erischild

I took the trait that gives me my first building rushed. I usually choose a factory. When I reach the stage you are talking about, I start planets with a free Farm and that helps a lot. When I pick up enough techs or resources to boost my initial food, I can switch to starting with other improvements. Another thing to do is put the planet on an individual setting to all production for the time it takes to get the farm out. It minimizes the starvation.

It is a lot like the cliche montage sequence where the master teaches the student by whacking the student over and over with a stick until the student learns to stop it. It both cruel and inspiring, and there should be swelling background music. :) I can tell the difference in behaviors, even with the version we have and the few skills I have. I knew this would be one of the more interesting parts of the project. I am getting a deeper appreciation of AI subtlet

Thankfully, I don't need to tell you that GC3 is not radically different from GC2. It is so far a great successor. I suggest you find another game to play and complain about. By the content and tone of your post, this is not going to be the game for you.

[quote who="kestlstw" reply="18" id="3538790"] Choices are exactly my point, my choice to get all three specializations is a choice. [/quote] You and I understand choices differently in 4X games. To me, the point is to have decisions that are either one thing or another, mutually exclusive options, or combinations that don't work as well as others. Stardock seems to like to put in ways for

As to my experience/perception with surrender in GC2, it's not random, at least not completely. It's based on who they like a lot better than the folk beating on them. I have made friends with losers and gotten them to surrender to me instead of others. You have to start making nice before warfare breaks out and it is not guaranteed, but it can be quite a boost if someone is surrendering kinda early. I am hoping some version of that carries on into GC3 and they

The more I think about it, the less I understand why one constructor should bring a starbase up to full upgrade. It really shouldn't work that way, or what's the investment value besides a few credits one way or another? I can see where you would want it, but I don't see why it should be so easy it's near automatic, even on insane maps. It has to be a subjective and meaningful difference between setting up a basic starbase and outfitting one for maximum benef

You will always have the latest version because of Steam updating. If you are interested in the early opt in for each patch to the Beta, keep an eye on these forums. There will be notice that an opt in is availible. Otherwise, if you wait less than a week, the opt-in will become "official" and distribute to all owners of the game. Then you will have the same version as us eager beavers. Welcome to the Beta!

[quote who="SwordOfJustice1" reply="24" id="3536531"] I sincerely hope the developers do improve the game so I can play it with some kind of reasonable settings on a 4GB RAM machine. I bought the game in good faith. [/quote] I sincerely hope the developers find ways to improve the game so you can play it with some kind of reasonable settings on a 4GB RAM machine. However, I do not believe that you can in good faith expect it. Your expectation

Well, thanks for showing me. I'm glad I'm not tasked to solve the design puzzle this time. We'll see what happens.

I thought this sensor ship depended on late game sensor and miniaturization and hull techs to achieve the effects described. Are you saying that turn 50 is a reasonable expectation of that capability? Either I don't understand the trick being described or turn 50 seems exaggerated enough to be actually false as a claim. I don't consider bee-lining as a terribly practical strategy, not to the point of neglecting economy or military, that's for sure. If

In one of the dev streams, Paul was proud to point out that the city lights did reflect the development of the planet. It was the same "Isn't that great!" attitude he has now about eclipses on the planets. :) He didn't specify whether it was population or building. It's likely to be some combination of both, I suspect.

I am thinking it should end up as a set of sliders instead of a few steps of settings on a list. It seems to be such a subjective thing. If we had a bank of sliders like an equalizer display and they had markers saying "deluge", "abundant", "common" "rare" "Where'd they go?" then we could nudge and adjust to our hearts content. Maybe there could be some for clustering and minimum distances between stars, and other factors. A small wall of sliders to geek ou

I find it strange that this is not happening to me. Over three games I have built this pattern: I colonize hard and build an economy focused on production and population. I also chase down approval artifacts. I work in enough military techs to keep current but don't make military ships yet, just colonies and constructors and survey. When I meet the Drengin they are bigger than me and more powerful and they declare war immediately. They threaten

I don't consider it a bug. I consider it a darn clever idea. I am going to have to figure out how to use that on my huge maps. I can see sacrificing some sensors for a little bit of engines so I can tag along just behind an invasion force.

[quote who="econundrum1" reply="18" id="3537771"] Unfortunately most people don't expect to have to read all the documentation before playing a game for the first time and I'm also not sure tooltips are going to be noted by everyone. [/quote] I don't think that is particularly true in the audience for 4X games. It's not that we are an elite group or anything, but it is a demographic. Granted there are always those who plunge i

[quote who="Rincewind57" reply="15" id="3537602"] One worry I have. Can we have an option somewhere to change AI based on map size, or have this implemented automatically? I'm wondering what percentage of players will play (and more importantly finish) an insane 128-player map. I tend to favour small maps and I'm worried that trade-offs will be chosen to suit a small percentage of players on insane maps, where more complex AI would work fine on the smaller maps. In gen

[quote who="econundrum1" reply="9" id="3537579"] Just to point out to those of you who like this "Feature", it's incredibly unfriendly to new players who are left scratching their heads as to why the new improved factory type they just got through research doesn't show in the build-able list on their colonies. Would not be surprised if more than a few support tickets where raised about the bug of new buildings not appearing on the build list before they realize that on

[quote who="Taslios" reply="11" id="3537597"] Player selects Factory 4 The game Builds factory 1 > 2> 3> 4 in one continuous queue with the added value of the previous build going to the next to speed things up. [/quote] This part does not work for me and possibly others. I want it to build a level 1 factory, and then go to the next item in the queue, which might not even be a factory. I wan

Wow. You really know how to break things! I am impressed. Good reporting, too.

One of the interesting points I remember is that a ship is totally helpless while upgrading. I propose we increase the upgrade time a little and keep the helpless condition. It helps dissuade people from abusing the remote upgrade in the middle of a combat zone. I do think it needs to be more expensive remotely than at a planet or starbase.

I did a few minutes of looking over Brad's shoulder via the stream. It was interesting and I appreciated it. I am much too rusty on coding, but it looked familiar and I could follow what comments and logic I was seeing. Brad wasn't stopping to show you what he was working on and you had to take what glimpses you could get. That was fair, I thought. Then I remembered how much I hated people looking over my shoulder in real life, and I signed off. I

If I watch a battle and set the speed to other than 1X, watch it, and then hit the replay button, it resets the playback speed to 1X. It also does not remember the speed setting for my next battle. I still have to push for the cinematic mode being more a series of still camera shots. It is poor movie making and does not show off all your work very well at all. Also, it needs an RNG. It shows the same sequence over and over as you replay.

A long evening of gameplay, and much too much fun. Here are some reactions. All in all, there is some impressive progress! I started with 3000 credits. Change notes said 1000. I see in another post this is part of Custom races, which I was using. My custom faction carried over. Thanks! My starting Scout ship for my custom race, "Everybody Else", is now named a "Vision Giver". That is an interesting and creative touch. My starting Co

This is a great idea. There was a ship designer stream using Steam. That worked okay. I wouldn't trust the twitch set up; I have had issues attending the dev streams using that from the client side myself. Then again, those can get archived. However you do it, pick a time and place and those who feel the deep geeky need will join you. Make sure you give us some advance notice so that those who need to can login or do other first time setup as needed.<

The production wheel in empire governance puts the economy into three categories, wealth, research, and manufacturing. Doesn't the wealth portion represent the income in taxes? Would it work for you if they labelled that category as "taxes"?