GavinRuneblade

Why these claims are preposterous! Our survey ship never found precursor artifacts which were used to speed up our weapons research by decades, I have no idea why you would think that. The only artifact we did find was inside your political borders but it is not, as you claim,a racial heirloom and even if it was itis on display in a museum on our home world feel free to visit any time you like. The T.S.S. Battle-axe warship was recovered from pirates and while it may appear to have a

[quote] Have cost of Mercenary ships scale for players strength (both overall and economy). This will help narrow the field of making the stronger, stronger. Instead one could say the Mercenaries aren't just in it for making more money (credits) but, are there to secretly destabilize the galaxy. You could go one step further and give weaker players a better rate per strength/credits compared to stronger players. [/quote]<

Open borders is also mutual.

[quote who="hfxnikolai" reply="8" id="3628668"] As for human wipeouts.....only if the human player has virtually no knowledge of how to play the game. Any player with a decent amount of experience and knowledge of game mechanics quickly realizes how to prevent this, and realizes the Ai's ability to actually wage a war is stupidly, ridiculously, laughably poor (especially compared to its desire to actually declare war). No tactical awareness of enemy ships, bizarre flee

[quote who="Larsenex" reply="5" id="3628364"] Quoting GavinRuneblade, reply 4 I have not tried in the opt-in, but one thing that I do to help with the sily power curve is ask for ships from minor races. The game doesn't know they are junky as far as the power screen goes. Especially once I get free trade agreements, th

Ufp is population primarily, but there are a few technologies that increase voting score too. To get other races to vote for you have positive relationships with them, have high diplomacy, and ask them to embargo or declare war on the other strong races who are most likely to be your opponent in the election. Asking an alien to declare war is an option, but not always right away. I forget the conditions required for it, but you will be able to ask the ai to declare war.

I have not tried in the opt-in, but one thing that I do to help with the sily power curve is ask for ships from minor races. The game doesn't know they are junky as far as the power screen goes. Especially once I get free trade agreements, those are typically good for one or two free ships plus some energy credits, per minor race every time the deal expires. Later I can upgrade them to something useful if I want, or just scrap them for a cash infusion if needed. In

[quote] I do occasionally use culture bases as bait but tiny hulled sensor ships are cheaper, and can easily be moved if ever the need arises.[/quote]I use culture bases because they expand my zone of control as well as providing a picket line. They also increase the range of my offensive fleets. But the most important thing is they prevent the enemy from expanding his zone of control. To me, that's worth the extra price. But I also try to avoid conflicts, so if you need to move y

I agree, it is funny when the ai proposes something in the ufp and then storms out if the thing passes. I also like when a major power warns me about some minor race's military buildup. "Beware of those lanterns, they will turn on you!" Umm, OK, I'll keep that in mind Mr drengin. O.o And I always chuckle at the dialog for first contact with that one minor race where regardless of your on culture or ideology, you always get to say "oh we're judging alright" wh

Out of curiosity, how would you all alter your openings for maps with virtually no planets, no events, and no anomalies? I mean, expect to come out of colony rush with three planets total and end the game with less than 15.

There's some ideology points for random events too. But most are colonization. In general, I think the cost increases too fast. What if the increased cost was inverted? So instead of one pragmatic buy increases pragmatic by 10 and malevolent by 5, instead pragmatic goes up by 5 and malevolent by 10. Then focusing would be incentivised and splitting trees works for the cheap decisions, but the more you do it the harder it gets.

Have you considered a trackball instead of a mouse? I use mine while traveling, it just sits on my thigh and all that moves is my thumb.

I've never had the ai agree to peace when I offer it,even if I try to bribe them while I'm not only winning but am five to ten times their power score. I usually just stop attacking their world's and only squish their fleets, eventually they offer me peace and I accept. Or I use the ufp proposal for galactic peace.

I like to park ships with lots of sensors in orbit of key planets and space stations, and fleets with lots of move back a half move from the front lines, again in orbit of a planet or starbase. When needed they pop out and counter attack. Usually my picket lines of undefended culture bases act as my sacrificial lambs when needed. Fleets in orbit don't come up to be activated and they don't clutter the map visually. For me this works.

Well I do have snuggler Colonies. I guess I'm very cuddly. ^.^

That is possible, I have seen the ai be at war with two people but have all its fleets on my border while we are at peace.

[quote who="Mystikmind" reply="2" id="3624867"] What i noticed is that battles with high end weaponry are decided too fast, so repair modules are moot. Am i right thinking that? [/quote]depends on enemy defenses, carriers, etc.

[quote who="Mystikmind" reply="11" id="3624861"] I have had quite a large race surrender to me (friendly surrender). They were right over the other side of the map, with a powerful enemy in between. so i could not reinforce it,,,, and i expected it to be overrun in short order. As it turns out, there was enough ships and transports and starbases etc etc, i was able to immediately launch an offensive and start taking enemy planets.

Are you talking about visual designs or adding gear to a ship or both? I've never tried to change looks, but I have not had any trouble adding engines and guns to ships.

[quote who="Skukkuk" reply="30" id="3624362"] Isn't this idea pretty much same as in Cities Skylines? Certainly we'll see this or similar in Paradox' Stellaris. [/quote] Here is the relevant dev blog on how stellaris is doing it: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-21-administrative-sectors.908587/

There is a ufp (galaxy wide united nations thing) resolution "domain" that prevents anyone from colonizing inside any other player's zone of control. But it usually takes well into the mid game to have a chance to get this in place.

There is also the home system that has no habitable planet at all.

I agree there are so few anyway it would be more fun to have access to them all. You can still only propose one at a time.

I was rereading some of Brad's older posts about the ai over the weekend, and I wonder if this limitation might be linked to the "it does dumber things when it knows too much" behavior that was changed by adding fog of war to all lower difficulty ai's. I wonder if trying to achieve too much makes it do unsuccessful things. Perhaps if the ai determined a few very specific goals and worked to achieve them it might be more effective? I d

I usually don't use any victory conditions. At some point I realize the ai players are so far behind that I can win whenever I want, it is just facing the multi hundred turn slog to get to the victory screen is tiresome, so I start a new game. Influence though, is so powerful from the middle of the map that now I only play from the edge. Otherwise I have all the ai players choked off and isolated too fast. Also remember being in the middle giv