Madfizzicks

Reply to Brief question / problem regarding AI settings in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

My understanding is it goes a little something like this: The master difficulty label (challenging, tough, crippling, etc) reflects the combined level of all your opponents. If you pick all Intelligent, you get Tough, for instance. If you pick one fool and two genius, that might also work out to be Tough; I'm not really sure, but it's the combination that determines the overall difficulty. Now, if you toggle the master difficult

Reply to Solution to early land grab be-all-and-end-all in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Something the game Alpha Centauri did that was kind of nice was an "accelerated start". You pick that option, and everybody starts with empires that are similar in power and have about 50-100 turns of development. It was a way to skip the mad expansion rush and get on with the empire management and warfare. It also ensured that everyone had similar power at first (no one AI or player gobbling up the whole map and ending the game before it even star

Reply to Seige Campaign Mission in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Whew... just got done with this one. Managed to crack it on my first try, on Tough, but it was close. Real close. I went for racial +2 speed, and started rush building 2-engine colony ships (I'm starting to wonder why I'd ever do otherwise, except maybe for variety or extra challenge). I sprayed those ships all over the map, and ended up with (I think) all the planets you can hope to get. My allies had one each, the DLs had one, the Yor

Reply to Why always the best? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

There's some good points raised here. One possible solution would be to have the lower-level factories, etc, be prereqs for the higher ones. That is, you can only build a basic building in an undeveloped square, which would then open up the automatic upgrade paths. That way the AI wouldn't need to decide on the level of building, and it wouldn't add any extra micromanagement.

Reply to Retail Availability: UPDATE! in GalCiv II News Stardock Forums

Like practically everyone else who's posting, I'm a big fan, and I'm about to break down and download GalCiv 2. Tried to find it in stores to pump up the shelf sales, but no dice, and I'm impatient. I'm just curious as to why the download version has a base price of $44.95 when brick 'n mortar stores are selling it for $39.95. Is it because the d

Reply to Top metaverse scores plz note in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'll go with this rule too. I don't think I've ever gone to 2210. Usually it's all over by 2201 at the latest.

Reply to Funny things that work in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

When I play on Tiny, I like to get speed +2, rush to Impulse Drive and send out a couple transports. Nothing like wiping out a couple AIs before anyone else has a military (on maso I have to settle for minors; majors tech too fast).

Reply to 1.04 AI cheats on tech tree, gets free techs from nowhere (bug?) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"I'm tired of this "AI is cheating" threads. Especially of those that make a bold statement based on nothing but suspicion." Actually, this guy is providing substantial evidence to back up his claims. I, for one, think he's on to something. Keep up the good work.

Reply to Please post your possitive reviews of 1.04 here in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I see some good things, and some bad things. Trading has been totally nerfed on genius/incredible. Except on rare occasions, you can't get squat in return for cash or trade goods. Trading techs leaves you at a severe disadvantage as well. There are a few techs that seem to have been flagged as 'low value' by the AI so that you can obtain them... but really, I could have gotten 'basic repair' by myself ;) . Couple this with the fact that the AI's still sling techs around with each

Reply to The computer doesn't cheat at Intelligent, and I am the Dalai Lama (with proof!) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Maybe AI knows there will be a cultural flip so they dump everything they built (since they know it will flip any moment now), which in turn would give you trouble when you inherit the system, cause you need to build quick" Yeah, that's exactly what they do. You can even catch them in the act. If you notice that one of their sectors has had planets with skulls 'n crossbones for a long time, go click on one of their planets. It'll probably have a listed morale of 1.

Reply to Another Political Bug in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Er, wait... I missed the third post. Never mind, I'm an idiot.

Reply to Another Political Bug in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

That would explain why it seems like the AI always picks the War Party (since that's the last one on the un-modded list). And here I thought I was imagining that.

Reply to The computer doesn't cheat at Intelligent, and I am the Dalai Lama (with proof!) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Im curious how the AI is managing morale on some of its systems I culturally flip. I take a 16 pq planet with influence that has 30 billion people on it. Its morale is so god awful low that I have to unload half the pop and rush buy about 4 improvements before its not a threat to goto the I-league. Exactly how does the AI manage to get planets like this?" "At maso, the AI get PQ and morale bonuses among others(Za H reported about +20% each previously).

