I had a legion of filled, unguarded transports flying through Arcean space on the way to invade the Torians. Should be no problem because I had always been at peace with the Arceans. All of the sudden, Arceans go to war and wipe out billions of humans. Only reason I can see is that there were too many juicy transports nearby... seen it once more on a smaller scale. Tell me that ain't impressive.
"You will immediately surrender the Sol system and give us 9000 credits." - Drengin "Um, I got three systems and we're like 25 turns into the game ya dummy's." The great part is that the other AIs seem to give in, that's the only explanation I can figure out for the Drengin having 100 times the military might of everybody already.
I think there's a simple solution. Make it so only one of your starbases can affect a sector. That's the way I assumed it worked, until I read about players building multiples on the forums. Now I usually build two at most at homeworld sector, mostly out of laziness... there's too much constructor management as it is.
Aren't the random events just based on the planet? I never double checked my stats after (mostly because I never bothered to check them at first) but I notice Sol is always given as the random events location.
You'll see your scores allright... unless your scores don't post. Silly me, downloading all those events from the galciv website. I'm tempted to reinstall the game, but I just read the "fix the research events, etc" post and it'd be silly to reinstall the game, so I can have a less-fair version of it, which might post.
It's extremely important to find military resources... One of my minor gripes about this game is that the resource location disappears in the fog of war if the AI builds a starbase. (So you know it's destroyed when it re-appears) I guess it *sort of* makes sense, but it's annoying to try to hunt them all down... you'd think somebody in my empire would think it was worth jotting down the location.
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My old strategy has been to send long trade routes from Earth. I'm going to stop for 2 reasons. 1) It's better to establish trade early so the AIs warm up to me 2) I got more base cash from a short route from a backwater to a neighboring AI than I normally get from my homeworld to the fringes.
IS there any point to alliances? I allied with the Altarians last game, and I STILL had to pay them to declare war... they weren't doing it automatically. Some allies they were.
The first couple reviews I read for GalCiv said stuff about how disheartening it was to have random events wipe you out. I didn't get that at first and had a few games without understanding. Then I had Space Sharks escape and wipe out my empire. Then I had the fundamentalist event take my best planets. Then I had a 3-way AI Alliance wipe me out 'cause their minor civ ally picked a war with me. I don't know it's a complaint, but it's frustrating to get off to
I haven't had something quite that bad... but I had the Arcaens offer me something like.... 2000 a month for 10-20 months when they were down to 1 planet. I had just taken their other system, and it did make me hold off on destroying them. Yeah, where they get the money I don't know. (BTW, the remaining planet ended up defecting to me, ending my awesome tribute only halfway through :(
Autolaunch only fills my transports when I have massive amounts of people on the planet (which is rare)... that formula for 1/4 of pop seems right. The problem is... who the heck builds combat transports and wants to invade with less than the maximum (aside from cheese tactics)? The computer sure doesn't, I shoot down their full transports all the time. DEVs please make it max load transports as default. Colony ships are no problem, but transports are the worst.
As an American whose spent some time in Germany -- I'd say it's their culture, they should be free to legislate how they see fit. Sure, they have some history to deal with and some hang ups with vioence.... on the other hand they aren't nearly as prude as Americans are when it comes to sex... all things being equal I'd rather have people legislate against violence then the American puritan way.
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This thread has probably been the MOST USEFUL on my playstyle.... no more getting threatened all the time wondering my my Defender legions aren't helping. It's also made me realize that AMM are actually a decent unit if used properly (the first couple I tried failed to destroy their target, I gave up on them)... I already see the huge problem in using them for deterrence and also war.... your rating tanks everytime you use one.
The AI seems to wipe out the minors given enough time. I think the one time I was too busy to get the new minor race, an AI took it out in 10-20 turns.
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Za H, The AI has several times made offers like Overlord for Majesty. Always from an aligned trading partner, when I was at war with a mutual enemy. No problem with the trade itself, but shouldn't happen every time you load.
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Can you post a game if you are using files from the Galciv library? I assumed that the library files on the official website were A-ok, now I'm wondering....
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So does everybody agree that only Attack matters? Sigh, so much for my Defender/Battlehammer approach of a strong defense.
Link doesn't work for me either.... well I can see the picture link, but not download anything. Where can I get this file?
Espionage seems to be a waste of money, with destab. not far behind. It would be nice if I got a pop-up message when someone DECLARES WAR or PEACE. You'd think that would be more important than a rumor about paying tribute.
I use lots of different names/theme for games (cities, countries, eclectic) but the main thing is I always go alphabetical... the first system will be A something, etc... 'cause late in the game I have a heck of a time remembering where a system is... but if I know R-something is probably a new conquest, that helps immensely. It's also my way of making finding the system that I need to launch a reloaded transport from (if only they'd let transports max out by themselves, grr)
Saving and reloading DOES NOT fix this problem for me. Exiting the game does, but still a pain. It doesn't happen every time, but the first victim is always the first of a class of ship. Sensor drone, ranger, whatever.
I've had the AI offer me outrageous trades. Always an aligned empire, offering me the next best ship technology for basically nothing.... usually when I'm at war, too.... their idea of aid I assume. But barring that, the AI trades are very one sided. High diplomacy skill usually means you end up taking the short stick.... the AI offers even trades.
Faith in espionage. In a couple of my early games I pumped obscene amounts of cash into espionage.... for the privilege of learning how many ability points the enemy had, wow. Destabilization has been similarly useless. Cost/benefit, I'm better off keeping the money.
Moo3 not fun. Galciv fun. (moo2 and x-com1 probably my all time favorite games)
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Hmm... the one interesting thing I hadn't though of is that something in the background may interfere... I do have a virus scan and pop-up stopper loaded... Can somebody tell me what normally happens when you submit a score? I get the enter your alias and email screen, I submit, and that's it... is there some kind of confirmation?