Vorlin Varelse

Reply to Money and Morale in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I can't remember ever stealing tech with espionage, but then I normally play a very tech-intensive style so that might be part of the problem. I also invest in espionage for the main purpose of avoiding a diplomatic gaffe that plunges me into an unplanned-for war. I'm outdated on the starbase issue (it's been awhile since I played). Back during my last GalCiv session the upkeep cost had gone from 0 (original) to 5 (added via a patch). I had noticed the starbase construction cost, app

Reply to Ideal Tax Setting in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You don't need population for money, as my figures show. When it comes to Metaverse points, I never play the game for that (though I can understand someone who does), I'd especially never play sub-optimally just to beef up my score (if it really mattered to someone then they could wait till the end of the game when they had near total control and drop their tax rate and then hit 'next turn' until population maxxed). Whether it is worth it to run a less powerful economy (which penalizes you eve

Ideal Tax Setting in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I got to wondering if there was a best tax setting. The lower your tax setting the less you are taxing per person (duh), but because lowering your tax setting raises morale you end up with more people. So, is there a sweet spot where you get more money than any other? I tested this about halfway through a game because I wanted the test to take place under realistic conditions (several +morale and +economy projects built). During the test I made sure not to alter anything to do with m

Reply to Totally New in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

(I posted about money in your other thread, so won't talk about that here). Pull up the menu, on the left hand top click on 'Auto Turn' so that it is 'Off'. This way the current turn won't end until you click on the next turn button. If you are trying to move one ship several times but move another sounds like you are trying to move that ship more spaces than it can go, so the extra attempts get tacked on to the second ship. At the bottom part of your screen in the middle y

Reply to Money and Morale in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Morale in GalCiv isn't like in many other games. If your morale is above 50%-54% your population will grow, which will cause morale to drop. So a civilization at equilibrium will have -all- planets at 50%-54% morale or so, that's normal. What morale-boosting social projects like the Multimedia Center really do is increase that planet's max potential population (they increase morale by a set amount, at which point your population on that planet grows until morale once again drops down to 50%-5

Reply to Starship bouns in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I can't test the colonization bonus with my current game (nor can I test pre-game +ship picks, as I didn't choose any), but I tested the following: military resources, tech bonuses, social project bonues, anomaly bonuses, and omega quality control (1-per-race social project). All worked exactly like they were supposed to, here are the numbers: Civilization bonus (tech bonuses + military resource bonuses): 193% weapon, 132% defense, 55% hitpoints. Planet bonus (social project

Stardock Central Autoupdate Is Crashing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've used SDC many times in the past with no problem, but tried to update GalCiv just now and SDC crashed during the download of the second autoupdate file (bg.ic_ ). Overall version showing on the updater is 2.02.312. Is this just a temporary problem or do I need to do something to fix this?

Reply to Beta 4A - Minor races are still building galactic wonders like crazy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'd personally prefer it if the minors couldn't build trade goods or wonders. I mean, if a minor can expand and build both trade goods and wonders, it's not really a minor, is it? :) I view minors as sort of like the Germanic tribes that were on the northern border of the Roman empire: not primitives by any means, but also not capable of major civil feats (like wonders/trade goods). So I don't mind that they can expand now, but I do want them limited from the 'upper' game functions.

Reply to What is the hardest map size? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

If you take ctrl-N out of the picture then I'd say gigantic has the most pain potential, because you can get some truly horrible starting locations. Given the AI boost to production and such at incredible, I can't see you digging yourself out one of those '7 stars in the corner' starts. Code Monkey and Ray Chua make good points about Tiny, when the galaxy is that small then momentum is the key: whoever starts grabbing first will have a huge percentage gain from the total planet pool.

Reply to How important are Soil Enhancements? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

First three builds for me: soil enhancement, habitat improvement, and bank. All three boost your income, none of them have any maintenance cost, and the first two boost your PQ which means money, production, population, ability to set higher tax rates, research, harder-to-invade, troops to invade with, etc., etc. In other words: extremely important. :)

Reply to Incorrect bonus given by system defense improvements in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The planetary defenses all boost against troop invasion, the other boost you are seeing is an innate one all ships get when in orbit about a planet.

Reply to Some thoughts on the Metaverse in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There were changes made in the scoring in 1.04 (which I don't have yet), and I think one of the issues addressed was the scoring-vs.-mapsize one.

Reply to Coffeedragon´s Scoring Formula in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Staffa spotted the same thing I did. My guess is that if the original system was implemented the top scorers would all be gigantic, rare, with +military type traits: best bonuses combined with fastest win capability.

