Scott Rutter

Reply to Taxes, morale, and pop growth balancing at start-up in Strategies Stardock Forums

I don't worry about cash and population in the beginning. Expand, expand, expand! At game start, keep taxes at 33%, max the military slider so you have (60/20/20), start Earth building colony ship and spread out. Note: If you want your initial ship to have more than 100m colonists, move it onto Earth and relaunch it next turn. You will slowly go into debt this way, but you incur no long term payment penalties and crank out colony ships at a very good rate. To get your colonies going

Reply to How to out produce those minor civs in Strategies Stardock Forums

Or just let the minors build them and trade tech for them later. Minors always seem to lag in the tech department, and are more than willing to hand you a trade good for 10-12 techs. :) ~SDC~

Whopper of a Planet in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Had a good starting situation, Sol IV was a Class 26 Planet. When I landed I got the special about sacrificing population to increase the planet class some 35%. After terraforming, soil enhancement and the terraformer, it ended up at Class 44! :D Someone else mentioned they hadn't seen the good races do well without player help. It happened in my latest game, the Altairians took out everyone but the Tolians and myself. And I was giving tech and ships to the other races to slo

Reply to Colony Ships in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Click on the star the ship is at, and in the small window in the lower right, double click on the colony ship. In the window below you will see a slider where you can set the population to load into the ship. Then click on the Launch button to get it out of orbit and onto your starmap. ~SDC~

Reply to Message Board in Serious Need of Features in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The boards are not a SDC only function, apparently you can use your regular newsreader to post as well. ~SDC~

Reply to question about giving ships away in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've noticed the damage before, perhaps that is a design decision, so an AI who you've just given ships to isn't overly tempted to declare war on you with them. :) As for the updates, you've got a year to get ready to pay them. LOL ~SDC~

Reply to ILeague defection early? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The reason for that is a class 15 planets is marginaly habitable. Class 12 planets have to be improved just to live comfortably on. It just isn't worth the resources it takes to do this, as the population is going to be unhappy for a while. Other than colonizing a bunch of Class 14 planets just before you build the Terraformer that is. :) ~SDC~

Reply to How do you counter destabilization? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Lower your taxes to increase morale. ~SDC~

Reply to Cultural Victory Broken? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You need 90% of the influence points. Just because it is your color doesn't mean you have 100% of the influence in that sector. There is a button in the upper bar that gives you details of the sector you have selected on the minimap. Chances are that your opponent(s) still are influencing sectors on the edges of your space. ~SDC~

Reply to Moral in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It isn't required to move people around to worry about morale. I've won 3 game in gigantic galaxies without doing it. High taxes keep the population down, and spending some of that hard earned cash on morale improvements and trade goods keeps them happy enough. Part of the problem might be colonizing marginal planets. 15 means it is just habitable, you put a colony on a Class 14 planet and they are going to be upset from day one. Drop it on a Class 12 and you better have a big bank

Reply to Morale sucks; and that SUCKS in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

My first couple of games were like that, would trade all my tech for money to research more tech. Found that to be a very bad cycle if some of the AI manage to kill off 2-3 empires or they all go broke just when you badly need cash. Just didn't see how my empire would ever make enough money to support itself. ;p In my latest game, I put the tech to far better use, buying starbases from my opponents, then loading them with cultural enhancements. I also give enough away that I've n

Reply to Trade route's ?? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The longer a trade route is in existence, the more it is worth. And the AI can set up routes with your planets as well, so that screen can get crowded near the end of the game. :) ~SDC~

Reply to Terror Stars in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I had the same problem, installed the Frogboy mini update and they still weren't visible. Exited out of the game and restarted and I saw them. Also invisible were Rangers and Overlords. ~SDC~

Reply to beginning strategy with buying ships. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Populations seem to get "used" to a tax setting, but if you set the slider near an endpoint it has the expected dramatic effect. In my last game I was running the end 1/3 of the game with a 70% tax rate and had 50% happiness. I had massive cultural spread since I had traded tech for about 3/4 of the starbases and loaded them up with all the fun human stuff. My morale was low enough that I was losing about one planet every other turn to the I-League, but was gaining 2-3 a turn from the Major R

Reply to Massive Frustration in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

If you have a turn that won't end, make sure that you don't have a planet screen open on the right. Thought a turn was taking rather long, then realized a colony ship had auto moved and was waiting for me to select a planet to colonize. :) ~SDC~

Reply to Invisible ships? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Try saving, exiting, then restarting the game. Had the same problem, then it went away after a restart. Loaded Frogboy's mini update, that might have done something to it as well but I'm not 100% sure. ~SDC~

Reply to Moral in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You have too many people on the planet. The more people sharing those social projects, the less happy they are. Put a few billion "volunteers" into combat transports and send them off to the front lines. Should you tend toward more peaceful solutions, build a colony on a Class 1 planet and transport your excess population there until they see the wisdom of your benevolent rule. Should they object and defect to the enemy, good riddance to those traitors. LOL ~SDC~

Reply to Constructors & the lack of speedy turns in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Rather than deal with a whole set of governors, how about the ability to assign a rally point for each planet's ship builds. Set it to the desired starbase, then start cranking out constructors. ~SDC~

Reply to I-League!!! How to combat your planets joining them? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The AI on the I-League seems to be broken as well, no matter what you choose for your main opponents these guys seem to be running Genius level AI. They just advance far too fast for starting with a single planet. I rarely have a planet defect to them, but I concentrate on tech and morale building improvements so I tend to have happy planets, and if I see an unhappy one I just pop into the build queue and build them something fun like a Stadium. :) ~SDC~

Reply to Is the Metaverse broken? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I had real trouble with this, then finally managed it seemingly by accident. The player registration page wasn't working for a while, then I finally got to log into GalCiv, then get to the serial number entry, but it is using my real name from my Dregin.net order. Perhaps only the people who chose the download option are getting onto the Metaverse? ~SDC~

Reply to Draginol in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It usually happens to me later in the game, once you get the warning start building a pretty massive fleet as those ships are a royal pain in the rear to destroy without Antimatter Missiles. It's a good way to take out all your old and nearly useless ships though. :) Stack up your invasion fleet next to the planet and take them out on the same turn they show up. Be prepared for a costly invasion, but it makes it easier if you build, buy if needed, your combat transports from the tar

Reply to Constructors & the lack of speedy turns in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Rather than clicking on the production messages, I do it when I get taken planet by planet to those who've built ships and just launch them from that screen. Of course it would be nice to launch from the ship list by double clicking, but having ships automatically lauch upon build will make a bunch of this easier. ~SDC~

Reply to Invading a planet in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Just one of those naming things that slipped through the cracks. Production Bonuses are called Manufacturing Bonuses at a few points as well. They are called Battle Transports in the build queue as well. ~SDC~

Reply to Anyone else getting raped by random events in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'm more of a tech leader, and in 2 consecutive games I've gotten the random event where the council votes on how many techs you get to "share". I vote for none, since none of the other races have a tech I don't. Of course they all vote for 10, turning my hard earned tech lead into smoke. >:( Then again if I had any say in what the council voted on, I'd sure as hell turn it to my favor. Like making sure the Evil races never build Terrorstars, no one can attack my freighters, rac

Reply to Do you gain more influence points if you have more than one colony in a high influence system? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Influence spills over into adjacent sectors. Having ships in a sector seems to give a small influence effect on sectors. ~SDC~