Babcom280

Reply to I am very disapointed with scoring problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I think Ray's experiment may be shedding a lot of light on the situation. Frogboy's scoring goals may be reasonable, though as Staffa pointed out, the 5-1 size ratio may be too big, but if those goals (i.e 4000 for tiny masochist) are predicated on a fully developed society, I doubt they ever occur on tiny or small maps within normal game play (and only rarely on medium). Heck, the biggest reason that tiny games are so much faster is that it is rare to go deep into the tech tree. I, for one,

Reply to I am very disapointed with scoring problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

To add to that, if my 292 is "right" for Tiny crippling, then a qualitatively similar game on Painful should score less, and on Tough should score less, then challenging, ..., and cakewalk. This doesn't seem to leave anywhere near enough room for difficulty differentiation. Oh well, off to revert to old habits and see what happens.

Reply to I am very disapointed with scoring problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Code Monkey, I certainly don't view my play method as being the right way in any sense. In fact, I'm in general going to be helped if these games score little, because I can go back to my more traditional methods. I've been training myself to be a military dictator on Tiny, which tends to go against my usual inclinations. That said, I don't believe it should be worth 80% LESS than someone else who takes much longer to win by letting the Drengin live, building their infrastructure, and researc

Reply to I am very disapointed with scoring problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmm, I'm hoping that fast games won't be heavily penalized. That is, I'd like to think that speed of victory should be able to make up for some of those other factors. Taking a tiny game much past the dreadnought era seems an exercise in either inefficiency or tedium. As alternative extrapolation to what happened to Ray's score, and what happened to mine, could be that a non-zero population factor WAS subtracted. That is, instead of (NX)^.75, perhaps it's currently coded as (5X)^.

Reply to I am very disapointed with scoring problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Maybe I'm being incredibly dense, but if the new scores are as is (like Ray's 800 for Tiny-Maso), that seems to leave no room for score differentiation. What it honestly looks like to me is that the .75 power is being applied twice with the latest build, once in game and once in the metaverse. If I consider my most recent game (Tiny / Rare / Crippling), the in game score came up as 1900 and change, which is very much in line with what I understand your intention to be, as well as with

Reply to Never seen minor race events in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Once it happens, you do get a message as to who was responsible, but as far as I can tell, there is no way to know before then, except by meeting that particular race of terrorists in an earlier game, and killing them before they get the chance to act. I think in the early days of Galciv, Frogboy posted that terrorists would escalate if given time. A personal wish is that the first sign would be something smaller than effectively destroying a planet. It would also be cool if they had a partic

Reply to AI Relations question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmm, in my experience, mostly on Genius, the minors (and majors for that matter) aren't particularly quick to give up their weapons techs, unless they're being seriously extorted, and advanced weapons techs can tone that down in a hurry. I know I've given dreads to a minor once, and no one new got it for at least 10 turns thereafter, and that easily could have been simple research. As far as the techs which you can on occasion buy for less than 2 arms and a leg, those should be considered as

Reply to Never seen minor race events in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The terrorist Civ can be very evil. Playing a tiny rare, and they poisoned an Altarian planet to PQ 10. Oops, that was your only planet? Bye, bye... Needless to say, once they did that, I didn't give them the chance to live long enough to escalate *shudder* their attacks

Reply to Babylon 5 Mod? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Oh, I'd definitely be happy to use one, but I have neither the time nor technical ability to make one. Bonscott, the Vorlons and Centauri should surely be switched (Vorlons being the archtypal self-righteous do-gooders and all). Of course, using either the Vorlons or Shadows as major races would be a little weird, unless they were automatically set to "incredible" :D

Reply to Metaverse scoring shock in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

If the 3600 score wasn't from a very fast win, then I would guess it was some kind of Tiny / Abundant, with cultural victory turned off so that he could get all of the wonders and trade goods and build up a large population. Sounds like an excruciatingly boring game to me, but to each his own. That said, I don't believe the most dominant cakewalk victory should be within a factor of 10 of the "worst" masochistic win scorewise.

