HydroAC

Reply to Stardock, I'm Disappointed in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Is she still alive? I thought she died. Maybe she and Imus can get something going together. There's a match made in heaven. Oh, yes. The village of ~9000 where I live in the west Chicago suburbs decided to have their first newspaper edition with an Ann Coulter editorial. Boy, did that ever get a pointed and decidedly negative response - and that is in the conservative suburbs. Both Ann and Imus are in the entertainment industry, although I get th

Reply to Stardock, I'm Disappointed in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Friend Kinjiru, you are quite right. I found the little switcheroo at first to be surprising, then alarming (since I thought my PC had been hijacked), and then I was slightly offended. If I want non-linear hyperventilating rants I’ll visit Ann Coulter’s web site. Hydro

Reply to Is Civ 4 worth picking up? in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Civ4 has gotten good reviews, but I lost interest pretty quickly. What was infuriating and what eventually made it selfware was its tendency to crash or simply...stop...after mid game. My PC was well within its recommended levels and the patches didn't help. Maybe I’m spoiled by games with well designed and interesting factions (SMAC/X comes to mind), but the Civ4 factions all seemed one dimensional and I had a hard time caring enough to spend the time to make the game work. GalCiv2 is

Reply to I'm losing patients with this game, yeah I suck too. in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Clearstar, One part of GalCiv2 that I like is that I can try different strategies. I tend to get stuck in as rut and have found that the AARs and strategy posts are very helpful to see what other people do. For instance, as PitSnipe said, population is everything, and to get more population you have to be competitive in the colony rush. Perhaps you are spending too much time and resources in technology and a lower grade of propulsion would work. Getting spd 3 or maybe 4 colony

Reply to Recreating Enterprise - the challenge in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Good grief! As if I feel inadequate enough. Hydro

Reply to The Other Shoe in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Marshal, You’ve set a high bar. Simply excellent. Hydro

Reply to The Yor are BROKEN in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

'Broken' is a strong word. I think it is better to test how the races fare with respect to each other and a human player. That is the test of balanced game play. What is good is that the developers are always tweaking the races and gameplay so that there will be some sort of balance. That said, perfect balance would be perfectly boring, which is why I like Super Abilities. Hydro

Reply to Ships in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The default hulls generally do not have the best weapons, engines, armor, sensors, life support etc that your empire has. If you use the default ships, therefore, then you will miss out on the fruits of your hard-won technology. Also, the default ships are not optimized for what you need to do. For instance, do you REALLY need to get colony ships out and have them go as fast as possible? Then you need the best engines you have. Do you absolutely have to have the best fighter to fight th

Reply to Question/Issue Yor and colonization of barren planets in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

You only have the 1st level of barren planet extreme colonization for free with the Yor. With the first level of extreme colonization you can set the colony but you have significant production penalties. To get the full potential out of a barren planet you'll need to get Advanced Barren colonization. The same is true for Iconians (aquatic, toxic (?)) and Korath (toxic). Hydro

Reply to The great diaspore of the Amatons. in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

My custom races aren't so well thought out, which is a shame. It's more fun to role play if there is a back history! Hydro

Reply to The great diaspore of the Amatons. in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Nice use of paranoia as a guiding force in a race’s view of the galaxy! You’ve also done a great job integrating Super Breeder into this – kind of a Super Breeder Lebensraum? The pre-history works very well, too. Also, I think your use of English actually helps the narrative. It has a different cadence and has a use of words that suggests this is an alien race. So, no need for any apology! Looking forward to more! Hydro

Reply to Beginner Question -- Colony Ship Rushing in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I don't use scouts - don't have time. My colony ships do my exploration. I may take a pause in the colony rush to build a few cargo survey hulls (after I get Sensor 1), though. They serve to see the galaxy and grab anomolies. Later they make great sentinals to make sure Bad Guys aren't sneaking in. Hydro

Reply to Are you playin' good or evil? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Question 1: do folks play Evil because of the bonuses or because you like to laugh maniacially and enjoy Blood Makes Grass Grow? Question 2: If Good weren't so whimpy (or Evil had serious long term disadvantages, which doesn't seem to have now (and I think it should)) would that change your mind? Question 3: What would convince the Dr. Evil's out there to play good? Hydro

Reply to Having problems with espionage in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Don't place one or two. Place a bunch. That way the AI can't nullify all of them. You get a higher espionage level by having had spies on the AI's planets for a number of turns. The longer the spies are in place and the greater number of spies the faster this will increase. You'll get a prompt when you hit the next 'level' of espionage. Hydro

