CantinaFly

Reply to Difficulty levels increased? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

I've been playing on Crippling and yes, every game has been a fight for survival. The new Drengin in particular have been a regular pain in my posterior.

Reply to Help understanding Tech Trees in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Each race now has techs they "must" trade for if they want to get. Iconians have no advanced government techs. The Thalans have no farms. The Arceans have no engine techs. The list goes on. On the whole, it makes tech trading a much stronger part of the game now. When you're in the trade window, any techs with an "*" next to them are race specific.

Reply to drengin get -25 to diplomacy but korath don't? in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

If you also notice, a lot of the negatives a race has are countered, and then bettered by an early tech they have. Examples: Altarians have -10% weapons, but they get Dark Energy Lab pretty easily which gives them +30% weapons. Arceans are -1spd, but they get Navigation Centers, etc.. Look at the total package.

Reply to Power Plants in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Never research them myself, I usually trade for them and then build one on my high production worlds. They are a great candidate for those tiles that open up later in the game as you start researching the terraforming techs.

Reply to Creativity too strong on 'very slow tech speed' in Twilight of the Arnor GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, Creativity is powerful in TA. :) It's a "must have" pic now for sure, especially for only 1pt! Use this to try and get Planetary Invasion early and you gain a serious advantage over the AI. It seems to work very well at normal research speed, so if it could be improved, yes, an adjustment based on overall tech speed would be good.

Reply to Ship Naming Strategies in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I never realized how much thought some people put into this aspect of the game. For all my attack ships, I just pick a word I think sounds cool and add a MkI, MkII, etc.. on the end as it gets upgraded. My utility ships, I just prefix the name with the type of engine it has: Ion Colony, Warp Transport, Hvy. Warp Transport once I have the Advanced Troop Mod, etc..

Reply to Korx vs. Thalan vs. Arcean vs. Korath vs. Humans in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Oh that's sneaky, all the other ones are of the Capitol... :p

Reply to help an experienced loser (lol!) in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Ascension Victory conditions on listed in the lower right hand corner of the Victory tab under Civilization Management. It gives you a percentage value of how close they are. I never go into a game with a mindset of, "I'm going to win by doing X" Usually as a game progresses one or two forms of victory will emerge as best choices. For racial picks, some help more then others, especially to new players. Economic and Morale bonuses are going to be your best friends as you lear

Reply to How to use spies? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Scintor +1 That's more or less how I use spies also. If I'm playing as the Krynn, Iconians, or a custom race with a high espionage bonus, I will use spies as weapons to disable key structures like Econ/Manufacturing Capitols, factories built on Precursor Mines, etc.. Yes, the spending scale gets steep, but with a high espionage rating, the AI has to spend a lot more money to get rid of my spy. Also note that I play mostly on Crippling (Genius) where the AI economy runs at 125

Reply to Korx vs. Thalan vs. Arcean vs. Korath vs. Humans in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Nice. :) This is a small game, so Econ Capitol on the home world is a good idea, but how well does the AI's Super Project placement work on larger maps. I've always found it odd to take some world from the AI, only to find it with say a Tech Capitol and then only one or two labs. Something like the Korath are doing in this game, but since it's such a small game, you play with what you got. Is the Arcean Capitol really Weber IV?

Reply to Can we please do something else with the Iconians? in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I played as the Iconians last weekend and the only real problem I had was my early economy. You could always play a custom race with the Iconian tech tree. On your second point, I suggested last year when DA came out that the way Super Adapters should work is reduce the research time on your first two Extreme Colonization techs to 1wk. That way, you're not left scratching your head when all you have around are Toxic and Barren worlds.

Reply to what are the basics of the colony rush? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

A lot of good info in this thread and I'll add my own $.02 I play mostly huge and gigantic maps (want to love, but having issues with Immense.) This is mostly based off my DL and DA experience playing on Crippling difficulty. I'm testing TA now and it's made me rethink a lot of previous strategies based on what race I'm playing. -Sliders 0% mil, 50% soc, 50% research. I develop my home world to the point I can put out a colony ship every 2-3 turns. I don't rush buy

Reply to Galactopedia. Now Twilight of the Arnor compatible. in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Awesome update to a great little program. :) When I started to get back into GalCiv and TA I was trying to remember the name of this program and couldn't for the life of me. It was like, "I know there used to be a program to view this stuff out of the game..." One thing you might add if it's not too hard, is the maintenance cost of the planetary improvements.

