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[Sir Pseudonymous]

I've just started playing this, and the hardest thing about it is breaking out of the habits GalCiv2 instilled in me. I discovered just how easy it is to seize worlds, in the process of making a mad dash to take over the third largest empire in the known galaxy to stop my allies from winning a territory victory (leaving all of the conditions at 33% was admittedly a rather silly thing to do, but then this game was just to learn the ropes), whereas in GalCiv2 taking worlds was extremely hard and expensive, at least until you got the advanced troop module (and good enough engines to get wherever you wanted to invade within a game year...). Seeing how slow the research process was quickly rid me of the habit of waiting till I had significantly better engines (and the fact that the starting tech isn't too bad...), but I'd kept the old aversion to building troop carriers (and turned off auto-recruitment to save a little cash... ) until I desperately needed an invasion force and had to wait a year while I recruited some soldiers, built two dropships, and waited for them to pick up a full load of soldiers in order to sweep up all the undefended colonies...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The hell are you supposed to do with the base surrounded by giant kaltors? I built a heavily armored yet fast ship and raced it to the base, but nothing happened (then it was torn apart by the kaltors). In retrospect, I may have neglected to add a proximity sensor to it, but I think everything else was in order...

[forsaken1111]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The hell are you supposed to do with the base surrounded by giant kaltors? I built a heavily armored yet fast ship and raced it to the base, but nothing happened (then it was torn apart by the kaltors). In retrospect, I may have neglected to add a proximity sensor to it, but I think everything else was in order...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Personally I try to land a scout right on top of the base to get the info then let the critters eat it afterwards. They aren't terribly useful except as sensor platforms.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The hell are you supposed to do with the base surrounded by giant kaltors? I built a heavily armored yet fast ship and raced it to the base, but nothing happened (then it was torn apart by the kaltors). In retrospect, I may have neglected to add a proximity sensor to it, but I think everything else was in order...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Personally I try to land a scout right on top of the base to get the info then let the critters eat it afterwards. They aren't terribly useful except as sensor platforms.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got the ship onto the base, but nothing happened (it doesn't help that it's on the other side of the galaxy from my territory, so attempts at it take a lot longer).

[ductape]

this might be useful:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2621381

[Paul]

I picked this up the other day and have been playing around with it. The concept is really cool, but I'm having a tough time getting a good game going. I guess I might need to resort to using edit mode or something.

My first game was a tiny one just for learning with 3 empires. It worked out OK, but didn't last long since we were all right together. I then tried to make a bigger game. I played around with the map types, and wasn't really satisfied with any of them (Is there a way to customize those? I didn't see one...). The spiral galaxy thing just doesn't feel right with only 700 stars, and it just kinda ended up as a blob of empires fighting over the center with everything crisscrossing and no semblance of empire borders at all. Everyone was declaring war on me because I'd send a colonization ship and they'd send miner ships or vice versa and I ended up with colonies and mines jammed into everyone elses's claimed territory and even my friends with free trade agreement hated me because their mining base was next to my colony. I eventually settled on trying an irregular so everything would be more spread out and I figured maybe I could establish some sort of empire border.

Anyway, so I start a 700 star irregular galaxy with 14 other empires, thinking I would start at the edge and slowly work my way across the galaxy conquering everyone as an evil empire, hoping to meet another big empire or a coalition as I go. I start on the edge, and it places me right in the upper right. I had the 14 other empires set to random, assuming it would scatter them around the map evenly.

Result: I start playing, send out some exploration ships. One system over theres another empire. OK I think, I have a nearby neighbor. I keep exploring. Oh look, another empire. And another. And another. Err...  I enter edit mode and all 14 other empires are jammed into the 1/4 of the map right next to me and so close together that their empire lines are already starting to cross eachother from colonization. 3/4 of the map is completely empty. What kinda screwed up random empire generator puts every single empire jammed into a corner?

I tried again, this time adding the empires manually and going to every one of them to set them to starting "distant" from me, but this time it started me kinda in the top center and all of them jammed together at the bottom of the map, most of them without even any systems between their home systems, with half the galaxy empty. Putting it on random made 5 of them appear RIGHT beside me, so close that I had contact with all of them after the first few minutes. The other 9 were in two little clusters of 5 and 4, also extremely close to eachother. Again with half the galaxy empty.

