Def Zep

Reply to Colonising below 15 worlds in Strategies Stardock Forums

#8 EtherMage: We are speaking about the early game development stage. Once Earth (and similar or better class planets) has researched & built the basic social improvements (soil enhancement/hab improvement, banks, stock markets, research labs, shipyards), the lesser PQ planets can be safely colonized without depressing Earth's Spending:Tax Rate:Morale ratio. The objective is to speed Earth along at full throtle (esp. to keep pace with the torrid AI development at Crippling or M

Reply to Cultural Rebellion, how do you stop it? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

#3 Librarian, I have actually seen a skull disappear! However, you have to be culturally predominant in the sector...so predominant, it doesn't even matter if the citizens do rebel - they'll just rejoin! In the case I saw the skull disappear, my Culture was over 17,000 in the sector. The next nearest AI had 695... ~SDC~

Reply to Sector ownership and influence driving me crazy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

NB: The differential noted in my previous post (+1000) for defection is Large/Gigantic. Smaller map sizes take commesurately less of a difference to flip planets. ~SDC~

Reply to Sector ownership and influence driving me crazy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Robert, Influence is a function of your overall population total in the sector. There is also a "bleed factor" from adjacent sectors and SB's. If the AI has more influence than you do in a sector, it will turn from your color (blue) to its. There are a number of articles in the Encyclopedia which give the background to influence. Culture-flipping will occur only when another Empire's influence exceeds yours by ~1000. Loyalty checks are made against each planet's morale

Reply to Surprise attack by AI? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

If the AI is at Hostile and feels further provoked (through relative lack of trade, military buildups in its sector, or simply having a military strength disparity), it will downgrade to "War" and immediately attack during its turn, i.e., while it is running the calculations. There will be no popup in this case. You will just see attacks start to occur. If, however, the AI is at Wary and downgrades, you will get a popup telling you either something needs to be done to restore p

Reply to What determines morale of a newly colonized world? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Robert: Two other factors affecting starting morale are: 1. Cultural ranking in the sector, and 2. Resistance. If you have a system stuck at 1 morale no matter what you do, it is almost certainly because you have no Resistance level on the planet. Further, many systems which defect to you will enter your Empire with a lower morale than one settled straight out by your own colonists. There is apparently a "dissatisfaction" factor built into the calcula

Reply to A.I. loyalty? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Any AI will demote its relations with you once your alignment begins to vary with its own by +20 or more. Default alignments are estimated (based on play experience) to be: Drengin - 10 Yor - 40 Arcean - 50 Torian - 60 Altarian - 90 The "good" alignments (60+) will not break alliances and will (generally) react more positively to trade routes. ~SDC~

Reply to Own Playlist: "What is cool music while playing GalCiv?" in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

C'mon, gang, get with the times: Moby, Evanescence, The 2 'Heads (Bucket- & Radio-) and, of course..."How the West was Won"! ~SDC~

Reply to Specifics about planet invasions. in Strategies Stardock Forums

EDIT: Point 6 of my previous post should read "3800 troops left". I can't count. But then again, fortunately, neither can anyone else who graduated in my class. ~SDC~

Reply to Specifics about planet invasions. in Strategies Stardock Forums

Angmar: 1. You need to completely eliminate the full population present on a planet to win. The attacker gains an inherent advantage of approximately +100% (i.e., is doubled) in odds calculation. You can decrease the amount of enemy population needing to be eliminated by Information Warfare. It is costly, and works only on those planets already suffering low morales due to destabilization and/or culture-bombing. However, the number of people converted do not fight (decrasing yo

Reply to Preferred degree of scattering? in Strategies Stardock Forums

I vary, but am currently in vogue with Tight Clusters. This setting makes speed and range far more important than either of the other two. (On scattered, it is relatively easy to get around range restrictions with SB's when and if they occur.) Scattered makes it easier to expand, since "island-hopping" is almost always possible. Loose Clusters decreases this somewhat, but only to the extent of requiring a constructor or two more for range-extending SB's. I also now tend more to

Reply to Masochistic 1.04 in Strategies Stardock Forums

Ray: I'm going "Back up" to Maso now that 1.05 and the XP are out. I believe many of the problems I encountered with this level at first under 1.04 are re-balanced by the changes SD has made. ~SDC~

