StLJim

Reply to Best way to relieve tensions between races? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

There are some trade goods and/or galactic achievements that provide substantial bonuses for diplomacy. Certain political parties also increase your diplomatic skills. The government tech research tree enhances diplomacy and influence bonuses (and economics). Combine all or most of the above and you should be able to gain a ++ rating for diplomacy with most of your AI competitors. Strong diplomatic skills and trade/research treaties will keep most AI races friendly with you into the

Reply to Please strenghten StarBases in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I second U-235's suggestion for giving starbases weapons with more range than a comparable level ship-based weapon. SBs are huge platforms. There's no reason they couldn't support missiles with larger propulsion systems, or railguns with extra long launch rails and/or additional accelerator coils, or beam weapons with dedicated power plants for increased beam strength/range. The effectiveness of these systems could be modifed by a couple of related techs: 1) Starbase fortifi

Reply to Questions About Possible Changes to the Game in Further Expansions (For the Designers) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Well, Bingjack, it looks like I've pissed in your coffee cup somehow. Hope you like the taste! Seriously, I think you've missed the point of what Aluroon, TriPp, myself, and others are suggesting for the AI and ship speed: We want the AI on the more difficult levels to be just as likely to have very fast ships as a smart human player. We don't want the AI to "stand around and drool" while we jump across 20 - 40 pc/w

Reply to Questions About Possible Changes to the Game in Further Expansions (For the Designers) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Bingjack, the reason I mostly play DL games is the highly detrimental nerfage of engines in DA. My preferred game scales are huge and gigantic. Combat ships just crawl across the map in a DA game on those scales. Brad and the development team chose to do that as a way to re-balance the military portion of the game for the AI players. It was an easy way to restrict the ability of the human players to outmaneuver the AI players. The alternative was to enhance the probability

Reply to Questions About Possible Changes to the Game in Further Expansions (For the Designers) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Aluron has a good point about how the AI designs its military ships and doesn't appear to weight ship speed very highly. At the more difficult levels, the AI does appear to weight ship speed highly for colony ships. It also appears to incorporate ship speed improvements into constructors and freighters. However, it seldom appears to place a high value on ship speed for military ships in the mid-game and the late game. I routinely put 3, 4, or even 5 engines of the most advanc

Reply to Questions About Possible Changes to the Game in Further Expansions (For the Designers) in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Three points on the Large Ship = Large Part issue that Aluroon raised: 1) Miniturization, miniturization, miniturization. It's a three-fer -- everything gets smaller and you can pack more in to every size hull. 2) Agree with the other commenters that engines and defenses on a larger hulled ship should be larger to reflect greater mass to push and to protect. 3) The weapons should be left the same size OR their power should be increased to reflect larger size of bea

Reply to hidden/undocumented Korx superability? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The Galactic Privateer doesn't just protect your freighters on a trade route twice, it protects them indefinitely. One of the funniest things I've ever seen in a DL game was an attempt by an Altarian squadron to kill one of my freighters. The Altarians tried to attack my freighter five (5) turns in a row before they finally gave up and went off on another mission.

Reply to Planetary landing events in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

We all need to be wary of applying current fashionable concepts of what is good, or neutral, or evil behavior at the national/civilizational level to GalCiv. The current hegemony-lite of Western, liberal democratic civilization may well turn out to be an historical anomaly. Throughout most of human history, complete ruthlessness toward your external competitors and systematic exploitation and oppression of a majority of your internal population was a successful strategy for many societ

Reply to Econ Starbase Stacking in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Another way to get more out of investing in economic starbases is to research the full logistics tech tree. One of the side benefits of greater logistics skills is a reduction in the cost of new starbases. They will still continue to increase in cost as you get to higher numbers of bases -- 20-30+, but the rate of increase will go down substantially. In longer games this will make a big difference in total investment cost as you build out your economic infrastructure.

Reply to The Last Battlefield in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Themocaw #21 --- thanks for the feedback and the additional insights about the plot. Now I just have to wait for the next installment - damn it!

Reply to The Last Battlefield in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Aluroon, Thanks for the insight about Krynn religious fanaticism and potential divine revelations from the Krynn deity(s). I had forgotten that aspect of Krynn culture. I've also used the strategy of going after less powerful prey when the biggest power is too strong to attack. However, I usually don't adopt that strategy if I'm already in a war with the strongest power in the galaxy. It will be interesting to see how Themocaw explains the Arcean rationale for this choice.

Reply to The Last Battlefield in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

Great story, Themocaw! However, a couple of your most recent plot points don't add up: 1) The Krynn declaration of war immediatley after giving away approximately half of their star systems and all of their technology to the races they are going to fight. 2) The Arcean decision to initiate war with the Terrans when they are already at war with the most powerful polity in the galaxy. You imply that the Krynn are playing a very deep game and have probably inserted tim

Reply to Are constructors of that much value? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

DeathGerbil #42 --- Have you tried a "can't beat'em, join'em" strategy for tech trading with the AI species? I've been pretty successful doing this with non-weapons technologies. Another useful tactic is trading older generations of your most advanced weapons tech to species that aren't researching that part of the weapons tech tree or are a couple of weapons generations behind you. Even hostile species can be very generous with their tech trades for weapons that are more advanced t

Reply to Are constructors of that much value? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Again, yet another successful way of pursuing victory. Really it all comes down to what you are comfortable with. Me I tend to be more concerned with keeping my ships at peak perfomance versus my opponents, which makes research a concern for me. I play with no tech trading, which makes it even more of a concern. The no tech trading is just how I feel the real world would be like in a galaxy of opposing sides. I wish you could limit it

Reply to Are constructors of that much value? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

"First: do NOT add offense/defense modules to the resource base. This makes it the lowest priority in any attack. This can also allow you to not research the techs for these improvements, which allows you to concentrate on better ships (or any other tech area). " I've had a lot of success with a different strategy. Build up your starbases' defensive and offensive capabilities as rapidly as possible. This enables the starbases to protect themselves to a larg

Reply to Are constructors of that much value? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Constructors aren't that important when the AI is set on low difficulty levels. You can win without a big investment in economic and mining starbases because the AI has too many research and economic penalties. It's a completely different situation when the AI is set on high difficulty levels. Then you really need the production and research bonuses from advanced economic starbases. You also need to get the maximum mining bonuses from your galactic resources. Trading station