Gilmoy

Reply to States and/or Regions in GalCiv3 in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

+1. This is similar to a concept I call "theaters", which I find useful when playing any 3X, 4X, Empire-like, boardgame, or other game with buildables and exploration (including some RPGs). Any map-based game with lots of things going on naturally demands a narrowing of scope (or you'll get overwhelmed by the complexity of interactions). Evidently, US and other militaries have encountered the same problem and found the same solution, for similar reasons. Hence

Reply to Black Holes in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

And yes, I don't expect any of this to appear in GC*. This is just geek fun among fellow geeks. For game purposes, we happily suspend disbelief and grant the designers a great deal of artistic license. I don't mind the way GC3 black holes look and behave now. Maybe they're a bit too frequent, but that requires just a tweak to the map generator. As a game mechanism, it so happens that a GC3 black hole vortex is the only kind of impassable t

Reply to Black Holes in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

We have overwhelming evidence that something exists that is as heavy, compact, and dense as a black hole. Sag A* is a (decades-)known radio and X-ray source. We've tracked (in infrared, which fortunately passes right through interstellar dust that occludes visible light from the galactic center) huge stars whipping around Sag A* like comets around a sun. That nails Sag A* with a mass of 4.3 million solar, but it's compact , tinier than the st

Reply to REQ: ergonomic user interface / customization in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

I think this, in fact, is the novel and fertile game niche of 5X : explore, expand, exploit, exterminate, extend . Basically, first we implement Common Lisp (or a similar script language, but why settle for less). Then we (implement and) publish an API that exports all game data to this Lisp, e.g. ship list, planet manage, influence per hex, and every other kind of number. Every UI toolbox element simply queries a few data (plural :)) from t

Reply to Black Holes in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Black holes don't "slowly" pull things in. They're indistinguishable from a star of the same mass. Gravity is gravity. Even a supermassive black hole of 4 billion solar masses anchoring a galaxy with a huge central bulge (and lighting up as a quasar when it's feeding) doesn't pull its own galaxy in. In fact, quite the opposite: its jets are so overpowering that it blasts away all available gas from the galactic interior, which kills off star formation

Reply to Building uniqueness and limits in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

i.e. you're defining the concept of "region" as a scope for limits. Equivalently, you're promoting regions to second(?)-class values. (They're not first-class because they're still hard-coded, not definable on the fly.) Then it becomes trivial to impose region-wide limits for various buildables. The region takes over the role of encapsulating the "1-per-me" idiom. Of greater interest, you've further broken down the "region" constru

Reply to [.701] Gameplay comments in Founders Innovation SorcererKing Forums

Welp: W1. My non-hero group of soldiers took out both Vetrar and the fire dude (Aesenoth?). Normal difficulty. It was ... anticlimactic. Let small map = USA. I trembled in fear as V and A wandered between my cities around "Nebraska" (while actually doing nothing). I had no heroes nearby: Tandis + Keplin were in "Arizona", clearing out a ring around SK's fortress. Varda was up in "Montana" finding my 1st wild horses (but no m

Reply to [.51][Bug] Economic Stimulus still generates income instead of wealth in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

Yes, I think that is the intent. Research Project works the same way: you run your production through your entire manuf bonus pipeline, divide by 4 to get Raw Research, and then run that through your entire research bonus pipeline. So all of your bonuses in both pipelines pay off. This matters for e.g. Altarian, who have the Dark Energy branch that pump both manuf and research. They don't have to choose one or the other; they can pursue both. It's ba-

Reply to Major issues I have with the game design in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

From Paul's stream comment: there is actually a need for a nifty tree UI for the buildable-trees XML files. A "buildable" is { tech / improvements / modules / components } + { ideology }. These form a tree (actually a forest), with techs at the top, the other 3 branching off them like epiphytes, and ideology (and its improvements) as a disjoint tree. Currently, Stardock does this in one big Excel file . As text. No UI.

Reply to Nebulae and Dust Clouds in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

Gosh, it's like WW2 piston-engine fighters using clouds to set up ambushes [e digicons]:grin:[/e] The Cylons hid among rocks before they ambushed the Home Fleet's battlestars. Darn those mechanical AIs! Good thing there are none in GC3 --

Reply to Helpful ship designs that you wish you knew about before! in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="Thecw" reply="10" id="3502865"] Galactic event: Wrong band arrives at rock concert. Instead of the 'Angelic Soothing Singers Collective' the band ' Disaster Area ' ... [/quote] "That's us. The Angelic Blues Brothers Singers."

