Seriously Sirian, why did you hate MoO3 so much? It has all the nitty gritty controls that you are asking for here. The only game I've ever *hated* was MOO2, for what it did to the franchise, what it did to the genre. My hatred of that title remains visceral to this day. MOO3 that shipped
If I have 10 factory workers and 5 scientists ready to roll if I can somehow get their salaries paid, what is it causing me to choose one or the other? Apparently you don't have that. You have X workers, period. You can leave your labs completely empty and have the X workers work the factories, produ
If you return social to the kitty you have to micro more. I understand you like to micro, Sirian... You don't understand me, but that's OK. Returning social to the kitty changes nothing. If you are building social and military at the same time, you're choosing to prefer aesthetics over stra
So, while you gain more control, you don't suddenly gain the ability to get the levels of production vastly higher than you get in-game currently. Actually, all this would do (in effect) is to dictate that your sliders will be set at X and Y, instead of allowing you to choose. If Brad is s
The solution is that you build farms to increase your population and more trade centers/banking centers to get more income out of them. Your industrial capacity will never be tied to your tax base in any game I write. Ever. I understand the economic system. Funneling social spending (when there is
Hi Sirian, nice to see you back on the GC galaxy. Will Realms Beyond start another succession game for GC2 I don't know yet. I obtained a military conquest on the highest possible difficulty setting on just my fourth game (third on the meta). I'm not sure yet if GC2 is sufficiently different from GC1 to hold my interest for an extended
Having Social spending dump in to military spending does not address the problem. I can't speak for other players who may choose different strategies, but I virtually never have planets that run out of social projects to build -- and this is from the buggy early builds with the Upgrade issue that you've solved. The new builds will have even more social building to be doing because there won't be any freebies. It's precisely because spending and income are divorced that lead
Greetings! The Realms Beyond is a close knit gaming community that has been around since the days of Diablo (the original). We seek challenge and variety in our gaming ventures. Our glories arise more from the sharing of fun times than from racking up "high scores" or other tanglible accolades. Not that we don't score highly -- sometimes we do -- but we look beyond the score and results. Our GalCiv Metaverse Empire rose in to the top ten empires list with
Greetings from Realms Beyond. Good to see that Jedi are still taking care of the galaxy. - Sirian
Stardock Forums
Question: When do you NOT WANT your Freighters and Constructors to launch from orbit after they are built? Answer: Hardly ever! Problem: It's unholy dull when pushing trade or starbases to have to micromanage launching them in to space. I mean, yeah, you do need to manage where they are going, but the launch part of the process could be automated. Anything that cuts down on the interface tedium would be helpful. Solution: Any ship with a Trade or Construct module
Good thing you caught the fact that the Drengin didn't know they should be defending more than just their homeworld. AI weakness arises more often from bugs than one might suppose. Ten days until code-freeze? Good luck with the rollout. (Are these new smilies "lemon
Oh yeah, the new site. Duh! I'm too much a creature of habit, sometimes. :) - Sirian
Frogboy, I listened to Poweruser.TV podcast #14. Good stuff! (That thing with the passport chips... That was interesting! I will keep an eye on that topic. I hope they put that through the ringer before implementation!) Of course, the chief reason I tuned in was to hear your review of Civ4. (Don't know if Soren is tuning in, but I did.) I'm glad you have been enjoying the game. I don't know what's up with the clock failing on you. Although I first got the idea for the
[quote]The intent of the designers was to remove the micromanaging aspects, early and late game.[/quote] With all due respect, that's not correct. Their intent was to put their own sense of cleverness on display, by designing a very intricate gameplay system and then also designing a brilliant artificial intelligence to automate it. They failed miserably on both counts. This is a failure of the highest order at the level of design thinking. What is the purpose of a mec
[quote]I wouldn't recommend MOO1 to everyone - it's too abstract for all but the most hardcore strategy gamers. Most people can relate far more to building a Space Academy, a Fusion Power Plant or a Great Pyramid than they can to building 0.8 factories. [/quote] I disagree. A Fusion Power Plant is just as abstract as a factory. The difference is, having all your production units the same frees you from the illusion of "strategy" in choosing which type of production center to build first
