Matthew Downie

Reply to alignment question. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The main advantage of playing as good is that the other good races will want to co-operate with you. (If you play as evil, the evil players will still attack you if they see a good opportunity.) Set against that, to be good you must make sacrifices in moral dilemmas. Playing as good or evil doesn't give automatic score bonuses. If you set all the alien races to be evil, and play as good, then the co-operative advantage is lost. It is believed that you get a score bonus for doi

Reply to alignment tech weakness in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It is just about possible to write a trap that distinguishes between crashes and intentional reloads - when you quit the game delibarately or load while playing, it could save this fact to your hard disk and use that information to calculate that you intentionally went back to an earlier point. But probably not worth it. (If you want a real iron man game, try playing NetHack, which deletes the save game whenever you load it, and if you die or your computer crashes, you have to start all over

Reply to Why can you turn off alliance victory (or why the ai doesn't betray you)? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I always stay out of alliances because I'm worried that my alliance partner will try to drag me into a war. There is a general problem that the AI is too honest and too trusting. For example, when it starts a war, it always tells you first and then sends out a fleet, giving you plenty of time to prepare. When a human starts a war, they will almost always do it by conquering a planet (or multiple planets). And the AI will sometimes pay ridiculous amounts of money for a peace treaty, even thou

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Sorry to hear about the accident. Hope things get better. [quote]I know Downie isn't crazy about the space aspect of our stories[/quote] I don't really have a problem. I just have difficulty reconciling the intergalactic setting and the Tolkienesque theme into a logically consistent whole. Also, I've never really kept up with the doings of the other empires, so I don't feel able to write about them. But I'm not ruling out a space story at some point. Having scored

Reply to confused on morality in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You might think of the Good/Evil rating for an empire as representing the type of internal society they have. Do they punish the lazy or reward the hard-working? Do they exterminate the disabled or find cures for their problems? Are people who criticise the emperor tortured or tolerated? The game doesnt judge your military policy since exterminating the Yor might be the only way to stop them exterminating humanity and setting up a cruel galactic empire. However, you can still c

Reply to Maso Strategies in Strategies Stardock Forums

[quote] I usually only use AMMs and combat transports.[/quote] Seems a bit wasteful for those planets that are defended by loads of defenders and colony ships. I'd always back up my AMMs with a few moderately powerful combat ships. [quote]They went from friendly to hostile really fast in spite of me being their only trading partner with about 4 routes [/quote] Drengin tend to be very aggressive when they feel superior. Why only four trade routes? The diplomatic effecti

Reply to confused on morality in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]what about invasion tactics? most of the advanced ones wreck the planet. instead of 100% of living things, xx% die[/quote] All successful military invasions in GalCiv appear to require the complete extermination of all people on the planet. Terror Stars are arguably less murderous, since they only kill the other side, and don't require you to conscript billions of your own people to sacrifice as cannon fodder. The morality system is simple: It is Evil to kill worms in or

Reply to Sol system in game in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

For more information about why the ninth planet isn't a planet, go to http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/pluto-ez.html ~SDC~

Reply to Sol system in game in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Wrong, oddly enough. Scientists recently discovered that Pluto is not, as was previously thought, a planet, but is, in fact, a cartoon dog. [Message Edited]

Reply to A Maso Small Map Guide For All The Family in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Also When Allied to anyone means that you can build starbases in the same sector as their planets.. [/quote] You can do that anyway. Do you mean you can build cultural bomb starbases without them complaining? [quote]you no longer have to keep giving gifts to keep your relationships from dropping down to war[/quote] When relations are good and you are fairly powerful this seems to stop happening anyway. ~SDC~

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Sounds like another example of the AI failing to focus its forces on capturing enemy planets and instead just sending ships around attacking everyone at random. I just won a Maso conquest victory with a score of 8480. Is this a record low under 1.10? On the plus side, it only took about 90 minutes, and I managed to avoid excess cheese. (Although at one point I made peace with the Yor, bought the Battle Hammer that was defending his star system, and then invaded immediately.) <

Reply to Sol system in game in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Not enough room on the screen for all eight planets? ~SDC~

