Sorry Motti, didn't understand what you were saying!

 

And in their infinite wisdom, the Aust govt made many rulings as far as gun ownership goes. To own a gun you must get a firarms licence, to do that you either have to be a secuirty guard, who's employer has submitted to the police that you require a weapon on the job. A rural land owner producing goods (a Primary Producer), so you can take care of your land (pigs, rabbits and the like). Or, if you join a Gun/Shooting club, but then you "must" attend the club once a week (or month IDK), with documentation to prove it.

Even then, the gun must be stored in a safe (there is a min weight) and it must be bolted to concrete. the ammo must not be keeped with the weapon, oh, and the police can make a surprise inspection at your house to see if your complying with all that. And that is for is pistols and single shot (low power) rifles. I think the primary producers can have shot guns, but just standard single or double barrels. If it's an automatic weapon, illegal, no matter of licence will help you.

So to buy a 9mm Glock, which i looked into for home defense, i had to join a gun club, even though iv'e held a Security License for over 12 years with an impeccable work record, i'd have to install a safe and have it bolted to concrete, which is a problem, the house is not on a slab, so id have to put it out in my shed, and then make sure i attend the gun club once a week/month, and then i might be able to buy it for around $1100.

Or, like most Australians do, or those i know with guns at least, i can go to any number of people and spend about $600 and get a blackmarket 9mm with a box of ammo.

And they wonder here why the black market is so huge, and that there are many, many robberies at gun point.

So if i wake up to an intruder in my house with a knife say, instead of owning his ass by pulling out my 9mm, i get to fight him with my baseball bat.

Try doing that in the states (the south especially if Hollywood is to be believed) and see how far ya get!!!

Guys, can anyone recall how to, or the thread about, forcing GC2 to use 3GB ram? I'm getting OOM on my latest game, and iv'e long forgotten how to force it to use 3GB. It sure is frustrating to know i have 16GB in my rig and GC2 can't use it...if ever there is a GC3, i sure hope Brad makes it a native 64bit game.

My latest game is the best yet! Usual map specs, all labs, but i set the AI to friendly and so on March 1  sold every bit of tech i had, apart from weapons, to each AI then declared war on all of them, and i have no intention of suing for peace. Iv'e rolled over the Arceans already, and now im hitting the terrans, who are about equal in strength to me. The Krynn, who is a half way converted race to the Ildrians from Saga of the Seven Suns is by far the strongest, but luckily they be on the other side of the galaxy and no threat.

I'm using MV compatible versions of my mod races, so the Yor are the Klikiss Robots, the terran are the Terran Hanseatic League, the Krynn i mentioned, and i play using my Roamer Clans Custom. I had to cut out alot of the mod to make it MV compatible, and because alot of it isn't finished...and...it's actually a TA mod that i had to backport for DA...but its fun.

I'll try and finish the mod, MV version anyway, since the vanilla races have become boring, essentially it will be just window dressing, since you can't do a great deal when wanting to use it on the MV..but even simple name changes and portrait pics are freshening up the old AI look.

I can't remember that trick.  I bet Mumble could help though.  He's pretty good with that stuff.

Sounds like you have quite the epic game going Neilo.  The mods probably add some nuance to it too.  Having an AI that's equal to you in strength is awesome.  I bet you can't wait till you meet up.

You're not selling weapons tech?  I haven't thought about that.  It's usually sell it as fast as I can.

I started a game too.  For the first time in forever, I'm playing as the Terrans.  I'm quite surprised by their strength.  They can pretty much talk to any AI whenever they care to.  Well, comparatively anyway.  Their diplo skills are pretty wild.  I haven't used any tricks as far as ARC/ mumble/zwy, etc. and I have tech treaties from all AIs and econ from most in year 0.

I'm doing all labs with a library on my homeworld and I'm not struggling with economy much.  I only went below -500 for something like 2 weeks.  

Iv'e been thinking about it, and i think im going to get whopped! It will take a great effort for me to get my economy going enough to the point that i can rush buy some real huge hull'd firepower, all labs focus is not going to be enough to build as many as i will need i think.

Depending on the game, i usually do as well, but it was always my intention when i started this game to be at war with the AI ASAP and for the entire game, so keeping them devoid of weapons in the early game served to let me gain the upper hand. I'm in the process of selling my beam techs, since i am no maxing out the missile techs and will switch to them once these pesky terrans are done with.

