LDiCesare

Reply to Why are militery victories worth more points? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Idea, then -- why not weigh military victories additionally by the percentage of game spent at declared war?[/quote] Easy to abuse. Alpha strike the opponent. When they ahve ZERO planet left, sue for peace. Take all their fleet (if any) and give them one PQ 1 world in the corner of the galaxy. Give it back to them everytime it flips. If sufficiently isolated, all their ships will be useless as they are out of range where they'd be useful. Next turn, declare war. Stay at war long

Reply to Lightning Alpha Strike formula in Strategies Stardock Forums

You can usually bribe your way out of war if you deal some damage. I suggest pumping AMMs, trying to blow one of their planets, and then sue to give it back (and probably some of yours too). Beware afterwards they'll be cool, so you'll have to make sure the relations with them becomes better. If they are far away, you can also try to wait it out. I find that ignoring even the #1 who is at war with you is okay if they can't reach you.

Reply to Why are militery victories worth more points? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I don't think anyone pointed out the real reason advocated at the time for military victories vs. tech victory. Giving equal ratin to every type of victory ment that Tech victory brang most points. This was because your score depended heavily on the population (thus if you conquer the whole world the better, and the longer the game lasted, the better), and on the number of techs researched (which can only be maxed by a tech victory). This led to false tech victories the way we have false mi

Reply to What year do you usually win/lose by? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I haven't got any idea. You should really put this in the data sent to metaverse. If I can bring more info on the game to make it better, I'd submit games again. Btw, the starting date is so arbitrary that I absolutely never look at the date. If it started in say 2300, it would be easy to check "we're in 2304 so it's been 4 years or about 50 turns since I started playing" but with the current date, which I can't remember, it's pretty hard to know. CtP2 (and probably other games) let you

Reply to Hardest game possible in Strategies Stardock Forums

[quote]I'm wondering if this can be done with only 1 major AI. [/quote] Of course. The other major will. Some minors will probably be able to do so, too. The point is that the major WILL be ahead of you in tech, so it will research it first. You may well be lucky and get it from an ai-initiated trade if you have techs to spare, or get it by a lucky landing on one of its worlds before it's built tons of these to crush you. Or you caneven buy it. Planets are worth a lot, so you might give

Reply to Diplomatic strategies on Maso Games in Strategies Stardock Forums

On maso: Never ask for money except from alexians (not always) and minors that pop up later. Try to take all their money for as long as possible giving them everything you can for it, because the majors will drain their money a few turns after they meet them anyway. If you want diplo translators, either hops a minor will build it or stop your colony ships and switch to 100% social early. The extra colonies will probably do you little good anyway if you can't stay at peace. The majors wi

Reply to Starbase cumulatiove effects? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I said stack, not add. The multiplicative is a side effect, but I think all are actually behaving the same way: Consider figure. For each starbase, apply bonus. e.g. Attack: For starbase X add X, for starbase Y add Y: Total +X+Y. Trade: The starbase itself produces X revenue. Y does too, result +X+Y revenue. Culture: Apply starbase X: Culture = (old value +X%). Apply starbase Y: Culture = (old value +X% + Y% + X*Y%). When X >100%, the X*Y becomes the most important term, thus

Reply to Hardest game possible in Strategies Stardock Forums

Don't research any military and pray for someone to get dreadnought. I never get dreadnought tech before the other ai's have dreads or avatars floating all around. I usually don't have much of an army either, except sometimes a symbolic battle hammer per planet. Try not expanding. The ai will have a hard time finding you, try to grab the influence wonders and build +influence projects. A resource would be nice too, but it seems unlikely you can find nd hold more than what the ai will get.

Reply to Trade terror star - a vagabonding cash cow? in Strategies Stardock Forums

[quote]Now if you're going to alpha strike the trade partner when the TS gets there[/quote] That's a Trojan horse of sorts: (Altarian leader) "Hey, look, our trade partner brought us a new big huge freighter ship! Let's open the gates and take it into our solar system." (Cassandra) "Maybe we shouldn't. I find this big freighter terrifying." (Altarian leader) "Noooo! Look, there isn't a single warship in sight. They all retreated long ago and we made peace since." (Terror

