Gerakken

Reply to My last two games were not added after submit???? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Not to be a pessimist about this or anything (afterall, I am a pretty happy Galciv gamer in general), but if the staff folks are talking vacation plans for a week or so out in the news section, then what makes anyone think that Metaverse is going to get fixed soon? :notsure:

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

Yes, that is how it works in my experience, Feargus. If you win, the transports that can be fully filled with surviving troops are returned. The remaining fraction of a billion (assuming one is using normal transports) are the new colonists. Using traditional warfare, there are two advantage gained by using single transports one at a time versus a full assault. One, the exact advantage an enemy has is unknown until actually engaged, so sacrificing a single transport to see what the odds range is

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

I had two cases where normal troop transports were in orbit around one of my planets that was defended by a battleaxe and a battlehammer. Guess which ships the incoming frigate destroyed? The defenseless transports. I would think that the nice defensive ships I had there would have taken the hit first. I have had no confirmed case in my games where a stack in space had transport fatalities first. But the mighty defenders did fail around a planet.

Reply to Problems submitting to the Metaverse - anyone else having the same issue? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

My last success was May 2, but a weird thing happened. The game I tried to submit yesterday and then a few minutes ago wouldn't take (just like a lot of other folks), but the date on my last success was changed to 5/5! The game parameters are still identical to how they were a few days ago, just that the date on the game was reset. Strange. Anyway, this Metaverse submission thing needs to be refined a bit. I quickly figured out a couple of weeks ago that I needed an active internet conn

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

The method to my madness is to always bring extras. Even though I win in the end with a culture victory, on the way up that tech tree I make sure I got some +soldier mods. Then I assume that I am only going to come out with a 2 to 1 advantage when, in fact, I may have upwards of a 5 to 1 due to bonuses. So, if I got 2 to 1, then I have to bring 50% of the planet's population in invading troops. And, of course, since I am a cheap bum that doesn't want to wreck the place, I use traditional warfare

Reply to Ouch-goodness is blinding in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"The light, master! It hurts!" Hmm, I wonder just how many of you really evil folks go out into the sun anymore? :)

Reply to What is that powerful 'red worm' in space? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Ah, yes, the zoo. Someone else got that in my last game and those 3 sharks were keeping two empires begging for help. Luckily, the things were far away from my empire and the other two guys were so kind enough to keep luring them back into their own space with ineffective attacks. I just several large task forces at the 3 beasts every few turns until I wore them down. Of course, playing version 1.2 I used Battlehammers. Those non-nerfed BHs sure are nasty. ;)

Reply to Overpopulation :( in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yep, definitely the tax cut spiral. One keeps lowering taxes to keep people happy and all they do is breed. Now you don't have enough money to pay for the social projects and military force required to protect them. The solution? Know where to draw your line. If you decide that 25% taxes is as low as you go and some planet starts dipping low, use a little propoganda or a single +morale project to get the folks there back into the stable zone if they cannot correct themselves by thinning out the

Reply to I find this a tad disturbing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Better off dead than read, ey? ;)

Reply to Should the computer players be able to win a technology victory (currently they can't) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It seems pretty simple to me. If tech victory is turned on, any race can win it. If an alien wins it, stop scoring right there and call it a loss for Metaverse purposes. The losing human may continue the game, but the results are already fixed. If it is too difficult to freeze scoring but allow playing on because of the potential coding problems, then I would not be against the game just ending right there as a loss. Playing on would be nice, in my opinion, but not necessary.

Reply to Population problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In my experience, pop growth is pretty steady whether morale is as low as 55 or the max 100, so having super morale does not fix the problem. Therefore, the cheapest solution is the two low level medical technologies that give +10 growth each, unless you are going to spend empire points to buy a faster growth rate at the game setup. A more expensive fix is to build or trade for aphrodisiacs for +30 more. A much slower long term solution is to have Earth (or your best PQ colony) build every moral

Reply to OT: Dixie Chicks Situation in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Stardom is not a deflector shield where one can selectively broadcast a message or image using the media and not get any return fire. Public figures do not enjoy the same expectation to privacy as "normal" citizens who are not standing up with any megaphones and trumpeting some message. There are some celebrity types who understand this. Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh know they annoy a lot of people and do not care if some folks disagree with them. (But I will concede that radio talk show hosts

Reply to Pink Star system in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yes, there is a color better than yellow. It looks more like purple than pink to me, but if you see one, it always has a nice planet or two. You can also find blue stars with some slightly sub par planets around them, too.

