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Reply to "Cheating A.I." and how to "cheat" (mostly for newer players) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

wampyre: I noticed that on the easier levels, but on the higher levels it's less true. They still don't pursue them as agressively as I do (though I wait till I can pop out a few StarHawks or Rangers to hunt with multiple ships).

Reply to Orbital Biosphere in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Sounds like the graphic for it is missing. The same issue was causing some problems with the Excalibur ship, and it created a problem that sounded exactly like what you're referring to. Not that I had any personal experience with it, though.

Reply to My planets are money pits! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Actually, if your planets are breaking even, that's good. That means that trade is surplus income. Mine are always in the hole, except for a few "prize" worlds.

Reply to Planet quality effects defined? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Oh, to answer the original question, the best answer is a sticky thread in the GC strategies forum (see the tab on the left of the screen).

Reply to Planet quality effects defined? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

According to the manual, 12 is the lowest colonizable (you can grab lower levels, but never expect them to be happy or productive), 13 is Mars, and 16 is Earth. Anything above 17 was "theoretical" but we knew it was out there, especially the time I started off with a Class 20 earth and a class 17 Sol IV and V. :)

Reply to Die Humans! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

*snicker* And to think the only two laughs I got out of MoO3 both involved spy codenames: Fuzzy Whatzit: My GF wanted to get another kitten to use this name as soon as I told her about it. Angry Penguin: Think someone took flack for not porting their games to a certain open-source OS?

Reply to Scoring... in Strategies Stardock Forums

Raychua: You're closer than you think. It doesn't mean that you've had 10 wins at 3000 points or better, it means that you've won 10 games and your Metaverse score is 3000. So, you're at 5819 points so far, and you'll need a total of 9487 points in 10 games to hit 3000, so you'll need 1223 points per game for the next 4 games to make it. Judging by your history, I think you can make it :)

Reply to My planets are money pits! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I stay away from fusion power plants on anything but my largest planets. 3BC maint each isn't small potatoes. In fact, if I've got the tech, I'll go with Anti-matter power plants instead. 1BC, bigger manufacture bonus, although longer build time and lower econ bonus. Of course, at 2BC difference, the base econ (without modifiers) would have to be 40BC/turn in order for the econ bonus to cancel out the higher maintenance.

Reply to My economy vs. AI in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Found it, don't know how I missed it. http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=41510 Now to go reread it to find out how much I've learned/forgotten since then :)

Reply to Possible Bug In FrictionlessClothing Trade Good in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There was a mention of a general morale-booster fix, but I don't remember which version that was in.

Reply to If the AI doesn't cheat, how does it get so many techs in the first few months? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Badbonez, it knows where the yellow stars are, not the planets. I don't lease (except wonders/trade goods), I buy one scout outright at the begining, and use the rest of the money to keep my spending at 100%, hopefully until I start trading with other races so I can keep it there. Then again, I like larger maps, so having more colony ships in the first X years is a better strategy than having more colony ships right away. Leasing gets you more right away, using the money to max your s

Reply to Disappointed--my fault? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

bonscott: True, that's one thing I miss about SMAC when playing GalCiv. Heck, I'd be happy just to know what the vote is going to be on, so I can know if I need to quickly buy some Influence. Knowing how they're likely to vote (espionage?) would be nice, as would being able to buy their support. Best of all would be being able to nominate bills, but I think that would throw the balance of the game off.

Reply to My economy vs. AI in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

As for the tech tree, check out JavaScout's site, he's got an interactive encyclopedia, and some giant-jpeg (and pdf) tech trees that I pull up in Netscape and alt-tab back and forth, when I remember to do so. Then again, sometimes I'm so focused on what I'm doing that I forget to set my "next tech to research" and get something fairly random. Got Federation by accident, once.

Reply to My economy vs. AI in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Forgot to mention one reason for the initial tech path. All of the AIs like buying Diplomacy and Trade for decent amounts, and it doesn't hurt me to sell it to them.

