drrider

Reply to Power plants and their utilities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

PS - BTW, for some of us it is a strategy game but not necessarily just a war game. I'd much rather win without ever fighting a war. Very tough to do, though. Hey! Wadda ya know! I pretty much did this in my last game, finally. [Gigantic, Rare-all, Punishing, Very-Slow Tech, messing with beta 1.6...er...-7?] One war was declared on me early, by Arceans while we were at opposite ends of the map with virtually no overlap to our ranges. They sai

Reply to Creativity? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

C-Mac I got 50% (or a little better) of "25% bonus" results from Civ Graveyards in my latest complete game, with the latest beta. I had switched research targets upon approach in all but one case (out of about 7 to 9 Graveyards) It was a Rare game, but I had 2 anomaly hunters out, so I found more than my share of anomalies. I have become a real fan of making Sensors my 1st research tech, even before Planetary Improvements. Then I rush out a 2nd (sometimes a 3rd) explorer, a

Reply to Starbase rangr in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Another idea that would give emphasis to SB presence/play would be if you were allowed to build 4 of EACH TYPE of SB in a sector. It has always bothered me that you could make the investment to max out a system's production/research potential with 20+ Econ SBs, but to build defenses for this economic powerhouse, you had to sacrifice some of the potential value. Possibly this could be limited by only allowing the extra bases in Home Systems. drrider

Reply to Sci-Fi Books - Shaped my perceptions in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

IMHO (and I'm sure some will disagree) the Honor Harrington series is a poor retread of CF Forester's Horatio Hornblower saga, which is great. It is Royal Navy action in the Napoleanic War, much like the Jack Aubrey / "Master and Commander" stories, which are also great. Actually, by frank admission of Mr Weber, the original inspiration and the rough life model (at least in the early books) of the Honor Harrington character was Horatio NELSON, not Horati

Reply to looking to get this game, i have a question in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I have won the game without ever getting into a fight (except with pirates and terrorists). By that I mean that was the way I INTENDED to play that game. I have also had games where I was at war with SOMEONE for 2/3s of the time. All my games tend to be rather long, but that is because I don't enjoy and deliberately avoid "quick build, then slash n burn" strategies. BTW, you do realize that this is a Turn-Based Strategy game, not a constant activity (so-called "Real T

Reply to Power plants and their utilities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I have a tendency to skip over all that stuff. Its just a war strategy game after all. You just build what you have to in order to make enough transports and ships to take over all the planets. I usually end up with 20 to 100 planets, theres no time to start planning power plants, or any other frills for that sake. Just keep building factories, and labs. The rest is fluff. When you take over a planet, take everything off of it that is fluff. All those influence bonuses

Reply to Creativity? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

(Citizen)KesselringMay 25, 2007 20:20:47Reply #44 I have experimented with creativity and found only one use for it, in DL and DA (Currently I play DA 1.50). It can kick in when you come across a civilization graveyard anomoly that can give you a 25% research to the tech you are currently researching. Er...this happens part of the time (possibly ~50%) with Civ Graveyard anomalies regardless of whether you have Creativity or not. Its a great

Reply to Updating freighters in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Basically, No. Some far out considerations that MIGHT mitigate that (in YOUR mind) might be: 1) Sometimes it pays to kill an underproducing TR and reestablish a generally more profitable (longer) one, with a faster ship to get it in operation sooner. 2) Faster freighters on the routes may out run some raiders (pirate or enemy) and therefore require less replacement. I generally just rely on the general technology increases to speed up my freighters, and I try to build t

Reply to reducing planet quality in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

By n1g2t3s4 Posted May 26, 2007 01:19:08 Is there a way to reduce planet quality in Dread Lords? I think most folks are missing the point here. He is asking about GC2:DL, NOT DA. In DL, those trash planets are never going to get very good. n1... Feud probably has the most efficient idea (#8 above), for DL, from a pragmatic (and, let's face it, EVIL, perspective). <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/BigSmile.gif"

Reply to Power plants and their utilities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

(Citizen)KesselringMay 14, 2007 16:18:47Reply #8 Did either of your test planets have a moon? It would change the final mps, and anything derived from those mps. Also, if the concern is a difference in tp under a research focus, does one of the planets have rings? drrider What do moons and rings do? What is mps again? Moons add 10% planetary manufacturing bonus. Rings add 10% planetary research bonus. <b

Reply to New player impressions about the tech tree in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Someone mentioned using the Galactopedia earlier. Well, I think that only works for DL. It would be nice to have something like that for DA. Galactopedia works just fine for DA. Nice pull-down version selector and all. BTW, does everyone interested in this thread realize that most of the Techs' impacts ARE available at any time in the text window of the Research screen. Some of the tech results may be squeezed down off the initial

Reply to New empire forming for older players in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

ghostwes I vote for the Pre-Cursors. Lost Hero, Did any of those names after the first three relate to the unique feature of the proposed group, i.e. generally older gamers, at all? Honestly, was I just missing something??

