Actuarian

Reply to Labs, Factories, and Focus in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I think factories only is a clearly superior approach, because you can turn factories off. Also, I think that it would be very difficult to keep up in the early game with the AI players with a no factories startegy, especially on the higher difficulty levels. I played a few games using the all-factory approach. However, for my game enjoyment purposes I've gone back to a balanced approach. Maybe it's the micromanager or roleplayer in me, but there is something about those unused bonus re

Reply to MORE Mega Events! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Some sort of galaxy-wide fundamentalist movement (or dark age) where everyone has to adopt a new, really inefficient form of government for a set period of time. In conjunction you could freeze or limit the sliders. A event that causes the elimination of all resource bases and/or resources and/or mines and/or asteroid belts. Some sort of technology levelling event where all races end up with the same thing. You could do the same thing with ships.

Reply to Strategy Rant in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

This thread is truly fascinating! I'm going to throw one in here, with regards to 'buildings' of course. Why not eliminate sliders altogether and make the build the 'true value'. Let me explain... Have a few different levels of factories, as we do now of course, but make the production value what it is, peri

Reply to Sunny days and game development in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Wow! A company that doesn't do a cost benefit analysis before every patch. My company's IT department could learn a thing or two from you.

Reply to Strategy Rant in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I'll let George Gervin reply to the rest, whoever he is. George Gervin was a very famous NBA player. His nickname was the Iceman because he was so calm and deadly in critical game situations. I can't talk with you anymore. It's too frustrating and not good for my blood pressure. Squares..... sensors.... parsecs.... gravity.... labs ...... rules... unintuitve.... does not listen..... does not understand..... does not have anything to do with thr

Reply to Strategy Rant in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Actuarian:I think there should be some sort of relatively small, but escalating marginal penalty for setting a slider higher than 50%, similar to the relationship between tax rate and morale penalty. George Gervin:If you really want to add another unintuitive rule. Actually, I was thinking of the law of diminishing returns. The more resources you pour into something the lower the marginal efficiency. By why ask why when you c

Reply to Strategy Rant in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Diagonally? That's the way to move, according to Pythagoras. I don't get the point. What is wrong is precisely NOT moving diagonally. Remember we're talking warp displacement here. And perhaps you haven't read the threads about distances and the map representation? Warp displacement. I don't care what the other threads say. That's sounds like technobabble. You explain to me the rational by which movement range is in a square but senso

Reply to Strategy Rant in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I really don't understand why some people have a problem with the idea of research going forward without any labs. That's silly. Was Newton in a lab when the apple dropped on his head? Was he in a factory? This is the perfect example of a nonsensical example.

Reply to The "Big One" in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I've used a stategy similar to LostHero's on a much smaller scale. I've screened uncolonized planets near me while you send my colony ships grab planets further out. The AI gets flummoxed when confronted by a line of ships, seemingly regardless of the difficulty level. I admit that this is a cheesy tactic. I personally think ships of different races should be able to enter and occupy any square so long as they are not at war with a race in the square.

Reply to I need major economic help. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

To completely beat this subject to death.... I overstated the benefit of the trade boosting modules on economic bases. Cheap constructors cost 110 bc (hull and constructor module only). I assmue that economic starbases already are being built to help with production. Even if you are only averaging one bonus bc per turn the payoff is in 2 years for the first trade module and half that for the second module (20% bonus). Assuming you have five trades routes, I think you wo

Reply to I need major economic help. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Hi! With cheap small hull constructors and multiple trade routes you can break even costwise in a turn or two. Erm... do you also calculate the 5BC maintenace cost for every starbase? And additional sub-logistics building costs for 30th ot 50th of 100th starbase? And who'll defend them when those infamous pirates appear again? In GC-1 trade was great. I remeber having a game where 2/3 of my income was coming fr

Reply to I need major economic help. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Hi! build multiple economic bases at the start of trade routes to increase trade income. This can really add up. This is a place where you can use those cheap small hull constructors since they don't have far to go. Please note that building trade-enhancing SBs could be a big waste in Dark Avtar, as there it's much more difficult to get high enough espionage level to avoid assasination event. The "secret meeting - war has exp

Reply to Recommendable TBS games? in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

SMAX is only a couple of dollars on the US Amazon site (jewel case). A credit card will do the currency conversion for you.