Reply to Hardest game possible in Strategies Stardock Forums

[quote]gigantic, abundant, scattered with one opponent is ugly.[/quote] I bet it is. Particularly if the ai starts in the other corner. My one-opponent game was won thanks to the minors: Trade was the key because the map was not a big one. It may still help: You have to find the minors, trade with them and make sure they go to war with the other major. They'll trade with you, and you only. This will help a bit. The major will also want to trade with you, which may prevent him from becomi

Reply to Lightning Alpha Strike formula in Strategies Stardock Forums

[quote]except for the Kilwasians, who promptly morphed into the I-League. [/quote] They tend to do that systematically, don't they? [quote]Maybe "medium" should be a component of "hardest" challenges.[/quote] Yes. That's what several players agreed on in a thread on the topic. That and, in some circumstances, having only 1 opponent (or a bunch of good enemies and you play evil).

Reply to Starbase cumulatiove effects? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

All stack.

Reply to remove terror stars???? in Mods Stardock Forums

[quote]It should also be noted that most editors with a keyboard shortcut to Find use Ctrl+S (for Search) or Ctrl+R (for Replace). [/quote] Some use / ...

Reply to Trade terror star - a vagabonding cash cow? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Are you sure the starbase will offset its own cost? 5 constructors + starbase maintenance + 5000(!)bc for terror star itself is a lot. You should check how much the trade routes actually give you back to see how long is needed for the terrorstar investment to pay off. Now, since it moves at only 1 parsec/month, it's probably the most convenient protection you can afford. Grouping all minifreighters together is probably a good idea too. As for the sensor drone, unless you check the route ever

Reply to Hardest game possible in Strategies Stardock Forums

Hardest game: Mod the colony ship range to 0. You can't expand unless you get some +range or build starbases. The ai, having a +1 range bonus at incredible level, can. Pick abundant yellow stars, scattered, small or tiny map. Just you and the evil Drengin or Altarian. Also neither talk to the minors nor invade the minors.

Reply to Lightning Alpha Strike formula in Strategies Stardock Forums

I tried that and still found it long and tedious. I allied myself with the Torians who were the big boys, managed to drag them into a war against their other allies the Altarians, and finally won allied with both of them after destroying a few stars. I played a Large map. Smaller means you'll risk being at war while researching expensive techs you can't easily dump on the aliens to get diplomatically out od trouble. I started in a corner and believe that 5 constructors are more tedi

Reply to Map Editor in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

What's dxdiag? Can I check it after rebooting the machine since the program freezes it? I have DirectX9, up to date drivers, 3D acceleration on. I might have to check if that DirectX version is really the latest/most correct, though. If it's needed, you should really distribute the DirectX version with the program, at least after the beta (the way most games do).

Reply to Earth has too many planets! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I say "Leave it the way it is". I like it this way.

Reply to Meta Posting Problem in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Where's the debug.err file? I should probably look for it.

Reply to Is GalCiv too easy? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Tiny is easier than other map sizes, but I do not believe the biggest sizes are the hardest. Hardest is probably medium, since you don't have as much space to extend yourself as on larger maps, while the ai can reach all yellow stars pretty fast. Military win without firing a shot or buildign a ship is a good thing IMHO. Try to get that on maso with the current ai tweaks, though.

Reply to AP: Can someone post pictures of the new minor race portraits and the 2 new major races? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There are no new majors in the beta. I think the minors graphics are those for the majors to come.

Reply to What is new in this version of Altarian Prophecy in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There are map editor (crashes on many computers), scenario and campaign editor, graphics in the diplomacy screen for 2 minor races (I suspect it's the graphics for the majors to come), possibility to say 'random' in size/habitability of a galaxy, 2 premade maps, the option to choose predefined rules (scenarios) with fixed team (extremely easy to abuse the team stuff).

Reply to Restarts in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I almost never restart. I lose a fair amount of games, though.

Reply to Altarian Prophecy beta Available to Drengin.net users in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]Anyone else besides me and Nastavnik having CTD's when trying to load a savegame?[/quote] Yes, I can't reload any saved game.

Reply to The Drengin Council - Altarian Prophecy Beta in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've played a bit with the team thing and really think this should be either scrapped altogether or the diplomacy should be totally changed in these games. There is no reason why you wouldn't trade all your techs with your fellow team members. Humans in MP would probably do, and would take care of researching different techs. Seeing that your ally has dreadnought tech and won't give it to you when you could save him with it is a bit weird. The ai's also sue for peace when they'll be dragged into