After the changes to the leasing code, it seems like the second leasing option (Terran Manufacturing?) is almost always _cheaper_ than a straight buy. I could be screwing up the math in my head, but I don't think so...
I'd suggest that the abundance of habitable planets should appear as a multiplier of the final score, with higher abundance giving lower multipliers. In my experience you win a lot faster with a greater abundance, because (at least on the levels I've played on) -- it's easier to out-expand the AIs in the first few years than out-manage them, but a lead in colonies is worth a lot more in the long run -- with more planets you produce more research, and climb the tech tre
Sigh. To repeat what has been said a thousand times before : As was the case with 1.03, there will be a stand-alone patch in a little while. Just wait. Barring some disaster, there's only going to be one 1.04 stand-alone patch, so wouldn't you rather the folks using Stardock Central banged on it first and raised red flags about problems with it? Or would you rather have been stuck with the completely screwed up trade goods until the expansion pack is released?
Terror stars can move... slowly (1 parsec/turn, and can't be increased by any tech/module/trade good). Don't know if they still drag resources with them in 1.03, but I suspect they do. Of course, the last module for a terror star ain't cheap, and the tech comes rather late in the game to make it worthwhile to drag resources home.
I think the problem here is that every one is assuming that going to war against the leading power is the only option. A far better choice for a mediocre power is to ally _with_ the leader, not against them. I just finished a game where, up until they lost all their planets to the birth of fundamentalism, the Yor were Close to me. You know, the Terrans, the ones who told the Drengin where they could stuff their threats and beat them into a tasty paste when they wouldn't take no for an a
Well, there's a bit of a problem here -- the tech description talks about the ships defending the system, but the planetary improvements talk about defending against invasions (if you click the ? button that shows up in the middle when you select Planetary Defenses from the build list). This question has been popping up on the board almost every other day since the release -- any chance someone from Stardock could settle this once and for all?
I'm don't think the other race doesn't have to have the alliance tech (I just played a game where I allied with the Torians, and I don't think they ever got the Alliance tech) -- you need it, and your relationship must be Close. The best way to get to Close is to be of a similar alignment and to trade like crazy with them. By the way, be careful who you ally with -- if they've been aggressive up to this point, allying with them is just gonna draw you into all their wars. I learnt this t
Well, I don't think so, Phaedyme... it's still not clear what Planetary Defenses _do_. My reading of things has been that they don't help ships in orbit, but only help defending ground troops. This is a little hard to check though -- they don't seem to result in a noticeable change in stats for orbiting ships, but at the same time I haven't had any luck with getting the AI to invade me so that I can check the invasion advantages. At this point, they seem so completely useless t
The multimedia update was only around 1 Meg. If you had to download more, it's because SDC is confused. This usually happens when you install GalCiv and the bonus pack first, and then install SDC later. Uninstalling GalCiv and then reinstalling it fixes the problem (and then use SDC to get the bonus pack, etc).
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Also, you need to have researched the Alliances tech, not just Instant Communications (with is one of the prerequisites for the Alliance tech).
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Yeah, I got that run-around from Amazon too. Put in an order a few days before the release, and they kept giving the "2-3 days == April 10th" nonsense. After a few days of this I cancelled the order, went over to the local EB and grabbed a box off the shelf. (Kinda defeated the purpose of paying extra for priority shipping when it was going to be ages before it even got sent out...) Which makes it all the more amusing that GalCiv is so high on their sales charts... how many of those "sa
There seems to be a bug in the most recent SDC updates (possibly related to the new auto-launch from orbit) that under certain circumstances, once one ship is created, causes one of that type to be created (for free?) every turn thereafter. See the thread "Too many colony ships...". Haven't hit it myself yet, so I can't say anything more about it.
Click on the question mark that shows up when you select it in the build queue : "Planetary Defense provides a significant boost to our defense in the event of an invasion." The Omega Defense project also only mentions invasion. Also, page 19 of the manual, on invasions : "But other factors do come into play such as the technology difference between civilizations, general soldier abilities on both sides and what planetary defenses have been constructed."
From what the in-game help says (and an off-hand comment in the manual in the section on invasions), Planetary Defense doesn't help the starships in orbit, it helps with ground invasions. Now, that still does leave the question of what happens with multi-planet systems.
Perhaps my post wasn't clear enough. "Colony improvements generally only apply to the colony itself (i.e. that planet, not that star)." Those two Planetary Defense projects are on different colonies -- so they don't stack in any way, shape or form. Doesn't matter if they're around the same star, they're still different colonies, and the bonuses don't carry over. Build them on one and not the other, and only the colony they were built on gets any benefits. Of course, a
Colony improvements generally only apply to the colony itself (i.e. that planet, not that star). The few exceptions to this are some of the wonders which affect your whole empire.
Heck, I use battlehammers for _offense_. Mind you, I've never had a game where the AI's managed to get producing Dreadnaughts yet, but the battlehammers sure seem to take out everything else without blinking an eye.
A starbase with an Interdiction Beam can stop those space sharks dead in their tracks -- with the added bonus that the next time the AI attacks you in that sector, it will usually get distracted and waste their forces on the sharks instead. (I had an AI player waste 40+ Progenitor Corvettes on one shark... didn't even kill it. Did save me the hassle of killing them though.)
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You can't be at war with anyone if you want to claim a cultural victory -- the countdown stops while you're at war. Settle your wars and the countdown will resume. It doesn't matter what any of the other races are doing, though.
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I had interpreted Planetary Defenses as only giving bonuses against ground invasions -- but I have to admit that because of that, I've never built them, and so can't say for certain. So I guess the first question should be : What the heck are Planetary Defenses supposed to DO?
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I had similar problems with SDC and updating the main GalCiv component... and I think my problems stemmed either from installing the bonus pack myself (downloading the standalone installer instead of using SDC) or from installing GalCiv before SDC. Anyway, after getting fed up with it trying to download hundreds of megs, I uninstalled GalCiv + Bonus Pack, reinstalled just the basic GalCiv, and got the bonus pack via SDC. Haven't had a problem with it since (just updated the multimedia a
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Are you certain they can't bring vessels to a complete stop? Just an hour or so ago I protected myself from Space Sharks (which have only one move/turn) by luring them into a sector where my Starbase had an interdiction beam... they never moved again. J
No, there's no tech requirement. As noted above, the reason most folks have problems with claiming cultural victories is because you can't be at war with anyone (the time-to-dominance clock is frozen while your at war). I mean, pop music and snazzy clothes can only do so much to win a people over when you're wiping out billions of them every few months. J
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Of course, if you lose control of the senate, those bonuses become penalties... something that doesn't happen with the racial abilities. It really sucked when I was playing as War Party and lost control of the Senate right before the AI attacked me. J
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Well, it seems like in the version I'm currently running (updated earlier today) that if an AI builds a unique and I'm currently building it too, I'm prompted to select a new social project for that planet (in that it comes up with the rest of the planets that need new orders). Where is it written that you can only license trade goods to one race? It seems like a strange rule to me. J