Reply to I need major economic help. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Here's my 12-step plan. 1. For the early game design bare minimum colony ships on small hulls. They are a lot cheaper. Ditto with constructors. They are basically a hull with only a colony or a constructor module. 2. I don't know how many starports you have, but don't feel like every one needs to be building a ship. Ships cost money, and constructors in particular cost a lot. Stopping the production of one or two constructors can make a huge difference to your budget. It's already b

Reply to This board really needs a makeover in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Mumblefratz, when you see really bad topic titles that would be a great time to step in with some friendly advice, and with your shiny silver "Galactic Grand Who-ha" badge you get for moderator duty, everyone will bow down before you and assimilate into the GalCiv2 board culture. At least that's how it's supposed to work.

Reply to This board really needs a makeover in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

The quality of a discussion board is based on a combination of how it's designed and its functionality, who is in the community, and how it is moderated. I guess I was thinking of player-moderators more in terms of people willing to keep us unclean masses organized in a friendly manner, not a police job. You would definately need several willing volunteers.

Reply to This board really needs a makeover in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

kryo, Just last year the entire forum system was completely rewritten and replaced based on user comments. I was thinking it was a little over two years ago. My, how time sometimes doesn't fly. I'm sorry. Which front page listings are you talking about exactly? Excuse my lack of computerese. By front page, I mean the number of post topics that appear on page one of a folder. I understand your respon

This board really needs a makeover in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

For years now many people have been asking for this discussion board to be revamped. The main problems are that this board doesn't have near enough granularity and the front page post listings don't show near enough threads. Also the search function doesn't seem to work very well (that might be user error, but if so, the instructions aren't very good). Finally, kryo does a great job on the board, but I think he could use some volunteer help to keep things more organized. Eveyth

Reply to Can't get software registered! in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Dread Wing, I'm amazed that you would rather take the time to compose a second long rant than to try Archonsod's advice or email support for help. With all your IT experience, I'm sure you know that 'customer support' is not a computer program, it is people. You have to actually contact people to get customer support. You indicate that support is the SDC program registration and update method. You even give the program human attributes. You've never bothered trying any of our

Reply to colony production bugs - beta 1.6 v1 in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not too concerned about the time to completion bug as I simply estimate correctly most of the time by dividing the bc cost by about 9.5 I don't understand. How do come up with the 9.5? How does the bc cost relate to production capacity (and/or production bonuses and/or the social/military/research sliders)? How would you factor in changing plantary focus? Can you divide by 9.5 in your head or do you have a calculator handy? Edit

Reply to DA PROBLEM in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

How long did you wait? Are you trying to play on a gigantic universe with a not-so-great computer? The load times can be really long under those circumstances (10 minutes or so), and sometimes the game will never load on low end computers. Try a tiny galaxy (it should load pretty quickly) just to see if it works.

Reply to colony production bugs - beta 1.6 v1 in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

@Mumblefratz I'm positive. This was a completely built up tecnological capital. I had auto-upgrade on and the upgrade arrow was there on all my research structures. And yes, I clicked on the tile with the arrow already there. The research structure on the 300% bonus tile simply cost more than the same structure upgrade on all the other non-bonus tiles. I think I might have been getting some credit for the existing structure, but the bonus tile (or something else) was affecting the upgra

colony production bugs - beta 1.6 v1 in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

When I tried to buy an upgrade for a research facility on a +300% bonus research tile it cost a lot more than an upgrade for a research facility on the same planet not on a bonus tile. Also the time to completion for upgrades on the colony management screen still overstates the time needed to upgrade. For example, I was ugrading mutiple economic facilities on a single planet. The time to completion always said four years but I got an upgrade completed every turn. Finally, the r

Reply to Can't get software registered! in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not sure I would agree that Walmart is a reputable dealer, but that's probably off-topic Dread Wing, actually the customer service is pretty good. However, you won't know this until you contact them. You might want to try this before you pass judgement with an all-caps rant. Also, if you do contact customer support, don't start spamming them. Each time you contact them you overwrite

Reply to Economic Starbases Question in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, they stack. You can also really get a lot out of trade routes with mutliple economic starbases near them.