Iskabis

Reply to AI cheating in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Frogboy, Winning via military conquest on gigantic galaxies is very easy. Just turn off the "cultural victory" option, and go mega-culture. Once the last enemy planet defects to your side, you are considered to have won by military conquest. And I have also wondered why when an enemy planet defects to my empire, the tax revenues drop to 1/2 of what they were before, even when I have a significantly bigger economy bonus than the computer player did. I haven't actually done an

Reply to Bug Report Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The math for the different companies you can purchase/lease things from is still screwed up (been this way ever since the retail release version). For example: I can buy an item outright for 1300 bc. I can pay 360 up front, plus 13 bc for 105 turns to United. I can pay 1040 up front, plus 28 for 59 turns to Terran. No one who can add would ever be willing to pay over twice per turn for over half the amount of time... and pay almost 3x up front for the priv

Reply to "Our incredible ability in diplomacy gives us a great advantage" = B.S. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Right. Instead of "That is a good deal HOW?", the AI will reply "I'm refusing to trade you that because I hate your guts. Have a nice day."

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Brad, Really? AI exploits that I haven't found yet? I'd better get cracking! :) I don't fully understand the reasons for everything you've said, and I consider the AI combat targetting to be an "unavoidable" exploit... ie, one that you can't help but to exploit, simply by the very nature of wanting to most heavily defend the places that get attacked. I mean, sure, I won't ever use the Cultural Palace again, nor will I ever build cultural improvements except defensively. Bu

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmm. Just reread Brad's post... I might have misinterpreted what he said, since he didn't say _which_ of the mentioned AI enhancements would scale linearly, while I assumed he _must_ have been talking about the AI enhancement I care about the most. Heh. In which case, sorry, and never mind my above post (grrr... can't edit...)

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Brad, I'm not sure why at least a few of these AI enhancements would cause a performance hit. The biggest one that is most desperately needed is for the AI ships to stop simply targetting the closest enemy planet/ship and take into account the overall situation (ie, target the military starbase instead). I honestly think this is a very serious problem, at least for your more serious number-crunching players, and that more and more people are going to notice it and have a problem with

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Periz, that is because the AI seems to simply go for the closest valid target to attack. Once he killed the defenders at your planets, they weren't valid targets anymore, so your starbase was the next closest. At least, that is what I'm assuming happened, I've seen the same sort of thing myself. The AI almost always goes for the closest target, no matter what it is, what its defenses are, or what the strategic impact is or isn't.

Reply to 1.02.040: Instant updates on trade in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

DblDamage, I've also got the blocky white non-functional trade slider, and that is with a new game, started right after downloading this version of the patch.

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

On genius and incredible, the AI does seem to protect its transports with military ships, but it still suffers from all of the other problems mentioned above (attacking closest enemy, frittering troops away piecemeal, etc). The few times I've seen it protecting transports, however, it was only using a few ships. The only problem with "killer stacks" that include troop transports is that the troops transports are usually slower. To me, the added security for my troops is usually worth

Reply to Anyone knows what Starship bonus is? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It is supposed to affect hp totals, just like a shipyard. Near as I can tell, however, neither it nor shipyards actually work properly.

Reply to Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

- Nerf the +2 speed pick. It is very overpowering, especially on smaller maps. - Remove the Cultural palace. I posted elsewhere about this, but the AI simply isn't clever enuff to deal with cultural attacks period, and the cultural palace enables to to get influence in the hundreds of thousands or millions with very minimal cost. - The combat AI really needs to do more clever stuff than "charge at the closest enemy", but that is probably a more complex problem than what you a

Reply to Why does the 2nd level of PQ bonus require one extra ability point? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

On medium maps, at least, I find the +2 speed pick to be more powerful. At least, it is a heck of a lot easier to win games with the +2 speed pick. :) +15% PQ is a very close second, tho.

