Peter Harris

Reply to Scoring in 1.05 - we need your input in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Would a penalty for changing alignments be desirable? By way of explanation you start off neutral then say take the alignment hits to get huge starship bonuses or PQ improvements then later bombard some useless planet with colony ships to get back to being good by taking all the good choices (who cares if the PQ of that size 6 world will be reduced if you destroying the colony immediately anyway). This would penalise a cheesey strategy.

AAR of my first game in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

An AAR of my first game (from about 9 days ago). No strategy tips here. I did many bad things and very few good things. AI difficulty level was set to fool which, as you will see, compared most favourably to the human intelligence level for this particular game. My game play has changed a lot since then. My first game went along the lines of: 1. send colonist to nearby star and explore with scout (so far so good) 2. lease some colonists from Mitrosoft as it suggested in the

Flipping minors, a question. in Strategies Stardock Forums

When I build up my influence I find that nearby worlds belonging to majors flip to me. The Alexians also flip to me but none of the other minor races have ever flipped to me. In one game every world owned by a major within 3 sectors of my home system would flip to me in a few turns. The Alexians who were about 5 or 6 sectors away were flipping to me. OTH I had 3 minor races right next to my home system who would not flip. One was on a planet I gave them which had flipped to me from the

Reply to Population Troubles in Strategies Stardock Forums

You need morale boosters and reasonable taxes to keep your population growing. Think of population growing in steps. It grows until it reaches a sort of plateau then you boost morale so it grows to a new plateau. (It reaches a plateau because the extra population makes morale decline.) The population growth just makes it faster to get to the new plateau or population limit. It does not increase the maximum possible population. I probably haven't put this very well but

Reply to Galactic Civilizations: Most Mod-able Game Ever! in Mods Stardock Forums

I would gladly pay (A$75 or US$35) for a user-friendly editor including map editing as I am not at all good with computers. (hint to Stardock) [Message Edited]

Reply to The Dark Side in Strategies Stardock Forums

I agree with RayChua post #5 with one small reservation. Not all good techs should be available to an evil race because there are some things a truly evil race would not do. Some should be available for use in a deceitful way.

Reply to Anyboby Tech Whoring? in Strategies Stardock Forums

vincible Yep, reckon you are right. I was having a field day pimping away then I read a couple of posts by highest level players mentioning that the AI might only give a one or two gold for a tech. Oh well, have to unlearn the bad habits I am getting. ;) Been down that path before though particularly with Imperialism 2 and Civ, what works wonderfully at Tutor level is a disaster at Impossible. Umh, interestingly a good strategy at highest level can be a suboptimal strategy at lowest le

Reply to Having Trouble At "Normal" Difficulty in Strategies Stardock Forums

Scott Drummonds You mentioned "civ-style" play. Try civ style with your tech trades to keep up on technology. Gotta trade 2 techs with Russia for 1 tech, trade the new tech and cash to France for a tech, sell a tech to India for gold. In civ if you don't trade they all trade everything leaving you no techs to offer so you get left behind. Civ-style tech-whoring is working very well for me at sub-normal in Galciv. :)

Reply to Newbie questions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

You are right. You set resource allocation empire wide, you can't manage each planets production individually.

Reply to Anyboby Tech Whoring? in Strategies Stardock Forums

I sell nearly anything (except planets, useful starbases and a few key techs and things) to nearly anyone. Makes good money. I rush built some luxury (spices?) in my current game and whored it to minors and the weaker friendly majors for a tidy profit. I rushbuilt and whored all subsequent luxury specials (but controlled my selling of gravity accelerators). I play at beginner level but I gather the AI gets stingy at the higher difficulties so such strategies may become unviable

More new chum questions in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

First some background. I am playing a game on a tiny map at beginner difficulty and have restricted myself to my home star system to figure out how to squeeze the most out of a system. I noticed my morale went down to 30 on one planet and 40 on the other so I set a counter-espionage budget and eventually morale went up to 40 and 55. I don't see why it won't go higher particularly since I have many buildings and a happiness resource. I am sharing a sector with a minor race who apparently

