James Sterrett

Reply to Fun WAR story--post yours, too! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, I won the game listed above in the end. The latest update nerfed the ability to make massive profits off of ships, but it dawned on me the only way out was to actually start making money.... so I put some cash into construction and built Trade upgrades for my starbases. This got me close enough to the lip of the hole that I could stay afloat, when combined with a somewhat dodgy tactic: AIs like planets, so I continually sold and re-sold a planet I overwhelmingly dominated, cult

Crash bug - avoidance details inside! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[This is a repeatable crash bug; I've sent the savefile and the galciv.exe.cra file to [email protected].] What happens: For some reason (in my case, cultural conquest), you take over a planet with which you had a trade route. The freighter turns into a single-colored freighter-shaped blop on the map. If you click that blop, you will CTD. So, until Stardock fixes this... don't click the funny freighter-shaped blops. ;)

Reply to Fun WAR story--post yours, too! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A tale of beginner's idiocy... with the end still uncertain! This is still my first game - not a lot of time to play. I chose to make a race focussed on diplomacy, trade, and influence. I began with a number of beginner's mistakes - discovered how to colonize a planet by colonizing Mars, for example - and was in a low-star-density area in any event. I gained one good colony, one bad colony, and that was it. Then my morale collapsed. I'm still not sure why, really.

Reply to Alliance without alliance tech in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

If they can't ally without the tech, why can I sell the "Alliance" tech to AI civs that are in an alliance?

Reply to is there a demo of GalCiv? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

There will be in mid-April, say the developers: http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=23261

Reply to favorite strategy games of all time in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Europa Universalis 2 (Does an amazing job of having events follow the logic of the historical period presented, without forcing them to absolutely follow history as it happened.) King of Dragon Pass (Does a brilliant job of presenting a deep and well-constructed mythical Bronze Age culture and requiring you to think inside it in order to succeed. To win, you need to learn to *think* like an Orlanthi.)

Reply to Post your 'good' techs, etc here in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Fifth Column: New planetary assault option. A percentage of the enemy's planet equal to [(your influence in the sector)/2 + (your alignment - 50)] will defect to your side when the assault begins. The (alignment-50) is intended to make this more powerful the more angelic the player is; influence/2 gives weighting to the influence you weild while keeping to total below 100%. Builds on Empathic Translator and Multi-Cultural Media Blitz. ----------<br

Reply to GalCiv Interview on FiringSquad in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

One of the screenshots shows AI setup, and two of the AIs are listed as "chaotic" (one chaotic good, the other chaotic evil). What does this mean? Is an order/chaos axis now in the game in addition to good/evil?

Reply to Undocumented stuff in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Details on how the various subsystems work is a Good Thing. :) In addition to Morale, you might add Combat and Research? In general, the online version of the manual feels quite thin in places; though I have never played the game, and it often seems to make the none-too-unfair assumption that I can click on buttons and thus understand what I am being told. The online manual is also probably out of date (labelled as September 2002). Specific points of confusion I can rec

Reply to GalCiv goes gold... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Does Stardock make more money off of purchases made directly from Stardock, as compared to those through the retail outlets listed in your Purchases page? If so, is it possible to pre-order direct from Stardock?

Reply to Comparisons in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Short comparison between GalCiv/MoO2 and Starfleet Command is.... apples and oranges. :) GC and all the version of MOO are strategic empire-building games: the player works on expansion, tech and economic development, and warfare. SFC (in all its versions) are detailed tactical battle games with a thin strategic wrapper. You command at most a small squadron of ships. The economic and technological development of your empire is completely beyond your control. The movement