Reply to Are you playin' good or evil? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I generally play the alignment the race starts with, which means that I role play each race as the designers intended. This makes it more fun for me. Overall, I have to agree that Good is more of a challenge. Hydro

Reply to Why I love this game..... in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

You can deal with that by doing periodic saves (say, every year or half year). Then if you have a great game you can re-open the save files, get screenshots or other juicy info, and then do the AARs. I tend to save the games and will occasionally will go back to refresh my memory. Plus, I very rarely get to finish a game in one sitting so I have to have game saves anyway. I just need to remember to save the games, which is easy to overlook when the early game turns speed by. Just a thou

Reply to what are ship level's? (beginner question) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

In many of my games ship level wasn’t very critical since all it did was increase hit points, and not that much either. However, in my last game the AI seemed to be stuck technologically. There was no incentive for me to upgrade my weapons, so I had medium hull ships running around as my primary ships with 12/0/0 attack and 0/6/0 defense the whole game (7+ years). Many of the battles were somewhat even, and by the end I had quite a few med hulls that were Level 50 to 71 and with HPs tha

Reply to my likes and dislikes in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

slabster, I never played DL much so I'm not very familiar with how it works, so I'll take your word on it. However, in DA I don't see any additional attacks in the combat screen that seem to be attributable to engines. It seems to be weapon-per-weapon resolution. Any 'extra' attackes in DA are on the strategic screen. Hydro

Reply to Getz AAR: Super Breeder in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Overall I really liked Super Breeder. Summary of Super Breeder advantages: • Quick starts economy due to fast population growth • Allows very fast production of colony ships or transports since population will be quickly replaced, and the economic hit is not as hard since populations are quickly replaced • Get higher influence since it is partially based in planet population Incidental advantages of Super Breeder: • Harder to invade Super Breeder worlds since po

Reply to my likes and dislikes in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I played Civ4 for a while, but it kept crashing my system and required a hard boot. I got tired of that so it is now shelfware. Engines - only affect stragetic movement. I don't think they're intended to play a role in tactical combat. Sensors - I get the feeling that accuracy improvements are built into the weapons progression. Sensors, again, are strategic (e.g. - big map). Glad you are enjoying GalCiv2. Are you playing Dread Lords or Dark Avatar? Hydro

Reply to Tourism from influence starbases in empty areas of map in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Oops - typo. Mea culpa. And I did rely on the manual. I'm not sure what you mean on dividing up the tourism, though. Do you mean: 1) Race’s Tourism $$ = 1bc per 1B pop in galaxy * (# sectors controlled by race by influence) / (total sectors with racial influence) or 2) Race’s tourism $$ = 1bc per 1B pop in galaxy * (# sectors controlled by race by influence) / (all sectors in galaxy) Or something else? The difference is in 1) all tourism $$

Reply to An epic game! in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Nope, I haven't done any GalCiv2 metaverse. I've looked into it and I have to admit that the instructions aren’t very clear (or I’m a bit dense). I don’t understand generating a ‘character’ or joining a race. When I’ve poked around I haven’t seen anything that explains how it is supposed to work, so I wandered away. Hydro

Reply to Getz AAR: Super Breeder in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

January 2235 OK, I’m done. The Krynn started to research alliance, and then bailed. The other AI’s are busy playing with themselves. The Krynn capital revolted to me in December 2234 and after that my close relations went to friendly and lots of new negatives showed up: tendency to conquer others, alarming influence (really????), “we know what you’re doing”, etc. Four trade routes collapsed. In short, there isn’t much chance of getting my relations back any time soon. I’m an ally with t

Reply to Getz AAR: Super Breeder in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

December 2233 The assault on the Drengin continued and I actually lost a ship! What?!!! It seems that two or three of his ships were actually ships that had some good firepower, and they targeted a damaged ship. And it died – the only cruiser (medium hull) I’ve lost. In July 2232 I took the last Drengin planet. I took his capital in May and wanted to draw it out so I’d have as many mining bases revolt due to influence, and when half had I put the Drengin out of my misery. <br/

Reply to Tourism from influence starbases in empty areas of map in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Hmmm. I've had one or two races declare war citing my 'tendency to conquer others'. Relations are generally pretty shaky, and generally have a counter alignment. If the race is friendly or better my transgressions are overlooked. Usually 'tendency to conquer others’ shows up as a "-" in the relations screen, but only with those who are neutral or dislike me to start with. Taking out minors just fuels their distrust, I guess. Of course, it could be that the AI bands together to take dow