Feargus

Reply to MEtaverse question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Your game strategy is supposed to get uploaded to Stardock so they can modify the AI. OOC, why is "Boston RPG mania" writing from Seoul, South Korea? :)

Reply to Research screen is FUBAR (nonfunctional) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

OK, I don't want to get in the middle of anything here, but I have noticed the same problem (perhaps at a lower level).... If I am spending, say, $5000 each turn on research and I know darned well it should only take $500 to get tech X, so maybe I should lower my tech spending for a turn (since the other $4500 are wasted).... There is no good way (that I know of) to figure out how much I actually have to spend to get tech X in 1 turn (or 2, or 3, or 4 turns, for that matter).

Reply to OT: Any of yous just finish watching the new episode of Enterprise? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Er, sorry, couldn't be bothered to read all the other posts, but as a non-Kligon-speakier and in response to the first few posts.... I like the "Enterprise" series for its characters and its premise. I'm happy to see a SciFi series making some kind of dent in prime time TV. I would be sorry to see it "sell out" to its writers by pushing events and races that don't make sense in the UFP (OK, maybe I'm a little geeky!) timeline because obviously the hardcore fans will rapidly lose inter

Reply to Schizophrenia on the Metaverse? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

All I want to know is how anyone - Chris, Pont, whoever, got their "partner" to play anything. I've coaxed, prodded, primped, and massaged, but no luck - she claims games hurt her eyes! (And yes, I got her an LCD. Doh!)

Reply to How did I get this Metaverse score? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Grrrr - reference CodeMonkey's post (16), I've never heard of scores decaying before. Does it count if you have a victory condition off (like no cultural victories)? Just because I'm close with a race doesn't mean I want to ally with them, especially if they're caught in one of those never-ending ally-wars. I don't get too hung up on the scoring in general, but I do wish the basic guidelines were posted somewhere in a sticky. (If there is one, someone please correct me and thanks.)

Reply to Save/Load Mechanism: Perhaps the Greatest Flaw of GalCiv in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

NotDefault - as someone not as well endowed as RayChua :) let me second the notion that this isn't as big a deal as the thread may make it seem. Relative to how good the game is otherwise, yes this is irritating and I wish Stardock would fix it. However, it usually only hurts if you're just hanging on by a thread anyway, it sometimes actually helps (AIs decide to give you stuff when you reload!), and it's just not worth missing out on a great game over.

Reply to Where is the tech tree ? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Not that I'm unappreciative, because these are AWESOME products that people obviously put a lot of time into and I use regularly, but does anyone have a printable version with just the tree and the research costs? Now that I've played the game for a while, I find the main reasons I consult the references are to a) find out what I'm missing to get to tech X or b) find out whether a seemingly innocuous tech trade, A for B, is really in my best interest. (Commence flaming me for b

Reply to Good at 1.02, Stink at 1.03 in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I don't know if it was a change in the 1.03 version, but the AIs definitely do trade techs A LOT. Check out the end game tech summary and look at how many techs the races researched vs. the ones they knew. I just finished a game where I researched something like 120 of my 140 techs; the others had numbers like 80/130, 60/130, 50/110, and 25/100! The AIs are getting something like half their techs through trade. The AIs also seem more agressive in 1.03; I find that I have to s

Reply to Midwest: COME TO YOUR SENSES (IA IL IN OH KS MO MI ND SD MN WI) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmm, I don't think we WANT the Dixie Chicks playing GC anyway - they really should learn to stick to music. As for petty regional empires, where does the "New Texas Republic" fit in? :)

Reply to So it is a regional war you want..Mid-West Unite in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Stardock changed the scoring system to make it more "fair"; I'm not sure exactly what that means but it's almost definitely a good thing. However, one thing it apparently means that what used to be about a 2000 on a medium map is now only a 700. :( Stardock has some plan to redo all the scores that have been submitted to put everyone back on the same even keel.

Reply to WIERD endgame development in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

For all the work the programmers have put into making the galactic economy work - and it does seem to be pretty complex, which is awesome - some of these problems really do skew things badly - presumably for both the player and the AIs. Personally, I'd like to see debt linked to a race's economy. For example, if you're optimal tax income is 500 a month, maybe you should be able to go into debt up to 1000 before you have to feed all your income towards repaying the debt, and you probabl

Reply to Scoring Change in Latest Version? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Whew. I was basking in glory and patting myself on the back all the way through the end-game review until I wne to submit it, at which point I must admit some foul language escaped my lips. It'll be even better if they do post-process the old scores to bring everything in line.... Stardock is cool. Thanks for the feedback!