Reply to An AI that won''''t fight? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The turn system in GalCiv is sort of strange, sometimes you have those pseudo-turns where nothing happens as far as movement goes even though other things are updated. It's possible you hit one of those. Now, if what you described happened two turns in a row then I'd be worried... The easiest way to spot a pseudo-turn is that the date doesn't advance.

Reply to The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Any time you choose to value one thing over another that's subjective, by definition. You think your system is fair because everyone always thinks anything that emphasizes what they value is fair. ;)

Reply to The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You've chosen to give weight to 'efficiency', and to give no weight to other aspects, that's not fair it's just what -you- prefer. Players who prefer those other aspects and don't care about 'efficiency' (I keep putting that in quotes because I'm not positive of your definition) will do horrible in your system and will consider it unfair.

Reply to Does anyone build battle hammers anymore? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Interstellar, it has nothing to do with ctrl-N, it has to do with the (pre-1.04) broken military evaluation algorithm. No ship is more effective at boosting your military strength for less cost and less maintanence then starfighters (until AMM show up). They are hands-down more effective than any other defensive ship for stopping wars before they ever start. They are why I stopped playing until 1.04 comes out, because I refuse to get involved in wars that never should happen in the first plac

Reply to The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Love the calls for a 'simple but fair' scoring system. Please, by all means, post your version of that. I can guarantee you that you can't do any such thing. Any scoring system has to give weight to certain aspects of the game over others, whoever likes those aspects will be pleased, whoever doesn't won't be and will feel the system is unfair. The only 'fair' scoring system is one that gives exactly the same score to anyone who wins the game regardless of how they win it or in what s

Reply to The races: Humans, Drengin, Drengin, Drengin, and Drengin in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Keep in mind that your graph settings for things like tech, production, etc. are dependent on your current output, not your potential output. E.G., if you set your tech slider to 0% then your tech position will bottom out compared to any race that has a non-0% tech slider setting. How are you at setting up trade routes? This is one of the more important aspects of the game, and it's good to get them set up ASAP. I usually have my first freighters showing up near the end of my coloniz

Reply to Does anyone else think AM missiles are unbalanced? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The correct (though time consuming) solution is to improve the AI when it comes to dealing with them. AMM's always defend first in a stack, so relying on them to the exclusion of anything else for defense is suicide if the attacker has a clue (which right now the the AI doesn't): move a stack of starfighters to one square out of AMM range, next turn run up to the planet and nuke all the AMM's. Even if you don't get all of them, what is the opponent going to do, spend an AMM on a starfighter?<b

Reply to Does anyone build battle hammers anymore? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Is anyone that is using 1.04 building them? 1.04 has a different military strength evaluation algorithm, possibly building true defensive ships pays off with it. In 1.03 there's no sense building anything for defense except starfighters, then later anti-matter missiles.

Reply to The Gal Civ formula (and why it needs to be addressed) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hours I'd like to see the StarDock team spend improving the Metaverse: 0. Why 0? Because no matter what they do with it, 90% of the people here will hate it. It will just be a different 90% then we have now. I've never seen a scoring system implemented anywhere that didn't lead to a diehard group of compulsive bitchers spending the rest of their lives screaming "It's unfair!!!" to anyone who they could force to listen. They'll hijack every forum thread possible, they'll start five new thre

Reply to The races: Humans, Drengin, Drengin, Drengin, and Drengin in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Don't start with 100% military, I find that 80%/20%/20% to be much better. Set your first social project to be soil enhancement, set your research goal first for universal translator (to get trade going, and to get bank social project), then my next research goal is for habitat improvement. When that is done I have 3 social projects (soil, hab, bank) that are all 0 maintenance and all increase my income (among other things). Use the entertainment network as a 'sink' for excess social producti

Reply to The races: Humans, Drengin, Drengin, Drengin, and Drengin in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Also keep in mind the political angle. Don't let the drengin (or any major AI power) pick off the others one by one: if they want to fight, make sure they are fighting a -lot-. If the Drengin are fighting the Altarians alone, bribe the Arceans and Torians to join in on the Altarians side. Build ships and sell them to the weaker AIs. Do what it takes to make sure no AI civ gets so big that it attains critical momentum and starts to become a threat to you.

Reply to The races: Humans, Drengin, Drengin, Drengin, and Drengin in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

From Normal to Intelligent I never worry about the Drengin unless they have a fantastic starting position. The Altarian-Torian lovefest alliance is what I always end up focusing my concerns on (I play evil).