Sirian Sirian

Travel to Realms Beyond Your Ordinary Gaming Experience

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Travel to Realms Beyond Your Ordinary Gaming Experience

from Stardock Forums
This thread is intended to recruit new players to the Realms Beyond community through our Metaverse Empire. We don't exactly need a thread for discussion, as we have our own GalCiv forum attached to the RB website. (Realms Beyond is a veteran community of gamers with an established presence in several strategy and role playing games). However, some have suggested that our "meteoric rise" in the galactic standings represents a "mystery" and a possible threat to other empires. Surely not, says we. :)

Why not wait for interested parties to find their way to the RBGC forum, if they wish to communicate with us? That seemed wise at first, but the suggestion has been floated amongst our own that we should research "communication theory" and create a device called a "univeral translator" and seek to open communications with other empires on terms they are used to operating, through channels they are used to using. The ultimate wisdom of this idea, and this so-called translation device, remains in doubt among RB leadership, as the first attempt to use the wicked thing resulted in misunderstanding leading to combat and nearly kicked off a minor war, but we are an adventurous people and will give almost any idea a try, so here we go. :D

Our Empire Motto: WE SEEK CHALLENGE THROUGH VARIETY!

http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/empires.asp?id=555


We seek mastery over the game. The ideal at RB is to be able to beat the game on any map size, without choosing to abuse the AI's various inanities, without having to have perfect terrain conditions. Any alignment, any victory condition, any habitability range, any political party, any combination of bonus picks. If a challenge lies before us, we will embrace it. Mistakes, setbacks and losses do not represent failure, merely a chance to learn, from which greater success can sprout and flourish.

No skill level is too high or too low for RB. All we ask is that you play your best and have a good time.

RB players venture beyond the ordinary. If you are like unto our brother in the spirit in which you play, you would be welcome to join our empire. All you need is interest, an RB-style gaming attitude, and the desire to participate. Our mission is to have fun, to pursue excellence, to play fairly, to uphold the integrity of the game, to embrace variety and challenge, push the boundaries of the game and gameplay, experiment, learn, grow, and do it together.

Our passion is the AAR. We live to read a good AAR and to write our own. Fun shared is fun doubled. The RB Epics tournament for Civ3 sees every participant post their own AAR after each tournament game, with the chief entertainment value being sharing insights, experiences, and laughs. Whether we will hold a GalCiv tournament remains to be seen, but the possibility is out there.

We keep a list of rules for our GalCiv gaming. This list will grow and evolve as the game evolves and our understanding of it matures. We voluntarily refrain from (in our opinions) game-breaking tactics that unbalance a game or pigeonhole it into one "best" path to victory. Some game elements may be broken or have loopholes. Some moves may just be "too strong" and kill variety. We do not use these moves. We do not have to use them. Mastery over a game is established by taking the high road, by trudging uphill and building our strength and endurance. Our interests lie in seeing the game refined to where the game balance provides extended replay value and neverending strategic challenge. However, unless and until that state of polish is reached, we will set our own boundaries to create this effect for ourselves, whether or not it can be found in the game as currently programmed.

If this sounds like your kind of gaming community, we invite you to travel to Realms Beyond.

Our forum for Galactic Civilizations:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/237344

Players interested in joining Realms Beyond should venture to our forum, read the lastest version of our rules, and confirm their assent to abide by the rules we have set. We place the quality of our gaming experience ahead of our standing in the competition. Excellence brings its own rewards, its own forms of recognition and respect from peers. That is something no measurement or score could ever fully depict.

Anyone who agrees to our playing philisophy and signs their John Hancock pledging their allegiance to our posted rule set will be confirmed onto our roster. Come one, come all, for the time of your life. LOL Our star is rising. Our destiny is written in the heavens. :HOT:

We are also hoping to generate enough excitement to lure out some of the other RB players who have yet to pick up GalCiv. Surely when they see the grand party we are staging at our best starbase, some will be compelled to join in. And as far as "threat to other empires", that's purely propaganda. We have no hostile intentions. Now if some players are impressed with our culture and decide to emigrate to our worlds, that would not constitute hostile action against other cultures on our behalf. ;) We cannot help but to be ourselves. :D


- Sirian

[Message Edited]
14,943 views 354 replies
Reply #226 from Stardock Forums Top
To finish out 2003, I've uploaded two games, both Crippling. The first, an Alliance Victory (Chaotic Good) on Large worth 14718, and the second, a Military Conquest (Chaotic Evil) on Large worth 18160. I too have found not much of a challenge on Crippling and so am moving up to Maso, although I will take the recent comments about Maso into account.

