Sarkos

Reply to Elemental: Internal debates made external in Elemental Dev Journals Stardock Forums

I like the simple model. I'd rather be able to refine items (and people) by the sovereign's magic rather than through sending a bunch of iron ore to be beaten into plain swords then off to Friendly the Alchemist's Magical Sword Shoppe and then off to the Sword of Doom Factory (TM) to get set with Gems of Annihilation from the magic gem crafters shop so I can give them to my honor guard who since I've closed my borders for many turns now makes up most of my army. I then go bac

Reply to Elemental: Tactical battles in Elemental Dev Journals Elemental Forums

This is an interesting post and quite a few interesting replies. I like the idea of a leadership skill having an effect on both player run battles and auto resolve battles. I think that Frogboy's idea for leadership with the auto resolve battles is fine but for player run battles perhaps leadership allows a certain number of units to be controlled by the player with a minimum of one or two units for armies without leaders. The rest of the units would be controlled by the AI

Reply to Battlefield tile in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

I think allowing a player to choose to place a monument after a battle might be better. Maybe some additional area of control and a bonus based on which side won (attacker/defender) and what troops were at the battle. Enemies could come desecrate the monument to get rid of its influence and bonus. It would have to have some criteria of each side being a certain size or someone could just spam a bunch of monuments which would defeat the whole idea. Here's an historical

Reply to Handling the "Spoils of War" after victory in WOM Ideas Elemental Forums

I think it would be interesting if a percentage of the materials used to build the defeated army could be used after the battle to upgrade your own forces. For example, the enemy has several units armed with "enchanted blades". After the battle you immediately access the unit editor and swap out one of your unit's regular swords for "enchanted blades". Depending on how much modification is available on the graphics end then this unit would actually be equipped with the ene

Reply to Expelled: Is Intelligent Design a Science? in Everything Else Stardock Forums

Evolution is an hypothesis, Intelligent Design is an hypothesis. Neither one deserves to be taught in a science class. There is no evidence that species change from one to the other over time as evolution tries to explain the diversity of life. Natural selection should be taught. It is verifiable. Living things change over time in response to environment. It's very well documented. Intelligent Design and Evolution are not verifiable because we cannot see into the past to s

Reply to Long Term development ideas in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

I like Innociv's idea quite a bit. I was thinking of something similar before I read all these posts. You could get the reliability of subscriptions without the annoying monthly fee and also have the mini-expansions that add value. For people who would only want their "premium membership" to extend to the game they purchased you could make a yearly subscription at a lower price point which just covers the game that they're interested in. You could even bundle one year of a single game member

Reply to Reintroducing the Iconians in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

The Iconians have always been my favorite race and I must say that this is always how I have envisioned them. They are stagnant spending countless millennia trying to regain a past that was never theirs to begin with. Storywise, I've always enjoyed the dramatic element of a dying culture that becomes resurgent because of the younger cultures around it. I'm glad that you decided to reflect that in the game play with all the improvements you've made in Twilight of the Arnor. I've been enjoying

United Drathan Colonies event weirdness in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I was playing yesterday and the largest player in the game, the Krynn Consulate, was hit with this event and many systems created the United Drathan Colonies. No problem there but later the Krynn Consulate (still the largest) split again into the United Drathan Colonies. There are now two United Drathan Colonies minor races and even though they have different icons and look different on the trade screen it is a little confusing to have to sort out just who I should send weapons to when the Kor

Reply to Pirates overpowered? in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

Perhaps the pirate event should take a percentage of each civilizations ships and starbases based on their trade/tourism income with the wealthiest civilizations getting more pirates than those with little trade.

Reply to Some Spy Details in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

You're not kidding! In the game I'm playing I got into an early war with the Korath so I had to build a giant military. I have at least 6 hostile spies on each of my planets now and more coming every turn. It's pretty interesting actually though I feel like I have more spies than people in my settlements. One thing I noticed is that the AI doesn't pull the spies back after you decommission a building they're affecting. They just sit on the empty tile.

