I think that allowing a constructor to add 10-20 hit points instead of a module might be a good compromise *Something* along these lines would sure be swell. I'm having too much fun clawing my way back from the bottom in a long game, and resource bases have been the linchpin of my survival (I made out like a bandit after the first big war between
confusing missionary with mercenary? Evil S, maybe Shadowmaster K is talking about the recruiter aspect of missionary work, not the social services side. AFAIK those roles are are always combined, although balance and focus differ. During the first couple of centuries of Jesuit missions, the SJ fathers both saw Euro-style facilities (hospitals, s
The UP would definitely be better if it moved from being an apparant random event to something players could engage. I say "apparent" b/c I'm pretty sure there's some game math for the AI votes that's a bit more than 1=yes and 2=no. But the "random" part is really true also b/c, as Mistralok points out, we human players have no idea when a resolution is coming or what the AI players think of it.
Actually it takes more money to crack a larger and more advanced civilization. That depends entirely on the nature of the civilization in question. A small, primitive, but highly xenophobic civilization could be harder to "crack" than a large, advanced but highly pluralistic civilization. As recent events have taught us, no matter how fancy your
Of games, the Great Emporer says in the end its a form of entertaiment and nothing more I guess I'm trapped in my ideological blinders b/c I cannot see how *any* entertainment is "nothing more." Whether you watch a stupid network sitcom, read Aeschylus' plays, or devote time to a hardcore chess club, you are doing more than merely entertaining yo
why discuss this Precisely because of assertions like yours, Great Emperor--for me, 4X games are about exploring assumptions about the human (sentient and technological) condition (that, and compulsive clicking in an immersive game space). What you state as singular facts, I see as traits on a scale. A good 4X game should be based in no small pa
@ Lordpinko: Kudos for sticking such an unusually-colored toe in the thread, and ten thousand more for chastising your party about celebrating that mass-murdering barbarian upon whom Marx and Engels would have doubtless spat vigorously. (P.S. If you want to make a better impression, give a moment to check your spelling & grammar ) @ Evil S re Peter Sellers: I think think Being There makes a better
2nd recommending Dr. Strangelove--our precious bodily fluids are even more important today, methinks
2nd the mourning for the long-lost Terror Stars
Branding crap is one of many reasons I despise the modern IP regime yet still admire Stardock for trying to make money from software. I think I might become a shameless Minion of Kryo if the Stardock devs manage a decent follow-up to MOM, whatever they call it. Any chance of Stardock sharing some dev milestones, even quarterly or annual ones?
I'm curious about whether there is variation in how the AIs respond to other votes for the event. Do some of them always object to the proposal or does every AI use the same formula to update their diplo status with other AIs and the player?
Evil S, I agree with your take on the greed problem, but that's only a part of what I'm talking about when I say GCII has a materialist orientation. I'm a metaphysical thinker, but I really like games with a strong physical layer, and GCII certainly has that. I would have said "secular humanist," but I was thinking about how large a share of resources the game gives to modeling and displaying ship combat. Plus, as I said, the game is pretty spare once you step outside the nicely decorated zero-s
The Soviet Union should have been destroyed before it ever had a chance to grow. And here's a ferociously political claim that has a sharply clear and interesting game connection: how should (can?) the diplomatic model respond to a player or AI betraying an ally after that ally has been essential to the defeat of a mutual enemy ?
the possibility of having a new human species/sub species is not likely until we can become isolated again. Who knows, maybe if we settle other planets, the prospect of multi-sub species human is possible. See, these are the sorts of things I hope that devs might skim when forcing themselves to check out a "stupid political thread." If you replac
@ Achillus: 1) We haven't "stopped evolving physically" just because we have evolved language and technology--evolution is *very* slow. 2) You are confusing Islam with fundamentalism. What you said about the game/Stardock would be equally true under a fundamentalist Christian, Jewish, or possibly even Hindu theocracy b/c the game clearly has a materialist orientation. @Ashbery76: You appear to be confusing the historical pattern of imperial rise and fall with the global trend of increas
p.s. to Evil S: I'm a professional grammar nazi *and* a (libarary)-card carrying US socialist
Mumble, I've generally found your posts to be very constructive, but now I have to constructively disagree, not least because I've been thinking for a while about this vague semi-ban on talking politics here. I fully appreciate and support the goal of keeping down flame wars, but I'm a political scientist (non-practicing), so the no-politics thing seems odd to me on a couple of levels: 1) "Off Topic" seems a fairly clear boundary to contain real-world political discussions 2) I'm appare
The self-upgrade tech idea is very interesting to me, but I'm guessing it is not possible for GCII, period. Maybe if a starbase is in the ZOC of one of the new asteriod mines? A starbase management page would be *awesome*, as would an auto-move setting for constructors to Upgrade Nearest Base and a flag for shipyards to auto-launch constructors. @ Mister Boom: have you tried assembling constructor fleets? I'm a big-map player and in the late game I tend to use a mixture of rall
Jamie, have you thought of cancelling that 8-buck silliness and putting 8 bucks a month in a sock until you have enough to buy whatever game strikes your fancy, or even enough to buy the starter stack of TG.net tokens? p.s. I must admit that the overall TG game collection is still not strong enough for me to be interested in "investing" through holding unused tokens. I very much appreciate Stardock's basic business model, but of the demos I've tried (not tons, but several), GCII is by
I think the questions raised in this thread are related to some discussion elsewhere about the colonization rush "problem." I can see two different, not necessarily incompatible, ways to approach broadening the core political economy models for GC3 (yes, I think the point is moot for this version): 1) re-build the economy to separate use value from exchange value (money is a cultural thing, not like gravity or isotope half-lives), and 2) drastically increase effort on the text-based side of the
SrGalen seems to share my core POV on the matter. I know a few folks who might be able to talk me into a multiplayer game (and associated costs), but the MMO thing will likely remain a turnoff until AI components are frighteningly sophisticated (meaning I don't want to mess around with some unsupervised horde-of-idiots version of a good 4X game). p.s. Re "MMO," I admit that I've been decreasingly interested in online games since the rise of the consumer Internet (yes, I'm that old--any
I second both Mumblfratz and Magnumaniac. Options are good; making everyone pay for multiplayer is bad.
I like long games on gigantic maps, but I don't think the constructor problem is boring so much as it is frustrating (at least since they fixed the rally point update problem a patch or two ago). I suspect what we're seeing here is just another symptom of the fact that the Stardock folks aren't able to play many (if any) long, big-map games. Regardless of a given player's strategy prefs, it seems like some basic UI upgrades such as the starbase build queue notion would benefit at le
On the MOOs points, I agree that 2 was the best of the set and that GCII is the best of the new SF 4X genre. I'm stoked that DA will offer something like the MOO environment functions, and have some hopes that it might even include the mixed-population system (the total extermination aspect of GCII invasions seems limited to me). To the duo who type lots, I also am waiting (as patiently as I can) for a 4X game that includes but is not limited to 18th-19th century mercantilist expansion
Thanks for the tip, Scintor. I admit that despite far too much playing time, I don't really know all the different options on the minilist. Clicking around is tedious and I've long wondered why that list isn't a dropdown and the arrows replaced with Sort Up and Sort Down buttons.
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