Speaking of which, i don't think i have played with Terran since i first got the game!! I should not be surprised to hear that they are strong, i often found in games that the Terrans were more often than nor the next greatest power after myself, certainly when no Drengin were involved.
I wouldn't mind playing a game with them myself. Obviously their diplo strength would be one way to focus your game....use a custom Terran, retain SuperDiplo, put all points into diplo, loyalty and influence go all labs and just rape them of their planets......

As for the 3GB trick, you lurking Mumble or SS? I know it's on the forums, but iv'e been lazy with my searching, hoping to avoid having to go through all the OOM thread replies that popped up.

Looking back, you're running 7 with 16GB of RAM, which means:

This tells us either that GC2 isn't large address aware, if you were running into the limit at 2GB, or that it is, but you're hitting the 3GB limit.  And in either case, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, since you can't very well recompile it.  This is odd, because it seems that you could extend its usable portion to 3GB, if you were on a 32-bit OS; see below.

-

There's a switch to allow a program to use up to 3GB, but that limits the kernel to as little as 1GB, as 32-bit can only see 4GB.

This is further complicated by the fact that included in this 4GB that the OS can see is your VRAM, IIRC-so with a 512MB video card, you only have 3.5GB visible, leaving 1.5GB for the kernel without the switch and a mere 512MB with it.

Fortunately, you can choose in-between values-otherwise it'd be more or less impossible to make any changes if you had a 1GB video card.

Here's the info for XP, and for Vista.

-

Kind of silly that you can kind of sort of fix it with 32-bit, but can't fix it with 64-bit.  We clearly need more 64-bit applications...

 

Large Address Aware:

1) Run the application.

2) Click on "Force LAA." If you want to undo the changes, click on "Reset LAA."

3) Profit.

Extract "The Large Address Aware" and run it from anywhere.  A small dialog will flash for a second as it gathers information.

You will then presented with a screen showing each game installed, whether or not it is large address aware (LAA), and the full path to the game.

Under the LAA column, you have two types:

True = 4 GiB - "App can handle >2gb Address space" False = 2 GiB - DEFAULT

There are two buttons present on the application:

Force LAA - This sets all to "True" without exception. Reset LAA - This sets all to "False" without exception.

 

Windows Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008

1) Open command prompt with Adminitrator rights. To do this, go to Programs, Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator."

2) Enter the following at the prompt and press enter: bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072

3) Close the prompt and restart the computer.

The title of the application comes from the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE compiler flag for Visual Studio.  More info here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wz223b1z(VS.80).aspx

Try the this link first and see where that takes you if you like then download and run. I hope this helps or atleast gets where you want to go! I use this in my all games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556

We are looking for players to join to become aggressive Admirals to lead your fleets across the Galaxy!

Empress Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

Thanks Sole Soul and SaintMina!    

I think the old trick is out of date.  According to the following post, the 3GB switch we used way back when was only for 32 bit OSs like XP and 2K.

https://forums.galciv2.com/310096/page/1/#1714300

Most of us are running 64 bit now, so it wouldn't apply.  Making the app LAA seems like it might work since the OS is already there.  The LAA app at the bottom of SaintMina's post looks promising.

+1k to SaintMina    

I did it and it seems to be working, i have not played a game session long enough to test it our thoroughly though.

Thanks to all!

The Terrans are definitely overpowered.  It's early year 1 and I have all treaties from everyone without using advanced tricks.  I also haven't given my treaties to anyone.  My economy is in the green and I've even built the SCC just to get it off of the project list.  I haven't parked a single fighter under it and the AI are still groveling at my feet.

My only fighters are the ones I bought from the AI and landed on various planets.  I'm even using their troop transports to fill my new colonies with population.

Get this...The AI has even sold me not only colonization tech, but Barren and Advanced Barren.  Those are always off limits unless you use advanced tricks.  This is just a straight up game, albeit all labs.

Wild stuff if you ask me.

Wow...getting the extreme techs is nigh impossible straight up, i'm a little surprised you pulled it off. I think it's fair to say that the Terrans never have really been givin a good test drive, since they proved to be useless for Mumblers, i don't think anyone really thought to see what they are capable of.

I wonder, what with the MCC doing what it's meant to, how much more powerful the Terrans may be in TA? I don't know if their tree is one of the borked ones or not, but if not, a TA game using Terrans with points in diplo and influence, the SCC trick and the MCC, might be an interesting game to play out. If the TA tree is fine, and i'll have to ask around, i might try that.

All this straight up game play has me longing for the MVL again....i miss that more than playing for uber scores or ZYW.

