Cataleptic

Reply to Creativity & Luck? in Strategies Stardock Forums

You get to become the Psilons :) ~SDC~

Reply to Freighter/Trade questions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The population of the source and destination planets, and the distance between them are the major factors. The are starbase modules that boost trade income... they most useful if you have just the once central trading hub (i.e. your most populous planet). I, too, would like to know if it's possible to re-base a freighters source before establishing the route. ~SDC~

Reply to Event change in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've seen similar wierdness cropping up. I suspect what's happening is that the %ages for each option are randomly generated within a range. So the first might be between -10% to -25%, the second from -5% to -15%, and the third is +10% to 25%, but there's no checking to make sure that they go in a strictly increasing order. Errr... I guess :) ~SDC~

Reply to I just moved a starbase in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I think a mobile starbase with maxed out modules in *any* area would be fairly terrifying :) Others have already postulated the Mobile White-Hole Of Influence, but even a fully loaded Soc/Mil production booster would be great for frontier planets or helping an allies wage war. ~SDC~

Reply to Creativity & Luck? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Ditto. The description *seems* to imply that some techs are only available to creative races... but I haven't been able to confirm that. ~SDC~

Reply to Question about Spy Information... Who is This Against? in Strategies Stardock Forums

A nice detailed run-down on destablisation/propaganda would be nice... Is destabilisation money divided up per capita, or per colony? Is it functionally equivalent to 'anti-propaganda'? How does propaganda work? Is there a way to set an empire-wide propaganda budget? ~SDC~

Reply to How do I make an alliance? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Currently, they're very much a two-edged sword, though... do Alliances confer any tangible advantage, like increased trade revenue or free tech-points? ~SDC~

Reply to Just got my ass handed over to me... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I prefer to crank military and government spending up to 100% and tank the others for a year. That way, I end up with half a dozen colony ships 'in hand' and no debt :) ~SDC~

Reply to Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

doktorstick: "I'll give you X to help you fight against Y" is functionally equivalent to "I'll give you X". The extra text is just there to let you know that a) They don't like Y either, but don't want to risk all-out war, and b) They like *you* enough to want to help. I'd be nice to have the option to say that yourself, but in terms of gameplay there's no difference (AFAIK). freeradical: The first two thing you want are already in the options list :) ~SDC~

Reply to Has ANYONE been able to install from archive? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I unzipped the archives back into SDC's download directory, then just clicked on the install button. Worked for me! ~SDC~

Reply to How can I tell if GalCiv is using the Metaverse for AI... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Applying liberal amounts of wild conjecture to the scraps of info I've managed to glean, I don't think there was ever going to be a 'client side' learning AI. However, GalCiv seems to have been designed with modular AI components for easy replacement. So presumably, SD will use the metaverse info to identify and eliminate blind-spots and exploitable holes in the AI code, and SDC will permit quick and painless updates to the AI as soon as they become available. Natty. ~SDC~

Reply to cheats in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Splendid! :D Actually, I started out just cobbling together a bare-bones scenario editor and it sort of got out of hand :), but ISTR Brad mentioning something about an offical one being on the horizon. ~SDC~

Reply to cheats in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

So is there any way for the Metaverse to tell if someone, say, went through and boosted all their home-system's planets to class 40? Or shifted 3 or 4 yellow stars into their home sector for easy access? Not, of course, that I would ever do such a thing (even though I now have the technology :) ) Hmm... I suppose simply saving the seed for the galaxy's generation would suffice to check for that sort of jiggery-pokery.

Reply to Skills: Reproduction vs Morale in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Heh... FreeCell's a bit tricky. You have to eliminate several degrees of freedom to get the number-crunching down. My bot is on a winning streak of about 100000 games :D From the looks of it, gameplay in GalCiv isn't nearly as sensitive to maths-driven optimization as Stars! is... thank goodness. ~SDC~

Reply to Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

CariElf: Yes, I know about the sorting... filtering's not something I need, just something I'd like :) Others: Depending on what the AI does with surplus production, and how closely it micromanages the distribution sliders, getting cash for surplus shields/hammers could seriously throw the game out of whack. Unless the rebate-rate was punitive, well-developed worlds would gush cash. Perhaps something more subtle, like a 10% increase in tax revenue for each idle queue... <BR

Reply to Two questions, need answers Frogboy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Is the colony ship parked in orbit? (i.e. does it show up in the system's ship list?) ~SDC~

Reply to Question about Spy Information... Who is This Against? in Strategies Stardock Forums

If they're undermining someone else's empire, it says whose it is, so I'm working with the same assumption as you are. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an option to say "Stop that, or I'll turn every single one of you into jam." ~SDC~

Reply to Bad behavior ... too bad in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Try playing with all AIs set to Pure Good and see what happens. The evil AIs are irredeemably pugnacious. I've already won a game without firing a shot, or being attacked (not that it was easy... a fair amount of back-room dealing was needed) ~SDC~

Reply to Skills: Reproduction vs Morale in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I see someone else has been reverse-engineering the savegame files as well :)

Reply to cheats in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

CariElf: You mean the data in the input files are saved as part of the savegame fileset? So one-the-fly mods are impossible? Good :) Do the savegames have checksums or something to stop people tinkering with them?

Reply to cheats in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Asmodean_dk: Yes, but not if you're the only player who already has those ships. It wouldn't be too hard to get corvettes before anyone else, then give them godly stats *and* boost their resarch cost through the roof, or even just save at the start of your turn, tweak the stats, reload, play your turn, save and untweak... Presumably Stardock already has measures in place to prevent such evilness... err... I hope.

Reply to Suggested list of changes in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Auto-lauching constructors could backfire if the planet building them is under siege, but has a good garrison.

Reply to Retail GalCiv Deleted 16 GB of Data in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Nope... trojan :D

Reply to Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Mongo not speak so good. Me say 'show show' when me mean 'least show'. Also, while I'm at it :) ... Hyperlinks or popup hints to show a brief description of the techs I'm trading (non-trivial, I suspect :) ) Battles showing up in the events list (the one with completed projects, etc) Some indication that if you refuse an extortion attempt, the extorter will declare war on you this time, instead of just getting annoyed. Conversely, a diplomatic option

Reply to Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Options to filter the planets list to view only: Uncolonised planets Planets with idle military/social queues Ungarrisoned planets Similarly with the ships list: Ships which don't have move orders Ships which are garrisoning a planet Filter by class, or at show show only constructors/colony ships.