Twirlip

Reply to who wants a star trek mod :D in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

pdifolco -- Copyright holder's option. For instance, there used to be an "Aliens" total conversion for Doom, but then Fox went after them. And since both Star Wars and Star Trek have what are probably /very/ lucrative, possibly exclusive licensing deals in the computer gaming arena (LucasArts does its own, while Simon & Schuster made a line of Star Trek games, if memory serves) turning games into unauthorized SW/ST games does indeed risk their wrath. This gets worse if actual copyrig

Reply to Regarding governors in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Travathian -- I've gotten the distinct impression that using a governor is NOT mandatory; in other words, if you want to adjust every build queue in your Galactic Empire to make them all unique, you can. What the governors might be particularly good for would be building up new colonies, since there might be some basic buildings you'd like to see on large numbers of worlds.

Reply to biological weapons in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Do different tactics have diplomatic repercussions (atrocities)?

Reply to who wants a star trek mod :D in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

...trademark and copyright problems. Copyright, if you "borrow" any of their artwork or that sort of thing; trademark, merely for making use of words like "phaser" or other Star Trek concepts ("Death Star", Klingons, et al). Do ask first.

Reply to GalCiv Play example: Triumph of evil.. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmm. If having ships in somebody else's space bothers them, I wonder if some games can be played with giving ships to a third party in somebody else's space, just like I did in SE4. That might be one way to cause trouble in a "FlowerPower" game -- buy a ship from somebody, sell/give it to somebody else so the proximity bothers them. (Unless the ship warps away to the new owners space when its transferred -- hmm. I gather that there's some rules regarding fuel/range; is it only possi

Reply to Trailer sneak peek in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hm, looks like Quicktime to me.

Reply to GalCiv Play example: Triumph of evil.. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

A Torian dreadnought was named "Die Humans"? Interesting.

Reply to Random event ideas here... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

sivlardemalle -- Agreed. It wouldn't surprise me if at least some events had a minimum turn number on which they could arrive.

Reply to About downloading the game (answers) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Just checking the hit frequency? There has to be more than that, because otherwise somebody might easily repackage what he's downloaded and make it available on his own -- in which case the serial numbers become irrelevant, since it's not being downloaded from Stardock Central. Hence, there's probably something about the installation meant to make that non-trivial. Of course, that would also mean that if you have a laptop and a desktop, that even if it's legal to put GalCiv on both with the s

Reply to About downloading the game (answers) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

"Tied to the user"? Loosely, a security system can attempt to grant/deny access based on: - Knowledge: of passwords, serial numbers, how to dance a Macarena in front of a security camera, et al. - Possessions: e.g. smart cards, dongles, hardware-based challenge-response systems, et al - User characteristics: iris scans, fingerprints, DNA sequencing, that sort of thing If I read correctly, you can even download the game before having anything shipped to you,

Reply to Anyone played Space Empires 4? Is GalCiv similar? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

WRT to the "evil empire" setting in SE4, that can be disabled (or at least it could in non-Gold) by changing the "MegaEvilEmpire" settings. SE4 did bog down with micro if you wanted to play anything near optimal in a long game, however. Going back and replacing production facilities with Monolith IIIs once those and resource converters were available was hellish. So, for that matter, was making sure every system had the system-wide computers, and putting atmosphere converters on every

Reply to Humor in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It's rather nice work, whoever did it. So, will patent medicines be made into a new product tree for TCM? :)

Reply to Simple one line responce to help developers know. Where did you hear about GaCiv? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic

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

*insert mumbled wishes that Koei would release updated, English PC versions of the Three Kingdom games* I also neglected to mention Atomic Games' "Close Combat II". I loved that game for its intensity and lovely, detailed maps... but I also loathed that game for its crack-addicted vehicle pathfinding and its mind-numbingly-repetitive German campaign.