Reply to A Plea to Uplift the Minor Races in Dark Avatar in Game Talk Stardock Forums

I've been successful in getting the minors to use ships by sending the ships I want to give to them close to their homeworld and then giving those ships to the minors. I've kept a minor alive for many turns by doing that. If you just give them ships that are parked around your planets they tend to never do anything with them and they just sit there clogging up your space. The Snathi (who it happened to be) fought a very successful proxy war for me against the Torians until their homew

Reply to Sector Bonuses in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I'm happy they're less common now. They used to be a dime a dozen and every planet had at least three. Honestly when I first saw this thread I got a little upset that tile bonuses were greatly reduced and when I thought about it for a minute, I realized how much my strategy had come to rely on exploiting bonus tiles to the fullest. I remember getting a class 18 planet once that had no bonus tiles and going "well, what am I going to use this for? It's going to take so long to develop." <br

Reply to New moral desisions would be nice in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Technically, it kills all taxpayers, right? So you could still have a vast non-tax paying populace of the dregs and elites of society. You really just kill all the hard-working middle class people with an invasion in GalCiv 2.

Reply to Where Did All The earths Water Come from? in Pure Technology JoeUser Forums

Most likely the compounds for water were broken down from other gases that were volatilized out of the molten earth after it formed. The comet idea is somewhat applicable because before the earth formed it was a collection of gas and other materials that accreted to become the earth, which, like a comet, are a variety of chunks in space. As for a mechanism, intense heat, radioactivity and photoionization could've played key roles. Mars would be too small to hold much of an atmosphere

Mars Hill in Welcome JoeUser Forums

Welcome to Mars Hill, known in Greek as the Areopagus. In ancient Athens this was a place where people gathered to discuss philosophical matters and new ideas. I would like it to be the same here. I'm not sure about the format yet but most likely each blog entry will be a question which I will answer for myself in a brief manner to allow for discussion. I hope that you will add

Reply to Space Rangers 2 is now on TotalGaming.net in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

I am going to be burning through all my TG tokens in about two days at this rate! I suppose it's what I bought them for... Thanks for going after interesting and innovative games, Stardock! (And making them, too)

Reply to Faveorite Race? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

The Iconians, because there's something noble about sentient beings that has come back from the brink of annihilation by other sentient beings and still wants to interact with other sentient beings, I like the idea of ancient technology and I like the name Iconians. I do wonder what their special race ability will be in Dark Avatar.

Reply to BackupBox in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

It's on ebay as I'm typing.

Reply to Dark Avatar: Character Contest Results! in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

That is awesome and exactly what I was hoping for. I love the idea of collaborating with people and taking an idea that I threw out there and running with it. Thanks a lot, Brad and team, for choosing Sothos and for changing him around to fit with your story. I feel very honored! Thanks for all the enjoyment for all the entries everyone submitted. I really liked reading them!

Reply to The complexities of marketing, publishing, and distributing in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I'm for a delayed and expanded expansion with pre-order beta. Getting it in before Christmas, in my opinion, will neither help nor hinder a mail order expansion and bundling DA with the original in stores makes sense and can't happen this year anyway. Of course, I'm not in the business so I really have no idea about the business side of things, but as a consumer who has pre-ordered this is what I'd like to see. How about for the new box: Galactic Civilizations 2: Singularity Edition

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar - Character Contest in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

I'd be happy with a public beta. I'd like to see all of you have the time you need to implement all the features you would like to. The list of features is already impressive so I'd love to see what else you come up with. Of course, I've already ordered the expansion... Good luck to everyone in the contest, btw! EDIT: I'm glad they're taking a look at some of the mechanics that were suggested in the character descriptions. They were very interesting and could be expanded to

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar - Character Contest in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

For me it would definitely be getting my character in the game. I was disappointed that I went on vacation just after they made the announcement. I think my entry was still fairly good even if it was rushed. It was a fun contest!

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar - Character Contest in GalCiv II News GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, I've been refreshing every 10 minutes since yesterday to see when the announcement would be made. I enjoyed reading through all of the entries.

Reply to Would people want Mega events? in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I love "Mega Events". I like having to really refocus my strategy because something strange and unexpected happens. It's a lot of fun to have to react rather than just playing my game. Perhaps a few could be (off the top of my head): Defection- a portion of a civ's ships/fleets/starbases join another civ. Revolution- conquered planets revert to the old civilization that controlled them (perhaps even if that old civilization was eliminated). Hyperspace turbul

Reply to Aeryk 6 Hindu Religion in Religion JoeUser Forums

My greatest problem with Hinduism are the Dalits. Can a Hindu tell me about them? I'd really like to know why and how they fit in with the Hindu cosmology and theology. Thanks!