Reply to Civilization Creation - disadvantages! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The real problem I can see is some guy adding together some expensive abilities that are powerful on their own but might be a too unbalancing if allowed to be merged into the same empire. I like the idea of disads (like say 5 points of disads max), but the team might think that it would throw game balance far out of whack and it would probably force the reassigning of ability costs to try and rebalance it.

Reply to I find this a tad disturbing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

One can be an American and care a bit about politics. It is just that political apathy has become all the fashion in the USA in the last 20 years or so. The reason is that not only are two giant parties controlling a duopoly, but any fools who dare want to vote for an independent candidate are given that old blackmail line about how third party votes are wasted at best or steal votes from the Democrats at worst! Really, could have a socialist democrat in office if we elect Hillary in 2008 and th

Reply to I find this a tad disturbing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmm. Daetrinn, I need a clarification of a statement of yours so I can be sure of your point. You stated earlier that "In a true communist state, the government wouldn't decide what you do, you would have just as much choice as in a capitalist state if not more." I have trouble seeing that. In a capitalist system, supply and demand would eliminate excess jobs or allow the creation of new ones, but a communist system requires fulfilling all of the survival needs of the people and discourages the

Reply to I find this a tad disturbing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, I helped start this mess, so I guess I got to wade in a bit. There are so many interesting subjects touched upon here that it is hard for me to pick just which one I have time for, so here it goes. Let us discuss the issue of earning versus entitlement or, more exactly, the means in which to distribute wealth. The essential mechanism for all of civilization is the artificial redistribution of wealth - shared resources. No society can exist without transfering goods from one place

Reply to Dear Frogboy.... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There will always be a small number of people totally dissatisfied with anything they get no matter how good, and your common Joe who likes the game can always think of a tweak or two that could be nice, but I think I can sum it all up in a sentence: Nice work and we appreciate the dedication. :)

Reply to After 20 hours, I give up...the UI wins. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Galciv is a good game that can stand criticism, and I think the original post had a lot of points. To me, personally, the locking slider on the spending ratios would be peachy. I can overlook the little things elsewhere pretty good, but for some reason, having to play with the sliders for 30 seconds to get the exact balance I want is a little annoying. Overall, though, this is not only a good game, but the team is actively trying to improve it on a constant basis. A devoted team and a supportive

Reply to Destabilization in practice? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In my experience, it does work, but not in a spectacular way. Do not expect anything drastic like break-away planets all the time. What destabilizing will do is lower morale, which forces propaganda spending or morale improvements to be built. It is mostly economic attrition warfare, where your bc spending forces the enemy to rewire his spending and possibly tax policies to compensate. In one case, I think a war started because of destabilizing so that the enemy could build and launch a hoard of

Reply to And the best early game investments are ...... <drumroll> survey ships. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I find it useful to get two survey ships on a larger map, yes. Just make sure that they auto-survey in different directions so they don't chase after the same resources. Because they are likely to be mad defenders with high hit points, I like to use one of the ships to run diversions and scout missions during war time. It also has some use in defending stacks of reinforcement transports running up the battle line. It seems like I never have enough loaded transports when a war is on, so I always

Reply to I find this a tad disturbing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A quick primer for a whole lot of nice folks not from the USA about the two predominant political parties in America. While a lot of rich social conservatives who want to keep their money tend to be Republican, and a lot of people who favor high taxes to fund large social programs tend to be Democratic, the two parties exist mainly to fight each other. If a Democrat says guns kill people, so ban them and let the police handle all matters, a Republican says people kill people, and I have the righ

Reply to New to turn-based strategy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Trade by itself is nice, but requires a couple of things to really make the bucks. One, it requires peace along the trade routes so that no one is picking off your freighters (one can get lucky and get a UP resolution to tidy that up). Two, it require some starbase support with trade modules. Have every one of your routes radiate from a key planet, and get the trade boosting star base modules set up there. That will really start making it worthwhile by itself. Three, trade requires a research co

Reply to I find this a tad disturbing in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Who am I to avoid what is obviously a trap? I will just jump in with both feet with my oversimplified view of the extreme ends of American social idealogy. On one side of the aisle, I get social liberals who chant their mantra: "Government is mother, government is father. It feeds you, raises you, pays you and buries you. Judging people on differences in lifestyle, religion, and culture is useless, since the government owns you all. You can do nothing without big government." On the oth

Reply to Stardock : Why do i have to pay tax?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

No France bashing, please. Their arrogance (second only to the USA) is a clear sign of the inferiority complex of a nation losing the trade/culture war over the decades. The poor French are punishing themselves enough already! Now, me being one of those supremely arrogant Americans (who are winning the culture war and quite soundly, I may add), I will point out that long before freedom fries the French were outlawing American terms like e-mail and quarter pounder with cheese and replaci