matso

Reply to ship foundry/other plus spaceship buildings in Strategies Stardock Forums

Yea, it doesn't affect hp. It affects attack/defense though... just another doc bug. ~SDC~

Reply to 1.03 AI in Strategies Stardock Forums

Yea, the only way now to get good tech/money trade is to feed a minor with loads of trade and try to build him up as much as possibly economically, then you can do some major tech/trade money. However, this new AI isn't all bad ... I've noticed that I'm buying a lot of tech for money now! :-) There is definately a maximum amount the AI will trade for tech. It's fairly easy to find the limit - give him a huge tech, see how much he will trade for it, then cut that by 1/2-1/4r so.

Reply to Trading with AI totally screwed... in Strategies Stardock Forums

The new AI routines are VERY scared of running out of money. It used to be you could get them to spend about 1/5'th of their money over 20 turns for tech. Now it's more like 1/20 - so in order to get 100/20 from them, they need to have 2000 in cash. Oh, and no other long-term deals going on. ~SDC~

Reply to Can you fool them with corvettes? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Bluffing the AI is the only thing corvettes are good at - oh, and early colonizer warfare on large+ maps. But yes, it works. ~SDC~

Reply to Help for, Gigantic, Rare Habitable Planets, Tight Clusters, Masochistic please =) in Strategies Stardock Forums

I'm in the endgame of a masocistic/gigantic/loose cluster/abundant game (just seeing how far I can push up the score before I submit to metaverse - 10k isn't enough! :-) ). I managed to win thanks to starting pretty much in the middle and expanding extremly aggressivly. Key to my expansion ability was getting the grav accel fairly early. Prop theory, art grav, controlled grav and buy grav acc. Gave me extra range and doubled the speed of my colonizers from 2 to 4. Also, loads and LOADS

Reply to NoNo's starting research and queue lists in Strategies Stardock Forums

I'd argue that you should go propulsion-artificial grav-controlled grav and buy grav acc. This gives you 1 extra speed and one sector extra range over impulse drive at the same research cost, and grav acc is a must buy in any case. I find little reason to research medical, as its one of the non-restricted early researches (ie, the AI will trade it to you for a reasonable price). ~SDC~

Reply to Resources revisited. (regarding game balance) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I agree with the original poster. Once you have identified the military resources and gotten a lead, the game on any difficulty becomes a cakewalk. I belive the major reason why the military res is so powerful is because of the way the AI runs his war - ie, the AI just throws ships at you, trying to attrit you down. With mil bonuses coming into play, the attrition becomes moot, as the attrition ratio hits 10-1 or more. Without the mil bonuses (or with drastically reduced ones),

Reply to Whats the best combo of starting bonuses? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Hmm.. you sure you are playing with the latest patches? In 1.01, the aliens were a bit too optimistic with their money, resulting in them willing to trade themselves into bankrupcy buying all those tasty terran techs. It's still doable in 1.02, but it's far harder, and if the Drenging empire gets big, the minor races seems to be extorted so hard they can't afford to buy all that many techs. Also, if they are low on money, they don't offer so much anymore. That being said, trading tech/t

Reply to Trade goods? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

About 50/20 is seems to be what I get when selling to a minor race with enough money. Slightly less to major races, unless my diplo advantage is huge. ~SDC~

Reply to Difficulty rating in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Check out the Unofficial FAQ in the encyclopedia of galciv.com, there is a short discussion of AI difficulty levels there. ~SDC~

Reply to Morale: How do I get it HGHER? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Do note that high populations results in slightly higher production, research and tax base ... so dropping the tax some will result in lower earnings for a while, until the population has grown enough to give it back to you. Of course, there is no use dropping tax if most of the planet populations are already at 100% morale... but starting high and dropping back a few %points whenever most planets are stable seems to work. ~SDC~

Reply to Drengin way too powerful... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A hint: always have military balance showing in the chart display. If you are getting too low (varies, but if you have less than half the leader, you are in trouble), the evil extortionists will come calling ... and some good peacekeeping forces decided that YOU need to supply them. Defenders are the cheapest early game way to get up your military strength - 4 pts for 50 hammers. You can speak however you like, but if you don't carry a big stick, noone will listen. <B

