shadowtongue

By the way... From reading the description of Unlikely Friends, and looking back at the initial city location (though I cannot say this for sure), it appears that gaining that tech allows the player to build the spider nests, not that they have to have the spider resource available to do so. This would be different from weapons/armor techs again, where it seems you do have to have access to certain resources to produce certain items. Of cour

[quote who="Twohawks" reply="26" id="2716969"] Quoting RisingLegend, reply 23 As was posted earlier the human alternative would be to focus on techs like entertainment (so population growing faster means more troops can be trained) or warfare (training for tougher units), equipment (better armor and weapons), or logistics (for group unit training). remember he was only able to go through the diplomacy tree and get the spiders because 1) there was a spider nest in/near his area

The spider option is cool, but what is the 'human' alternative techwise? It seems you are almost forced to go for summons/creatures early game because you will not have the pop to be able to recruit any kind of decent sized army, nor the tech or material to equip them properly. What is the balance here? I'm beginning to think I won't like the early game.

[quote who="Jafo" reply="170" id="2716763"] The assumption that once a civilization 'fires up the stereo', it never turns it off, is one I find very difficult to accept. The most likely ONLY way the 'stereo' gets turned off is when the civilization goes nuclear and snuffs itself out...and we'll likely HEAR that. I can't see why anyone would find it 'very difficult to accept'....and the presumption that 'our' world is getting 'quieter' radio-wise is quite baseless.[/quote]

[quote who="Nesrie" reply="44" id="2716659"]5 on release was a buggy pos that didn't work and ran terribly. Several features they advertised were also not in the game, and some that were in it did not work properly.[/quote] Sure, which is why it's not a bad idea to simply not buy games on day0. Of course I waited a little longer on 5, until the expansions were out in fact, so I could just get the bundle. I suppose it helps that I've quashed

[quote who="Jafo" reply="164" id="2716173"] See we got to a point where we assumed, 'hey, we use radio based terrestrial broadcast, so duh, everyone else out there must use it too!' Well that's an assumption that's not terrible, but after ~60 years we've improved our transmissions to the point where they are no longer terrestrially based, they are no longer pointed 'everywhere'. We are dimming our own signal if you will. Again, wrong. Technology emits radio fr

I agree that 4 got a bit of a raw deal. It just changed too much with the heroes on the battle field as a unit, and of course the AI had some difficulties, though the campaigns were fun enough for me. It was different, some good some bad, but not really close enough to the spirit of the other HoMM titles and I think that's what worked most against it. 5 was great though. 3 was ok for me, but I felt they incorporated alot of time

[quote who="Jafo" reply="161" id="2716038"] And secondly we're not talking about craft, we're talking about SETI looking for radio signals, which may also be 'dumb' because we are already moving away from 'radio' after about 60 years. Er...they're not tuning in to the top 40 hit parade and the traffic report on Groovy Tunes on the AM band. The reference to 'radio' is simply the frequency of communicable transmission....wavelength....[/quote] Of course i

[quote who="Jafo" reply="158" id="2715997"] Wow, that is so incredibly stupid... Why would ET be trying to tell us anything? When the message was sent a million freaking years ago before ET knew 'we' were here. Damn, nutters just keep on getting dumber. Not stupid. "our" exploratory craft have "messages" on them and we have NOT yet found anyone/thing to be sending them to. Let's also be careful about calling people here 'nutters/dumber'. Doing so has consequen

Thanks for this. So 60ish turns to get to that point on a small map with normal settings... How does the pacing feel? Not many techs, not many spells, no soldiers, one summon, ... Not that I really have an opinion on what it *should* be (since that's going to differ for everyone), but are you satisfied with the pacing as it currently stands? Or are you backwards due to random luck of your start? Or are you

AoW:SM may have been a nice MP game, but it's SP play was just terrible. Boring, not difficult, repetitive... The AI was just completely unable to provide any kind of a challenge once the player got past the initial learning curve (which wasn't that steep in the first place). Dom3 is by far a superior game, though again, MP only if you want a challenge.