Reply to Metaverse scoring shock in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Forceinfinity (#24): I may be able save a little trouble. On a recent tiny/crippling game I timed it so that I could win by culture, alliance, or military conquest on the same turn (taking one extra planet from the Altairians for the military victory). The scores were approximately 1300, 1500, and 1900, respectively. Coffeedragon (#26): The trade goods are again usable for trading purposes through genius intelligence, if not quite as valuable as before. I would have preferred fixing

Reply to 1.04.59 or later bug reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I will add my voice to the substance of messages #111 and #112. In my game tonight, the Drengin were the first to Space Militarization, Warp Drive, and 1D Phasing. In each case, neither they, nor anyone else had the prerequisite techs (Battle Armor, Antimatter, and Instant Communication). This is several games in a row I have noticed something. I'm confident that had it been this common in earlier versions, I would have seen it at some point, so I think it virtually certain that this is a ne

Reply to Things you would like to see in a Galactic Civilization expansion set in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I would like to see a level for play above the current crippling but below masochistic. Incredible AI's have a tendency to kick my sorry butt (I tend to actively avoid anything that feels like exploit or cheese to me, which makes trading techs and trade goods for other techs and money essential), but I generally win against all genius.

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Paying the extortion can certainly also be helpful to avoid a two front war, which can be far more costly in the long run. I will occasionally follow up a succesful extortion with an additional tech gift (or better yet, a tech bribe to attack my attacker) to keep them off my back while I take care of business. One thing that I've noticed is that it's very dangerous to stay in the red for long in the pre-AMM days, since it seems a clear bug that the AI's will demands hundreds or thous

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

(Re: #89) Staffa, it's not the case that it's checking the player's tech list. In my game last night (reported in the bug thread), Warp Drive and Virus Elimination both appeared before anyone (including minors, as the galaxy was fully explored at the time) had the pre-reqs. I will admit that I didn't notice it until I got Anti-Matter and Organic Piecing, respectively. Warp Drive led to the Altairians getting Battleships well before me, which in turn made the game substantially harder, since I

Reply to 1.04.59 or later bug reports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In my most recent game (1.0459, Crippling), both the Altarians and Torians got Warp Drive (and Battleships) before anyone (including the minors) had Anti-matter. Furthermore, the Altarians, Arcaens, and Torians all got Virus Elimination before anyone had Organic Piecing or Genetic Mapping

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

I saw a very similar thing in one of my games (1.04, painful) where the Torians got Evolution Control before anyone, including me and all minors, had Terraforming. So I agree that there has to be some kind of bug here. Sorry, it's already a game or two ago, so I don't have the saved gmae evidence. Thank you Richard for being so careful with your documentation, and thank you Carielf and any other developers who work to fix the bug.

Reply to Is it me or does the 1.04 AI have major malfunction trading certain techs in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Code Monkey, I really didn't get that feeling overall, as the only reason I won my game last night (Painful/Intelligent) was by trading techs on a regular basis for other techs or for money (i.e higher long-term spend rates). Of course, every time I've gotten the event you're referring to, it's been on a large or bigger map, and the thieving civilization was too far away for me to have contact with them.

Reply to Bug Report Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In my game of last night, the Torians somehow managed to get Evolution Control without anyone getting Terraforming, including minor civs, until I got it several turns later.

Reply to Trade Goods - what happened!?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

To me, one of the worst parts of the trade good nerf is that there is no longer a way to catch up if you fall behind in tech, except conquest, and that is only possible assuming you don't fall far behind. I like the games where I'm scrambling to stay alive, but not the ones where I make one mistake of timing, and fall irrevocably behind the times. Staffa, I don't know how you managed to trade trade goods away from the computer for anything approaching the values

Reply to Trade Goods - what happened!?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

When seeign what was happening with my strategy, I went back to Intelligent/Painful. My experience there is similar to Code Monkey's. I was doing ok from a not very good start, and eventually got in a hopeless position when I forgot that Batlle cruiser's had become somewhat useful, and that researching battleship's now takes forever (note: I think this is a really bad idea, since it makes the batleship / dreadnought rush the only way to stay alive). Anyway, to quantify the nerfing of trade go

Reply to Trade Goods - what happened!?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Trade goods are worthless as, well, "trade" goods on genius/crippling. The Alexians wouldn't even give me Advanced Trade for Diplomatic Translators. Considering how long it took to build (yes, I built it), and the fact that I had a party diplomatic bonus, I have to say the valuation is way off. I would certainly jump at that trade if offered to me, and wouldn't consider giving it up for so little (I was looking for 2-3 techs). :(