Matthew Downie

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

[quote]And to all members of the Fellowship: if you would like to have a backstory for the website, please submit it here and I will get it on the website, pronto![/quote] Matthew Downie Elf Poet A mountain-elf, known as Matthew in the human lands, his name in Elvish runes is Downie. Many have crossed the great western ocean in search of the grey havens, yet none have returned, save for he. He has never spoken of what lies beyond the farthest shores, except to com

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

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Reply to GalCiv Haiku in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A cautionary tale: “I shan’t sleep until their world is mine…” A new dawn heralds victory! And that’s the reason I was late for work today. Please don’t fire me. Please? A tribute to my favourite GalCiv communication text: the torians sent me a bouncy red ball. it sure beats a dreadnaught! ~SDC~

Reply to Fellowship News in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

As long as the fastest way to improve your score in the Metaverse is by playing at a difficulty level so easy that the other empires will actually give you free money any time you ask (try it - set diplomacy high and offer someone 100BC in exchange for 120BC), I'm not going to take it at all seriously. I tried cranking the other day and found a way to get around the anomalous score issue, but I don't intend to do it again. I'd rather play at Masochistic. ~SDC~

Reply to GalCiv Haiku in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Here are today's Haiku: we look so alike Mr Altarian – can we just live in peace? no. this gigantic galaxy ain’t big enough for the both of us. five billion souls sleep soundly, in the belly of the combat transport We are the mighty Alexians, and we claim… Why are you laughing? You defeat us with culture. I think I’d prefer Core Detonation. Just one Virtual

Reply to GalCiv Haiku in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Now THAT's an authentic Haiku, couslee. Mentioned a season, I didn't understand it, sounded depressing. Theoden, haven't you ever read any of the deeply moving Quake poetry boards? eg: Scent of rocket fuel See, a wisp of azure smoke Take that you smacktard! ~SDC~

Reply to Typo. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I was worried it might distract them from fixing the bugs. In my current game it crashed after I disbanded one of my colonies, and when I reloaded it at an earlier point, the drengin immediately declared war on me. And then there are those little up-down scrolling arrows at the side of the trading windows that disappear if you click on the bottom technology in a long list, and stop you scrolling back up again. As a games programmer myself who's had to meet the strict requirements of idiot-proofi

Reply to Star Base Mining question in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Another thing to remember about economic percentages is that they all add up rather than multiply... Say the population tax on a planet would normally be bringing in 10 per turn. You have a civilisation economic bonus of +50%, and various economic buildings on the planet giving another +80%. Total: +130%. Modified income: 23. If you get +68% from a new starbase, you might expect it to increase the planet income by 68% of its curent value, from 23 to 39 or so. Instead, it

Reply to GalCiv Haiku in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yor Haiku: Zero one one one one one one one zero. One zero zero one! (approximate translation: The galaxy is not a tidy place. Let us cleanse it of all life! ) ~SDC~

Reply to Typo. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

GalCiv is full of typos. Very irritating to someone as pedantic as me. ~SDC~

Reply to Pacifist conquest strategies in Strategies Stardock Forums

Thanks, Ray. I tried again today and it didn't go quite as well. ~SDC~

Reply to GalCiv Haiku in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Your good reviews were an inspiration to me. My thanks to you both. across dark light years lies the invisible dot that I once called home Rhyming haiku - on beating GalCiv in the max difficulty mode: Masochistic game: Will whoever chose that name hang his head in shame? Haiku inspired by playing at Masochistic again and losing which stupid fool gave hyperdrive technology to those Drengin scum?

Reply to Logistics and Super Fleets in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I would avoid makng it too much like the Army feature in Civ3. It sounded like a good idea, but what actually seemed to happen was that you (rarely) grouped together a bunch of units into a single unit that wasn't very effective because it could only attack once per turn. Or maybe I was doing it wrong. ~SDC~

Reply to Life Force Resources in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A PQ resource might be unbalanced, but there are lots more resource types that could be added. You could have new resources for: Cultural resistance Diplomacy Hit points Military production Population growth Repair Social production Soldiering Trade ~SDC~

Reply to Scoring question, Norm, Tiny. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A basic reliable high scoring strategy is to switch off cultural and technological victory, and research every single technology before you capture the last planet. I tried this once. It was a bit boring - the game is usually more fun if you don't play for score. Also, I had to dismantle my Influence Resource starbases to stop myself winning too soon through cultural flips. ~SDC~

Reply to GalCiv Haiku in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

debris of smashed ships space was never so silent all aliens gone fallen galaxy now we are wholly alone in winning, we lose ~SDC~

Pacifist conquest strategies in Strategies Stardock Forums

Ever feel guilty about exterminating planetary populations when invading enemy territory? Over my last three or four games I've been developing a code of honour that goes way beyond the 'good' described in the game. Having selected the Pacifist Party, I thought it would be interesting to actually play as a pacifist. My pacifistic rules are: Never attack an enemy ship Never attack an enemy planet Never build a combat ship (scouts, constructors, etc. are fine) Never go to

Reply to CTD Game of the Month in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'd advise most people to set the game to autosave every turn. ~SDC~

Reply to Logistics and Super Fleets in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It could work... How would a 'fleet' be defined? As ships in a single map square? It would be a bit annoying not to be able to group lots of ships together for simple convenience (rather than for a tactical bonus). Personally, I'd like combat to be a bit more tactical. Let's see some 'nebula ambush bonuses' and area-affect attacks that damage multiple ships. PS On a related topic, hurry up and fix the fleet defence bonus bug! At least with the other abusable bugs, like the buy-

Reply to Kissing Orbits in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The book The Ragged Astronauts by Bob Shaw features two planets sharing a common atmosphere, so it's possible to travel from one to the other by hot air ballon. (Couldn't happen real life though... at one point, one of the characters mentions that pi = 4, implying they're in a different universe with different physical laws.) ~SDC~

Reply to do you ever just click through the turn button really fast in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

One thing you can do on uneventful turns is to talk to all the alien races to see if they have any cool new techs to trade for. ~SDC~

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

"I'm sure I left my ship parked behind that asteroid..." Hi all, I'm new to this alliance. My score isn't very high because I like to play really short games, but when I saw that I could help a vaguely good alliance seize metaversal dominance over a vaguely evil one at no cost to myself, I jumped at the chance. I don't have to read this whole thread to be a member, do I? I do have a life, you know. It's only a small one, but it has sentimental value. ~SDC~

Defensive stacking in Strategies Stardock Forums

"...if the defender is in a fleet, they do get some bonuses, reflecting the support the other ships can provide." How is this bonus calculated? It seems to cause all sorts of weird results. The AI is constantly throwing away frigates against my stacked corvettes. The bonuses don't seem to apply when the fleet is defending a planet. ~SDC~

Reply to King of the Losers in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yoda - 'in' doesn't always mean 'not. For example, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Here, the prefix in- is not the Latin negative prefix in-, which is related to the English un- and appears in such words as indecent and inglorious. The in- in inflammable is an intensive prefix that is derived from the Latin preposition in. I hope that clears everything up. ~SDC~

Reply to Does the game round UP or DOWN? in Strategies Stardock Forums

On most worlds you'd expect to build Soil Enhancement and Habitat Improvement fairly early, so that's really the situation you should consider. For example, with those two improvements on a quality 12 world and no racial bonus, you'd get a PQ of 12 * 1.2 = PQ 14.4, rounded down to 14. With the +5% bonus, this would be increased to PQ 15. PQ___PQ + 20%__PQ + 25% 12______14_______15 13______15_______16 14______16_______17 15______18_______18 16______19_______20