Reply to Something has changed - FINANCES in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The economy does seem a harsh mistress in TA. I've noted in all my test games that it's been a real challenge again to balance that early "run in the red to the exact turn before your civ turns the corner and starts producing a profit." The net effect has been a slower colony rush since I can't afford the upkeep. I actually tanked in my current game and had to turn my economy down to 20% for an embarrassingly long time just to stay about 0bc while my population grew. The only reason I'm now w

Reply to Someone stole my Stellar Forge in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

One thing to do is just prevent the AI race whose tech tree you're using from being part of the game, but that can be limiting. Maybe something better is to just remove the "Galactic Achievement" moniker from race specific techs. Make them "One per Civ" instead like Econ Capitol, Research Capitol, etc...

Reply to The Death of Morale Buildings in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I'd like to see them try two things. 1. Have approval rating (for election purposes) be based off a biased average over the time since the last election. Laying off taxes as elections get closer should have some reward (just as it does in RL elections,) but not to the extent it is now where I can run 40% approval all year and then reduce taxes to bring moral up the week before the election, win, and then go straight back to breaking my people's back. 2. Some kind of bonus for

Reply to GCII - DL: Is this a flaw in the game's AI? in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

If you'd asked this a week ago, Sponge, I'd have agreed with you. My last game on Tough, the Drengin played almost exactly how you described. I bypassed Challenging and moved up to Crippling this week, and Wow! much different games. I would definitely recommend bumping up the difficulty.

Reply to The Bloodbath.... a tale of war and conquest. in AARs GalCiv2 Forums

The plethora of SS's is nice. Especially when you're dealing with the map. You could probably skip the Diplomacy screen SS's and just summarize the transaction in a me/them format. If you spend time making detailed ship models, show them off. If they're just functional parts bolted to a hull, the condensed highlight version is fine. I much prefer a play-by-play AAR to the story based ones. I want to learn new strategies and see how people use things in ways I hadn't thought

Reply to are the Korath dominating every game youu play? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I tend to find different races do well with different game setups. The Drengin and Korath always seem to do well because they are both militaristic conquers and the AI is better at attacking itself then defending. They hardly ever do well if I'm they're closest neighbor, but that's because I know them.

Reply to ai game play questions? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I've never seen the AI get extra ships to start, but beyond "Tough", they do get production bonuses. At "Painful" it's a smallish 5-10%, but on "Suicidal" it's 100%! There are a lot of factors that figure into how fast you can pump out colony ships. I can usually get one out every 3-4 turns. If I'm playing the Thalans, or I get a manufacturing bonus tile, I can do it every other turn. If you're getting outproduced on anything lower then "Tough" then you probably need to go back and

Reply to I'm curious if anyone has problems with non conquest wins in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

You're going to end up at war with someone, that's pretty inescapable. It doesn't mean you have to fight in their territory though. Just concentrate on defending your space (large fleets, military star bases, etc...) Let the other guy waste resources building fleets you'll just trash. As those defenders gain experience, this gets even easier. I had a couple medium hulls with 65HP in my last game. That's obscene when the same ship, new off the line, only had 23HP! Since you're spending res

Reply to Delete in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I actually did this in a recent game after I conquered the Drath faster then my economy could handle and I had a bunch of advanced worlds with very little population. I put my industrial capacity to 0% for 3 weeks and it netted me a few thousand BC in the bank. I didn't crank up the taxes to 100%, I left them at a level where developing worlds could maintain 100% morale and use those weeks to grow.

Reply to Trying to figure out how AI players choose abilities in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Ditto, When you look at all the things that buff you once the game gets going (anomolies, galactic resources, different techs, etc...) It's real hard to figure out what exactly the AI started with. It's more of a curiosity then a real need to know.

Reply to Tired of Same Old Game (AI WAR) in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Depending on your tolerance for "Cheese." Many people (not me) like to get the Spin Control Center asap and set it up on a world near their main production planet. Each ship you put in orbit of the planet with the SCC gets it's military rating multiplied by 5. So you put a bunch of cargo hulls with nothing but weapons in orbit of that planet and your military rating goes way up. And military rating is the main thing the AI uses to decide if they should declare war. This lets you keep

Reply to Fighting 'Lower Life' as the Advanced Species in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

You could always role play the downfall of your species?