Real benefits of ToA?

I know I haven't played the Terran tech tree much...but something sounds wrong here. All races to my best knowledge have all 3 weapon/defense trees.

Well, for me the tech trees meant that a game that was boring for me before came real interesting again.
esp. the huge difference in buildings you can build at the start, opened the way to completly new tactics one got to use. It also strenghtened the effects of "intelligent tech trading" very much - which is all fine for me.

the ground interfaces...well they been weak in either version. for me nothing has improved - but als nothing has gotten worse - there.

game-stability: I admit I had serious issues up to version 1.93. With 1.96 I have had no issues at all so far.

Indeed you're right, I'm sorry, it was because of the map I played, generally all 3 types of weapons are available. Thanx for clarification.

They are both limited - but as long as the "Skip" button is there, who cares. This game is about strategic galactic domination, not tactical battles.



In at least 300 hours of play on TA (various versions, mostly 1.95), I can count the number of crashes on the fingers of one foot. The same can be said of DA v1.8, so both versions are rock solid stability-wise.

The variations in the tech trees make for a whole new experience, with different optimal strategies for each race - then using custom races to combine different super abilities and tech trees gives even more variation.

Speed and visual improvements are also considerable.

I have had some game freezes after multiple CTRL+Ns, only in TA though. I'm still trying to find out what I can do to perfectly replicate it before sending any bug report in. I hate saying 'hey guys, this happens out of the blue."

I too live in a mirror Universe which doesn't flip twice on the same side more than once in a row.

Without a tactic, you simply can't make up a strategy.

The big fat Black Hole Gun you just saw zooming by was using a luring tactic, but wasn't included in the AI strategic plan to shoot at you in a battle either.
In the meantime, Terror Stars should be considered deadly efficient in combat, use 'hem wisely -- if of course, you ARE into a TotA game complex enough to scramble a tech or two before you devise an appropriate strategy through tactical means against whatever target you had or will have in mind in a timely fashion.

Without a strategy, your tactics are useless. Mine(s), also.

- New tech trees - they seem to limit the number of techs each Civ has, e.g. Terrans can only use beam weapons, which takes 90% fun out of ship designing... hardly a good change.
-new ground combat interface seems much less immercing than the previous one.
-game seems much less stable (though it may be a fault of my friend's computer that I played on)

New techs: They introduce many new and unique techs, while you can still obtain most of the old ones. As a result it vastly increases variety in the game, and is one of the best (if not the best) things about TotA

Ground combat: Yeah, the new screen sucks and it'd be nice to revert to the old one, but in the grand scheme of things it's of only small significance.

Game stability: Yep, it sucks. I haven't played enough on the latest patch to see if it's been improved, but the spy crash bug in particular (and of course Alt-Tab crashing) are terrible and much worse than with DA or DL. However the spy crashing can be circumvented by saving before you place a spy every time, while alt-tabbing can be avoided by just not doing it. As a result they also fail to take the shine off TotA

Overall it's a big step forward IMO. It could do with some polish here and there, a few balancing tweaks in places (e.g. terror stars - way too expensive atm), some nice bug fixes, and of course really needed the research bug fix, but it's still very good.

Spy crashing is (at least for me) completely gone with 1.96

And Alt-tab-crashs can be avoided by not playing fullscreen - which for me is a serious performance-blow though. But if I know I want to switch to and out of GalCiv regulary...I just play in windowed mode and take the slower game-performance as a price I got to pay.

Yup pretty disappointing huh? I'm sorry I gave them my money for it. Fell for the false sales pitch like a chump. Won't be doing that again. Ah well, at least I can piss off the people who like it.

Oh, wait till the first time you get 'spy spammed', or check out all the great enhancements to diplomacy after TWO expansions. (LOL, none at all!) Or... pay attention to all the new United Planets features. (LOL, nope, nothing there either!)

But at least we get map editors, right? Not really, the editor sucks. It's buggy as hell and barely comes close to reflecting what you actually see in game. I mean crap, I got notepad, I could have used that as an XML editor when I was in 2nd grade if that's all they were going to provide.

Hey, at least we got a better spy system right? Nah, it's just a fancy boring money sink that disables your enemies buildings for a few turns. Oh, by the way, you can't do the old method of espionage anymore-- at all. Only way to spy is to ALSO sabotage their buildings. I love it when games drop working features and replace them with non-optional crappy ones! Game designers do that soooo often, too! (Like, never I guess?)

Stability doesn't seem to bad though. Make sure it's patched.

Unlike you, it sounds like he played Dark Avatar, which also had your oh-so-hated spy system. Seeing as he didn't complain about it, or even mention it as a change.

Go play DL until you see what SD changes in DA/TA 2.0. They are doing some more changes to the espionage system. No word as to what that entails, but I wouldn't be objective to a hybrid of DL and DA's version. Use DL's for intel levels and DA's for destruction and tech stealing.

Crying about the espionage system is SO last year.

Brad has offered refunds for ornery people in the past that felt they got gyped. Hopefully he stops by and shoves you off.

Are you having fun with such poisonous statements directed at SD staff which served many (or all!) of us quite well over the years?

Then, lemme be blunt & direct, ansury...

If you do NOT like playing this game with whatever is provided or nearly at the level of excellence you'd wish for, just delete it off your Hard-Drive and go bother other peoples with your unsubstantiated critics.
I don't really have time for this crappy talk, but i needed to make sure you received the truly deserved aftermath of your own making.

