With the AI players handling starship combat better, I may have to step down a notch on the AI settings :) I've really got to finish my current game and upgrade! Should be soon, I've got a starship catapult finished, and I'm stockpiling constructors, AAMs and Excaliburs in that sector. It will be a brute force ending :)
Ever had a big nasty ship bearing down on your empire, with your survey ship the only thing that stands any chance, but only if the big nasty ship attacks, and all the dancing around won't provoke the BNS to attack? You know how if you auto-pilot a ship somewhere and it just happens to run into a ship belonging to an empire you're at war with, it attacks without asking? Well, it works the same way for the AI. I just had an interesting war where I was outclassed (battlehammers
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Most of this has been answered already, but I'll give my best answers anyway: 1) Mined resources benefit your entire empire. 2) Click on the planet. In a window just up from the bottom right corner, it will show the ships in orbit around that planet. You can click on each of the ships to get their exact stats. 3) Depends on the map. I like to establish my first two trade routes with my nearest major empires, since they won't be as disposed to declare war on me then.
Viandox: True, I like them in the next sector over, maybe two sectors over, though it's not because of trade distance. Having them start in the same sector means too much competition for any other yellow stars in the same sector as Sol.
Viandox: The trick is, with short trade routes, trade-enhancing starbases more than pay for their maintenance. I've got a minor two sectors away from my economic capitol, and 9 +50% starbases in each sector, and 9 trade routes back and forth. It's rather late-game, so I'm not sure that this would have worked earlier in the game (when there were fewer trade routes available).
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All too true. I had one game were I started with 6 military resources, and was up to 9 (every one on the map) and closing in on the last remaining AI when I got the tech victory. I almost never have anything remotely resembling a military victory, I just don't have it in me. That may be it, I've never pushed the culture-enhancing social projects because they weren't needed before.
1) Individual planets aren't attacked, so the planet defenses have to help the entire system. The influence modifiers I'm not sure about, and most of the other stuff is restricted to that planet. 2) To the best of my knowledge. 3) They're random events that usually happen to whoever is in the worst position. The uberplanet event happened to me once. I don't think the stronger over time event will ever happen to the human player, however. 4) You can use govenors star
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Cataleptic: Culture bombing still works for you in 1.03? I haven't had one work since I upgraded. Then again, my playing style has changed and I'm playing on higher levels now, so that may be why it doesn't come as easy.
Vorlin: The idea of diminishing returns is the only one I know of that won't botch long trade routes, unless we go with the starbase support project and give it a *VERY* low maintenance cost. I've given up on long trade routes because of this. If a starbase only has a mini-freighter in it 10% of the time, it has to boost the trade revenue by 50BC that turn in order to break even. I've switched to trade routes to my immediate neighbors just to keep them off my back until I can stand on my own
Thongor: I've had the AI do 1 for 1 tech trades with me. Most often when the AI initiates the trade, but sometimes even when I make the offer. Ransom: if I'm understanding it correctly, the module creates the ships, it doesn't schedule the creation. The bug caused the module to get called every turn, instead of at the proper interval. All: I still say that NukeDonkey2K is playing 1.02 or earlier, and wasn't paying attention or isn't clearly remembering. Those stats are pe
Vorlin: Except for the hitpoints, it all makes sense if it was a battle hammer instead of a battle axe. In fact, if it was a 1.02 battle hammer, even the hitpoints can make sense.
Viandox: Right now I'm funding my entire empire at 100% based on the trade with a minor in my back yard. Kid you not, 0% taxes, no tribute, and I've still got a surplus. It's nice having an econ base that just about nothing can mess with.
Oh, for the record, I like the idea that the fixed 5BC/SB rule is being reevaluated. As I said in the sticky thread, even before playing it, I thought that would hurt the early game but not impede the late game. Sure enough, my current 1.03A game is the first time I've ever built a long range starship catapult. I set up all my trade routes to a minor civ that is within my empire, dropped 9 +50% trade SBs in every sector on the route, and can now run my entire empire at 0% tax, 100% sp
I like the 1.7 idea, with two conditions. 1.7 is fine for a medium, maybe a large map, but it's too high for Huge and Gigantic, unless the support network is also implemented. I think it should scale according to the size of the galaxy. I disagree that 1.7 should be the basis for Tiny and everything else should be smaller, however. If the support network is added in combination with the exponential support cost, then depending on the exponent, the support network should reduc
Not an easy poll to answer. The starbase maintenance in 1.03 is annoying as heck, and I'm not even spamming starbases. Battlehammers got changed so many times that I'm still getting a handle on their new role, and the maintenance fee on scouts is a minor nusiance. Other than that, I definitely think 1.03 is an improvement, but until I get used to it, I had to say that 1.02 was more fun. That's changing, though.
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yeah, in my current game, I'm running all my trade routes from my best profit center to each of the planets of a minor civ that is buried in my rear area. I haven't lost any trade routes, it only took 5 starbases to make sure that the freighters were always affected by the +50% bonus, etc.
I'll usually restart if Earth isn't at least PQ 18, or if a minor race starts in the same sector as Sol. I've never seen another planet in Sol with a PQ higher than 17. Might have to pound on ctrl-n til I get a dual 20+ start position just to see what it's like. My RNG definitely has a sense of humor. Both games that I played with random alignments had not a single good player (except for myself in the second one, I thought that would be more interesting). In one game on a gigantic
My current game has Hero at an attack of 30-someodd, a defense of 132 (O.K., it's a little lopsided, but I can live with that), and somewhere just over 120 HP. The AI still managed to throw enough overlords at it to knock it down to 12 HP, and more were on the way when I decided it would be a good time to allow the AI to buy peace.
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Oooh, evil. If you weren't limited to 16 transports, you could keep enough 0-maintenance transports in orbit to deorbit the entire population in the case of a defection :) I know, auto-deorbiting won't strip the entire population, but it could catch a lot of it.
More proof my cats are aliens: I don't care if I want it, if it's your idea, it's bad, if it's my idea, it's good.
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MojoJojoUK: Because it won't benefit from the war? When you go to war, you loose influence, you might loose trade, and heaven forbid, the person you declared war against might just crank up a war-time economy that *CAN* do you harm. In fact, I seldom build a large standing offensive force, I just make sure I've got enough to hold off anyone until I've had time to shift gears from a peace-time economy to a war-time economy. You're taking a risk when you declare war, and there needs to
Actually, since this is the first game I've played on a reasonable-sized map with any of the AIs set to intelligent, it could be a fluke. In fact, the most powerful civ is one of the two AIs I left set to bright (the Altarians, the Drengin were the other, but they're out of the game). I played one game on Tiny with the same intelligence settings, but tiny was too easy militarily, at least for me.
I played several games on all bright, and yes, once I got the lead, I kept it. But this game has been something different. FYI, the Arceans declared war *AGAIN*. Hero's up to level 10 or so, with a defense of 134, and it still got the snot kicked out of it by waves of overlords. Wound up offering peace (they accepted and offered some tribute, but not all their tech, which is what I needed) just as the AI was about to take out both Hero and my fully upgraded starbase on a military res
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I've had the AI use one AM Missile against me... to destroy one of my AM Missiles. :notsure: Seeing as he had a dreadnought right next to it, he could have toasted it anyway and kept the missle.
Can you imagine watching Manos:THOF without MST3K? I feel sorry for everyone that appeared in that one.