musicfan55

Reply to GCCG (v2.00) AVAILABLE!!! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thank you EBZ for sharing this. I will write more later but am too sleepy now. Good night. :) Rick

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Thanks Ray. H50, how did that anomalous game happen? That really makes me afraid to use mods. I finally had to put in the library mod that decreases the volume of the Drengin music LOL. But, I was thinking of trying the Environmentalists on an abundant map except was afraid of an anomalous score. Josh and H50 will move up soon and it would be nice to see more ring logos on the top 25 board. Although most of us can't play like Ray or Staffa, we can be persistent LOL. I think I a

Reply to can CTD be fixed by driver & direct x updates? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

PBP Thanks for sharing your experience. I will update directX like the folks at Microsoft recommend. BTW, I have had a half dozen or more genuine Intel machines and have played computer games on the Apple II+ and PCs for > 23 years. This unit from Falcon Northwest is as stable as the Intel rigs I owned although I can't say Windows ME is as stable as Windows 98SE was. I would really like to see competition in the PC chip business because I think it would be good for the

can CTD be fixed by driver & direct x updates? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yesterday, Gal Civ crashed to desktop x 3. The message was "Ddhelp has caused an error in unknown. Ddhelp will now close." I looked up Ddhelp and it is a directX helper application. I am currently running directX 8.1 but Microsoft has a 9.0b availabe. My video card is a nVidia GeForce4 Ti4600 and nVidia has a new driver that came out this month that I could download. My OS is Windows ME and my chip is an Athlon XP 1900+. The mobo is a nForce MSI K7N415 Pro and I have 512 Mb DDR 2100 RAM

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I just submitted a large, abundant, tight, painful game played as pure good and got a little under 15k. I played this as pure evil a little while back and bascially got the same score so maybe my drooling over trade centers is six of one - a half dozen of the other. The nice thing about this map is that it is big enough to get all the techs without letting up on the gas or gifting the opponent with a 343% culture base just to prolong the game. The abundant gives lots of planet events to

Reply to G.R.O.S.S. communication thread. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Hi pirates and EBZ: This is my first post here but I finally read the entire thread. I want to thank EBZ for the strategy on post #1106. I know the disclaimers EBZ, that you play better now but it offered a new way to play. I hope you post your new strategy and maybe get it in the Orion Gal Civ Strategy Guide. The "high volume" in the metaverse strategy seems to be as valid as the "big galaxy" or "tough difficulty" approaches considering the way the metaverse is calculated. Plus, compet

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Just for fun, I searched the GROSS thread and EBZeroMatrix (EBZ) has his early strategy on post #1106. Maybe this will save others time. I was really curious how the "high volume" approach is different from the "big galaxy" or "tougher difficulty" when scoring in the metaverse. EBZ says he plays differently now and the July 3 strategy needs a tune-up but the basics are good nuts & bolts strategy. Maybe EBZ will contribute to an updated Orion Gal Civ Strategy Guide sometime. I played EBZ

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Cotal, thanks for posting your experiment in post #1045. Ray, thanks for the comments in #1046. I was wondering the same thing. Some top metaverse scorers do not play at the very high levels. There is a related thread in the strategies part of the forum. I also prefer the painful level at my skill level. But, at a skill level like Ray has, then maybe crippling or maso would be more fun. LOL Rick

Reply to Morality? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Quokka The bigger the map and more abundant the planets, the more you colonize, so one gets more morality events. When I play good I just love those trade centers but sometime I can't pass up a big + PQ and then I play evil. If you play a bigger map or more habitable planets you can go neutral a few times and still make 90. On Huge abundant, I was able to get to 100, lose 10 on a big PQ bonus = kill those worms LOL , then finish around 96. Without many colonizing attempts, it is hard fo

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

[quote]I've cut down on a lot of constructor micromanagement to save time[/quote] Ray, How do you do that? It takes me a couple of days to play any size game. Do you or does anyone have have some efficiency tips? Thanks. Rick

Reply to Another question about the scoring in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Robert I experimented with that and put it in a post elsewhere. I submitted a score without completing the tech tree and it was about 12k. When I went back and researched all the techs and resubmitted, the score was my best one, slightly under 15k. At least in this one circumstance it was 20 to 25% higher from completing the techs. I was just sort of goofing around but as per the above posts, there is a boredom risk if one does this routinely. Keep it fun. Rick

Reply to Different stars in Strategies Stardock Forums

After reading Rabid Bob's post, I should have said that the purple stars I have seen have been higher PQ. But since I have only played about 20 games and not seen many purples, my observations may not extrapolate to whether all purples are good PQ. On the other hand, since I colonize PQ 13 & 14, I can't say they "suck". To me the "it sucks" category belongs to those stars who have no planets that you can't get to PQ15 or more even with both Soil & Habitat 10% PQ bonuses. Rick

Reply to Different stars in Strategies Stardock Forums

The purples are really good stars but rare (about PQ 26?). On the 0 to 14 planets I have not noticed a correlation with the star color and planet quality. When I colonize 13 & 14 (and 12 with the 5% PQ choice), I get all kinds of stars of different sizes and color. Rick ~SDC~