Btw, i actually paid for my copies and that money is an exttrrrrrrremely good investment into my leisure time. It could be better, sure (namely, the Map Editor). I fully expect SD to continually upgrade their standards if that's any indication of what i got barely stepping off a DarkAvatar enviro to the pretty much *Incredible* Twilight expansion (not even a tiny stinky game_breaking bug in it, faster rendering engine, stupendously ingenious NEW features, the list is long, very long, etc), i should insist.

Upcoming better (more or like defined within coders extensive experience of gameplay context and true fans continual feedback) espionage - included.

I was being polite - i highly doubt someone or anyone else would though.

Hehe, the blunt and direct response I was contemplating wouldn't have made it past the word filter   

The constant whining by one individual because they don't like one feature (that has been in the game for almost a year and a half), and can't adjust their play style to cope with it, has rapidly become more than a little tedious.

So much more eloquently put, Zyxpsilon!

To add my 2 cents to the heated discussion - I like DA espionage better than the vanilla Gal Civ one. And it was rather my impression that it is the player not the AI that can exploit it. That said I regret that the devs did not rebalance the Dread Lords campaign with the spies in mind, as it is one can stop "unstoppable" Dread Lords with a spy spam...

Coming back to ToA - I read in some review that AI can not cope with the new victory condition, is it still true after the patches?

Also what's the general opinion about the usefulness of the terror stars?

My opinion (I don't speak for anyone but me) is that they shouldn't be the reason to buy the expansion. They are fun toys to play with, they give you an alternate ending if you finish off 2 races in one blast to win the game, they give you a new defeat screen...that's about it.

They are slow and they can only do 1 thing...blow up stars. I played with them EXTENSIVELY in the beta and I can tell you that the time/money spent on them, you could have fielded a nice navy and won the war.

Now, they are good for a war opener to a race with a real strong ground game...but I still wouldn't rely on them as my game clincher.

The new victory condition...the AI understands it, but I think it needs to think more of it when it's attempting it. Holding 1 resource is a waste, you need multiples to get done any year soon. It takes 4years to win if you hold 5 resources (max you can gain points from). You get a - for holding 1 resource and -- for holding more than one. So all opponents in the game will hat eyou that much more for holding the resource. Demolish those bases and the negatives go away, but your point total doesn't...giving you a self-given reprieve of pressure from the AI.

It's also been given an equal multiplier to conquest supposedly, so the AI takes attempting to ascend more seriously.

I've been expecting him to get his refund for some time now. In fact, for all GalCIv issues, the euphamism "get their refund" shall now replace "buy the farm".

Usage example:

Loupdinour used a Terror Star to give the Yor their refund.

And that I did...

"Zyxpsilon": Yes I am having fun blowing off steam, and I do actually feel that the advertised features technically weren't fully delivered with the expansion. But the sales pitch? Wow! That was pretty good--made it really seem like this expansion was different from the usual ones game companies put out. Not really though. I just pointed out some observations about the expansion's weaknesses, one of which was a positive one (stability), so I don't know why you're going all hyper-forum-nanny out of nowhere. I'm bored of complaining about that agent thing anyway, so chill.

I really should go get a refund, but it's probably not worth the trouble. I've never heard of getting a refund for a downloaded game anyway. But it is kinda fun blowing off steam here, and tossing in new creative ideas for the next run though. If it really bothers you that bad, stop reading my posts. It's not that hard. Or better yet, paypal me some funds over, I'll stop posting. lol (j/k)

Reeeeeeeally, I did adjust my playstyle (it's just lame building CE all the time), and teeeeeechnically, I wasn't around for the year and half when this feature was out. So those are some nice factoids or whatever but I don't see the point.

Annnnnnnnd, it's not just one feature I have a problem with, it's quite a few that were promised but weren't delivered. And nooooooo... my keyboard keys aren't sticking, I'm just goofing around.

So yeah, like I said, if you don't get the humor and tire of the posts, skip'em.

Ansury. We get it man. You REALLY feel disapointed, and REALLY don't like ToA. Ever heard the expression beating a dead horse? Let it go man, find something happy in your life and smile for God's sake.

Tell you what, if Brad posts here that he won't give you a refund then perhaps we can take up a collection for your cause. I'll throw 10 dollars in the pot just to get you to stop.

And I'm poor  

It seems like game stability with Twilight of the Arnor is roughly equivalent to stability of the initially shipping Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords. They both contain a number of bugs and crashes, even though the crashes themselves may have different root causes or occur under different situations. I don't think it's unreasonable to hope that most of the game bugs would be squashed by now, but by the same token, when new content is added, new bugs get added.

One could conceivably use the amount of time it took for Dread Lords to get most of its issues ironed out as a rough rule of thumb to try and gauge when the same will happen to Twilight of the Arnor...

I believe the initial post you made was the reason.
But, if you insist - i can do that much for you also.

Diplomacy was extremely enhanced simply by providing 12 different tech trees - if don't you see the straight relation there... then i give up on whatever logic you used to be highly critical on the overall global value of the expansion(s).

I may be protective about a game i enjoy sooooo much for what it offers (through extensive experience of it, btw) but when it comes to respond to silly attacks such as you did, i have absolutely no regrets - nannying or not.

Oh, and i'm seriously considering you good advice -- you are simply skipped over from now on. (PS; so much for i being helpful -somehow- earlier.)