Reply to Star Creation in Strategies Stardock Forums

*shudder* - the ability to create stars would lead to abuse that makes SB carpeting look trivial ... like building a wall of stars to wall in the AI ... :-) ~SDC~

Reply to Blockades and Stupid AI relations in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yes, you can do some quite cheesy things with lots of scouts in the early game as well.. get 8 of them to surround a resource spot and unless the AI goes to war, that spot is yours... even two scouts can slow down a colonizer in the early game enough to let one of your win the race. The AI does not seem to understand this blocking tactic, and thus it doesn't affect relations. ~SDC~

Reply to Patch for Starting Bonuses? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Ah .. I've tried the mil prod option, and as everyone else has a hard time seeing any difference at all between 50% mil prod bonus and 0%. Now, what I expected what that at 100/0/0 spending (ie all mil), I would be spending 50% more money (and getting 50% more production) than when I set the sliders to 0/100/0 (all civ). But no such luck - I spend 16 BC to get 16 production both ways. ~SDC~

Reply to Success Hurts in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I managed to avoid the 85Mb download by installing Galciv AFTER I installed Stardock. ~SDC~

Reply to Freighters and Starbases -- When Do You Get the Bonus? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

At a guess, the income from a freighter is only recalculated at every 12 distance (ie, sector size) from home (at which time it increases by 5 or 10). So building a trade base won't be noticed until the next time a tradeship changes its value in that sector. Trade bonuses DO work ... I plastered a route with trade bases and trippled the income, about. Of course, remember that if a freighter says it gives an income of 100, building a 50% trade base will take that to 150 ONLY if

Reply to Stellar Wake and Intradiction Beams for Trade Routes in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Do note that trade ships are affected by speed-enhancements in the starbases. Build speed enhancers on the outgoing leg to skip the not-so-profitable part of the journey, while the trade centers dot the return leg (the maximum profitability is not when the ship is furthest away, but when it nears the end of the trip - ie, closest to home. Naturally.). ~SDC~

Reply to Research anomolies... in Strategies Stardock Forums

.. of course, you would really hate having a computer survey ship slurping down all those nice anomalies just when you are getting ready to finally take a crack at them. ~SDC~

Reply to Some interesting formulaes in Strategies Stardock Forums

Also always remember that a "50% bonus" doesn't increase your current production by 50%. Those 50% are just added with the prior bonus, then it multiples the base production for the planet. So if you already HAVE 200% bonus, then an extra 50% bonus is in reality only taking your multiplier from 3.0 to 3.5, or a measly 15% more than what you already had (and you have to pay for the extra as well). The economy isn't simple. You definitely can't just build everything everywhere and expect

Reply to Defensive Stacks in Strategies Stardock Forums

I do note that if you have a stack of identical ships, the damage from multiple attackers seems to sprread out. I had this stack of 3 Excals being attacked by a horde of Overlords ... after the twelfth had attacked, each Excal had about five hits or so (leaving them with 1300 left, about - heh, Excals are quite the monsters). ~SDC~

Reply to What's new in 1.02.042? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The very latest made it possible to build Excaliburs. Heh ... they are quite the the little monsters ... mine hade 1300 hits, with 186/104 attack/defense. ~SDC~

Reply to Ground Invasion Options in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmm... well, the option of wrecking a world at 1k a pop rather than investing the population to overcome the defenses ... seems ok to me. Nice tactic for a hit-n-run attack. ~SDC~

Reply to Evaluating Military Strength in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yes ... defenders are a great early build to keep up your military strength - 4 pts for 50 cons. Battlecruisers are 8 for 150, and battle axes are 7 for 120. A defender per planet is usually enough to keep the AI from demanding too much money of you. Usually. You never know with the Drengin. ~SDC~

Reply to Taxes, morale, and pop growth balancing at start-up in Strategies Stardock Forums

Population growth is dependent on morale. I usually ensure that I run my taxes at the 100 limit, at least for the majority of planets - that keeps my population at max. At the start of the game, I put my tax at somewhere between 30-50. As morale is heavily dependent on planet quality, it will wary depending on how lucky you got with Earth quality (varies between 16-20). Fiddle with the tax meter every turn to ensure you have 100 morale and as much tax as you can get away with.