Reply to Creativity? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Kesselring, Kryo told a primary effect, possibly the only effect, of Creativity in posts #3 & 9 of the current thread. drrider

Reply to About Racial Bonuses in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Doktor, Not that the Yor don't start off with good stuff (though rather than 'significantly more powerful', I would characterize their bounuses as 'the most obvious'), but you may have missed the fact that ALL races, except the Terrans, start off with Stellar Cartography, and several others start off with Ion Drive. Indeed, before significant numbers of additional ships can possibly be built, other than by the very questionable strategy of rush buying all early ships, almost any r

Reply to Buying New Comp - Need Advice Please!!! in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Though AMD may contract for some chips to be produced in china, their 65nm process fab that makes all or the bulk of their X2 CPU chips is in Dresden, GE. drrider

Reply to Altarian Rebillion AAR in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

I tend to like "rare everything" gigantic games. 100% research, Super-lab homeworld + maybe one other, backed up by whatever economic planets & trading are necessary to balance the finances works just fine in that environment. I never trade away techs; just seems like it defeats the major strategic advantage of the strategic approach. Also, maintaining as huge as possible a tech advantage helps make you an undesirable war target. drrider

Reply to Creativity? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Jeremy, Are you also playing with the "Luck" ability, or with a race with high natural Luck? The Ranger discovery events are definitely increased by high Luck. Possibly Creativity has an impact as well, but from my own experience, and a lot of forum reading about Luck and Creativity, I doubt it. If I have Luck selected, I often don't build ships. I just research the techs necessary to be able to upgrade Rangers later in the game. Then for warships I just use various upgr

Reply to New empire forming for older players in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

Ha! I Love "the Pre-Cursors"! drrider PS- More qualification questions: "Complete the following phrase: _____ _____ Aphshai." "How do you avoid being eaten by a Grue?"

Reply to Question about modding planet quality in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

No disrespect intended, but this doesn't make much sense. You are saying that a planet that has a "raw" PQ of 8 can only be increased through game actions to 11, while one of PQ 1 can go to 19? Yes, in Dark Avatar, that is how the terraforming techs eventually work out. As I said, however, that is absolutely NOT the case in GC2:DL - In DL, low PQ planets are fairly trashy, although there are strategies that can use them quite effectively (as mul

Reply to New empire forming for older players in Metaverse GalCiv2 Forums

How old do you want the questions to get? Ex: "What was the salient game mechanic of the board game "Triplanetary"? Newer Ex: "Who was the publisher of the original MOO?" drrider

Reply to Race selection factors: Home system features in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The highest DL PQ I have ever seen mentioned in the forums was, I believe, PQ46. The highest DA PQ I have ever seen mentioned in the forums would be yours, unless that was DL. Other than that I think the highest DA world I've heard of was a PQ26. drrider

Reply to Calling all Geezer Gamers :) in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I am 51, disabled, somewhat reclusive, never married, never had a significant other, only 2 friends (strict requirements for Friendship: IF I can trust you with my life, you are a friend). I liked the old SSI AD&D Gold Box games, since they are Turn Based (as they should be). I also fell in love with Fallout and Fallout 2. Only recently learned of GC2 and it got my interest. I'm 57. I've developed a slightly different definition of friendship

Reply to GalCiv2-like book: Old Man's War in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Just picked up David Weber and Steve White's books, Crusade, In Death Ground... So far pretty GalCiv like save for the FTL style. Actually, the entire Weber / White collaborative series is based on the senarios (literally, straight out of the back of the rulebooks) of a space war game called Starfire. David Weber was the Re-Editor of the 2nd Edition (the edition that really cleaned up and reached playability) of those rules about 2 decades+ ag

Reply to Question about modding planet quality in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I hope you realize that in DA (NOT DL!) the maximum, fully planet-formed PQ of a base PQ8 planet is PQ11. The max developed PQ of a standard PQ4 is either PQ13 or PQ16 (there is a random variation). The max developed PQ of a standard PQ3 is either PQ9, PQ12, or PQ18. The max developed PQ of a standard PQ1 is PQ19. A galaxy full of base PQ8+ planets is not necessarily a bargain under the latest game engine. drrider

Reply to ugh sick of dark avatar in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Frogboy, For what it is worth, has any reliable source given DL/DA a thorough test on A Vista rig equipped and configured for DX10 (i.e. Nvidia 8800/8600)? Does it make a difference in the driver stability? (BTW, not intended as a defense for not having stable Vista+DX9 drivers, just curiosity from someone who is currently building a rig and still considering OS version and G-card version.) drrider