Be seeing you...

---> TBC (Too Basic... Crippling seems)
Reply #227 from Stardock Forums Top
How many thousand combinations of TBC do you still have on hand? One would think you'd start to run low, but no, no, you don't. :) Good luck with Maso.

Happy 2004, everybody.

- Sirian
Siege of Centauri
Reply #228 from Stardock Forums Top
Well I'm a bit pissed off at the moment. I just spend around 4 hours playing a large/Maso/Abundant map, nearly to completion (and mil conquest victory), when the game crashed out on me. When I tried to reload the autosaves the tech screen that comes up from an autosave was blank, and the background that the stars/ships etc are normally on was all red. When I tried to click to the menu the game crashed again. *sigh* There goes several hours work and 40-60k Metaverse points.
Reply #229 from Stardock Forums Top
Smegged, from what you wrote in the bug thread, it looks like you ran into the Draginol event. Your mishap is not the first to be reported about that event, I guess it is buggy in 1.13. Until they fix it, it is probably best to go to the previous save as soon as the event is annonced. Have you tried the oldautosave? It may yet save your time spent on the game.

~SDC~
Reply #230 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm I didn't think of that. Nonetheless I started a new game and eeked out a 40k win using the same settings (except rare instead of abundant - for speed). Time for bed now methinks.

Thanks for the heads up Jaxom, I'll bear that in mind in the future.

-Smegged
Reply #231 from Stardock Forums Top
I've seen enough weirdness in some of my games that I save frequently -- my autosave is set to every 3 months and I save manually at the start of a year. Even on the notebook computer where I do most of my GalCiv, disk space is cheap and plentiful. When I've finished a game, I zip the saves (GalCiv saves are highly compressible) and then delete the corresponding files/folders from my ...\SaveGames folder. Call me paranoid (see below ;) ) but the above has come in handy several times in the past.

Be seeing you...

---> TBC (ok Thou Be Concerned (extremely))


[Message Edited]
Reply #232 from Stardock Forums Top
I wonder why several events broke in this patch. The UP itself broke in the last patch. Here's hoping for an all around fix coming soon.

- Sirian
Reply #233 from Stardock Forums Top
My latest AAR, entitled, "Losing", is now available. :SURPRISED:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/galciv/losing.html


- Sirian
Reply #234 from Stardock Forums Top
Nice AAR Sirian.

What autosave settings do people have their games on. Earlier this evening I wanted to reload my game (the Yor had gotten a planet in my territory due to me sending colony ships in the wrong direction). However, I set my autosave to 4 turns and so not even "previous autosave" was enough for me to change the course of history.

Also, how many games do you have to win to show up on the average scores leaderboard? Because I'm not even on there at all at the moment (8 wins).

-Smegged
Reply #235 from Stardock Forums Top
how many games do you have to win to show up on the average scores leaderboard
End of quote


You will need 10 games to show up on the average score page.

I left autosave at the deault setting, once every year. It's an insurance policy against the game crashing on me so I will loose at most 12 turns. Besides that I use 2 savegames. One is the default "new save game" when I have to take a break from the game or I feel I have accomplish something significant that I don't want to loose to a crash. The other I call "take14" which I use when I am about to try something new which may break my game. The first such thing I tried was to take all the pq 14 within reach. :D

I wouldn't reload if I lost the landgrab race badly, I might restart if I don't feel like playing out of a deep hole. I find you can win from any starting position as long as you can avoid a fight against any powerful AI. You certainly can't loose if you keep at least one world, it is only a matter of how long it will take to get a win.



~SDC~
Reply #236 from Stardock Forums Top
I have autosave set for four turns. I get occasional CTD and I would not want to replay (with spoilers) as many as twelve turns. Blah.

I keep several saves around for every game. I always save at the very start. Never know when a game may turn out to be legendary. I usually save once early, one in the middle, and one late. Really long games may have six or eight saves. I also have a "current" save I save over again and again, usually four to eight times a game. I play most games in two to three sessions. Why keep all these saves around? In case I decide to write an AAR. Can't always tell in advance when I will want to do that, and so it's better safe than sorry on the ability to go back and pick up screen shots, data, etc.

