Vorlin Varelse

Reply to AI cheating in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I wouldn't label him as a troll, there is a language issue here and it's not good to assume things in that kind of situation. I think this is more of a problem in perception: Ellestar, the computer cheats at levels beyond Intelligent. This cheating is by definition in violation of the normal game mechanics. The only way this cheating would be wrong would be if the cheat value isn't what Stardock wanted it to be (i.e., perhaps they only intended that planet to have 200 BC and it has too much,

Reply to Unfair Scoring Change in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Blue Ocean, I fail to see how being pushed to finish the game as fast as possible is more fun, nor do I get any more fun from having the +10 PQ techs removed from the upper end of the tech tree. Please explain to me the better mechanics of the last 2 patches? There have been few additions to gameplay lately, in fact what I'm seeing lately is a reactionary patching effort: see what the players are doing better than the AI and make a patch so they can't do it as well. This is starting to feel

Reply to AI cheating in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, as a bit of reality checking, it's definitely not the biggest economy cheating in TBS, Civ2 has that title down with no competitors. Cities there didn't even build there stuff (or maintain it), it was materialized using dice rolls. If you've ever had a size 2 city with all its squares blockaded in Civ2 only to have it produce one starship component every 2 turns you know what I mean. And this cheat was global throughout all difficulties. At levels above Intelligent the computer

Reply to Bug Report Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Dave, it takes 2 turns for the effects of eliminating a starbase mined resource to take effect (for both the player and the AI races). This is especially important to keep in mind if you are trying to blitzkreig a race with a lot of military resources, even if you take them all out in a first strike they'll still get two turns with the full bonus.

Reply to I think scouts really sux in Strategies Stardock Forums

I like to take the +2 sensors pick (2 points), it's not a 'power pick' but with that pick a scout will uncover a full sector by travelling down the middle. I generally have my four scouts work the northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest sectors from the inside out, whereas my Hero ship normally heads for the next cluster of stars to see if they are empty or occupied. I'll try to push into neighboring clusters ASAP since doing so can make the difference between a game when you control 25

Reply to Population problems in v 1.03 in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've never been able to grow my pop like the computer can, but eventually I'll reach their size. I go for what IMO is a very early transporter/stock market tech push, these two structures will really energize your planet's growth. The stadium is also an incredible morale booster, cheap to build and maintain too.

Reply to Planetary Defense Structures Not Working? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The computer is very good at using special invasion tactics to beat a strong defensive position, as long as it can raise the money to pay for them. And picking the right one of those specials for a given situation can result in massive damage to your defending population. The computer uses special attacks I never would, like attacks that destroy buildings or lower PQ. Bad enough I have to start on a planet with relatively low population, I sure don't want to have to rebuild all its

Reply to Can you fool them with corvettes? in Strategies Stardock Forums

With the latest patches, Starfighters rule for bluffing the AI: 50 build cost, 1 maintenance, 3 attack. Best attack/maintenance ratio till you get to anti-matter missiles. If you want to go defensive the best method is to never be attacked, and the cheapest most effective way to ensure that is to build lots of starfighters. I've won games I never would have won otherwise because of starfighters followed by anti-matter missiles. The algorithm that determines military power desperatel

Reply to I think scouts really sux in Strategies Stardock Forums

The most cost effective early ship for deterring AI attacks is the starfighter: 50 cost, 1 maintenance, 3 attack. You can hold the computer off indefinitely with these, just make sure you continue to produce them so that your military power is higher than any comp's. Later, the most cost effective is the anti-matter missile: 300 cost, 1 maintenance, 100 attack. If the AI is putting too much pressure on you for starfighters to continue to work then these puppies will take you to th

Reply to Drengin are just absurd! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The Torians were neutral in that game, so that might have helped bridge the gap between the Altarians and the Arceans. I don't know it was the Torians that initiated the alliance, but I suspect it because I see the Torians and Altarians allied all the time, whereas this is the first time I've ever seen the Arceans allied with anyone.

Reply to score doesn't register in metaverse in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I use the smuggling mod and all the mods by Nephrinn and have never had any problems submitting a game except for one time, when I milked a game and it eventually became corrupted so that the metaverse wouldn't accept it. But that wasn't mod related.

Reply to level numbers on shps in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A starbase that survives enough attacks can actually have a much superior defensive value compared to a rookie starbase, so it's definitely worth it to try to preserve your combat units so they can gain levels as time goes by. I haven't tried to quantify the values, I do know that you don't necessarily go up for each level. If I remember right attack, defense, and hitpoints are all improved, not 100% positive about the hitpoints but pretty sure.