[quote]MoO1 spoiler tips: [/quote] This from the guy who lectures me about the nobility of having enough restraint not to use cheese? So what does he do to discredit the game I praise? Point out the cheese. A nine letter word comes to my mind, starting with the letter H. [quote]Not my cup of tea, but if others prefer it, let them, is my general philosophy.[/quote] I disagree. The less cheese, the better. Cheese lovers can find unlimited amounts to their hearts' delight
I don't fear the Humans in MOO1. They are NOT broken in terms of game balance for the AI playing them. They are the easiest race for winning by the vote, hands down, but there is more to MOO1 than the fastest possible diplomacy victory. I fear the Psilons. They are the most apt to pose a military threat, because they are the most apt to achieve a decisive tech advantage. That Matthew played as Humans and still lost in the diplomacy should be encouraging. If the game can't beat
[quote]This is great - lets take a thread started to inform players about an upcoming update and turn it into a huge argument![/quote] I posted a reply to Frogboy, who is the game's lead designer. He indicates that changes and upgrades to the AI are still on the table for AP and its patches. I find that to be very good news, since I believe the AI is an area of the game with plenty of room left for improvement. That debate has broken out over what is appropriate and useful for
Oh One More Thing (TM) Parity. Civ3, as of its latest expansion pack, has eight difficulty levels. The third is where parity exists. That is, there are two difficulty levels below that, where the handicap is given to the player to prop up new or weak players. The third level offers parity, identical rules and playing conditions for player and AI. The other five offer increasing levels of handicap to the AI, to prop it up. That's a 2-1-5 balance. Master of
[quote]:LOL:@Sirian![/quote] Dismissing me with a laugh, eh? We'll see who laughs last. You won't be able to dominate with this kind of trick. If your view is to win out, it must do so on the merits. [quote]Of course, playing at less then Maso for a player like you would probably be offensive to you... just like not using any of the cheeses. [/quote] You think you have me pegged, but you're not even coming close. [quote]The majority of humans I've pl
[quote]Sirian, what level are you playing at? [/quote] That would be Maso. You can click my name here to view my player profile. [quote]in SMAC, you knew that you'd be at war with everyone, so no need to bother to be nice to them... ever. [/quote] Sid's early design weakness. In Civ1, on the highest difficulty level, the AI's were all COMPELLED to declare war on you at certain dates in the calendar. Took Sid several iterations of game design to outgrow that awful
I'm encouraged by the news that the AI may continue to see upgrades and enhancements throughout the patching process for AP. Weaknesses in the AI, in the narrow range of threats that it can pose and the number of areas of the game in which it competes, are responsible for my dropoff in interest and participation. If the AI learns how to use cultural starbases more effectively, to use terror stars at all, and to pursue other victory conditions besides military conquest, that would go a long way t
[quote]We plan to have a way to upgrade ships enmasse using a governors type interface. I've never understood why game designers muck around with the issue of upgrading ships. Players would simply go to a governor screen and say: All ships that have weapon type X should now upgrade to weapon type Y. It would then tell you how much it would cost to do that (more ships, the higher the cost). And let the player decide. In other words, games shouldn't focus on the
[quote]I don't like coffee.[/quote] Me either. Do you ever get "that look" when you tell people? You know, the one where they try to determine what kind of alien species you come from? LOL Mt. Dew has caffeine?? Hmm. I get my caffeine from Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi. I love a cherry pepsi. Used to make my own, or go to certain spots that knew how to make a good one, before they finally started to bottle a good version commercially. (One place where Coke can't hold a candle
MOO2 was not a Master of Orion game. It was Master of Magic in space. I hated almost everything about it. The tech tree was awful in MOO2, while the original Master of Orion had the best tech system of any 4X game to date, including GalCiv. (Sorry Frogboy, just one player's opinion :) ). The "creative" option let you have all the techs in MOO2. Otherwise you had to choose, and there was usually a clear best choice at each level, rendering the tech path the same for every game. Predestin
GalCiv2 Forums