Shamgar

Reply to Web Poll in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I've noticed the same thing.

Reply to Wow... I mean... wow. in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Us Americans are notorious for not using english properly That should be " We Americans are notorious ..." Couldn't resist that True, as said above, poor grammar and spelling are not the worst thing that could happen here, but the

Reply to A thought about fighter balance. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I'm surprised to hear of putting life support and sensors on fleet ships. Getting Eyes of the Universe is always a priority for me, and that removes the need for sensors. Most warfare takes place within normal range of a ship without extra life support. In cases where I must get further away, I plop down a military starbase to extend range, until I capture a planet. I use life support and sensors only for specialty ships, and usually only near the beginning of the game. As far as the wa

Reply to Planet-rush in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Also, depending upon what race you are, you may have to get a few techs in order to have the engines for the colony ships. Put your science at 100% at least until you get them, maybe longer for other important techs.

Reply to Feature Request: Please remove the 15 parsec sensor range cap in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

It was kind of cool, in the early betas (before the 15 limit) to build "AWACS" units (ships loaded up with sensors)to put on the borders. No point to that now. In fact, I never put even one sensor on any ship anymore. And I never purchase a sensor module for a star base. I just go for Eyes of the Universe as soon as practicable. It would be nice if sensors became at least somewhat valuable again. If this situation could be tweaked a bit without compromising performance, that would be nice.

Reply to Shock News : True story: Planet disappears from solar system in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I thought the planet-destoying "death stars" were no longer available, by order of Stardock??!!

Reply to The cheapest price in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

Pharris73 is right ... put the mouse pointer over the bottom slider and use the mouse wheel to get 1 bc increments. Also, put the pointer on the arrow above to move in increments of 10 bc. I really like it the way it is. Before I discovered the mouse wheel technique, I found it pretty tedious to type in numbers or click repeatedly on the slider arrows.

Reply to Starbases and Selling in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Or, you could go to the diplomacy screen for the alien of your choice, select one of your ships, and see how many bc's the alien will give you for it. First, click on the ship you want to sell (in your column), and then, in the alien's column, click on the "bc" number on the top. When the slider screen pops up, adjust the number up and down until you get the highest number with the words in the dialog green rather than red. That means they will accept the deal. I've never tried to sell a ship, I

Reply to Star Base Blues in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I use economic star bases extensively for improving planet production, giving priority to solar systems with multiple colonies. Also, you can often get planets from two adjacent solar systems in the same sphere of influence. I add the trade bonus modules only as an afterthought, if I happen to have a trade route passing through the starbase area. I use influence star bases to "culture bomb" alien colonies, and I find that can work pretty well. In a recent game (on "painful") I didn't want to

Reply to Deleting all ship designs in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Just the one colony ship that you start with. After that, it's all my own designs. I just click the "user" tab so that the core ships don't even show up in the lists.

Reply to Planet development - 'Repair' things? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Micro Repair Bots works for all of the ships in your fleet, no matter where they are or where they were manufactured. You can only build one because it is a trade good, and if someone else builds it before you, you can only get it by 1) Getting them to trade the ability to you, or 2) Acquiring the alien planet that built the Micro Repair Bots. It's not a 1.2 addition, but has been in the game from the start. It's well worth having, but to be honest someone else usually gets that one before I do

Reply to Don't expect the AI to get any better. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

As someone who works in professional counseling, I'm sitting here wondering what the OP's real problem is. It appears to go beyond gaming. It's a shame because he is apparently an intelligent person who could have a lot of good to offer. As a few other replies mentioned, you are not going to get an AI that matches an intelligent, determined human. Look how long it took to get chess programming that could challenge the best human players - and that involves only 32 pieces on an 8 by 8

Reply to Do techs from a surrendering race go to the race surrendered to? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The main way I have gotten techs from another race, besides trading, is by conquering their planets. So, the more planets a race has, the more techs you have a chance of getting. And sometimes you get ones pretty far up the tech tree.