It's not like my hard drive is crammed for space! :D I will go through and eliminate old saves en masse at some point. :)


- Sirian
Reply #237 from Stardock Forums Top
Well that game was exhilerating. I played a game on a large/common galaxy, with diplo picks and populists government, since I wanted an easy game. Well how wrong could I be! This game was not easy at all. I started in on the eastern side of the galaxy. Now in my last few games I'd had the Altarians as the runnaway AI. So I chose good picks, except for one massive PQ bonus. After the initial land grab, I was morality 47.

It was then that I discovered who the real runaway AI was to be - the Arceans. I've NEVER had a runnaway Arcean empire before. They normally get stuck in the corner and are picked on for the whole game. I sent all of my early trade to them (barring a single freighter which I bought off the Dregnin and sent to one of their worlds). Well that did NOTHING for relations. The Arceans quickly fell into hostile and then declared war on me. I was sweating bullets. I'd only just gotten banks up and I had no military.

Fortunately I had diplo bonus picks, which I believe were the only thing that saved me in this game from using the "snuffed out before I had a chance rule". I traded to the AI/minors for most of the early techs, including the battle axe techs. I went 100% military and got some defenses up (but too late to save one of my PQ 14 border worlds that I'd picked up which lay precisely between me and the Arceans). After battling it out with the Arceans (but not losing any ground), my freighters ran into the Alexians. Without hesitation I sold them all my tech for ~500 bc. This let me make peace with the Arceans.

To my north I found the Yor with two systems (although one had 3 19/20 planets in it before bonuses), next to them were the Drengin, who had around 8 planets. Below them were the Torians, who had a couple less than them. To the West lay the Altarians, who predictibly had more ground than anyone else.

I knew that I had to befriend either the Arceans or the Altarians if I was to have a chance of winning this game. Tech and money gifts got them both up to friendly. Meanwhile, war had broken out. The Yor had managed to get themselves locked into battle with the Altarians, and the Drengin were at war with the Torians. The Arceans also took a liking to the Altarian territory, and the Alexians had flipped to the Altarians. So both superpowers were at war with each other, and the Yor kept the Altarians from gaining any real ground. Likewise, the Dregnin and the Torians were evenly matched.

However, the Yor could not hold out for too much longer. With their pitiful fleet and only a few worlds they didn't have much hope. Meanwhile, I was building up my worlds (I had around a dozen), and snagging most of the early-mid game wonders/trade goods. The diplo picks let me keep up with tech very easily. I see why people say they are overpowered. The other thing that I was doing was gifting both the Altarians and the Arceans. Both were at friendly with me. I'd been picking all the "good" options when morality choices came up, and I went all the way to 67 morality.

Then out of the blue, the Yor surrendered.... to me. That was definitely the turning point of the game. The Arceans went close with me and I graciously accepted an alliance, while I could. Well the Arceans still happened to be at war with the Altarians. They'd also declared on the Torians. Fortunately the Torians were no threat whatsoever and were soon assimilated by me (from one side) and the Drengin from the other side. All this time the Dregnin were warm/friendly with me.

I could smell blood. The Altarians would collapse if I brought the evil ones into the war as well. So I did :d . And Altaria could not survive war with all the remaining AI. All this time I was kissing Arcea's arse. Then the Arceans decided that the Dregnins space looked ripe for the picking. So being the good ally that I was, I kissed their arse :). War was had with the Dregnin, which I was sad about, since this was the first game that I've ever had them so friendly to me. They were my second best friend throughout this game.

Well my second best friend crossed my best friend, and so war was to be had. By this stage though, the game was won. Altarian space had been carved up by the three majors. Arcea and I controlled approximately 40% of the galaxy each, and the Dregnin had no trading partners. From then it was a matter of cleaning up. I used a couple of false peace treaties to grab the worlds that were too far away from the battle to be bothered about sending fleets to.

Finally, we got the Dregnin down to one system (with 130 billion pop though). I took the easy way out, built 5 constructors, made peace and then hit them with a terror star.

The only reason I survived that game was a) diplo picks keeping me up to date with tech, and b) finding the Alexians in time to grab some quick cash to make peace with Arcea.

-Smegged
Reply #238 from Stardock Forums Top
hmmm,

I wish they'd fix that Neutral is really chaotic good bug. It bugs me when I see a game where I've remained neutral all game except for a couple of points come up as chaotic good.

In fact if the metaverse recorded it correctly I'd have all bar one of my scores as a neutral score.

