You can probably get rid of old culture starbases when their job is over and they are far from the action. I feel the effect of far away culture starbases decreases so rapidly that you can safely scrap them after use. I don't think the costs will prevent culture wins, because money has never been much of a concern late game when I went for cultural conquest. Doubling the upkeep cost of starbases will not change much.
I thought corvettes had the same attack but better defense, and defense was irrelevant to the rating. I still consider that researching dead-end techs is bad, and corvette requires 2 techs which are otherwise useless. I remain unconvinced.
I almost never Ctrl-N. I can't really see why there would be a difference in the map generation after a CtrlN. It looks like the developper who would do that would just be wasting time, so I believe the stats are not very meaningful. You'd require at least a hundred of starts and respawns to get good statistics.
There's no way to alter that. I don't think the stars files have been analysed (last I checked, they were not). Actually, the save game files seem to have some sort of redundancy. It's easy to find out where the star names are, but adding a star may need tweaking several files (one for stars, one for planets). As I said, I don't think this has been hacked. This is why a map editor would be welcome.
Note that I get emails but can't access the yahoo groups a lot (not during week and not next week ends) while I can reach this board. So as far as it's BEM it's OK but beware if there are functionalities on the yahoo groups that don't get through email, I probably won't see them.
Maybe if you tried to speak English someone would understand what you want. You can download the game directly from Stardock.
[quote]The majors don't trade too much at the early stage, but sometimes they are willing.[/quote] They do. I go direct for Translators, and try to trade techs with them early, then send freighters to them ASAP. [quote]Start cranking out colony ships. You should be able to get one every other turn.[/quote] Very map size dependant. On smaller maps, it's better not to extend too much but build up your influence in your own sector(s) since the ai will flip border worlds like nothing ear
[quote]It is impossible to avoid war with sharks and pirates and they will often go for your resource starbases.[/quote] You know far ahead when these come, and can send ships there if needs be. They are pretty uncommon too. I use very few resource starbases, and they are not very important in my strategy. I once lost one because I had forgotten to make peace, but that didn't harm me at all. I just lost a few turns on this particular base. Of the 10 constructors you've used to build up d
[quote] I feel I can win once I get through the opening diplomacy "they all hate me" rounds hehe.[/quote] Indeed. When you've managed to pit all the ai's at war against all other ai's (and not you), you have won the game, even though you own a single sector in the galaxy.
[quote]Is it possible to win without Universal Translators?[/quote] On harder levels, definitely not. UT leads to other techs that you may need. More importantly, I haven't heard of anyone beating maso without using diplomacy. Maybe on tiny rare through intensive rushing?
Thanks for the log.
[quote]2+ trade base needs no speed (just def)[/quote] I never put def on my starbases. Just don't be at war if you could lose something.
I think that is obvious. I want to have a lot of medals cluttering the message boards. And I want them in 3D too, so I can have an idea what a 3D Galciv would be like. ;p
The ai should only buy techs it can use. Evaluating the worth of a given tech is very hard work however. Military techs value should be limited by the ability to produce and maintain the corresponding ships: If after buying a ship tech, your economy is in the red for more than one month, then it's better to see the tech as being worthless since you can't use it. Other techs should have their value based on their effect in game, and some sort of return on investment used, instead of
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I'd be interested if Brad has to say something about the ai. I mean, the game has a good ai (with regards to other games), so good that many people are pissed off because they can't seem to win and the ai is very aggressive. Methinks this is because those players are used to soft computer opponents which never behaved intelligently. But was the game hard because the ai was good even at the lowest levels or did the game require too much? I don't think the learning curve is steep myself, but would
[quote]If you have speed boni in any of the starbases along the route, yes.[/quote] Even if you don't, you'll get the same average bonus by putting them all in a single sector. You'll earn different revenues when they are in different sectors, but on the average, it's the same. By using a +2speed starbase, you help yourself spend 3 times less time in a sector, so that time is spent in the sector where you have your trade bonuses instead. If you have more than one trade starbase in that
[quote]Some of the best things in life have to be purchased.[/quote] And some can't be purchased. The point of Drengin.net isn't a medal. Medals are supposed to show that you did things, not bought them, IRL.
[quote]+490 research(2 SB resources each +64% mining)[/quote] That's most of the problem. You have far too much research. As already stated, Infonets are worth nothing, scrap them all. Lower you research spendign rather than the whole empire spending. You will see a decrease in your cost. Also, scrap all research buildings on planets that don't produce much research, unless you need the influence bonus. In fact, just scrap all buildings except +econ/+morale on planets th
Must be in the mail receipt if you downloaded it.
[quote]Maso players are now rewarded enough in the extension pack.. [/quote] The idea is that medals are different from having points. I don't play the meta game, I play the game. I want to beat the ai and the metaverse to say so, so my games have a chance to be looked at when/if they look for better ways to enhance the maso ai. I don't want to have a lot of points. I don't think playing maso would be the best way to achieve that. I just want it to be easy to see immediately if someone c
[quote]Haven't tried any of the other mods, but I would be interested in hearing which ones are safe for metaverse submission.[/quote] I don't see metaverse submission as a problem or a valid way of seeing if a mod is unbalancing. You have to try for yourself and see how you like the game with it. For instance, modding colony ship ranges makes for valid games but that's really an exploit/cheese if you set it to -9 and should be illegal.
I (almost) only use AMMs :D
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I can see things like: Diplomatic option: Trade monopoly. Target (minor) race can trade only with you. Would make it worth keping the minor alive.
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[quote]Tactical would make thigs more bearable in the beginning, and in the mid game where you are ALWAYS infeior in every single way. [/quote] I want a strategic game, not a tactical one. I DO NOT want that because I would resort to this tactical option (knowing I can win by hand, I couldn't help use it). And I am NOT ALWAYS inferior in every single way. If you are inferior in every single way to the ai, then you have a big strategic problem, the game does not. [quote]but why
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I for one don't want a 3D map that you can rotate around. Most galaxies are mostly flat anyway. A 3D map would just make it hard to see which star is close to which one since we'd only see a projection.