transports, constructors or freighters with military escorts. if the AI actually used fleets in this manner it would increase it's chances in combat drastically. but i agree with you in that i do not see any need for some kind of "fleet attack" bonus. cheers h

Reply to Trade Routes in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

i just leave groups of freighters parked near alternative colonies, that way i can instantly start new routes in case of war. cheers h

Reply to Trade Goods/Wonders Fix in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

yeah, it's terrible when minor civs actually do stuff other than bankroll your empire. next thing you know they'll be defending their planets. ;p seriously though, i think it's great that they can build trade goods and wonders, it's a good reminder that you've been slacking off on either the tech or social front. unfortunately conquering a minor race does not transfer ownership of the trade goods. they just kinda disappear from the game. cheers h

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

frogboy, perhaps you could add optional advanced AI code for those of us with patience and/or fast machines ( i only have the former :p ). it seems unfortunate to deny it to everyone based on the fact that some may suffer performance-wise. of course then you'd have to support/debug it...ugh. i'd much rather have to wait a little between turns and face a challenge than have a quick cakewalk ( this is on "intelligent" without abusing diplomacy ). in any case, your dedic

Reply to Starbase Suggestion: in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

i think most of these issues would disappear if the AI handling of starbases was improved. playing on "intelligent", the AI still has no real idea, aside from mining resources, of what to do with SBs and perhaps more importantly, how to deal with player SB tactics like "culture bombing" and "hidden defense". this results in the player having a massive advantage which more than compensates for the AI's superior resource management abilities. but i'm sure Brad is working on it and you'll

Reply to cloaked ships? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

btw, by "currently they will go to the last known position", i meant that is the default AI behaviour without cloaking tech. i think i've won every game i've played without ever using cloaked ships, so i haven't really made any observations. and no, you can't see ships outside of sensor range. but you can, for some strange reason, see what ships are orbiting a planet no matter how far away they are. cheers h

Reply to cloaked ships? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

IMHO cloaking could be one of the following two things: 1. only affects the AI in that they no longer will pursue a ship that has left sensor range ( currently they will go to the "last known position" ). 2. a feature that was never implemented. cheers h

Reply to Alternate ways to lose? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

i'm sure the folks at SD will at least add the option of AI tech and cultural victories in one of their updates (at least i hope so). there's been quite a few threads on this topic and most people seem disappointed with the "bludgeon only" AI victory conditions. i think the player and AI victory conditions should be tied together, so that if you choose to have tech victory available, the AI should be able to do it as well. the corollary to this is that a significant amount of

Reply to Alternate ways to lose? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

i don't think the AI can win culturally in the 90% sense, but it can in the "all your planets defect" sense. AFAIK the only way you can lose is if all your planets are conquered. i'm not sure why the cultural victory was taken out, but apparently some beta testers didn't like the AI having the option of tech victory, so they took it out. cheers h

Reply to Selling stuff to AI? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

definitely accept. cheers h

Reply to Moral delimnas...what's the point? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

good races will tend to hate you - alliances with them will become next to impossible and they will attack if they have any kind of military advantage. but you get access to "evil" techs like "The Dark Side" and all the obvious benefits of choosing C. cheers h

Reply to Moral delimnas...what's the point? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

both paths allow you to research some interesting and highly beneficial techs. you get nothing for remaining neutral - except maybe slightly easier relations. you should only ever pick the neutral choices if you're going for "good" but the drawbacks are too harsh for that specific event. cheers h