Hermann the Lombard

Reply to Tech Limits in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, all good points about how hard it would be to code the AI to use "transformations" effectively. After all, the AI uses what it has rather poorly. LDiCesare mentioned Cultural Conquest and AMMs. I haven't gone the Party Palace route yet (maybe I'll do so in the maso game I have running). As for the AMMs, I would have been, um, "taken aback" to see the five dreadnoughts that the Altarians had in orbit, but I had a bunch of AMMs to soften them up (that was the Crippling game I finis

Reply to In-game Difficulty (and a gripe) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I save a ridiculous number of times, using names like B219410 BrinkOfWar.sav -- which is Game B, year and month, just before attacking the Altarians to end the game. Turned out to have been "Crippling" and I posted it today. I think "C" is "Maso" and "D" is "LessSo" ;)

Reply to Tech Limits in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Far be it from me to argue with a Jedi...but while BB is a critical tech, a BB is (more or less) a bigger, badder FF, and then a Dreadnought is a bigger, badder BB.

In-game Difficulty (and a gripe) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

No doubt I'm overlooking something obvious, but once playing, how do you determine the difficulty level? I cleverly named some saved games A, B, C, & D (with year and month), so they are neatly organized but I don't remember which is which. I think "A" was "Challenging" and "C" is "Maso" but I don't remember if "B" is "Crippling" or "Maso" . . . And the gripe: there should be a Yes/No confirmation on "Quit Game" -- I spent about five minutes launching the game and loading a large map,

Tech Limits in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'm enjoying the game (even on maso, now, thanks to Ray and all the others sharing their wisdom), but I feel a bit disappointed. I think the key (as a long-time SF reader) is a certain lack of imagination on the part of the game designers. For example, I took one look at the Nov.2003 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and picked it up. Some "headlines:" Strings & Spacetime with 11 Dimensions (Kinda takes the wind out the sails of 4D Phasing...) How to Move Asteroids <br

Reply to Install from CD problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks for the suggestions, eradicus. I think all the Windows Update stuff is current, but maybe not directx (though why my older computer works fine is a mystery...perhaps not a mystery that I should look at too closely!) -- HtL

Install from CD problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Had an odd one. Tried to install from the retail CD on the Dell I bought in April for my Significant Other. WinXP Home. Autorun brings up the installation menu, but when I click Install Game the program goes immediately to "Not Responding." Can't even End Task to get out of it (or at least I have to do End Task multiple times). Once the program finally exits I see a message about Flash 5. I downloaded and installed the latest Flash player, but no joy. Any ideas? [Mind you, it may

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

3-4 weeks between new games sounds about right (judging by equivalent contests in Civ2/Civ3/CTP2/etc). Gives time for someone to go on vacation (or get buried in work). Midstream changes are part of the fun of a succession game. "He did WHAT???" But WW is right that it's a very different experience. GOTM lets people play in parallel; succession is (a continuing) serial. That's very slow, and players are apt to burn out or drop out. GOTM by its nature allows more active participation.

Reply to request fix/clarification on tribute payments in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, there's a bug there, but if I choose 2000 for 1 turn, I would *expect* to be charged 2000. 4000*0=0 I would want to see the "zero turns" disappear and become "1 turn" so multiplication works normally.

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

Nand1: If you start in the middle you lose the critical (and enjoyable) initial expansion and initial tech and resource choices. Skillful handling of that period is one of the things that separates the best from the rest. For a (semi)coherent story line, consider a "succession game" where a small group of players (5 or 6) play a game in series, each playing (say) a year and then passing the game to the next (successor) player. Naturally, the game would have a thread where each player in

Reply to My score doesn't show in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

??? Yes, that would be the one. When I posted from my laptop, I got the little guy in the fuzzy screen and a message "Game Submitted Successfully" or some such. The message "send status 1, error status 0" isn't exactly user friendly, is it? Also, I got that message for both submission attempts yesterday; presumably one succeeded, one failed. Confuzerating!!! (Thanks, vincible!)

Reply to My score doesn't show in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, an annoyed lampooner. Just finished a medium, normal military conquest. I had my internet connection open at the time. User name and email were correct. Submitted game. Got something like Error 1 Status 0 or some such. Reloaded the end game save. Re-won the game, and up came the proper user name and email. Clicked "submit" and got the same error. So far two of my three submissions failed. Phooey...which is not what I said, but it's what I will type here!

Reply to Rally Points in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I'm finding rally points very frustrating. When I gather ships or constructors at a spot, each time I try to click on the ship(s) it activates the rally point editor. It's hard to get at the ships!

Reply to My score doesn't show in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Theoden: I'm a private pilot and I plan to take a mountain flying course "as soon as practicable" (in FAA lingo). One of the places I plan to visit is Angel Fire. [Sorry about the off-topic posts!] -- HtL

Reply to My score doesn't show in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Little do I know of the Metaverse, and more likely am I to be found in the company of Arrowroot, Gimlet, and Legolam than among the Riders of Roi-Tan...much less in the camp of Rohan. OTOH, how can I argue with an empire based on angelfire, since I'm fond of the name and just recently drove the High Road to Taos along the Sangre de Christo, just across the ridge from Angelfire itself? -- HtL

Reply to My score doesn't show in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Next victim!" Well, Ray, here I am with the same problem, more or less. I tried to submit scores from two games yesterday, one from this laptop computer and one from my home desktop computer. From here, I believe I entered "Hermann the Lombard" as the alias, and I just used wincustomize to confirm that nickname. I got a popup saying that the score was submitted successfully, but "search" on the Metaverse does not find any scores from "Hermann the Lombard". From home I didn

Developing resources in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In Icarium's thread on runaway alien bonuses, eradicus wrote: "Rainbird I assume that like other resources you must build the appropriate facilities on planets for the military resources to help increase the weapons/defense stats of ships." I guess as a newbie I'm unclear what this means, and it hasn't been clear to me what's happening as (for example) I pump up the mining on a Morale, Research, or Influence resource. Can someone enlighten me? -- HtL

Reply to Blockade? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yes, preserving a minor was what I had in mind. This is the "third minor" and they popped up right in the same sector as Sol (so speed was not of the essence). I was thinking that defense might increase the deterrent value of the blockade, so I pumped out a bunch of defenders supplemented by a couple of BC that raced over from nearby stars once the friendly Drengin declared war on the minor.

Reply to Blockade? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks for the confirmation! -- HtL

Blockade? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

In strat threads I saw references to blockading a resource and to blockading a minor (to preserve the minor against attacks by a major). OK, sounds good, but how do you DO that? Just put ships in all eight adjacent spots? -- HtL

Reply to Backing up save games prior to unistalling/reinstalling in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, I used the same CD for both machines, downloaded the current standalone (1.05 w/bonus pack, I think), unzipped and installed it on my desktop, burned the zip file onto a CD on my desktop, copied the zip file off that CD onto my laptop, unzipped and installed...which to make a short story long means that both computers should have the same version. [In fact, both computers also have the demo version which I didn't uninstall...but still the same config.] So it *should* work, but doe

Reply to Backing up save games prior to unistalling/reinstalling in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

RtW, I have GalCiv installed on my laptop and on my desktop. I started a game on the laptop that I wanted to continue on the desktop. I copied the .sav file and the sub-folder to a disk, then copied them into /galciv/data/savegames on the desktop. Crashed to the virtual desktop when I tried to load. Was there some other file that I needed? [Both installations were from the store-bought CD updated with the 1.05 standalone patch.] -- HtL