Reply to all my freighters are from SOL -- that a problem? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You can always build and give away a culture bonus starbase in a system that you don't want to flip for the sake of a boosted trade route. ~SDC~

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hello again! Thanks, everybody. I won my 52k maso gigantic game fairly easily. I set Tight Clusters, and got a good central location. By building a starbase in the right place, I gained access to a huge completely unoccupied cluster of stars in one corner of the galaxy, and got them all, making me the biggest power in the galaxy. The Drengin and Yor got wiped out early by the Fundamentalist event early on, which was good as the Fundamentalists were willing to pay for my techs. The only sign

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Matthew,Got a suggestion for you. If you have an old save of the 1.1 anomalous crippling game you played (not endgamesave), do a retire and see if the score is zero. If that's the case, you could try retiring your Maso Gig game to see if the game is anomalous.[/quote] Good idea. I went back to my earlier save games for the anomalous - I kept a few backups. In August 2183, I could retire and get 714 metaverse points. In Feb 2185, retiring gave me 0 metaverse points. So whateve

Reply to ok..... since maso seems to be the only way to rack up some points now.... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Fix this damn Bug ASAP please! [/quote] Don't worry, AIL. My piece was a hoax, a parody of all the other guides and bug abuse systems. [quote]This from the man who passionately defended the GCCG...[/quote] When a GROSS post offends me, I tell myself it must have been intended to be tongue in cheek. It's the only way I can stay out of flame wars. Otherwise, I'd be responding indignantly to posts like this: [quote]The Gccg was not cheesy. It was a way

Reply to ok..... since maso seems to be the only way to rack up some points now.... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You haven't been reading the GC Strategies board then? The GCMCG Just follow the following simple rules, and victory is absolutely guaranteed in an hour or less, with a minimum of 50K metaverse points: Set the game to Large, Rare, Masochistic, Scattered Clusters, Abundant Always play as the Universalists. Set income tax to 68% and leave it there. No other value is acceptable. Build nothing except for colony ships until you have colonised every available planet,

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

(We rejoin our heroes as they return from Mordor in an appropriated Fellow-ship, after a pointless quest to destroy a fake Ring. The film rights for this story are still available!) Ancient History ‘“...and five syllables in the last line,” he said. “Like this?” I said. Upon a time, I met a maid. Her hair looked good but it was man-made. “Yes, I suppose...” said the elf-lord, “But a true haiku is of its time. It should at least hint at a

Reply to Player-created Tutorial/Advanced Tips in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There are a few glitches in the AI that can make the game too easy once you know them. Be careful what you read - it may reduce your fun. ~SDC~

Reply to Expansion Pack in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Are 1.05 games playable under the expansion pack?[/quote] Generally speaking, no. ~SDC~

Reply to Undeserved medal? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Maybe it means you've won ten games and _you_ have a score of over 3000? ~SDC~

Reply to Bug report for 1.10.072 in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

My first 1.10 game (crippling, tiny) ended with a metaverse score of zero, eg anomalous. I have no idea what I did wrong. I had no mods, never had an unreasonable amount of money, and didn't activate any cheats. I've tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling, and completing it under different conditions, without it making any difference. I was going to try a masochistic gigantic game next, but I'm worried that the same thing will happen. ~SDC~

Reply to Problems with Stardock Central in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]I can update fine with Stardock, but not with the traditional patch, which I can't download.[/quote] I've managed to download this now. I was even able to resubmit a masochistic game that came out anomalous before. ~SDC~

Reply to Problems with Stardock Central in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I can update fine with Stardock, but not with the traditional patch, which I can't download. I'm trying to get back to version 1.05 so I can load an old saved game, but whenever I click on the link from http://www.galciv.com/download.asp, I usually get a 'The page cannot be displayed' error. Occasionally, I get through to a page that wants my CD Key and email address, but when I've finished typing all that in and pressed the button for the next page, I get another 'cannot be displayed' error. <b

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I think 'Fellowship' on its own has a certain ring to it. Won a 1.10 game (crippling, tiny, abundant) and it told me I'd earned zero metaverse points. Does this mean they now announce anomalous scores before you submit them? Not that I'd done anything remotely anomalous... I can't see any polls on the left hand side. ~SDC~