Neilo, at 500 plus games, what is your percent of your scores are you getting to your total score. I did the math found out that I'm getting 5.80% to 8.58%. When I submit a game score of 98000, only 8416 went to my total score of 1699663. Don't forget your total score degrades over time too. Trying get to high scores is really taking the fun out of the game. I like to design ships so the fun is still here for me!

We are looking for players to join to become aggressive Admirals to lead your fleets across the Galaxy!

Empress Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

Sorry Mina, i have paid no attention whatsoever to what happens with my score now. I post the game, grab the screenshot and don't look back.  Yup, the high score games killed GC2 for me, in fact i abandoned two, one million point games simply due to it feeling much more like a chore than playing a game.

Though i am submitting to the MV, that's because, well, if i am playing it may as well be MV, but i have played some mod games already, and may submit a few mod games to the MV under my other account, just for shits and giggles. (i'll talk about one of those games in a moment)
I should point out that not all my recent games have been on my Centurion character. Iv'e been spreading them about, and in fact my current game is on my Chancellor Gowron character, which i will reset and redo as someone else.

Your more than welcome to check out my character and do the math, and i wish i could help you, i just don't think about the score meaning anything anymore.

---

i played a TA ZYW the other day, a mod game with a mod i created that assumed the galaxy only had a life of 12months. My custom and the AI all had uber powers. The game scored over 5million and i finished on Dec 8!!!!

Needless to say it was a heavily modded game, but i suppose i could wreck havoc on the AltMeta leader boards if i was so inclined!!

5 mil?    

Ditto.  That's why we're no longer interested in scores.  Just taking the different races out for a spin and having fun with the game is a better way to spend time.  Like most things in life, once it becomes a chore, it loses its attractiveness. 

@Neilo - Is the TA MCC about influence or diplomacy?  Maybe both?  If it's diplomacy, it could really overpower the Terrans.  I guess influence can help in some ways as well.  

I only played 1 game in TA and kind of dropped it like a hot potato.  It was boring to me at the outset.  I might give it another try one day.  Probably with the mods that everyone is talking about.  I'm not in any hurry though.

 

TAA MCC causes enemy planets to flip almost immediately once they reach the 4x influence threshold-the original design.

I see Diplo and influence going hand in hand for the terrans, in TA specifically though. I have not tried this, but...

Terrans, vanilla, with points in diplo, tech influence and morale. All labs, or close to, rush your tech as usual, get the SCC and get a huge mil advantage, build the MCC and start trading tech for planets, but scout the planets and pick ones in the middle of their empire, and try and get clusters if possible. Make sure said planets have a influence structure on them, sit back and start watching the AI planets flip over to you....

Seems the Terrans with the TA MCC might be able to achieve this faster than one would think..

Ah, I see how that could work out.  Kind of like planting a virus in there and watching it take hold.  Nice.

 

My Terran game has pretty much run its course as far as a test run goes.  I think I'll research some hulls and weapons tech and go to war.

 

<edit> LOL - I don't remember where I built the SCC and I can't find the planet.  I guess I won't be starting anything from wherever that might have been.

  </edit> 

Double click any planet to go to the planet screen and then start hitting X to cycle through your planets, just keep your eyes peeled for the SCC.
Shouldn't take too long.

I'm going to try that terran build as my next game, might take me a while though since i have little experiance with TA, might run though a quick game or two to test it out.

It didn't take long to erase the AI.  I just researched psionic beams and upgraded their fighters to small beam ships.   I used their own transporters against them and supplemented them with some small ones of my own.  Even with a small mil score, the overall was pretty decent.

 

 

Thats a great score for the style of game you played. I think anything over 100K is something to be excited about when playing the game straight up. I don't think the high score games were ever really envisioned by Brad and Cari when the did the game mechanics. Certainly i don't think they expected 1M+ games.

My current game is taking very slow steps, and it's fun. I could ramp up and take everyone now, i'm still at war with everyone (bar minors) but i'm finding it fun trying to live in a state of war without being on the offensive. I'm currently about done wiping the Terrans out (they had the highest planet count) then the torians and Korx will be next, since they are already within my sphere of influence. But i have built border starbases against the Illdrians (krynn) that i was fearful of. they outrank me in mil score now (260 to my 200) but individually, their ships are inferior, as with most crazy AI ship builds, their ship defense is about 10 to 1 over their ATT...

Sounds like a fun game Neilo.  One that could get immersive.  Yeah, the AI seem to put a lot into defense.  Good hunting when you open the gun ports on them.