Reply to Helpful ship designs that you wish you knew about before! in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote quoting="post"] An ultra-cheap, bare bones colony ship ... An ultra-cheap, bare bones constructor ship ... [/quote] Did those in my 1st Designer session. But I come from Malfador's Space Empires series, so I'm familiar with the concept of bin-packing ship designs to optimize functionality for cost. I further specialize my czers and ctors with exactly enough range for the planet they target (I count the hexes) , and whether to pay fo

Reply to What are you going to name your star? in GalCiv III Founders GalCiv3 Forums

Abusing the pronunciation: [quote who="jbbrower" reply="309" id="3502718"] Persephone [/quote] ... because that's where she keeps it. [e digicons]:X[/e]

Reply to [Idea] Beta Quadrant – Filtering System in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

Certainly a step in the right direction. But why stop at 4? Seek the transitive closure (of all possible axes of generalization). The uber-UI would be player-defined slices (subsets of stuff). You could define a slice to be a region of the map, or a logical grouping of ships (even if dispersed to heck), e.g. the fleet that shall congregate here and invade Drengi. That one mechanism would basically trump and s

Reply to Beta 0.51 Patch Feedback in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="Hamilmac"] I really like the new terraforming system, though I have noticed that it is best to get all the techs before terraforming a planet. Soil Enhancement uses the same hexes as Ultra-Terraformer (UT), but Terraforming Plant, Habitat Improvement, and the Resequencing Station will often make tiles available that UTs do not. It is a shame t

Reply to Armor Focus in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

Ugh. Edit post and delete the last N-2 lines [e digicons]:blush:[/e] (there is no time limit on editing your own posts)

Reply to Bug: Amulet of Sorcery (I think that's what it is) gives -130% Mana Usage, basically free Hypnotise, Blizzard, Fireball etc. =) in Sorcerer King SorcererKing Forums

Confirmed. Alas, the -130% is capped at -100% (free); it does not actually pay you a +30% mana refund for having cast a spell. Cool feature: if the wielder has abilities that normally cost mana, then they properly show no mana cost when you hover over their hotkey boxes. So we used a buggy item to prove that aspect of the UI correct. Yaay!

Reply to [.701 Bug] the Shafer button doesn't always say Idle Units when you have units that still have movement points in Sorcerer King Support SorcererKing Forums

I read that as "Shatner button", and my tiny mind exploded.

Reply to Suggestion: Lieutenants and SK need to get beefier in Founders Innovation SorcererKing Forums

Vetrar could, like, pick up your outposts and carry them on his broad shoulders. First one he wears like a hat. In combat thereafter ... your own outposts shoot at you. And he gets their fortification HP as his armor. You'll cry, you'll curse, you'll cease spamming pioneers. SK hums Phil Collins: oh, think twice --

Reply to Remove the cutesy, self referential nonsense in Sorcerer King SorcererKing Forums

higgledy piggledy Douglas R. Hofstadter went to his editors asked for time off: "I'll never finish this self-referentialness higgledy piggledy douglas r. hof stadter

Reply to [.51][Bug] Version number in main menu still shows 0.50 in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

In Steam, you can also right-click on "GC III", Properties, Local Files, and note the BuildId at the bottom. It auto-jumps every time they push any batch of files. It used to be (0.50) 411098.

Reply to [.51][Bug] Economic Stimulus still generates income instead of wealth in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

Actually, running through both production pipelines (manuf + research, or manuf + wealth) may be the intent. If you can (live long enough to) build it, maybe you deserve it. If all equally skilled players are equally overpowered ... then they're balanced [e digicons]:grin:[/e]

Reply to Diplomancy isn't very fun. in GalCiv Beta Feedback GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="Hamilmac" reply="3" id="3502397"] ... for Iraq . . . well, I'm not going to give them my best stuff ... [/quote] Yes, that would be almost as awkward as, say, Iran flying the F-14 Tomcat. Japan commissioned a couple of battleships from the UK (in the mid-30s). Why not? Excellent work for a reasonable price ... and their own shipyards were busy ;)

Reply to My impression of Sorcerer King and 2 major suggestions not suggested yet. in Sorcerer King Discussion SorcererKing Forums

Hey, I often reach SK-like endgames in my Empire-likes and 4Xs :) Here's my perspective: I become a zookeeper , and each surviving AI's last city is a pet . I'm perfectly fine with it producing 1 army every 20 turns and slogging two steps out of its front door to fight my sleeping sentries. I laugh, I chuckle, I think they're adorable. Meanwhile, I'm doing my own thing. I don't get mad at those holdout AIs,

Reply to Galactic Civilizations III - Beta 2 Patch 0.51 in GalCiv III Support GalCiv3 Forums

Usually Stardock releases GC3 builds on Thursdays (opt-in?), and then features it in the Dev Stream on Friday. It makes sense: we get to flood Forums and Chat with quick (1 day, i.e. 18 hours gameplay [e digicons]:grin:[/e] ) feedback, which catches any showstoppers ... like Drengin colony ships crashing. Then they stay up all weekend and push a hotfix. Generalizing, I'd expect Sorcerer King builds to appear on Tuesdays, with stream on We