I really don't want to have to resort to building a custom game from the ground up in edit mode, since I was kinda hoping for a bit of surprise as I go out and explore - but I just can't seem to get it to give me a map with empires evenly spread out like I'm wanting (is that too much to ask?). Does anyone have any tips on getting it to place empires evenly across the map? Starting with 700 stars I was hoping the 15 empires would have at least 30ish stars to themselves, not be jammed right next to eachother from the get go.



-edit- This galaxy generation thing is terrible. There are 100 sectors and 15 empires, yet every game I generate it puts 3+ empires in each sector and leaves the rest of the galaxy barren. I just generated one with all empires set to average distance from me and me in the center, and it does this: I'm in sector E5, 4 empires are in sector B5, 2 empires are in sector B6, 3 empires are in sector A7 (thats 9 of them jammed together in those 3 sectors), 3 empires are in sector G3, and 2 empires are in sector F2 (the other 5 in those two sectors...). The entire rest of the galaxy is empty. Why can't it at least give each of them a sector to themselves! Argh!

[Toriad]

Game's pretty good although I can't seem to get the diplomacy system to work correctly, all my offers have been rejected. 

[Paul]

Diplomacy seems to work OK for me, although the whole "we envy your blah blah" thing is kinda annoying - especially when the big empire that has had a mutual defense pact with me for ages and has more colonies than I do decides to break the agreement because he envies my colonies and resources.

I build up +s from them liking my government type and sharing trade with them. If I need a bit more I make a trade with a bit of extra in their favor (usually trading tech unless I have extra money) or just give them a gift. Once its around 20ish I can usually hit them up with a free trade agreement, although the exact level at which they start agreeing seems to depend on the race (friendliness maybe?). Once free trade is in place you can get bonus cash from trading.

The whacky thing is if they are close to you you will get more trading and thus a higher rep from that, but they also seem to get a worse case of envy the closer they are so it kinda balances out. And I suggest occasionally checking the trading screen to see if there are any "disputed" colonies or stations, since if both of you accidentally build at the same time (or if you order something done without noticing what else was there) you can quickly be at war (even with a mutual defense pact!) just because your stuff is in the same system. My big game with the spiral galaxy turned ugly quick because all my neighbors were a big cluster and I kept getting disputed bases and colonies.

Funny story actually, on my clustered spiral game I was going peacefully along building up with one empire in a long standing mutual defense pact (we've been major trading buddies since day 1) and everyone else mostly friendly with lots of free trade agreements. Some insectoid empire that was way off to the side jumps on my mutual defense pact buddy and I join in the war. A few months later another insectoid on the other side decides he just doesn't like humanoids and jumps on me. At this point the battle area has Insectoid 1 on the west side, Ally 1 on the north side, and Insectoid 2 on the east. I have two fleets battling it out on two fronts with the insectoids. This goes well for a bit, when I notice that Ally 1 has apparently made peace with everyone so I'm fighting on my own. I'm still doing OK, but I plan to try and make peace asap since my war weariness is building up (they both refuse peace). Next thing I know Ally 1 jumps on ME because during the conflict some of our construction ships have apparently been building in the same systems and we have like 10 disputed bases. Then my southern neighbor who was in a free trade agreement and really loved me before suddenly jumps on me too for the same reason in addition to really envying my colonies (even though they have more than I do). So then I was in a war on four fronts with no allies and two half dead fleets. Their fleets were just casually strolling through my space blowing up mining stations and transport ships, with me having to combine my two fleets just to try and face the 30 ship fleet sent by my southern neighbors to lay waste to my large space port which I was trying to use to repair my damaged warships. Fun times.

Oh, and the best part is the two other guys who jumped me are humanoids, which should be natural enemies of the two insectoids I was fighting. But instead of going after them and helping their long standing buddy they decide its better to help their natural enemies and kill me because they really envy my awesome colonies (even though I'm like #10 on the list of total colonies, below both of them).

