Philocthetes

Reply to The difference between cats and dogs in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Dogs consider their crap their primary means of marking territory, but due to their sorely-lacking long term memory, they often end up sniffing their own as a reminder that, yes, they own that land. Cats consider their crap vile and toxic and go to great lengths to bury it. They also have good long-term memory, so if a cat craps inside the house, it's either ignorance of the law, spite, or a means of convincing you to let them out once in a while. <b

Reply to Can someone explain this to me? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

The economy is indeed complicated. No one mentioned the penalty for having over 20k in your treasury. If you're spending some turns but not others, jumps like you describe could be intermittent instances of that penalty. If you want to learn more about GC2 economics without scouring this forum, try the Galciv wiki. It's slowly getting better all the time. Check out the Economy page and this <a href="https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wik

Reply to Is It Supposed To Work Like This? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

i'm pretty sure that carrying over technology from mission to mission would be a simple task I'll take your word for it, but that leaves me really curious about why Stardock built the campaigns to have the restart thing in them. Perhaps it is By Design because they meant the campaign as a possible form of "training" for the full, sandbox game.

Reply to The meaning of it all in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

"disc. channel" That's entertainment, not education. I don't follow behavioral science lit closely, but I would be very surprised if there is hard data showing a consistent correlation between danger-seeking and creativity. I'm sure it is true for some folks, but you could hardly call George Washington Carver or Nikolai Tesla danger-seekers. IIRC, there's basic neurochemistry behind this difference among people, at least partly related to dopamine. Some of us are "wired" to see

Reply to AI - Roleplay or Play to Win? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

the sort of point-farming gameplay the metaverse encourages Bingjack, I scoffed the Metaverse for a long while, but the "movement" folks have at least briefly persuaded me to reconsider. If the new Metaverse Council succeeds at some of its stated goals, we should start seeing a broader, more flexible ranking schema that makes room for folks who a

Reply to AI - Roleplay or Play to Win? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

And where the heck did you get this from?! Exactly the contrary, I was saying that Brad's excuse was bull, basically. Apologies. Somehow I'd gotten the impression you balked at "RP" stuff for GCII. I probably misinterpreted some of your KISS talk here & elsewhere in response to some folks feature suggestions. I certainly respect the value of keep

Reply to Is It Supposed To Work Like This? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Are you saying that that would be a case for carrying over research, ships\units, money etc. from one mission to the next Sort of. I guess I'm backing into what I thought I was going to say, and doing it badly. I'm no coder, but it seems like building a campaign system that let you maintain tech (& fleets?) as you progress through scenar

Reply to Is It Supposed To Work Like This? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Largely because not doing so makes the later missions too easy since you could just research everything in the first mission and breeze through the rest with your REAL ULTIMATE POWER. Or maybe this points to a really interesting goal for "the next level" of AI design for the Stardock crew. Why can't the AIs start their first campaign ga

Reply to The meaning of it all in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

at least not until Matrix style technology is developed! You've got a fight over terms here. IMO, if the game requires you to plug in physically (biologically?) and risk that you can lose whatever passes for personal continuity, then it isn't a game, it's "real."

Reply to If I download now... in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The official release date for the final version is Feb 14. Kryo, you're killing me here. Can't you say anything about the "rumoured" release on SDC for pre-order folks?

Reply to Is It Supposed To Work Like This? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I would not be surprised if you've found a "bug" in the campaign stuff. My impression from both the UI & reading around here is that you are supposed to "go along for the ride" in terms of how each scenario-game is set up. The game might even be ignoring your efforts to set attributes for the Terrans. Also, IIRC, tech development is not one of the "continuity" points across the campaign scenarios. The lack of "pick up where you left off" is one of the main reasons I've never managed to

Reply to Starbases in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

Mixed-use starbases are probably the thing I miss most from GCI. I haven't tried mods yet, and this would apparently cause conflicts with my rising interest in the Metaverse, but I'd be interested in trying out something like this if you can get it working.

Reply to The meaning of it all in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

But i do not think dueling was ever somthing for the common man. In the formal sense of dueling with gentleman's rules, you're correct. But don't you think the ancient traditions of calling someone out for a fight that could turn deadly are what y'all are really discussing? Pistol and sword duels and jousting are all upper-class traditi

Reply to Is Stardock making a Fantasy TBS game? in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

2nd markgil's question.

Reply to Metaverse Down? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Or are they doing work to it in prep for Dark Avatar? Very good question. That could explain why we haven't heard that the DA gold bits are starting to roll out to the early pre-order folks.

Reply to When will DA be shipped? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

There has been word that the pre-order folks will be able to download from SDC before the 14th, and that the access will be phased in starting with the earliest orders. Is there any word on when this will start (started), and whether we should wait for an email or just keep trying at SDC until we get access?

Reply to Alliances in DA in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I got offered some alliances in a few DA games, but I don't recall an AI breaking one. If you've got more military strength than your ally, I doubt the AI is inclined to break an alliance to attack you. In fact, I don't immediately recall an AI breaking an alliance with me in any of my DL games either, even when I managed to go from a weakling friend to a potential threat.

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II, Copy Protection, and Piracy in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

This was the biggest F---up they could have made, I'm sure this will hurt the use of their (ineffective) product. I trust "they" here are Starfoce and not Stardock.

Reply to Answers to questions about the Metaverse in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

What does the Metaverse think of you if you start a game but never finish it? Can you even try starting a new game if you want to abandon a current one?

Reply to The Theme of Violence in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

And sorry to say, but Galactic Civilization 2 is all about Xenocide on an "Ender Wiggen" scale (a reference to Ender's Game). Pshaw again. Only the military wins are apparently all about xenocide, and even there we have folks interpreting the invasion mechanics as leaving a "wild native" population in the hills after your troops settle in as new

Reply to The Theme of Violence in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Violence-free entertainment doesn't sell. Pshaw. I'm a fan of some violent things like Battlestar Galactica and the Sopranos, but Hollywood still puts plenty of money into romance flicks where no one gets hurt, and light comedies where none of the jokes are cutting, and you can't tell me that demon-spawn Barney the Dinosaur hasn't been a good ea

Reply to Metaverse Council Suggestion Box in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

This might be a tad OT, but I'd like to suggest making registration at the Core easier. I wear glasses, but my scrip is current. Still, I could not make the 'bot-guard believe I was human no matter how faithfully I thought I reproduced the strings. I also think it might make the site more inviting if you split registration into two phases so that a new user could focus on required fields before having to bother with the full range of account settings.

Reply to AI - Roleplay or Play to Win? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Doesn't look like RP to me. In that other thread, I read Brad to be talking about "fun" and not how a given hardcore player might interpret the character of a given AI. ToS, given your apparent distaste for "RP," I'd think you would sympathize with Evil S here b/c his take seems interested in tactically sensible behavior and not an atte

Reply to Military production bonus in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Miltary bonus is defintiely great the first 30 turns though. The "first 30 turns" part gave me yet another greed-for-dev-time idea: how about a tech in the new bio branch that enables you to reset your bonuses once during a game--call it Planned Evolution or something.

Reply to Political Ideas for future expansion pack or sequal in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

BTW, did any of your students answers for power happen to be Emperor Palpatine Nope. I didn't know the name until you made me look it up on Wikipedia. Now I'm armed with some potential mockery-fodder (go Palpitate yourself, etc.) if TheGreatEmporer gets out of line <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/Wink.gif" border=0 align="abs