I've started a vanilla Torian game.  As usual, my economy keeps threatening to run bankrupt.  I thought the Torians would be able to beat that with their super breeder skill, but they're not as bouyant as the Terrans.  I'll turn it around before long though.  

Meeting 3 minors has been a huge help.  They're treating me with a hint of contempt, which is kinda funny.  The main AI don't like me so well either and I still haven't met 2 of them yet.  The Drengin really have a chip on their shoulder.  Luckily, they're my closest enemy so they'll be within easy reach when the hostilities start.

 

Any update on the warfront?  Have you hit the Illdrians yet?  I'm wondering if their strength is more show or if they're really a threat.  I'm wondering if you'll need fleets to take their individual ships out or if they're just concentrating on a single defense type.

 

On mine, a little has happened.  I just got the MCC in early year 1, so my economy should start perking along.  I've been below -500 a few times now.

I got econ treaties with the 3 minors in Dec Year 0.  Not bad.  I kept trying with the main AI, but no dice.  

It's now Feb 2227 and I just met the last main AI, the Krynn.  They have a huge corner cut out of the galaxy for themselves.  I didn't actually go out and meet them, although I was trying to get there.  They came to me with their scouts.

I also met one more minor and got the tech and econ treaties from them.  It's costing more than it did when I was the Terrans, but it's working out anyway.  4 minors will be a big help as I expand.

The AI is ahead of me in some tech, but I have the upper hand in diplo.  With the MCC, I'll be able to raise my production slider above 50% and gain on them.

 

I've been in active combat against them now for about 6 game months. they had over 200 planets, so it's a long slog, but their bark was much worse then their bite. My main ship for the engagement is/was a large hull with about 40/70 att/def, and that ship alone outgunned all but their largest fleets. They have been producing ships with extrodinary ratios of att/def.
24/180 is something like what i have been seeing on their capital ships, all beam. I too was beam but i have just moved over to missile tech and am now producing huge hulled ships with 200/300 (roughly) figures.
My mil starbases starting to pay off!!

I'd say the illdirians have about 40 or so planets left, so i'm already moving against the Torians as well. I managed to get the Drath and Korx to go to war with each other, since between the two of them they had the lions share of resources, so i'll let them beat each other up and pick up scraps with out being actively involved.

All minors are gone, their inf base spamming was getting annoying.

I still maintain war with all races and have done so all game, my mil rating is back up over 300 and the best AI, Illdrians is at about 40 now, so i don't know how this will score, i'm not puffing up the stats with SCC. It is in use, but ships not in use sit under it, not purpose built weaponized hulls.

It's been a fantastic game!

My econ is in pretty good shape, and has been all game, ive been building my planets out that i have taken all econ, much like the old mumblers.
1 Xeno Farm III, 1 VR Centre the rest econ, except where influence and research bonus tiles appear, those have been put to use. I kept one planet manu, the illdirian home world, had 700% and 300% manu tiles along with their manu cap, and the rest had Industrial Sectors and a power plant. So i kept that one and just built a VR centre....that planet builds a troop transport for me every turn.

I had all econ and tech treaties from the minors, before i wiped them out, they didn't seem to be offering me much, i am getting more use of their class 18 HW!

Which is one thing i did do to the AI, i gave them all max points in PQ. All their HW are class 18 and on average all their planets seem to be 1 or two tiles higher...One planet in particular that i have my eye on, an illdirian planet is a class 34!!!! It is orbiting a purple sun, but still, PQ 34!!! Even with PQ points, you dont get that high, they must have got a colonization event that gave a bonus to PQ.

your game is sounding like one that will take some time too, which is good, i'm not minding a 5 or 6 year game (or longer), no matter the net return on score.

You know...i wish i never learned anything about mumblers and ZYW's....the game chat we have now is much more intriguing and enjoyable than it ever was!

If only we could get others (TOE or otherwise) into straight up gaming again!

And...WOOT! where did all this karma come from!?!?! Have i become a forum favorite once again!!! LOL

IIRC, PQ ability only affects ownership.  That is, a PQ10 with a 10% bonus will be a PQ11 for them, but a PQ10 when you take it.  Haven't tested this in some time, though.

With 5x morale resources, all morale techs, all morale trade goods, and 10 inherent morale, you don't actually need any VRCs, though they can help with levels needed for growth.

Ofc..once my pop is maxed out, i delete the VR's and replace with stock exchanges. the VR's help keep the 100% so you can really kick ass with breeder!