Scoring Change in Latest Version? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

OK, I took a little operational pause to actually go to work, and I'm wondering if the scoring changed with the latest version (1.03A.057 on drengin.net or 1.035 as shown in the MV listing). I just had probably my best game to date, capturing many alien peoples instead of killing them, playing with abundant habitable worlds instead of occasional ones. I won by culture-capturing everything just before ascending. This game was almost identical to the last game I played except th

Reply to So it is a regional war you want..Mid-West Unite in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hey, nice - and better that I was thinking! Looks good, idle. Now if I can just figure out what happened to the scoring, I'll be good to go.

Reply to So it is a regional war you want..Mid-West Unite in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

As far as icons, I think - in the absence of a skilled graphics artist - simple is best and less can be more. How about these for two options: - a blue sky over a green field (basically two rectangles!) - a yellow sun rising through a blue sky over a green field, similar to the Japanese battle flag For added style, you can make it look like a flag rippling in the wind pretty easily.

Reply to So it is a regional war you want..Mid-West Unite in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'm with you 'til I move! Battle School wasn't getting any new recruits. (No OSC fans out there, I guess.)

Reply to Hit the W key. Now I can't get control of the ship. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The "i" button definitely works - though you do have to select the ship, as Za_H pointed out, and sometimes in the process of selecting the ship you make it execute its auto-pilot move... grr, indeed. However, once selected, however you get there, you can turn on or off those modes by clicking the "i" button.

Reply to Autopilot Woes in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I second or third the motion! My variation would be to either make the button change state - i.e. while there are ships that have not auto-moved, it says "auto" (and would then move said ships), and if there aren't any, it says "turn" (and would then end your turn). Alternatively, I'd like a third button for automoving. The behaviour FBF describes is indeed maddening.

Reply to If the AI attacks a stack of ships, which one dies first? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I would not contradict CodeMonkey (post 9); I think that does seem to be the case when two stacks fight each other. However, a personal guesstimate for non-stacks, I think the game does something simpler: it attacks the leftmost ship that shows up in the ship box at the lower right. For example, if you have a BH then a BA, it will attack the BH, but if you have a BA then a BH, it will attack the BA. I could be wrong, though, and I would definitely welcome a "designated defender" comma

Reply to Metaverse Points - How are they calculated in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Take the sum of your scores and divide by the square root of the number of games. At the moment, I see you've got (35+194+444) 673 points, divided by (sqrt 3) 1.73, gives you a MetaVerse score of 389. This may seem a little strange (and it is!), but it rewards you for playing more games. For example, if you got 500 points every time you played, after 4 games your score would be 1000, and after 16 games it would be 2000. Higher scores are always better, though!

Reply to invading with multiple transports in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Back to the original question, here's what I've observed with attacking with several transports. If you attack with a stack, all of the marines aboard all the ships will take part in the invasion. (More marines seem to improve your odds, too, though I wouldn't bet on that.) After it's over, if you have a lot of people left over, they will reboard the transports (but you always use up at least one in the invasion). Some examples: - You attack with 3x5000 transports and lo

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

OK, I've been messing around with the two latest patches and I must say I don't like what's happened to the battle hammer. True, I supposed it got abused from it's intended role as defensive ship, but now - even with the latest patch (1.03A57) it looks like it simply cannot stand up to a dreadnaught at all. It's definitely too expensive for whatever it does now. What seems to happen now is the first person to get dreadnaughts (me included) can just take one or two and go on a

Reply to I think I know who BoBo is ... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Ditto; Bobo often seems to be thinking the same way I am. Hmmmm... I wonder if that's a good thing?

Reply to n00b: trying to learn to play, help me out in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've been trying all sorts of things, but instead of going into debt I recommend setting your spending sliders to 100% military initially. You can pump out a few colony ships quickly (three turns each, I believe) without buying them and then settle into a more normal rythym. Depending on your situation you may want to kick out a constructor or two first as well, to claim any nearby resources. Just be careful not to get too far behind in research....

Reply to am i the only one who didn't realize... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but a lot of what's kept the game fresh for me is doing new things that I didn't realize were options. (Frequently I'll read something here, utter a loud "Doh!" and slap my forehead, only to immediately start a new game to try something different.)