G3- I'm glad we seem to be on the same page more or less, even if there were some misunderstandings along the way. Clearly the use of resources is incredibly important, and we should strive to reduce our consumption as best we can. Along that path though, are those who want the change to come immediately, with no regard for the cost incurred due to overly early adoption of immature technologies. The media and the government want you to be scared

G3- I was quite clear in stating that you were sounding like a Gaian and my objection was to that. You're not a Gaian, problem solved. But if you persist in talking about 'equilibrium' then I'll simply have to assume you don't understand how the earth functions, or what equilibrium normally means, because equilibrium is not something the planet finds itself in ever, humans nonwithstanding. Perhaps you want to make your argument in term

Jafo- Youth? I'm no youth by this forums standards I would imagine. But for every 'disaster' there was also a solution. That's the point. So far we have proven rather adept at figuring out how to fix things after we f them up. Maybe our 'luck' will run out eventually, though I see no reason to take that view over any other view. Of course there are forces beyond our control, but fortunately for most of them, we are not an input into t

G3- You have observable data that the earth is sentient? Raven- Paper? We have more trees now than in the 19th century. Using up resources? Use up some copper, or aluminum, or ... Yeah, we use up resources to produce energy, but as you probably know, the push to renewable energy is already in full swing, and we will get there eventually, or at least to the point where the 'consumables' are not as important as they once were.

Raven- I agree that the earth is 'alive' in the sense you describe, but I disagree that we are therefore a parasite on it. Of course we have shown our ability to alter the environment negatively, but also positively. The tipping point may come, and at that point we will face the choice of allowing ourselves to die off, or making the changes to prolong our 'lives'. So far I see no reason to think that we will simply chose to kill ourselves, and if you f

[quote who="G3mpi3" reply="129" id="2713007"]If humans were extinct, the world would be in perfect equilibrium. We really need to either control our population size, or leave this planet - this is the largest problem in the scientific community.[/quote] What does that mean? Perfect equilibrium? As though the earth is ever in a state of 'perfect equilibrium'. That sounds too much like some gaian rambling about mother earth being a senti

[quote who="impinc" reply="3" id="2713066"]Honestly, it's hard to look at another space tbs. GalCiv is my favorite game ever, so it would take a rediculously good game to even come close to it. And I'm going to judge a book by it's cover here, it's nothing even remotely close to GalCiv. So hah![/quote] Without even looking at this game I can tell you it is superior to GalCiv, so HAH yourself.

Raven- Oil is finite, as is anything on the planet (though so long as there are energy inputs from the sun, some things are kind of infinite, but that's not really the realm in which oil lives). As you say though, there are many oil deposits we are aware of, which are currently not cost effective to produce from. If you accept technology continuing to grow, at some point these oil reserves might be cost effective, even at current prices.&nbs

Raven- Peak oil? In 30 years? That's a very unsubstantiated opinion. As to finding intelligent ETs in 1000 years... Well unless the laws of physics are seriously different from what we have thus far proven them to be, it's more likely that we will never find intelligent ETs ever. For as much as it is true that the sheer number of planets in the universe practically guarantees that there are

Life is far more resilient than most people give it credit I would imagine. As G3 alludes when he (?) mentions the extremophiles. However, there is 'life' and there is 'Life'. Either would be significant if discovered elsewhere, but the big-L version would be that much more significant. Finding something which can survive in a difficult environment is far far different from finding something which evolved in a difficult environment unt

[quote who="TheBirthdayParty" reply="8" id="2710627"] Quoting SumoX, reply 2I can't answer your first two questions, but if you're looking for another "4x" game, I'd say buy Sins of a Solar Empire. I think it'll have a different enough of a feel (heck, it's real-time!) that, even after Elemental is released, you'll still be interested in playing it. I haven't played it as much as I should, but that's because every time I start playing, I lose track of time. How is the AI in Do

[quote who="Raven X" reply="94" id="2710024"] Quoting shadowtongue, reply 93 But just because Hellyer is (or was) a high ranking official means what exactly? Sara Palin also was a high ranking official. Though I freely admit to know nothing of her position on aliens, though I imagine it would be highly entertaining to hear her express it Sara Palin definitely DOES NOT believe in aliens of any extraterrestrial form. She's literally gone on the record as saying

The 'semantics' was only applied to our disagreement (apparent) about whether he made a prediction or not. But just because Hellyer is (or was) a high ranking official means what exactly? Sara Palin also was a high ranking official. Though I freely admit to know nothing of her position on aliens, though I imagine it would be highly entertaining to hear her express it ;) My 'disservice' to Hellyers comments is based off of the fact that he is only the

I say it because ultimately I was disappointed with GC2, and as a result I promised myself to no longer make day1 purchases, no matter how highly I think of the company putting out the game. I suppose I am going to purchase the game at some point anyway, so you could say why not be in it on day 1? The reason is because we all know that the day 30 version is going to be different form the day1 version (better we assume), so why waste my time with something that is