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Reply to Alliances Should Extend the Range of My Warships in Diplomacy Stardock Forums

Lowa11, the disadvantage is that your enemy is getting the same support from his allies starbases.

Reply to Space Empires in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

Claiming one of these games is "better" than the other is about as useful as claiming to know how many angels can stand on the head of a pin. True, especially when it's really all about preferences anyway. After all, is a steak really better when you're craving a chilli dog? Not saying that SE is st

Reply to GalCiv 1 in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

Don't worry, there will always be those who are more than willing to explain their theories about what works and what doesn't. GC2 is really more complex than GC1 in only two areas. First, you have to design your own ships, and second, you have to think more about what you're placing on your colonies, since you can only have a certain number of tiles. The tech tree is definitely easier to deal with. With few exceptions, there ar

Reply to Really annoying... in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

It's true, you're a lot less likely to see the galaxy split into two groups permenantly at war with each other in fact. Also, the AI has definitely gotten better, my most recent game (the almost-gold release) is the first time I've ever felt the need to start building a defensive fleet out of anything larger than small hulls. Usually I use a single fast, cheap ships for defending my colonies. Fast so that they can knock out any transports

Reply to So whats after Gal Civ2? in PC Gaming Stardock Forums

My guess is that work will start on the Bonus pack, which is supposed to have the same release date as the game, but doesn't have to go gold before then because it doesn't need to go through the production process, just loaded onto the server. After that, then the team will probably split up, with some of them staying to work on GC2 (bug fixes, expansion, etc), some going on to work on Society (About that. You TEASES! "accidentally" having

Reply to will be expansion race avoided in gc2? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

That's -500BC, which is the same threshold as GC1 had. Go farther in the red than that, and all non-maintenance spending stops.

Reply to What will your race be like? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

I'm already playing the Murfsters. Very friendly, they never start a war, but don't make them think you want to play, or you'll never see the end of it. Named and patterned after my 26 lb Maine Coon cat. Most loving cat I've ever had, but get him wound up, and he'll draw large quantities of blood.

Reply to Planet Population Question in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

Yeah, expect change all over the place My "optimal research order/build order" went out the window a week or two back. When the live GC2 is released, you'll want to re-evaluate any habits/assumptions you formed while playing the beta.

Reply to Mines, Layers, and Sweepers in Warfare Stardock Forums

Leviathion, any ship that can't handle a BB is going to be in big trouble even without being shot at. If you don't have some kind of defense against micrometeorites, you'd better not be going very fast, as space isn't that empty (at least not inside/near a solar system). The AI isn't going to be able to handle them on release, so we don't get them. It might be possible that we might get them in an expansion, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Reply to Star Base module question in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Odd, Peace Phoenix, I've never not been able to pack a starbase with every allowed module in GC2, even on the rare game that lasted until I had all the techs except the tech victory tech. You'll notice the number of max modules changes according to the type of the starbase. I believe this is saying that "if you had all the techs, this is how many constructors it would take to max out the starbase" not "this is the most we'll let you use." I know for a fact that you can pack more tha

Reply to Auto Explore in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

It's not perfect, it seems to focus on the unexplored area closest to one of your colonies/starbases, ignoring how close it is to itself (I had a scout on auto-sector sweep once ignore the grey to its left and right, and go all the way to the other side of the planet it was exploring around). Still, it's a nice way to eliminate micromanagement in the midgame.

Reply to Auto Explore in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

It's called Sector Sweep. Not obvious, but it works, and not just for one sector.

Reply to Ship classes in combat in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

Another thing to note is that the fighters in GC2 aren't the fighters you have in most SF. These are full starships, just built on the smallest hull practical. In fact, as far as space goes, a tiny hull is more than 1/5 the size of the largest hulls (unless they've changed something in the gamma, I haven't had any games last until huge hulls in the gamma).

Reply to in gc2 there will be more minor races than in gc? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

There are definitely more, though I'm not sure that there are more in game at any one time, if that's what you mean.

Reply to Is this game going to be avaible on DVD? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

I remember seeing one of the reps stating that the goahead had been given to make it a 2-CD game. However, it will install once, and after that you only need the CDs to reinstall.

Reply to OMG No multiplayer... in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

Devster_C: IMO, PBEM is just about the only way to make multiplayer GC2 work due to non-simultaneous turns (and how much of a major change it would be to the game to make it simultaneous). Where traditional PBEM would fall down with GC2 however (in my very limited PBEM experience), is in those times where every human involved is just hitting the turn button waiting for something to happen. I can see one way to speed this up, with two varia

Reply to Galaxy Size in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

On most games where I max out options to get inhabitable planets, I get hundreds of inhabitable planets. My current game, where every inhabitable planet I know if is settled, there are 416 inhabited planets, for example.

Reply to Galactic War / Alliances in Diplomacy Stardock Forums

Just as an FYI, I used to sell Alliances to all the AI players as soon as I researched it to tie them up in endless wars. It doesn't work with the Gamma. I don't know how much of that the change in alliances is responsible for, and how much is the change in the AI, but I never saw more than two war lines on the relationships page. Maybe an overcorrection, but it was still a fun game.

Reply to Conceivable to be a defensive powerhouse? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

There have been some changes in the gamma that will definitely affect this answer. In the Beta, the answer was "not the way you mean" in that almost all of my effective ships had far more offense than defense. However, the Gamma changes two important things in regards to your question. The Gamma AI tends to focus on a single opponent at a time (I'm used to seeing almost every race at war with 2-3 other races, if not more, but my only Gamma game that lasted long enough saw most races

Reply to Manufacturing in two weeks = Preorders in 2 weeks? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

I remember the strain on the servers for the GC1 release Here's to wishing you a smooth launch.

Reply to Fun from last night.. in Ideas Stardock Forums

Actually, where those kinds of things tend to fall down are: 1) Coordinating the strategic and tactical AI: The strategic AI needs to know what the tactical AI needs to fill its plans. This isn't as simple as it seems at first. 2) One-trick-pony strategies. AI's just don't deal well with them unless specifically programmed to do so, and even if you do program it to deal with that one, another one will come along. This has been

Reply to The AI in GalCiv II Part 4 in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Agreed with Star Pilot. I've had games where my income per turn was 3000BC per turn beyond what I was spending even without the "period of great economic growth" and I've had times where even 50BC a turn would have killed me. Now, I'll admit that on the average it wouldn't hurt, but that's only because I'm almost never LOOSING 3000BC per turn.

Reply to Balance issues? in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Not to mention that if your home planet is already developed, that's going to take a BIGGER bite out of your budget. I've had games where due to bonus tiles I was using deficit spending before my second colony ship landed, even with a nasty tax burden.

Reply to Additional Weapons and Armor in Warfare Stardock Forums

Jorian Drake, those are already in the tech tree, though not that big.

Reply to Warfare & fleet combat ideas in Warfare Stardock Forums

I've not seen the "immortal spearman" syndrome in GC2. One of the reasons for this is because in GC2, the range for attack and defense values is much larger than it was in Civ3. In Civ3, the highest attack value for a ground unit was what, 16? GC2 starts off at the same place, with a ship with 1 point of attack and no defense. My early-midgame defenders have 8-12 attack even before bonuses, which is almost as good as Civ3 endgame units, and after b