Stromko

Reply to XBOX 360: Call of Duty 3 quick comments in XBOX GalCiv2 Forums

Sounds more like a rental to me, at most. There aren't a lot of good games out for the XB360 yet, true enough, but there's at least a handful that are better than CoD2, let alone a game that the consensus seems to think is an inferior sequel(CoD3). It really depends how hooked you are on the WWII genre however-- for WWII first-person shooters, I'd say Call of Duty is still head and shoulders above the rest. Personally I demand that WWII games be a step above other games in terms of game

Reply to Stardock Please Revive MoO! in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

I'm a bit leery of more X-Com PC games just from seeing how much it went wrong on UFO Aftermath. Then again, Aftermath was pretty much a remake of X-Com: Apocalypse, not Enemy Unknown. Whoever handles the next remake I hope would stay properly focused on good game mechanics, balance, and usability instead of devoting too much resources to being graphically competitive. I said I'm leery of more PC games in that vein, since I actually do enjoy Rebelstar Tactical Command on the GBA.

Reply to the movies game in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

There are sites that deal in modding in general, such as moddb.com. Given the entirely different nature of The Movies and GalCiv II, it'd make more sense to have a community of =general= modders, than it would be to have a community focusing on GalCiv II and The Movies.. I can't even see how the two games can intersect at all, yes you have sci-fi props but it'd be pretty damn hard to describe anything in GCII via a movie generated in The Movies.

Reply to A thought of 'special' races in Ideas GalCiv2 Forums

Food is only used for 'creating' more population, money is only used for maintaining and making things. Morale is another factor in 'creating' (or stopping the loss of) population, and taxes are a way of having more creation capacity (by ways of money) in exchange for less population growth. So, what about races that don't need money, or don't need food? No-Money races: 'Industrial Capacity' represents the proportion of resources that are assigned deliberately or otherwise to t

Reply to Jehovah's WItnesses in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

They can't actually take away your right to believe what you want though. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion is a double-edged sword. People who are born into a 'bubble' where they aren't allowed to believe whatever they want to believe are the true victims. I'm finding the pamphlets a lot easier to throw away personally, I find it really awkward and intrusive when strangers knock on my door for any ol reason. Marcathonas: <table cellpadding=8 width="95%" align=center bg

Reply to Jehovah's WItnesses in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

A few years ago there used to be an old man who went around our town wearing a placard saying the end is coming. He's dead now. That gave me a good laugh, thanks Evil Muppet <TABLE cellpadding=8 width="95%" align=center bgColor=#FFF394 class="mb-B

Reply to Conspiracy Theories in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

#6 -- I find it frightening if you actually believe that, I hope you're just putting that up there for fun. Sadly a lot of people do believe theories like that and deny the holocaust either completely or partially. Your 'bombed supply lines = dead prisoners' equation doesn't write-off why the concentration camps existed in the first place. It doesn't explain the gas chambers. The only reason anybody sent to a concentration camp survived long enough to start starving, supply-lines or no

Reply to Epic Story Generator in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I find the 'epic story generator' more interesting in theory than any of the game mechanic changes they're making. New random events or U.P. laws to vote on might be cool too. Everything else is pretty shrugworthy as far as the expansion goes, if they didn't have the epic story generator I wouldn't consider it a worthy purchase.

Reply to Run from attackers in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

If you can't avoid the enemy engaging you in combat in the first place, then apparently your scout isn't quite fast enough to escape before it's destroyed, or its sensors aren't good enough to avoid stumbling into weapon range or being ambushed. Them's the breaks. You can check out the stats of enemy fleets to see how fast they're able to go and that sort of thing. So long as you stay vigilant th

Reply to The first turn is the most important turn of the game! in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

There's more than one way to start out in a corner. If you're within a competitive distance with a good number of planets then you might want to give it a shot, the benefits could outweigh the drawbacks. Same deal if you've got some decent-looking starsystems cornerward from you, this gives you a 'backyard' where you're almost guaranteed first shot at any colonies, resources, or anomalies in the area. On the other hand if you find yourself seriously wedged into a corner, with rival plan

Reply to Has anyone heard of Archlord? in MMORPG Stardock Forums

I tried out Archlords, it seemed competent but utterly failed to stand out in my mind. Also I couldn't identify with any of the classes or races, so I really didn't feel like I could make a character that was compelling to me. So between quests, combat, and characterization that just didn't appeal, I found no reason to play beyond just a few hours. Thankfully I tried it during an open beta so didn't waste any money on it. I know that the 'true value' of an mmorpg is your progre

Reply to Regarding Used Copies of GalCiv II in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Post 50 summed up what I was dying to bring up-- when you register your serial number, you become able to not only patch up Gal Civ II, you become not only able to install it on any machines that you own (or just have access to), you also become able to download it again should you ever lose your CDs. In other words, if you sell your copy of GalCiv II back to EBGames or whatever, Stardock still lets you download it. You cannot resell GCII, because you cannot lose access to it.