Reply to Surrendering needs an overhaul in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I kind of like the surrendering the way it works now. Sure, it is not the kind of thing you see much in our history, but here on earth we are dealing with continguous portions of land. In the "universe" of GalCiv, these are separate planets, usually in different solar systems light-years of distance away from one another. I can see how they might go over to a third party. Speaking of real history, it's not the exactly the same thing (since we were all at war with Germany), but at the end of WWII

Reply to Eliminating the forums in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I check the forum about every day, and have gotten a lot of good ideas. We probably get as annoyed with a "bad" post as you folks at Stardock do. Most of the time, we just ignore 'em and click on to a worthwhile post. I think you have a decent sense of community built up through this forum that is pleasant for us and, I hope, will prove gratifying to you (in both a personal and a business sense). And for the record, I have had no problems with the way the forum functions. Thanks for y

Reply to Why SD simply must reply to this scandal in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

There are two issues here: The scoring of an individual game, and the calculation of the metaverse "average." I have found the former to be somwhat of a puzzle, but nothing to discourage or take away from the fun of playing the game. The latter, however, I have found frustrating, and I think that is the burden of the "complaint" in this thread. I was rather surprised, for instance, to get a 20,000+ score on one game (certainly not my best, but not my worst, either), and see it drop my MV score b

Reply to Minor Races in V 1.2 in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Yup, same thing just happened to me. Went after a nice, juicy I-League planet, and the Torians and Altarians both declared war on me to "honor their alliance." Thankfully, I'm far enough into the game now that I should be able to take them both out. So yes, the other races *do* notice if you are "cherry picking" the minors.

Reply to Looking for an Empire in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

You would be welcomed, too, in The Colonial Fleet. [link="http://colonialfleet.net/index.php"]http://colonialfleet.net/index.php">Link I have found the group to be friendly and helpful, with a nice active message board. We have our eyes on third place, and more members would be a great help! Whatever empire you join, be sure to have fun playing the game!!

Reply to Constructor suggestions in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

Excellent idea! Besides the tedium of guiding the constructors, there is the problem of usually not knowing whether an upgrade you want is available for a star base until you send a constructor there and find out that it isn't! It is too much to go around clicking individual star bases to see what's on each one. Your suggestions would *greatly* clean up the game.

Reply to What do you name your ships? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I use a class letter (P = patrol, F = fighter, OD = orbital defender, D = destroyer, C = Cruiser, B = battleship). I used to name each class (e.g. P-1 Gnat, P-2 Blackfly; F-1 Hawk, F-2 Falcon, D-1 my wife and kids' names, etc.). Having done that for a while, now I am more "practical" and use the name to give the ship's specs, e.g.: F-3 2-0-0 0-1-0 would be a fighter (small hull) with a speed of 3, beam attack of 2, and missle defense of 1. This is helpful for easily grouping ships of the

Reply to The Fortunes of War in Warfare GalCiv2 Forums

>In addition they should also get their starbases, ships, technology, and star maps I don't know. Often a force facing defeat will begin take great efforts to prevent the "goods" from falling into the victor's hands ... e.g. scuttling ships, destroying intel. Getting all of a civilization's techs, especially, would give the victor far too much, and from a gameplay point of view likely unbalance things drastically. And how would we like it if a nearly defeated empire surrendered all of

Reply to AI Cheating? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I got two rangers once. They were a life-saver defense-wise, but not as helpful for offense since they are so slow. As far as getting an announcement somenon has found a Ranger, I think the "announcement" is when it appears in your sensor range and then begins blowing up your ships. I'm sure that any military would want to keep such a find as a "secret weapon" until the point it is being used.

Reply to AI and planet development in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Along the same line, I've noticed that the AI does not take advantage of bonus tiles very well. I treat those like gold. When you think of it, even a 100% bonus is like getting an extra tile (with no need to build or pay upkeep) if you build the right thing on it. Yet, I'll find AI planets with the "wrong" item built on a bonus tile, even though there are still "blank" tiles left. Sometimes I end up demolishing the improvement to build the right item.

Reply to Influence Starbase question in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Here's a related question ... once the planets flip to you and they are firmly in your cultural control, does the influence starbase serve any purpose? If the influence they generate is limited to their sphere of control, would it be advisable to "decommission" an obsolete influence star base, to save on maintanence costs? BTW, I have had Yor planets flip over to me, too ... so it can be done! A cool thing happened in my present game: A planet "saw the light" and came over

Reply to Minor Races in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I like making a minor my trading partner. That way I don't lose revenue when I end up at war with a major. It annoys me when another major gobbles up a nice, juicy high PQ planet. (Mostly, it annoys me because if anyone gets that planet, it should be *me*). If they look like someone is about to grab a minor planet, I develop a cheap "blockader," mak