Simonster

Even if internet play doesen't quite work, you can still play against the AI. Compared with the Starcraft AI, this one is really 10 years ahead. It only cheats on the hardest (unfair) difficulty, so if you play on hard you have a non cheating, pretty competent opponent. What I like the most, it actually plays a bit like a human, not like in Starcraft, where it simply builds lots of units with cheated resources and then attacks. And if you need a bigger challenge, simply add more AI's.

I also see no problem with mass scuttling. The button is so small and the countdown so long, so there is no real chance of accidentally scuttling your main fleet. [quote] You lose such a LARGE portion of your investment when you scuttle, I don't see how doing it en masse would be a good idea. Even if you have a bad fleet, isn't it better than no fleet at all? [/quote] Scuttle also works with building, eg. defense that you want to remove to build a cannon. Furthermore a big,

It is the ship with the colonise ability. I forgot it's name, but you can check the description. Anyway, that ship has the "Malice" ability, which is an area of effect spell that increases the damage dealt. It is a very powerful ability and if you combine it with cleansing brilliance it'll cause a headache to your opponent. So first Malice, then CB.

NilsJeppe: Yes, that is exactly what I thought would be the best solution. The problem now is that the Vasari gets a gigantic fleet and an excellent economy with RA, because he gets free units and can scuttle them to get tax free income. This is also what I don't understand when people say the RA-Vasari doesen't have support units or unit upgrades. Why not? Anyway, remove the scuttle button, and the Vasari won't be able to win the game without a proper economy anymore.

I never tried it, but it might have the WCIII-suicide problem: One Suicide bomber kills the other four on impact. Though I don't know whether the shuttles can damage friendlies with the blast or not. If it doesen't damage friendlies, this might be a very good strategy. 1000 credits isn't really all that much, considered the damage it could possibly cause. I guess I will give it a go today as well.

Interesting replies. So apparently the AI attacks sometimes through wormholes, but didn't do it in my game (well, they sent scouts, and some siege frigates, but nothing I would call serious). I wonder why. Actually, that would be a good thing. Since it would make the AI much harder by giving it more ways to attack. Anyway, I will observe the worm holes in my next game, to check whether they attack through it or not.

I think reply #2 shows exactly how culture should work. I would add though, that it would also help if a planet could lose a certain amount of allegiance if lightly influenced by hostile culture, instead of either losing nothing, or going to 0 after a while. Because otherwise it would be rather hard to balance, it is either to weak because it doesen't affect enemy planets at all, or to strong, because it turns enemy planets completely if you have the cultural advantage.

Did you try to move/install the patch to the location of the CD drive? That would explain everything. As others have said, you cannot do that, you have to install the patch into the folder where you installed Sins of a solar empire (usually something like C:/programs/StardockEntertainment/SinsofaSolarEmpire or similar). Meaning on your hard disk.

I think it is ok as it is now. The only thing that should be changed is the domination auto cast. I really wonder which idiot on the Rapture decided that taking over an enemy trade ship was a good idea... Besides, you cannot usually compare single abilities of different ships with each other, even if they are similar. You have to look at it from a general balance point of view.

Please don't use so many exclamation/question marks in your title. And no, I never had this problem. But just some questions: 1. You tested that you can actually enter the worm hole from the other side and then end up in your base, didn't you? 2. You researched the "worm hole taking ability", didn't you? I think the second is the problem in your case. If you haven't researched it yet, it is in the civilian tree hidden somewhere. You need it to use worm ho

The AI doesen't seem to attack through worm holes. Somehow it seems to me it doesen't really know how to use them strategically. This means it might send some scouts, or even a couple of siege frigates, but not a part of it's real army to take out some of the undefended planets of yours. I had a game yesterday against 3 hard AI's, and none of them attacked me through the worm hole, but instead kept sending troops to my heavily defended fringe Asteroids bordering to their empires.

If you want to fight bombers efficiently, I recommend the Advent carrier capship. It has a "push the strike craft" ability, which not only keeps them away from your ships and slows them down, but also damages them (substantial damage, 33% iirc). Additionally, it also supports your strike craft with a damage aura and has some strike craft itself.

Actually, RA wasn't really weakened much in 1.04. Only the exploit/bug with the negative fleet supply was fixed. The increase in cold down has hardly any practical effect, since the gates need more time to regenerate their antimatter than the cold down lasts. So it is basically as powerful as it was before, which means it is too powerful once it is set up, so I think it should be nerved more. However, I also see your concerns regarding the relative strength of Vasari, especial

[quote] NO, don't take his 'roid. Waste of time. Seige the homeworld. Kill like 150 people, and he's screwed monetarily too. People take awhile to regen. Then you can take your capital back to your own world. [/quote] Are you sure? He still has income from your world and he can bomb your home world too if there is no one to defend.

I think the AI only surrenders if it is absolutely 101% obvious that it doesen't stand the slightest bit of a chance. I played a few games so far, and the AI never surrendered on me, till I took over every planet. I assume the developer played it very safe, since the decision to surrender is not really an easy one, especially for a computer. So it rather not surrenders at all/very late, instead of surrendering to early. I myself simply quit a game if I think I won and don't wan

If they reduced supply cost from 15 to 14, then I suspect they calculated wrongly. They said they will reduce cost by 15%, so that would mean from 15 to 13 (assuming they meant only supply cost). Anyway, I disagree with siege being useless. They help making the game shorter if you win, but the opponent doesen't surrender. Obviously money isn't an issue anymore at that point. Whether the devs intended for siege to have only that purpose is anyones guess though. Considering how g

Ok, I think you are right RedMaw, even in 1.04 tactical structures don't stop working if the planet is gone.

Yeah great, refresh double post. Delete please.

RA (returning armada) was weakened in Patch 1.04, so if you haven't updated yet, then take comfort in that. But I doubt it changed much considering how insanely powerful RA was. Income doesen't matter with RA, because the Vasari player gets plenty of free ships, which he can scuttle if he needs money. However, if you are two to one you could try to attack from different direction and destroy the rings of death. The rings produce all the ships and the Vasari can use them to travel quick

I agree with the scout problem. For some reason scouts seem to have a very high attack priority, which is very annoying. Scouts should be ignored, unless they are in firing range or there is nothing else to attack. They don't pose a threat and usually survive, even if driving through a well guarded by a 300 supply army. What I completely disagree with is the avoiding static defenses suggestion: Even from a realism point of view it doesen't make sense for ships to avoid turrets, since t

You better play Vasari, they have exactly what you are looking for: A cannon which attacks structures/units surrounding a planet. However, loosing a planet is no fun in this game, even if you can retake it shortly afterwards, since all the upgrades are lost. It can take a lot of cash to upgrade e.g. your home planet to where it was before.

I would suggest deactivating every background program that is running in the, well, background. Like Anti virus scanners etc. However, since your Laptop is very powerful apart from the weak graphics card, it probably won't help much. Ah, I got another tip: Go from 32 to 16 Bit in Windows (right click on desktop => settings). This is only experimental, and I don't even know if the game runs with 16 Bit, but it might make it slightly faster (if not, set it back to 32 Bit, since