I think that the surrender choice also depends on the overall game state. If someone is dominating, people tend to surrender to them. If the game is close, then relations and alignment are more of a factor.
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Another undocumented feature: If your transports are in a fleet, you can have them all attack simultaneously. You can also have them attack individually. The advantage of having them attack indvidually is that you get a separate roll for each transport. Also attacking indvidually, you can use one of the nasty attacks, knowing it will fail, but not damaging the planet. The transport that finishes off the planet can then use an ordinary attack. If you have a group-transport attack, a
I found that I got a high social category by getting a 100% approval rating for nearly the entire game. I'm not sure if that's it, but that's my guess.
AIL.ST in message #77: It turns out that, on the trade screen, 12k for 0 turns is a lump-sum of 12k. 8k for 1 turns is 8k this turn AND 8k next turn. So, you're paying a total of 16k. This behavior totally confused me, until I realized what was happening. Really, the "for 0 turns" and "for 1 turns" screen should emphasize the payment is the current turn plus that many future turns.
Has anybody made a definitive list of the AI value for techs? That is, I've seen tables that summarize the research cost. Are there any tables that summarize the AI percived value? This way, it'd be good to know what techs I should trade for, and what techs I probably should research myself.
Have you considered buying a trackball mouse? I got one of those, and all my wrist pain goes away. Logitech makes some good ones. I have a middle-finger operated mouse for work, and a thumb-operated one for home. This way, I'm balancing the stress among various muscles.
The game breaks down the score for you at the win screen. You get a rating for social, military, economic, etc. They are added up and converted to MPts. Your MPts equals your metaverse score. It seems that, in 1.04, speed of victory is most important. Yesterday, I got 2,000 for a fast win on tiny/rare/normal.
You can also "space" your population. Build transports, which are cheap and have an upkeep of zero. Keep your population in cold-storage in space. When you're ready for an invasion, or get some more +morale, put your population back on your planets. You can also move your population to underpopulated planets. I start moving population as soon as morale drops below 100. You aren't getting your maximum growth rate on a planet once morale drops below 100.
This is a well-known problem. Solution #1: Play in windowed mode, and keep a notepad file where you track the sector location of each resource. Solution #2: Fill the map with enough sensor drones to make sure the fog of war is completely eliminated. Eyes of the Universe helps with this.
I think the problem is that the AI players don't trade as aggressively as the human player. I heard that trades are now being recorded in the metaverse data, so I expect the AI will trade much smarter in future versions.
Bill Petro asks: >Any chance we'll get some way to tell how overpopulated a planet is? This can be done in the current version. Go to the planets list (F2), and sort by Morale. The planets with morale of 53 or lower are overpopulated. You can then build the morale-enhancers, or use transports to move the population elsewhere.
I've noticed the sound disappearing. It tends to restart the next time I research a tech. I think it happens when the game tries to play two sound effects simultaneously.
The scoring got a lot more generous in 1.04, and scores on gigantic were decreased. I was getting 100 for a tiny/rare win in 1.03, and I'm getting 1500-2000 in 1.04.
I reccommend saving the turn before you win. Keep the savefile until you've verified the score submitted properly.
Here's my detailed bug/feature list: Enemy Anomaly ships should not be called "USS Corvette Fortune". They should be called "Drengin Corvette Fortune", or the AI should rename to conceal that this was an anomaly ship. Minor races should not be allowed to destabilize a major race, because a major race is not allowed to destabize a minor. If your trading partner gets culturally assimilated, you get to keep your trade routes, but some of the other information can get cor
Like Star Pilot said, I rename the ship I want to sell "gift" before going to the trade screen. This also moves it to the top of my ship list, because the list is sorted by name.
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When trying to get every last BC out of a trade, it is annoying to have to fiddle with the sliders. I spend something like 10%-20% of the game time fiddling with the trade BC slider. There should also be a button for "automatically calculate the BC that makes this trade fair".
You can also do the opposite: set everyone to good and play as good. You can get a peaceful game.
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I never figured out the blue arrow on the ship list screen. Whenever I click on it, it seems to move the wrong ship, or move it to the wrong place.
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Also, I think that minors tend to start building a trade good or wonder as soon as they get the tech prerequesite. The majors are more busy with expansion, military, or building up their infrastructure. The minors tend to build wonders or trade goods, even if that isn't their best long-term strategy. The majors are more intelligent about deciding whether or not to build a trade good or wonder.
If you build the culture starbase in the same sector as the planet you want to convert, you get 5x the effect compared to building it in an adjacent sector. See the current version of the user manual or the encyclopedia for details. However, the AI may object to you building a culture starbase in their sector. Unless you have a clear military lead, you're risking a war. If you build the culture starbase in an adjacent sector, the AI doesn't seem to mind. You only get 1/5 the effect.
I believe that in 1.04, the AI can't beat you to a tech victory. If the AI researches final frontier, the game keeps going. In fact, I heard that you can even trade for final frontier to get a tech victory. The rumor is that in a future version, a tech victory for the AI will be an option.
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The minor races get lots of money, so they usually get to buy the techs they don't have. Then, they can focus on researching the more advanced techs. Whenever a major AI gets a new tech, I think they tend to sell it to the minors. I don't think the minor races cheat. They do get lots of starting money, a high-quality planet, a good economy, and a good cultural resistance rating. They get a full complement of trade routes even though they only have 1 sector, so they can fund
The only thing missing is "sort by version number". It isn't realistic to compare pre-1.04 scores and 1.04 scores, especially on tiny.