tetleytea

My concern about periodic payments to Mercenaries is another micro nightmare. Not just the micro for you to pay them: but if you (or the AI) don't, they go back into the pool, and now you're constantly checking the bazaar to see if your favorite ship is back online again. I like the population scaling linearly, and move the inefficiency factor to the Approval system, and here's why: first, it's simpler. But second, I want to apply bonuses to it. It'

I don't dispute that. I know the lead developer for a popular game 10 years ago, got high 8's in the reviews. They had 3 developers. Galciv3 has more than twice that, plus the exec producer is a dev. The guy I know hosted a Halo party at his house, and I can tell you, his house is not small. He also couldn't play Halo very well (I couldn't, either--I was bottom half--but I could frag him).

I think I speak on behalf of multiple people when I say, either remove it or fix it. A mini-game is cool--especially if there was a switch to always quick battle-- but if Stardock has limited resources to invest, just nixing it is better than what we have now.

Just let minors have mercenary ships they are willing to trade. And alliance treaties. If you invade the minors, you tick off everybody else, incur a warmonger diplomatic penalty, and you declare war on their allies. Even the Drengin you tick off--they're mercenaries. Drengin love mercenaries.

The massive G-forces from riding spaceships does cause problems with high blood pressure. ...and it's not thread hijacking when the OP starts it. :-p

We are neglecting that that spaceship is facing an entire hemisphere of a planet that can shoot back. And that doesn't count missiles, that don't even need line-of-sight. We can already hit the moon from the ground, now, with lasers, mass drivers, and missiles, and we haven't even built a space elevator yet.

It's not "air" dominance, though--you're invading a planet. Regardless, though, if that's the case, then I say remove the mini-game. Just let the invader win. You're better off investing the resources into invading back than in a defense where you're at a disadvantage.

I thought I would open a thread for balance issues. Hopefully if enough people say the same things, we should start seeing trends. I also added a section of things that I think are balanced right. I put Crusade 2.31 in the title, because I didn't want to mix balance issues with different patches. My list: - Square-rooting population. - Prototype hyperdrives available at game start, move 5. Not even the final warp tec

If Stardock simply made Treasure Hunt missions repeatable, there's your trade. Internal trade. You're exchanging about 1 ship construction for 1.25bc. With almost no micromanagement (if they made it repeatable). Trade freighters are still worth little more than a diplomacy bonus, though. Markets are still pretty useless, even adjacent to your Central bank. Ports of Call are not that far behind. I mean come on: +1bc tourism, -1b

Just revert back to Galciv2 and move on to more important things. Outsourcing the mini-game (such as in a mod) would be great, but I don't see how you could make that a reality. Planetary defenses, Train Legion, and Station Legion are still way out of balance, though. The defender gets almost nothing. You don't think having ground superiority is a bigger advantage than having air superiority?

[quote who="Ryat" reply="1" id="3684797"] This is a very strong reason why I support this company. Continuous support and love from the CEO himself. Some of us may go back and forth over opinions and details but in the end a company where the CEO is actively involved in the game has a vote from my wallet. Keep up the good work. [/quote] For me, it is a thing that makes me a fan of Stardock, but I have to draw a line as to what that means. If another game is bette

That is very good, thank you. My hesitation with modding is not just the limitations of what can be modded. There needs to be that one gold standard that the metaverse, social media, and support can rally around. Plus the game design and AI challenges are simpler if you don't have to genericize your code for all possible use cases. That standard could come from the fan base (I don't care either way), but it needs to be supported as the standard. Say, "this is Gal

So what can we do to get the game from here to there? It would seem our interests align: we want a good game. Stardock wants a good game, so that word-of-mouth spreads, they grow their loyal fan base, and they get long-term sales. Is fan-modding the answer? Simply criticizing Stardock is certainly not, no matter how strong (or accurate) our opinions. Walking away is an answer, but last-resort. I can code, but IMHO fan modding using existing capabili

Twilight of the Armor is definitely the best. Are you willing to wage $20 on a game that's like 12 years old? I see Galciv2 Ultimate retailing at $20. If so, I think grabbing all the DLC and playing the campaigns makes sense. I found the Dread Lords campaign very fun; but you need to amp up the difficulty. Be prepared for a different, weird econony. Lots of strategy guides out there. However, if this is just to bide your time while Galciv3 gets wor

Is there anyone out there who thinks Planetary invasion is brilliant? Is there anyone who thinks the AI giving you all 200 of their ships when they have a -1bc balance is brilliant? Is there anyone who thinks making all carrier fighters guardians is brilliant? Or that Administrators are "Dead" after you promote them to minister? Or that you are better off never promoting Commanders at all? Or that Xeno factories convey a whopping 2.5% extra bonus for all that wo

Ships must be in the 7-hex ZOC to get the buff, but any precursor relics must be in the 5-hex zoc. In other words, if you build a military SB 7 hexes away from a relic and 7 hexes away from a ship, the ship will get the buff, but you will not be able to claim the relic. For the move bonus, though, I am not so sure about having to start your turn in the radius. This is Galciv3. The slipstream module gives -25% movement cost to every hex within the zoc. Wh

For Antimatter, I am finding that, more often than not, by midgame you can trade with an AI for more for cheap (not a bug, BTW: this is a strategy). Get all you can from every AI at every chance, and the missile line can work out well.

Am I missing something? Carrier fighters don't need hyperdrive or life support--true--but shouldn't the game hard-code assault fighters as assault? Regardless of the modules in them?

I am not seeing the second- and fourth-drive thing. I design a medium hull, and I see 15.5 for a hyperwarp drive. I double-click, and it takes 9 mass (evidently my hyperwarp optimization techs don't display). I double-click a second time, and it takes 9 more mass. A third time, 9 more. For a total of 27.

Didn't Civ4 actually borrow this feature from Galciv2, and make civilizations you were at war with vassals of somebody else? I realize this behavior is being viewed across the backdrop of a host of other Galciv3 issues, but it has not always been that way.

I'm not a SD dev, but I have no problem calling it a moan thread, because that is where we're at. It could be worse. When I first played Rogue War and Lords of Magic, that didn't last very long. I wrote off my purchase, showed little mercy in my reviews, and moved on. Galciv3 has addictive elements that make me long to play, and issues that make me go "uuuuuuhhhhhhhh" long into the night.

This is very sad. It's not dependent on Open borders. The Altarians went -88bc, and she built Transports. I throw 4 bc into the pot, and she is willing to give me all of her ships: 94 ships in all. I could take all of her ships and then turn around and invade her undefended planets with the transports. Game over.

It's war. It's their job to NOT have your interests at heart.

Are Quantum power plants just gone? The table says QPPs are an upgrade from Fusion power plants, yet at the same time the absence of a FPP is a prerequisite to build QPP. If both are true, you can't build them. This matches what I'm seeing in my game. I researched the tech, I am building the Singularity PP now. But no option to build Quantum is available whether a Fusion is already built or not. The Tech Tree clearly has a little thumbnail on it saying

I have sometimes bought on Steam in $USD because the $CAD prices were more expensive, so I get it. If it's a different price in a different market, the price difference should not be more than the spread you pay to convert currencies. I.e. if Visa wants to keep 1% of your transaction because you converted Euros to dollars, then okay, but don't make the game cost 10% more in Europe than the U.S., or vice-versa. Especially Asia. I'm tired of cutting China a break becau