Reply to Planetary Defense vs. Orbital Fleet Manager in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I don't have serious orbital 'fleets', I've always found that the fact of the matter is if I can't secure the space around a planet, then I must be way behind in logistics or ship technology and therefore any ships left on planet defense are toast. I always build fast ships, ships that are fast enough to avoid fights they can't win. They can buy me time, primarily by killing off the much weaker enemy transports. If I'm able to kill all the incoming transport fleets, that does me

Reply to Tom Chick in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I remember trying out the Sword of the Stars demo/public beta (whatever it was) and going to the Kerberos boards to give some suggestions on how it could be improved. I went into the forums and saw threads where all doubters, and damn well anyone who found any flaw with SotS, was brutally flamed.. I started writing a reply pointing out how ridiculous the 'fanboys' were being in unfairly and unnecessarily attacking people, then noticed it was one of the devs! I'll go ahead and quote Dub

Reply to Sins of a solar empire? in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

It could be excellent if done right. I like the idea of a seamless transition between a huge interstellar expanse, and the tactical combat between ships. There's been a fair bit of games with turn-based grand strategy and real-time combat but the sync-up between the different modes is hit or miss. There've been largescale tactical space games like Homeworld, good in their own right, but that have always seemed to me too small and mission-based-- you'd either have a campaign where y

Reply to HP module in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

It would be really neat, and maybe sell more copies, if additional functions that could be added to ships were included in Dark Avatar. Functions that aren't used in the base game can be unsupported and potentially buggy and it could be up to the modders to figure out how to make them work well.

Reply to What game should I be play to see if I like GC II? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I didn't like the first Galactic Civilization, it seemed like it was just a flat rush to get the capability to make the biggest ships or die. The learning curve was too steep for me to be comfortable with it. I find GalCiv 2 is much more accessible, it's easier to make rhyme and reason of it. You know why people declare war, it's pretty obvious what you need to get weapons and defenses and how to make them stronger, and in the difficulty modes I play at(usually the 'Challenging' level)

Reply to Upgrading Starbase HP in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

That's really too bad, it should really give the starbase a few levels everytime a constructor gets to it in order to beef up its HP at least.. but I have no way of knowing if starbases can even gain levels.

Reply to AI cheats when they against you... in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Any given ship should be focused entirely on one type of offense, at least from what I understand. Do extra attack types mean extra attacks, or is it lumped together and the sum is applied against the defense just once? If they have any defenses at all and assuming each weapon type on a given ship is treated as a separate attack.. then your ships are hideously nerfed. Really, a 'standard fighter'? What the hell is that? It depends entirely on technology, could vary anywhere fr

Reply to Signature list for Deleting "Want Carrier" Posts in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

They need to keep the threads down to a reasonable level, anyway, and if so many people want carriers in GalCiv II I don't understand why they can't just find a way to mod it in.. it'll probably take more than some modifications to the XML files, but cry me a river. To implement carriers would require the ship hull sizes to all be changed in order to make it logical, and extensive rebalancing to make it useful/balanced. Most people will not want to use it, therefore it is not worth the

Reply to Microsoft Burns Windows XP Users with Halo 2 in Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

Performance-wise, I found Halo to be almost as laggy on my old machine with my old videocard as F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon was. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for 'older PCs'. My definition of an 'older PC' for the sake of argument, would be a PC that has trouble running or is unable to run a lot of newer games. IMO, if you can get good FPS on Halo on your old PC then it can run any game on the market though not necessarily well. I found the optimization for the PC vers

Reply to CGOnline takes a look at Dark Avatar in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Interesting interview but light on new information. The screenshots looked juicy but I couldn't find any way to zoom in on them to see any kind of actual detail.

Reply to Hull sizes and Their Implications in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

They might actually be the size of fighters, but the Altarians might just use a lot less 'glass' in ships of said class. I thought the initial post quite concisely made your point though, that the size differences between the ship types really isn't enough to make carriers logical. Not to mention that the low hitpoints of a tiny hull doesn't justify the cost of mounting a nice expensive gun or two on it. It's true you can swarm an opponent with large numbers of small craf

Reply to IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER IN GAME! SCREENSHOT INSIDE! in Modding GalCiv2 Forums

I don't expect they could be to scale within the limitations of the hull classes available. It'll be especially worrisome with fighters, unless you made an 'invisible' hull and then created very small X-wing, Y-wing, TIE-fighter, etc-shaped pieces of jewelry that could be attached at hardpoints to represent squads of fighters. I hope the mod will introduce extremely small turbolasers and such that can have 4+ mounted on a tiny hull, or fighters just won't make sense; furthermore, capita

Reply to Slow game, Fast game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I'm pretty sure that the income bonus being given to all civilizations, not just the player's civilization, is exactly what he intends. Personally though I think giving a tax revenue bonus alone wouldn't speed up development so long as we're stuck at 100% production capacity maximum. You'd have a lot of extra money but research and building wouldn't be faster unless you purchased things to speed it up, so this would require a change in strategy. More research buildings, less industry bu