I thinkk tiny is harder. Gigantic leaves you a lot of time to build up, and you have room to withstand invasion. On medium, I have little experience, but I seem to be getting better results than at tiny, so it's either easier or I have found better strategies. Tiny remains hardest for me.
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Staffa, that's because you play to get points. To me that's not fun, so spending an hour on a won game is of no interest to me. I think the ai should just surrender in the conditions you describe, thus you wouldn't get the tech victory but a military one, and the 'problem' would vanish.
I agree that the setting is very peculiar, but considering the ai can expand better than you unless you use a trick (+1 speed, +1 range...), I think the expand phase and the map are random elements that don't really help improve one's skill. The no planet setting is just a galciv game where you start with the same resources as the others. It would be the same as a 'fast start' option as existed in Civ2: Skip part of the expansion phase.
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In my opinion the only thing that needs be addressed is the fact that the military is in fact too important, and that units scale in power very fast (you can't beat a dread with a frigate, so you need dreadnoughts). I don't know if it is possible to go without a military on smaller maps. Are there reported wins without military on maps of size medium or less at masochistic?
Grrr... I stay up at 2 AM and apolyton looks like it's down. I think masochistic would be nice for next game. I got a very crappy score, in part because I used an alliance victory to avoid losing time steamrolling the last ai (was bored by lack of challenge - or lack of sleep maybe - in the end), in part because I took my time. I'm used to harder games where dreadnoughts are there before you can blink, so here, I waited for the dreadnought era to begin wars,... and it never came. [Message E
I checked Apolyton CtP2 forum at last. I messed up a bit with names over there btw, but it looks like there is a VB-based ModManager program that moves files around which might be reused in part for modswapping purposes (see J Bytheway over there).
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I just got a 2800 points only Gigantic masochistic Beyond Human victory. So you can get less points. I think the point is not that the scoring system or the tech win is unbalanced. I think the problem lies with the gigantic aspect of the data. If you could check for small or tiny galaxies, I believe the results would be different. Here's why: Mopping up at end game is boring. Tech win is not so tedious, because all you have to do is hit end turn. So when on a gigantic map, it's more plea
I do think so because I play tiny with rare stars, so there are usually NO stars you can settle. Since you can't guess where there are, sending the colony ship to the right star would be pure luck and totally uninteresting from my point of view. (I actually miss a 'No yellow star' option.)
Looks like tribute you pay to the ai doesn't cost you anything: I paid 500bc over 5 turns and didn't seem to lose 500 bc after the first turn (I was gaining a lot more so I might not have seen it, but it didn't show in the econ screen summary either).
100% expenditure doesn't mean you're going into debt. The point is to max out spending. Then you adjust your economy accordingly. Build social improvements for morale/econ if you can't have 100% and make a profit. Trade. Trade. Trade. I could say it ten times, as you can have 10 trade routes, but you get the idea. What do you rushbuy? It is very expensive to rushbuy things. Unless for trade goods, you are often better off putting 100% spending/100% military or social(depending on the project
I use 100% expenditure most of the time, only lower it when debts are running too high.
+1 range is utterly useless on a tiny map. Its value depends vastly on the size of the map you use and of the actual map. So, without Ctrl-N, it may be of little use in some games, while it helps a lot in others. I don't think it is overpowered. But then I don't tend to expand like crazy and use +speed only to boost trade ships.
What about giving the corvettes to an opponent, and shoot them with the ranger to increase its level?
I've been playing a gigantic maso game where I had 10 trade routes, no starbase (actually one cultural starbase so it didn't affect trade whatsoever), 0%tax rate/100% funding for a net 2000 + bc per turn. These were long trade routes for the most part. I think on bigger maps, the importance of a trade route is that it makes target empire less likely to attack you, and you can pay them 1500bc if they ask because it is pocket change. On smaller maps, I don't have (yet?) the time to get enough mone
Reduce spendings, and use freighters.
Answering a few points here: Small maps are definitely harder than big maps. You can't build up enough to become a strong trade partner the same you can on big maps, the ai contacts you when you are still weak (particularly the Drengins). Plus you have less room for maneuvering, so your transports are more likely to be attacked by opponent ships. Torians are clearly pitiful with transports in late game. The ai is generally pitiful when it thinks a single transport can take a planet and i
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I want to change slightly what I said earlier: I think the problem exists mostly with smaller maps. By this I mean, I managed to get a peaceful victory on Gigantic masochistic on fourth try, using trade as a deterrant instead of ships. On tiny map, I can't do it (I managed to win only twice in maybe 20+ starts, which is less than one in ten vs. 1 in 4). I think the winning strats are more limited on tiny maps, and more tactical decisions need be made, but I may just not be skilled enough to
Boogie, I disagree. Tax revenue and production have nothing in common. I often use tax = 0% (trade for 100% of income). The equation is something like this: Tax revenue depends a lot of population, and a little of PQ. Production depends a lot of PQ and marginally of population. I think Ellestar has put the equations up somewhere (must be on apolyton). PQ lower than 15 are worth almost nothing in terms of revenue (it's just the population that will generate money, and you
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surther, did you get these wins without a big military while having early contact with the ai? Particularly bullies like Drengins or Arceans? I'm interested if this can be done. I haven't seen a lot of this behavior reported.
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//I feel it's strange, too, that population doesn't seem to weight much, if any, in production ability.//It is, but 2 planets with population 20 gives same production as one planet with population ~2500 (if PQ are equal). Thanks for the figures. That's what I call "not much" indeed.
I don't understand the funding equation either, but it looks like this: You have N production units. Each production unit, thanks to various improvements, provides a given output at a given cost. For example, with a research lab, 1 unit will get 1.25 research output. Thus you can have more research output than military or social output. Since output costs money (except for the free part), the different output means different cost. I believe the UI could be changed to make this easier to
When you have a trade good like Aphrodisiacs, go see your pals (f.e. the Torians), tell them "do you want Aphrodisiacs? Please give me these 3 techs" and here's a deal. You can get lots of money for a trade good from less than incredible ai's. Plus trade goods help by themselves. I love Gravity accelerators for example. Tri-strontium steel is good for warfare too (better to have it than leave it to someone you don't like)
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Issue 1 I agree with. 2 I don't mind as metaverse scoring will never be correct, and time'd be better spent on the game itself. 3 If you can become a godlike being by trading, that's OK for me. I just would like that the ai could wipe you out if they reached final frontier and hated you. If you penalize this, you totally screw any peaceful way to win (I consider culture win as not peaceful as it is in fact aggressive and taking the opponent's worlds away).
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Brad, in fact do all you can on the game rather than metaverse score. I think I can understand your comment on Ctrl-N. The point is that starting position matters too much. However, the initial point is that the game forces you to expand like crazy. I tried to play OCC-like yesterday evening on gigantic-masochistic, just for fun. I mean, I was effectively a minor race. I was trading with the Arceans or the Drengins for 4% of their income, with incoming freighters which would have made it up
The ai is rigged to be greedy at higher difficulty levels. You won't be able to sell a trade good for 20bc at incredible levels (depending on your diplomacy skills of course). As for economic resources, I realized that in fact on small maps they are pretty useless as I always run 0% tax, 100% funding thanks to trade only... So on such a map, an econ starbase is worth near to nothing.
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