-Smegged
Reply #240 from Stardock Forums Top
Well my last game was even more odd. Early on I went evil, right down to demonic 0. I ended up getting an alliance with the saintly Altarians and good Torians and together we wiped out the Dregnin for an alliance victory. Which brings up my tenth win, my first evil win, and my first huge map win. I had to ctrl+n once though since I had a runaway Dregnin next door who declared war on me before I'd even managed to research my 4th tech.

Yay, I'm now Neutral (as I should be with the amount of neutral games I've played that have showed up as chaotic good.
Reply #241 from Stardock Forums Top
The neutral smiley looks awful, though. I'm not too sure about your fashion sense, there, Smegged. ;) The chaotic evil one is a bit weak, too. I'd probably be neutral alignment if not for the 51 CG bug. Then I'd have to play more good games to get rid of that pale yellow expressionless icon. LOL

- Sirian
Reply #244 from Stardock Forums Top
Unfortunately, I don't see any eyebrows. The evil icons look to me like crude jack-o-lanterns. LOL By the way, BamBam, I had no idea! :SURPRISED: Perhaps these latent evil tendencies explain why you moved us 10 points toward evil in the SG for pocket change. :p

Smegged, one can be tough and still sport a smile. :)


- Sirian
Reply #245 from Stardock Forums Top
Perhaps these latent evil tendencies explain why you moved us 10 points toward evil in the SG for pocket change.
End of quote


I just have trouble being good :p . Of course, it looks like my first winning (knock on wood) maso game will be toward the good side of neutral. Nothing like runaway Altarians and Torians to make the wolf don sheeps clothing. LOL
Reply #246 from Stardock Forums Top
I just have trouble being good
End of quote


I hear ya. But you do realize, you may become the first GalCiv SG recipient of the prod. :D I have held off thus far, and perhaps TBC will accomplish enough to render the issue old news. We shall see. :)

If the Drengin are itching for a fight, by the way, we're well capable of giving them one! :D


- Sirian
Reply #247 from Stardock Forums Top
So be it. I prefer the prod to the TKO, which has been my history in Civ3 SGs with you. ;) I'll try to avoid the prod in future turns. The real question is what sort of move will earn the pungent weed award similar to irrigating desert? LOL

In that light--this game seems to be curing my civ addiction--even with a beta patch that has fixed the most glaring bugs in the expansion. I did start your last Epic--just got tired after I caught up rather easily.
Reply #248 from Stardock Forums Top
Bah. One chaotic good maso win pulls me from my evil ways. Fun game--after failing at three masos with the technolgists with +1range, +30research, +5PQ and (forgot other pick), I picked +20diplo, +30research, +5PQ, and +10growth. Large, tight, uncommon.

I started in the middle Northern region, a couple of sectors from the top of the map. Sol had Earth as a PQ18 and another PQ18. There was another PQ 18 within a sector, and LOTS of PQ14s around, with a PQ16 or two. I managed to make a pretty good landgrab quickly, and then started taking advantage of my +50 initial research.

The Yor were to the northeast, altarians to the west, torians to the middle southwest, drengin to the south, and the poor arceans with their measly 2 systems to the southeast.

About the time I was sending out freighters, relations with the Altarians headed south. They and the Torians were dueling it out for most powerful civ--picking on us poor evil folks. The war started before they had Frigates, and there was PLENTY of space to wait it out. I was in the middle of trying to pick up the early wonders and trade goods. I managed to sneak some battle axes in and then bought into frigates from one o the minors. I ended up losing a PQ13 world I settled, but then was able to buy off the alterians with ultraspices, cash and a couple of techs--after I had bought diplotranslators from the Alexians. Since I was still in full-blown social mode, I settled ALL the 12s and 13s in reach--picking all good morality events. :(

I managed to get up to about 58 morality--that and bribes and trade routes stabilized relations with everyone. From there it was off to the terror stars, taking everyone out in a matter of 3-4 years.

Fun game. Now time for a huge or gigantic maso as I work my way down the political parties.
Reply #249 from Stardock Forums Top
earn the pungent weed award similar to irrigating desert?
End of quote


That is the primary prodding process. :SURPRISED:


as I work my way down the political parties.
End of quote


Yep. Good show. :) We seek challenge through variety! :D


- Sirian
Reply #250 from Stardock Forums Top
Speaking of which, I pity the fool who bases his entire strategy on one formula, option, or game weakness to exploit. What if the balance shifts? And how is such a player going to excel under the new scenarios? Certainly strength of schedule and variety of scenarios will play to RB's favor in coming months. :D

- Sirian