Reply to Colonising below 15 worlds in Strategies Stardock Forums

Luke: Another issue: planets with a PQ less than Earth's act as speed-brakes on your economic development. Because their populations tend towards lower morale, quicker, than Earth, they will minimize the tax rate you can set Empire-wide - and thus restrict the % amount you can devote to spending. You can see this by starting a trial game (any settings/picks will do, although avoiding pop/morale/income bonuses will allow the results to be seen more clearly; save at turn 1) and n

Reply to Trade Goods Another Undocumented Feature in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Dick, Another option is to DL ZaH's excellent .pdf tech tree from http://galciv.bsd.st/zai_h/. You can open it in its own window and alt-tab between it and GalCiv on your desktop. ~SDC~

Reply to Anyone else have problems installing to a non-default directory? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I encountered this problem as well, Jeff. After fiddling with various path settings a lot, I decided it was just easier to rename the path to D:\Galactic Civilizations. That solved everything. ~SDC~

Reply to How are people getting 11,000 point (or more) game scores ? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Agree, Ray. Crippling is too easy late game; Maso is a chore. Would be nice if there was a set of AI advantages which were better than Genius, but less than Incredible (which appears to have been set specifically to counter certain strategies). ~SDC~

Reply to Could star explosions be bigger? I was sorta disappointed after my terror star killed one in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hey, you could always pour a glass of water down your monitor! :D ~SDC~

Reply to HELP HELP I'M BEING REPRESSED! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

#13 N.B. The Drengin are set to "Genius", not "Incredible". ~SDC~

Reply to HELP HELP I'M BEING REPRESSED! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

#13 Babcom 280: I have a save game file where (at Brilliant) the Drengin landed on a PQ14 planet and raised it to a PQ18 first turn. This is a +30 improvement. AFAIK, the inherent +30 trait bonus applies only at Incredible level. Did this change in an update? (I updated to 1.05.071 in the process of this game.) If so, being present at the Brilliant level as well would account for the increase, instead of my conjecture re: random events. ~SDC~

Reply to Any way to defend a trade route? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Build 2 Freighters for each route. Land one to establish it; keep the second parked adjacent. If and when the route gets discontinued due to war, immediately re-establish it with the spare freighter. (Send another spare out as necessary when this is done.) Escorting: You can join escort vessels in the same hex with a mini-freighter into a fleet. The vessel will then move together with the mini-freighter. However, in practice this is more micro-management than it's worth. Instea

Reply to Destablization in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Cotal: The answer to desabilization is a combination of the following: a) High Morale - since destabilization acts to lower morale and attempt to force planets into defection through failure of loyalty checks (see Brad's article on Sector Influence in the Encyclopedia), keeping morales above 80 will generally limit its effectiveness. (To defect, planets must fail 2 loyalty checks against their Morale in a row.) To accomplish this, lower taxes and build +Morale planetar

Reply to Keeping Tax Rate at 20%??? in Strategies Stardock Forums

As a variantion on EtherMage's post (#15): a) At start, do not build any social improvements except +PQ ones (Soil Enhancements/Hab Improvements). Instead, claim/seize all bonus resources discovered, and research the SB module techs (Cold Fusion/Art Grav/Hyperspace/Lg Scale Bldg/Interstellar Refining/Nano Mining/4D Phasing). b) Build Banks, Entertqainment Centers, Stock Markets (Interstellar Capitalism), Economic Exchanges (Advanced Trade), Research Labs, Shipyard

Reply to TIL KNUT KVERNES!!! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yaah, gut biikiinni team... ~SDC~

Reply to Ship assessments? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Drizzt, I frequently build lots of Starfighters and/or Corvettes early on, as at the higher difficulty levels, it is vitally important to maintain military "parity" vis-a-vis the computer. If you do not keep in 2nd or 3rd place on the Mil graph, you will be attacked at Crippling & Maso difficulties. Once this immediate goal is achieved, I usually wait until Dreadnoughts are available. DN's compose my first offensive force. I sell or trade most of my SF's/'vettes off at this poi

Reply to Strange diplomatic behavior in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

As an interim solution, maybe the dev's could insert a "minimum time peace/war" counter, so that each diplomatic state had to count down a certain number of turns before the AI would accept a change in "trade". This would stop most abuse of the "back-to-back switch" system. ~SDC~