Reply to Multiple Wonders in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I do wish he'd acknowledge stuff like this. It is hard to know if he is ignoring it (and other stuff) because he thinks it really is fixed or not. I don't want to add mindless "I've seen that bug too" spam to the forums. On the other hand, I don't want to not post if he thinks the bug is fixed and only being reported by people who are dummies or playing the wrong version or something. :-)

Reply to Resource vanishes after a load? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

This happened to me once as well. After loading, one of my resources had vanished. I'm pretty sure the starbase that was sitting on the resource got downgraded as well. Interestingly enuff, this confused the heck out of the AI. One of the AI players sent about 15 constructors to the location of my (now useless) starbase and they all just sat there in a big clump for the next 30 turns or so. It's as if the AI thought my starbase had vanished and the resource was still there, or somet

Reply to Bug Reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Some sort of strange overflow bug here. I have a planet that has about 75 military production, and it is producing an Overlord (1500 cost) every single round. The "time to produce" always shows "next turn". I have no idea why this suddenly started, but I have a save file I can send in if anyone wants it.

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Actually, I haven't submitted my game against the "Incredible" level AI yet. Incredible AI games give a "Masochistic" rating, I think. I kinda got bored with it after the culture destroyed the Altarians, who were the only real threat, but I'll prolly finish it in a bit, just to see what a tech victory looks like. Dunno how many people are playing against Incredible level AI's yet, but if the fleet & culture issues aren't fixed fairly soon, I suspect we'll see a lot of them. :-(

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It isn't quite so simple as teaching the AI to hunt and kill starbases, tho. The game can be divided up into little mini-era's depending on what techs you have. There are times when starbases are absolutely invincible. Realistically speaking, any time in the early game, a maxed out starbase is unbeatable unless if you have battleships or better. One technique I use in early wars is to place a starbase as close to the AI as possible and max out its defense. Battlecruisers or smaller

Reply to "Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Akaste: Yep, that's exactly where I was trying to go, I just couldn't put it to words as well as you did. :-) Kavok: No, they need to be nerfed, imho. When you can fling influence around in the hundreds of thousands and millions, but you only need an advantage of 500 in order to take a planet from culture, then something is wrong. It makes about as much sense as being able to build a module on a starbase that gives +200 attack. It makes all the other techs that affect atta

"Incredible" level AI and game balance issues in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've spent the last weekend playing against (and beating) the "Incredible" difficulty AI on medium maps. I'm using the patch Brad released on Friday (the first patch to have the auto-pop-from-orbit checkbox). 1. It is my opinion that Cultural palaces need to be removed (or severely nerfed). In my current game, the Altarians were right next to me with more overlords, more tech, more economy, etc, etc. I built 3 starbases with cultural palaces on them in my main system. Combined with

Reply to Bug Reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

No idea if these are already listed in the mass of bugs above. But in version 1.02: - The AI will build Terror Stars even if the UP has voted a permanent ban on them. This is a huge waste of money for the AI. - Shipyards (all types) don't seem to work. They don't appear to increase the hp of all ships, and certainly a ship built at a planet with a shipyard always has the same hp as a ship built at a planet without a shipyard. - Multiple AI players are *still* buildi

Reply to New Review: Adrenaline Vault gives GalCiv only 3.5/5 ! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'm not even slightly surprised that there will be reviews that claim the AI is cheating. If I hadn't known better from reading these forums, I would have assumed the AI was cheating when I first started playing. Considering that every other 4X AI out there cheats like a bandit, and that the average gamer will be rapidly outproduced by the AI, and that the methods the AI uses (while perfectly legit) are non-obvious, a cheating AI is a natural assumption. Unfortunately, I suspe

Reply to BUG: Multiple Economic Captials (and other capitals too!) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Still seems like a minor exploit. You end up having a building that you shouldn't be able to have. New minor races that appear are already a good enuff bonus (free planet!) without being able to farm them for extra capitals.

Reply to How does the AI do it? Grow, grow, grow? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Pretty sure I've seen propaganda spending higher than 10 bc. I think it is proportional to population.

Reply to Are early game blitzes possible? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Having a nearby minor race early in the game is very cool. If you rush transports, you can drop a load of troops on them before they get established (and use your survey ship to kill their orbiting colony ships) and get an extra nice system or two. As for major races... if you want to rush, you don't necessarily need to bother with transports and go for the kill. I've been experimenting with going straight for starfighters (and then corvettes) and sending them into enemy territory...

Reply to Bug Reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Minor bug: There is a math error in one of the military contractors. If you work out the full cost for purchasing an item, the second contractor (Terran something) is always worse in every way than the 3rd or 4th contractor. (both more up front and WAY WAY more over time). @ brewerd88 -- take a close look at the pop figures. I belive when you do what you describe, it automatically takes half the pop from the first planet and sticks it on the second planet. (half the pop of th