Reply to My economy vs. AI in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I can't find that thread (was going to give a link to it), so I'll recap what I said there. This works on medium to huge maps on challenging. I suspect that leasing colony ships would be more important on small maps since it's more of a race with fewer prizes, but on the larger maps, keeping your spending at 100% as long as you can gets you more colony ships than leasing them does. First turn: 1) Set your spending slider to 100%. Turn your tax rate up till your morale drops,

Reply to galciv vs. SMAC in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Leader, it certainly can be done, I've got a full Military Conquest on record on a medium map, and of all my games, it was the most fun. Yes, I had to fight to keep my economy going, but I did.

Reply to The "creative" of Gal Civ? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hey, I'd miss it if it were nerfed! My favorite defense-in-depth strategy involves colonizing the Class 12s. With just soil enrichment and +15% PQ, it becomes a Class 15, but drops back down to a 13 if the AI sucessfully invades. Instant red angry face. Oddly enough, I've never seen the AI maintain any level of agression when it starts taking a bunch of these planets ;)

Reply to Max number of trade routes? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I ran into that. I don't know if it's intentional or not. It's odd that they give you more techs than you can use. I hit this limit even if I don't take a trade-route enhancing pick at the start of the game.

Reply to Something *really* odd: Dreads cost LESS than BB's?? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The reason I like Rangers over Dreadnoughts for some things is that they are faster and have better range, though I'd never use them for defense, since neither advantage applies. On larger-than-Large maps, there's still anomolies out there when you get Ranger tech, and having one or two of them on auto-survey gives you a way to scoop them up without sending out the really fragile craft. On the BattleShip side, however, the only advantages to it are a slightly cheaper maintenanc

Reply to Why is PQ13 + soil + hab = PQ15 ? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Actually, Valamir, it isn't specific to that setup, just benefits that setup the most. Like I said, I found that with those settings, the deck was stacked so far in my favor that it was too easy, so now that I'm used to keeping up with the AI expansion efforts, I've got the habitability turned back to the default setting. In fact, I may have maxed it out on my current game to see how different it could be. I'm disagreeing because I don't see any of the problems that you discuss in you

Reply to Does the AI colonize class <15 planets? Should it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've played a few games with the +15% PQ bonus in Large and larger Galaxies set to the minimum number of inhabitable planets, and in those conditions, the Class 12-14 planets are the key to winning the game. With this in mind, I do have a few things to add: If you're colonizing a planet that will be less than a Class 15 for more than one turn, land fewer than 100M colonists. That seems to be the first breaking point. Anything over that on a low-class planet, and morale tanks. <br

Reply to My planets are money pits! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I usually set up two govenors. One to handle most of my planets, one to handle my "Core" planets where I'll have high income/production. Core is an arbitrary designation usually meaning my (approximately) 5 best planets, determined by Class and production ability, and in no real danger of getting sacked by the enemy. The base govenor (Ford) gets all terraforming and economic upgrades, and the cost effective manufacturing upgrades. As for cost effective manufacturing upgrades, I'm muc

Reply to galciv vs. SMAC in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Librarian: If you want to avoid the initial race, set the planet inhabitability to the rarest setting and take the +15% PQ ability, and play on a Large or bigger map. I'm playing against "Bright" AI, and with those settings, the game was to easy, because even though the bulk of my planets were in the Class 15-18 range, I'd have so many more of them that I'd steamroller the AIs. As to SMAC, loved the game. Not sure which I like better. Definitely prefer the GalCiv AI, I've had wars i

Reply to Why is PQ13 + soil + hab = PQ15 ? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Valamir: I have to disagree. Set planet inhabitability to it's minimum, play on a huge or gigantic map, and take the +15% PQ bonus. You'll find that even on Challenging, (all AI set to bright), it's almost a cakewalk because of your economy, driven by a large number of Class 15-18 planets that the AI passed over. I own half of a huge galaxy without having to fight or culturally asimilate anything because of this. It might be different on smaller maps, and I can't imagine that it wou

Reply to AI Agression in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

My current game has been unexpected in several ways. First, my first contact with other races was with the Yor and Drengin, al a Terran sandwich. So, for the first time ever, I decided it was time to play evil. Despite this, I haven't been in a single war. I haven't been extorted. Of course, I've also got the biggest military, though it's pretty old stuff. The Altarians are hostile towards me, but everyone else is O.K. with me. Also figured that I'd do my diplomacy a littl