[Dohon]

A trailer for the upcoming expansion is now online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwQT0vq8W9g

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When I saw the Shakturi ship, I wasn't terribly impressed. Looked like a mixture of a deathstar and a fatman. But then it shot that blue beam and proceeded to whoop an entire fleet without breaking a sweat. And then, out of nowhere, another blue beam and BLAM! I stared in shock at a planet disintegrating and turning into a twin of Alderaan. 

This trailer has me stoked.

[Pnx]

I seem to recall the game had issues dealing with wars. It doesn't matter who started it or who the war was with, wars, and espionage ruin your reputation... which is annoying.

[Cheese]

An expansion? Oh come on. I was going to get this soon. Divine wind will be out soon too. :/

[Sir Pseudonymous]

The secret to fighting wars is dropship spam on their capital/largest planets. Without those, they'll be hemorrhaging money and left without their main shipyards, so it's a simple matter to mop up their fledgling colonies with three or four legions each (to quickly overwhelm the defenders and be ready for redeployment to the next target). Sad there's not an option to enslave/massacre/deport/eat the inhabitants though... I want to play as the Imperium of Man, and slaughter all the filthy fucking xenos.

[forsaken1111]

The secret to fighting wars is dropship spam on their capital/largest planets. Without those, they'll be hemorrhaging money and left without their main shipyards, so it's a simple matter to mop up their fledgling colonies with three or four legions each (to quickly overwhelm the defenders and be ready for redeployment to the next target). Sad there's not an option to enslave/massacre/deport/eat the inhabitants though... I want to play as the Imperium of Man, and slaughter all the filthy fucking xenos.

I take a slightly different take on war in DW. I do lightning raids on all of their mining stations, strangling their material income so they can't replace losses.

[Pnx]

The secret to fighting wars is dropship spam on their capital/largest planets. Without those, they'll be hemorrhaging money and left without their main shipyards, so it's a simple matter to mop up their fledgling colonies with three or four legions each (to quickly overwhelm the defenders and be ready for redeployment to the next target). Sad there's not an option to enslave/massacre/deport/eat the inhabitants though... I want to play as the Imperium of Man, and slaughter all the filthy fucking xenos.

I take a slightly different take on war in DW. I do lightning raids on all of their mining stations, strangling their material income so they can't replace losses.

I once had the largest empire in the game, and picked a fight with a very small but technologically advanced one, I figured since my ships outnumbered theirs 10 to 1 I would win out. I sent 60 firgates (I couldn't build destroyers) out after their capital planet... With just the port defending it, all that firepower and I never even dented it's shields. Fortunately at the same time I was hitting the system with drop ships, the capital planet I failed to capture, but the planet next to it I did... This planet was so valuable to them that they were willing to give me all their technology to me just to get it back... So if you're having trouble with a war, holding an empire's citizens hostage works... The up side to losing most of my ships was that I was replacing them with better ones anyway.

[Paul]

The AI is apparently bugged with trading for disputed stuff. Instead of offering a fair trade, they offer every single thing they have for it.

For instance, I had a neighbor who had a bunch of tech I didn't have (including a racial worth millions) and a whole bunch of mining stations in my territory suddenly decide to trade every single mining station (about 15 of them) and every one of their techs (including the racial) for a SINGLE mining station that wasn't worth a damn (it was a crappy mining station on a moon mining nothing but steel) that I built in one of their systems.

Just to test this I went around all the empires in a game building a single mining station in one of their systems. One by one they traded me their racial techs and all the other techs I didn't have in addition to any disputed stations in my territory for the single station that I had intentionally built in their system. Offering the station + all my techs + a few million credits for ONLY the racial tech in normal trade and they refused, but trading on their own they offered everything they had including the racial tech for that one station.

So its not that they valued the world you took a bunch, it's just that the AI values ANY disputed thing that you have at a ridiculously high rate - even if it's only a tiny stripped down mining station that you just built there for a thousand credits.

[forsaken1111]

Once they fix that bug though it would be interesting to make a business out of it. Build mining base in enemy territory, sell it to them. Etc.