Reply to I survived my first one somehow in Strategies Stardock Forums

I have lost the race to diplomatic translators before when I was 100% military in an early colony rush on a huge or gigantic, abundant, scattered galaxy. I kept making my colony ships every 2 turns and then got the message they had been researched. Sorry I can't recall whether it was a major or a minor but it can happen. I alway consider diplo translators my first trade good and lease it to get it and then go tech brokering. But, I have not played crippling or masochistic and sometimes (like tod

Reply to What does Good Pay? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Thanks HawaiiFive-0. Maybe the "getting along better" gives one better deals when making trades? It is possible I struggle a little more with money issues when I have been evil than when I am neutral but I can't say that for sure and how much would those evil-choice planet bonuses compensate for that? Can others get more specific? TIA. ~SDC~

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I submitted this in the strategy section. I won a military victory by culture flipping before I got all the techs. I reloaded, made a full maxed star base for the Torians to prevent another flip. Then I got the techs. After that I flipped them. The score went from 12k and change to a little under 15k. This is about a 20% to 25% for getting all the techs. Does this sound about right to others? While I am having fun, I might as well max the score for the FOTR, right? LOL

Reply to How are people getting 11,000 point (or more) game scores ? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Played today on large painful and culture-flipped my last opponent before I maxed out the tech. The score was a little over 12,000. So I could get a good feel for what tech development adds, I reloaded and gave those snakey Torians a fully maxed out 343% culture boosting star base. This kept their final planet "in the green". I then finished tech, built a couple of wonders that it gave me, and terraformed most of my planets. After getting all the tech, I build about a dozen maxed out culture bas

Reply to Preferred degree of scattering? in Strategies Stardock Forums

I like scattered because this makes lack of range less relevant. Abundant reinforces that I think because you are less likely to have a dead end and get range locked. Abudant on huge and gigantic is way too many planets for me so I cut back to the medium settings or rare. On gigantic I find eyes of the universe very helpful and on gigantic stellar cartography can be very helpful. Rick ~SDC~

Reply to What does Good Pay? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Thanks for all the comments but help me digest them. Is there consensus that to win the game with the highest points, that evil will always be a better strategy to win than good? I am curious about this in the game design. I would think that the short term benefit of evil choices might be counterbalanced by some sort of long term benefit of being good. This might mean better techs but the evil techs seem pretty good too (that 25% economy bonus for ? Life Force today on evil was pretty nice). It

Reply to What does Good Pay? in Strategies Stardock Forums

Thanks Ray and Gengsta. I understand a little better now. As Gengsta points out the AI sometimes, "makes an offer one can't refuse" LOL. So do either of you have guidelines for ways to go "good" and still have a collection of high PQ, producing planets with good morale? My favorite way to play GalCiv is to get a military win withour firing a shot (except maybe at sharks or pirates). It seems good might help this if I can figure out how to work the colonizing events without ruining my planets. Af

Reply to Colonising below 15 worlds in Strategies Stardock Forums

Thanks Ray but when I get too far behind on tech I seem to have trouble catching up. Any thoughts there? Maybe that is because I usually play abundant and the good stars are in the dozens. I feel like the tiny/small games are a sprint to colonize but the large, huge, gigantic are more like running a mile. Or, maybe I just don't have a good feel yet for when to abandon the 100% military and start tech research even with habitable planets still waiting to be colonized. Today on a large, p

Reply to Culture Bombing Quest-Ye-On in Strategies Stardock Forums

Thanks for the responses to "can I build a culture base if a major and I share a sector?" I tried it today and they didn't respond when we shared a sector that I put a culturally heavy base in but that was only on painful - not crippling or maso. Ray's wisdom might keep me from losing a starbase. Also congrats to you who play on crippling or maso. I may get to crippling someday but on my large, painful game today, the Torians just about handed my head to me. LOL Rick ~SDC~

Reply to Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Congrats to the Fellowship for being back in the lead . . . at least for now. I seem to be stuck around 12,000 and my last game moved me backward in ranking LOL. So, there are some good and fast players around here. I agree with others that the huge and gigantic are sort of overwhelming so I may go back to medium. I was just reminded that it does make for a lower score if one doesn't research all the techs. I got a little hasty in this last game and flipped the last planet with a few techs still

Reply to How can I get my game scores to the Metaverse in Strategies Stardock Forums

I knew I was online and baffled because my first few games never got onto the metaverse (not much to be proud of anyway LOL). Then I figured out I had to hit submit once and then hit it again before the metaverse submission screen would clear. Then to get rid of the game submitted to metaverse screen I also had to hit the OK button (or whatever it is) twice. All that time I had been hitting it once and thinking the screen had frozen. Well, to borrow a well-used phrase from a popular TV star, "Do

Reply to Colonising below 15 worlds in Strategies Stardock Forums

Barry that is a good thought. I tend to play abundant because I don't know where the yellow stars are and I figure that neutralizes the computer's advantage a little to have a high % of yellows. On the huge and gigantic maps, I can't play abundant (too many planets LOL) so I go ahead and get stellar cartography and find it helpful. Later the eyes of the universe helps a lot on huge and gigantic (and having the speed to get there). Back to the original question . . . I rush for colonies