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

Hmmmmmmmm. - Master of Orion II (SimTex). I never played the original, 'tho. - Dominions (fairly obscure game by Illwinter), which lets me be _truly_ evil if I feel like it. Pillaging, leprosy spells, blood sacrifice and demon contracts, oh my! - Civ II (Microprose), probably Test of Time, although the lousy pathing and idiotic auto-settler AI grates me. - Strategic Conquest (Mac; don't recall who), and the frequently similar, but more versatile, Xconq (Stan Shebs, others)

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

Project: The Temple of Serenity. Temple and school aimed at propagating contentness and serenity. Effects: Bonuses to morale, political stability so long as peace is maintained; large penalties to both in wartime. Intruding foreign influence is of reduced effectiveness within the empire. Slight positive bonus to influence, diplomatic relations with other 'good' nations.

Reply to Random event ideas here... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Discovery of an Ancient Beacon: Surveyors mapping a planet discover what appears to be an ancient, sophisticated communications -- or monitoring? -- device. The complexity of the device defies analysis, but your scientists suspect that it could still be made to work... 1- Ignore it? 2- Destroy it? 3- Activate it?

Reply to Random event ideas here... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Prophecy: A rumor begins predicting { emergence of a monster | discovery of Precursor relics which will yield new technology | start of a terrible plague | recovery of a derelict ship | rise of a messiah } at a certain system in a random number of years. Prophecy has a rather low, but positive, probability of being true. The rumor reaches all civilizations. Actions taken before that time can have certain logical outcomes. Messiah: Rumor has it that a youth on so

Reply to Sorry to post this here but can i download SEIV in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

MobRuleR -- I never tried Gold, but at least with the original SE4 demo, depending on setup it might be possible to /win/ in far less than 100 turns. It's not as big a limitation as you might think as long as you don't feel compelled to explore the entire tech tree.

Reply to Capturing ships in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmmm. Along a related note, perhaps a suitably-equipped ship -- one with 'surveying' and good 'sensors' ability -- might be able to glean some research points about unknown technologies encountered in battle. Even if you don't capture the vessel, sensors might tell you a little about how they operated, and in addition unless your weapons obliterated the target entirely there may be interesting debris. Capture in Moo2 was a bit TOO strong when combined with telepathy and good ground-c

Reply to Submit Ideas For Evil Techs Here in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

-- Mindrot / Focus (source material: Vernor Vinge, "A Deepness In The Sky") It's a tunable infection. In its crudest form, it was used as a timed biological attack which induced headaches and even unconsciousness to assist a conventional surprise attack. With more technology, it enabled the selective tuning of brain activity to "focus" people to obsess about their particular areas of aptitude -- e.g. a superb manager who cared only about manag

Reply to Submit Ideas For Evil Techs Here in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hmmmmm. One interesting branch might be long-term initially low-profile nanotechnological warfare. Introduce nanites into an enemy-controlled biosphere, by any number of means (flinging large numbers through space in the hope that some survive the vacuum and any atmospheric obstacles; infiltration; landing an infected probe; or, for when the recipient's already suspicious, bombardment). Let them "reproduce" for several months, if not longer, by turning local resources towards duplicat

Reply to GalCiv difficulty levels in gold version in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

LifeWish -- Agreed. Games such as GalCiv are usually so complicated that without bonuses or advantages, it's difficult for an AI to compete with a human player who's had the game for quite some time and become an expert in it -- at least on even terms. At least a resource bonus is less bizarre than, say, EU letting AI-controlled nations completely ignore naval attrition, or many many MANY games giving full knowledge of the entire game state to the AI, or rigging random events to hamst

Reply to GalCiv difficulty levels in gold version in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Dividing between income and intelligence bonus seems reasonable; that way, one could play against a max-intel but "no-bonus" AI, or alternately a "rich idiot" should the latter tickle one's sense of humor. This poster wonders whether there it'd be possible or reasonable to have a setting in which the "intelligence" number gets automatically adjusted during the game -- perhaps either as a balancing method (the AI intelligence number increases as it falls behind, or perhaps falls back tow

Reply to Games to play while waiting for GalCiv... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Joloven -- It might amuse you that, the very first time in MOO2 that I dared to enter the Other Dimension, I was so concerned about what might be on the other side I sent along a force of approximately 130 Doom Stars. Needless to say, I don't wait nearly that long anymore unless I'm just being silly and accumulating population/tech points when the game was decided long ago.