Reply to Starship quality bug or question. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The home colony need to be tied to the ship because the ship looks at the home colony bonuses to determine on the fly what it's values should be. So when this wasn't being saved properly ships would lose their bonus if you quit the game then later reloaded. That is fixed now, I tested it. As far as I can tell, +ship bonuses are for attack and defense only. They seem to function exactly like a military resource does. To check the validity of your numbers you need to know not just the

Reply to Planetary Defense Structures Not Working? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Pick up the Tir-Quan wonder and the +soldiering bonuses and invasion becomes a lot more efficient. And the opposite is true as well, it costs either a lot of troops or a lot of money (to pay for special invasion methods) to invade someone that has a soldiering edge on you. I've seen it as bad as a 1:2 ratio (2 of their guys for one of mine), which in the late game stages where planets have 15-25 billion people that is costly indeed.

Reply to Planetary Defense Structures Not Working? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

At which point the computer chooses an attack method that bypasses your defenses making the construction of such generally a waste of time and maintenance money. So unless you are utterly rolling in cash and can't think of a thing to do with it I'd advise avoiding these structures, as they are expensive to build and extremely expensive to maintain.

Reply to Drengin are just absurd! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Just on a side note, I saw a three-way alliance in my last game between the Torians, the Altarians, and the Arceans. First time in the 23 or so games I've played that I've ever seen three races all allied. Made it a bit messy to start a fight with any of them. :)

Reply to score doesn't register in metaverse in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Track down some threads on this, one person had a pretty detailed description of a problem they had when they registered with Drengin net and the serial number conflicted with their original one. This sounds like the same problem. Can't remember the exact thread title, but it should be somewhere in the last 2-4 days worth of threads.

Reply to Bug Report Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Code Monkey, is your planet's orbit queue full? If so it won't let you build any more ships until some leave orbit. I figure you know about this and are probably talking about something different, but thought I'd mention it just to be thorough. :) Moonmood, often a bonus takes a turn to kick in, so you might pick up a +10 bonus but it won't show in your stats until the next turn has gone by.

Planetary Defense Structures Not Working? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I was testing some of the planet defense structures (Planetary Defense, Star System Defense, etc.) and none of them gave any bonuses to my ships in orbit. But then I read the descriptions of them closer and realized they were sort of ambiguous, and that these structures might actually boost ground combat soldiers instead of ships. Can someone at Stardock confirm which of these is supposed to be the case? Because if they are supposed to be boosting ships then they are bugged. BTW, on

Reply to Anyone Else Missing The Two +10 PQ Tech Tree Bonuses? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Nicolas, I was referring to a couple of the 'super techs' that you get near the end of the game, Galactic Creation is one I think, can't remember the other's name, both used to give +10 PQ along with one or two other boosts. Thanks everyone, I figured they'd been removed but wanted to make sure my files weren't corrupted or something since apparently some people had some bad downloads when they updated.

Anyone Else Missing The Two +10 PQ Tech Tree Bonuses? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In my last game I noticed the two high-end techs that used to give you the +10 PQ bonus (the ones just a couple of techs before Final Frontier) no longer do so. At first I thought they'd been removed, but since noone else mentioned anything I started wondering if maybe my patch download got wonked (I don't see the +5 PQ racial pick now, just the new +7 one). So could someone else out there confirm one way or the other whether these two boosts to PQ are still in the latest tech tree?

Reply to Bug Report Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

If you get the UP event that forces you to the Imperium form of government for X turns, if you then discover a government tech you still get the popup window allowing you to switch governments, thus effectively bypassing the UP event before it expires.

Reply to What the heck is a Nerf? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Nerf balls are an old game product, they are made of soft foam, so if you get hit in the head with a nerf ball or nerf frisbee it doesn't hurt. So when a game feature has been 'nerfed' that means it's been softened, made less useful than before, sometimes even to the point of uselessness.

Reply to 1.03A.057 in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Remember those 2 +10 PQ techs you could get near the end of the tree on the way to Final Frontier? 'Remember' is the key word, they have been removed. The upper end of the tech tree is turning into a joke for infrastructure improvements. Trade routes you can't use because you already have 10, 'empty' techs that cost huge amounts to research and give nothing in return (except the chance to research the next high cost tech that also gives nothing), and now the +10 PQs have been removed

Reply to Some Of The New Ship Values in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There are both strengths and weaknesses to anti-matter missiles. Their strengths include a huge boost to your military rating, their 1 BC maintenance cost, and their incredible firepower in combat. They are also relatively cheap to build (compared to capital ships). The weaknesses are that they defend first in a stack (and since they have no defense that means they die like flies if snuck up on regardless of whether there are 'tank' defenders in the same square), they are used up with