Dano13

Reply to Conquering Suicidal in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Here is my trick - Scour the galaxy looking for resources that are owned by a race X. Move a constructor and warship tough enough to take out the mining base to that resource. Then cause a war between Race X and Race Y. Sell or gift the ship to Y and there is about a 75% chance that they will destroy the mining base for you. Make sure that the ship/mining base you want is a reasonable difference to Race Y's turf, otherwise they will just move their new ship back to said turf

Reply to Neutral too powerful? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I usually play Neutral, but that is only because I like playing the slimy arms dealer. I have found that with the AIs it is the GOOD races that are my most serious competition - assuming they are not actually already spanking me. Why? Its because of Good's innate tendancy to have a group hug-fest and make threee way alliances. Evil on the other hand always seems to get wiped out in my games (usually by the previously mentioned huggers). In fact I can't recall the last time an evil r

Reply to What is a better game? GalCiv2 or SE5 in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I have found if you want a tougher game ... turn the tech rate to very slow. I have never beaten the AI on intelligent with this tech rate and usually get soundly thwacked. Dano

Feel like a challenge? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Try a game with the tech level set to Very Slow ... in my experience the AI becomes fricken Sun Tzu, though I don't know why. I was about 4 victories and no losses on Intelligent. Now I have been beaten three times in a row - and I don't mean just beaten, I mean killed, gutted and my skin left to dry in the Altarian sun! Dano

Reply to Ideas for improving the United Planets in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

LOL ... Influencing other race's votes through diplomacy ... "These aren't the UP Issues you are looking for ... " Although I agree that it would be probably VERY simple code wise to give the player advanced notification of what the upcoming issue, what WOULD be horribly complex is teaching the AI what to do with this info. After all if you only give it to the player you are giving them a pretty big advantage. Though I agree all of these ideas would make the game even more de

Reply to Creating opponents in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Check out some of the packages that people have kindly uploaded in the Library on this site - The Star Control package is especially good. With all these new races you are making, you will also need some new Logos - again there are more logos than you can shake a Dregin at in the Library here. Dano

Reply to Custom races are broken in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I have made custom races with 30 ability points (No Superability) by directly modding the customrace.xml files. Seems to work great. Dano

Reply to Stardock Please Revive MoO! in Strategy GalCiv2 Forums

As much as I miss my Beloved MOO and would instantly buy any new installment, Atari is the Antichrist. They are cursed with the Anti-Midas touch. I would advise anyone, especially Stardock to walk ... no RUN away from any dealings with them. MOO and MOM will stay dormant until Atari goes bust (which looks like it might not be too long, thankfully!) Besides ... as someone wisely pointed out ... why waste your time on MOO? GalCiv 2 is the new 4x strategy king now! Dano

Reply to What is the lowest quality planet you would colonize? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Ahhhhhhhhh .... Interesting. You see I always assumed that each terraforming tech only created a single tile, I had no idea of the variability. jp - My custom race was pretty easy to make - I gave him Super Diplomacy, and +130% diplomacy for all his 15 ability points (I modded the Abilities.xml), then I gave him a Populists government, gave him the Terran AI gave him an a aggressiveness of 50 and made him evil. I also called them The Evon (I used an old MOO3 graphic of that race - he

Reply to Terran's Diplomatic Super-Ability in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I think they mean influence in the little "i" sense ... i.e. making your opponents do what you want (influencing them). I don't believe it does anything to the game type of Influence. Dano

Reply to What is the lowest quality planet you would colonize? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

This was DA, and the enemy was my own creation (ahhh ... the delicous Irony), he was an evil super diplomat. How the heck did you get a class 1 planet to class 19????? Dano

What is the lowest quality planet you would colonize? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hi everyone, I just got stomped by an enemy who's empire was about 80% composed of quality 5 and lower planets. Meanwhile I had Quality 10-12 planets (obviously not as many total planets as my enemy), and my economy was spurting blood. So obviously he was getting SOME benefit from these useless planets, so my strategy of colonizing 'worthless' planets must be wrong. So what is the lowest quality planet you would colonize? Dano

Reply to Best DA race? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I am pretty much untouchable with the Super Diplomacy ability, although the AI doesn't seem to have the same skill with it. Dano

Reply to Does Spying anger the AI? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Stacking Hulls? This sounds like an intriguing strategy, can you elaborate a little? What is the benefit of this approach? Doesn't the upgrade costs kill you? Dano

Reply to Races Lost... in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Ha! There are LOTS of Money Making races ... the Gnolam for example. Just get a Gnolam pic and whip them up in the Custom Opponents! Yeah - that kind of sucks that the Korx bite it, I kind of liked their style

Reply to So do you all like DA? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Personally I like the Custom Opponents ... I have created all the old Master of Orion races and am enjoying fighting the Klackons once again. Now when I play a game I am playing an awesome game system with that sweet Nostalgia of yester year Dano

Reply to Reasonable Update Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Anyone else have any comments?

Reply to Information on Extra Ability Points Please! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Thanks Kryo! You rock! Dano

Reasonable Update Suggestions in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hey there Everyone! I just thought I would start this thread to gather reasonable ideas for future updates to DA. By reasonable I mean things that could actually be done in an update (as opposed to a full blown expansion), so please don't waste your time asking for tactical combat or multi-player. It ain't going to happen in an update. Ideally these would be things that wouldn't take that much code/time to implement, and wouldn't require re-coding the AI to use a particular featur

Reply to Top 10 problems with AI in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I totally second the observation that sometimes the AI builds buildings without any Factories - hopefully this can be fixed. Here is a strategy the computer might be able to use as well - God knows I love to smash the AI with it. 1) Find resources that a AI A is using 2) Move a warship sufficient to take out the mining starbase to these resources with a constructor as well 3) Find someone who is at war with A, say, AI B 4) Sell or Gift the warship

Information on Extra Ability Points Please! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hey All ... I have been creating custom races without any super ability. To compensate I have been giving them 30 ability point pics (by directly adding the picks to the customXML file extra morale, soldiering etc). The game seems to accept it, but when I look at the race, the ability points are in Red showing the net number of negative points. This is fine, but then it got me to wondering - Will the custom race use the extra picks that I made, or will it only accept the first 15 poi

Information on Extra Ability Points Please! in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Hey All ... I have been creating custom races without any super ability. To compensate I have been giving them 30 ability point pics (by directly adding the picks to the customXML file extra morale, soldiering etc). The game seems to accept it, but when I look at the race, the ability points are in Red showing the net number of negative points. This is fine, but then it got me to wondering - Will the custom race use the extra picks that I made, or will it only accept the first 15 poi

Reply to AbilityBonuses.xml???? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Never mind ... I found it. For some reason I thought it was in the Documents Settings Directory for GalCiv 2 ... its in the normal GalCiv2 directory Dan

AbilityBonuses.xml???? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Does anyone know where this file went? In the beta I modified the ability bonuses (i.e. made higher levels of diplomacy, Economics etc) picks for a higher ability point cost. Now I can't find it in DA. Has it been moved somewhere else now that the beta is over? Dan

Reply to Getting decimated on Challenging in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Here is my advice - create a custom race with +2 on speed (for the early land grab) and spend the rest of the points on diplomacy, then pick the populists as a party (for the Diplomacy bonus). Now pick Super Diplomacy as a super ability and voila - instant win! Its still fun, but I haven't been on the ropes once since getting this Super Ability. This is not a complaint, just an observation. Dano