Reply to How did I get this Metaverse score? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Tech win: 3662 Cultural: 1840 With all else being equal on these two games, it was a little shocking to see the difference in score. This was played on 1.035 BTW. I wonder how my score would have differed had I won with a military conquest." There seems to be a score multiplier associated with the different types of wins. I once rigged it so that on the last turn I could either win militarily, through alliance, or by Beyond Human. The tech win gave almost exactly twice t

Reply to Performance Issue (Here's what I noticed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

infodragon, Thanks for the explanation. It does make more sense now. Do programmers ever get sick of explaining this sort of thing to the ignorant masses? ;)

Reply to Two strange issues in 1.03A (bugs?)... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"1: Shrug. I can't really figure out what you're saying. You didn't attack them at all in this ame and they say that? Or you did before talking to them and then they say that when you talk to them?" The second one (I think). I attacked them right at the outset. Then, once I had universal translators, I talked to them. The very first message they'd greet me with would be one of the "How dare you attack us, declare peace, stab us in the back, declare peace, etc" kinds of messages. The

Reply to Performance Issue (Here's what I noticed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"I am thinking that this would cause a linear increase in time in the number of ships given away: 1. ship removed from your military 2. human military recalc 3. ship added to AI (modify hp/att/def) 4. AI military recalc 5. All AI (minor and major) and human relationships recalced 6. all influences recalced repeat for every single ship that is traded/bought/sold. This could take quite a bit of time. " That would do it. But wouldn't it be kind

Reply to Research Double Counted? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Then this begs the question. What is the point of a research bonus if it causes your economy to cave? Most games where theres a research bonus involved, you get it as well...a bonus. I look at my research and I have more of it and my economy doesn't take a hit." Part of your research increase comes for free (I think it's 2/3 of it). If you look at the Planet screen for one of your worlds, you'll see that the number of research points is stated as something like X+Y. The Y costs nothi

Reply to Performance Issue (Here's what I noticed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've also seen this issue (Athlon XP 1900, 512 Mb). I fooled around during one game and noticed that the freeze-up time after giving/buying the ships seemed to increase roughly linearly with the number of ships involved in the transaction (all the way up to a few minutes for large numbers of ships). I like infodragon's explanation regarding this, but what I don't get is why the time would scale like this. Does it really take ten times longer to process an AI's reaction if I give away

Two strange issues in 1.03A (bugs?)... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've been trying out 1.03A lately and have noticed a couple things that are either bugs or misunderstandings on my part. The AIs were all intelligent. 1) I like to attack the AIs early and blast their colony/constructor fleet. If I find a weapon bonus for the Hero or find a starfighter in a rock, I always do this. Later, when I'm settled, I build a military and go get peace. In the new version, however, three of the races I've done this to (Torians in two games, Yor once) have give

Reply to Invasion Option - Retreat? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"You can check the population of a star beforehand, so you'll have an idea if you can win with traditional methods." But you have no idea what the odds will be. They could be 2 to 1 or 10 to 1... it's not always obvious until you engage a race for the first time. At least not to me.

Reply to Invasion Option - Retreat? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You can cancel the colonization with ESC. But I'd agreee; I'd really like to see a way to cancel an invasion.

Reply to AI planet quality question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Some other thread discussed this in detail... I can't find it right now. But yeah, on genius and incredible levels the AIs get PQ bonuses for free. I think they said it was something like +24% on incredible. Intelligent is the last level on which the AIs play without real advantages.

Reply to Random Event Where Powerful Artifact Is Uncovered in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I once saw it happen to an AI on the other side of the galaxy that had a nice chunk of territory. I didn't get a chance to take them out for a long, long time, and nothing terribly impressive seemed to happen to them.

Reply to Nastiest exploit yet? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Ooops, sorry. This was the 1.02 standalone, whatever the numbering was. I've been laying off the beta versions ever since the last one I picked up gave me lots of CTDs. It may be that this has been fixed in 1.03; I haven't tried it.