Reply to Economic annoyance in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Morality trumped the dollar. Happens in the real world too (sometimes). :)

Reply to Culture and Diplomacy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

s w Regard it as a speculative investment. Sometimes you blow your money on a trivial issue and sometimes, as forceinfinity mentions, you hit the jackpot on a major issue. Bit like having a blind portfolio of shares, some go down and some go up, hopefully more up than down so you gain overall. :)

Reply to Apolyton is 1st and controls 25% of the galaxy. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

PontiusBruinPilot Yes. You should make Apolyton your official website, get with the strength. ;)

Reply to Improve your Galciv experience with computerlove. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks for that. Now I know why my computer hates me. I only got 2 points. Does that mean I am a cold, heartless bastard? ;)

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Staffa On the lower levels the AI has yet to declare war on me and only demands tribute if my fleet is really teensy weensy. I did get a message that the Drengin were trying to destabilise me at the second lowest level though.

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

RayChua Do the AI majors take out the minors ASAP. I would rather leave the minors alone but if the AI gobbles them up I would need to do the same. (So far I have only played tiny maps at the two lowest difficulty levels so the minors have been quite capable of fending off the majors. LOL in my first game, at fool, the minors were the big boys)

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

RayChua LOL I find getting into early war is extremely desirable in Civ3. I was thinking that it is also desirable at the lowest levels of Galciv, I tried it was good. I expect strategy would need to change very significantly if one were to try the higher levels. (A very successful Civ3 chieftain strategy may be suicidally foolish at Emperor level because the game is so very different. Probably same for Galciv?)

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

forceinfinity "Oscillating warfare" is a Civ3 term which actually refers to taking down TWO civilisations. You build up, attack one civilisation, grab some cities and extort stuff for a twenty turn peace treaty. You immediately attack the second civ and do the same to him. As soon as the 20 turn teaty with the first civ expires you attack him again and extort heaps more (or destroy if you can't extort lots). Oscillating warfare was possibly a bad analogy. At the beginning of a

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

RayChua Do you mean something along the lines of "give them a moderate gift now so they don't demand a big gift later" to keep them off your back and maybe even co-operate with you. A twist on the Civ3 strategy of give your neighbour presents to keep him off your back while you build up to conduct a bit of "oscillating warfare" against him? (I gather from your other posts that you play Civ3 so may know precisely what "oscillating warfare" means).

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

redshift Good points you make there. Now that I think of it one race (it was one of the "good" ones, can't remember which) did make demands that were not too outrageous and your idea of paying them off to get an alliance later makes good sense (costly alliance but may well be worth every cent over the long run). The Drengin did make demands so utterly outrageous that I would be unable to resist them if I paid. The other race made demands that were merely absurd. I didn't play t

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Umh, yes. I was astonished at how much they demanded and astonished at how soon they were back for more. (I thought the Civ3 AI was greedy!). It seems I better get those warships rolling of the docks very quickly. This AI greed will probably make the very early game more interesting for me. I find once I have a decent navy the AI leaves me alone (at least at the low levels I play at).

Reply to how to get peace without a treaty! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

On a related note I have been able to start wars when the Parliament votes against it. I just ring up some alien (whoever happens to be at war with my intended victim) and offer to attack whoever I wanted to attack, they accept my generous offer. It seems like an exploit, not that it matters in a single player SP game. NB. My game is "straight out of the box", no patches or downloads.

Reply to Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Clarification. By the time the second round of demands came I had a few starfighters. At all times I had heaps of constructors in the military build queue and could therefore roll off warships in every planet immediately, rather more than enough to destroy any fleet any AI could send. No one had battle axe tech by then.

Paying extortion, is it ever worth it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Reading the threads here and at Apolyton I get the idea that the AI demands tribute if it is stronger than you. You pay the tribute which is normally so expensive it nearly bankrupts you (or a whole star system) and then 5 turns later the same civ is back demanding more. It sounds like paying tribute would wreck you real fast. I started up a game (at moderate difficulty) to see what would happen if I didn't build a fleet. I received very early demands for tribute from three civs, I told