The "Review in Progress" Thread...

[Tytan]

Grrrr....now I am going to have to start thinking about buying a laptop again...........maybe I can make monthly payments or something so I can play at work..............oh well, there goes my mocha money.........

[yin26]

CapTVK: Good to see you, too!

Tytan: My advice...don't!!! Well, not if you want to keep your job!

[LDiCesare]

Thanks for this review, yin. I trusted the game based on other sources, but you review convinced me I am not wasting time downloading the game.

[yin26]

LDiCesare:

You're welcome! Are you playing the game now?

In case anybody cares, I haven't updated my thread lately because I've a) been busy with work and b) waiting for the next .exe patch which looks to address a number of important issues that were threatening to wreck the game for me.

One example? The tribute bug whereby by *paying* tribute to a civ you actually *earned* the money as profit!!! I was happy in my last game on Crippling level that I was forced to pay some tribute in order to stay alive...but it only helped me become over powering.

Well, Brad has announced the next standalone patch will be on Tuesday, so look for something here on Wednesday!

[LDiCesare]

Yes, I got the game. I'm trying to upload the one I just finished to stardock, but don't seem to get the confiration e-mail...
I like the game a lot. Just won on Challenging (bright AIs). I think there are a few AI issues however:
I am not sure the ai finds it bad when you conquer them culturally. They should at least try to destroy the cultural starbases. Also, blocking ships with scouts works well when you want to slow an opponent (like preventing the Yor transport to reach that minor race planet you trade with). I am not sure the ai realizes that you are actively hindering them in that case. Extorting tribute (like 200 bc for 200 turns) is also bloody impressive. The ai shouldn't get into tributes as easily as it does. There are several other minor glitches/exploits (Defense Theory is overpriced by the aliens), but overall this game rocks. I have lost twice, had allied, military and influence victories (actually I wanted a science victory, but if you use influence to get rid of the most powerful civ in the galaxy, the others fall without your wanting it).

[yin26]

Yes, your complaints are right on the money! I think Brad is already addressing those (except I never heard about the blocking ships with your scout trick!).

I've got a long thread over there about starbases and how I would hope to see them 'fixed,' but a cultural victory certainly seems too easy.

[Lemmy]

Hehe, that blocking enemy units trick is a classic in tile based games, at least for me it is.
I once surrounded a Military resources on the other end of the galaxy with 8 Corvettes before i send my constructors there. I was fighting (and winning) a war there, so the corvettes were in the neighbourhood.
By the time my constructors got there, there were 2 or 3 "enemy" cosntructors floating around tryin to get to it.

[yin26]

LOL! Nice! It's a good strat when you consider that you are controlling the airspace. You are right, of course, that the AI should 'notice' this behavior somehow and react in some way...

[Nirvana_CN]

Hmm weird.

I just tried a Bright level game, and had a navy just enough to keep me powerful, and went for culture victory, about an hour later the AI demanded i hand over 4 starbases, i refused, and the next turns they were destroyed and my culture flopped, i was just managing to push them (Arceans) back, when the Yor joined in and pushed me back. I then noticed my military power grap was dropping fast, i tried allying with the Drengin (who a few turns before were"Close" to me, sadly they were now hostile!

An hour intense fighting later and i was down to my last 10 star systems, had no income, only a few sparse dreadnaughts holding the line when the Drengin attacked me, cutting off 400bc of trade. I resigned at this point.

So *sometimes* the AI does notice culture bombing, albeit this is an exception game.

I *Think* that if you are militarly more powerful, they wont say anything about what your doing, if you are weaker though they certainly say something!

I would like to see several Civs ally against me in this situation, so their combined military is equal to mine, and attack me as an alliance to conquer my army of Mcdonalds :P

[yin26]

I *Think* that if you are militarly more powerful, they wont say anything about what your doing, if you are weaker though they certainly say something!

This is exactly right and how I have managed very easy wins on higher levels. I would routinely cycle in builds of (first) defensive ships and then corvettes, dreadnoughts, etc. If I ever saw my military power graph drop too far down, I'd a) go on a ship building spree and/or b) pay for friendly civs to go to war against the #1 military guy.

In this way, so far, I've been able to pick and choose how I win. Seems to me the AI shouldn't so overvalue your military graph or, if it 'worried,' it should be more aggressive in forming alliances against you for an attack.

[Fried-Psitalon]

This problem is actually exacerbated if you're playing on Gigantic and get a significant early edge in colonies. All I do is build one defender (and only one) per system and my military graph rockets off the top, because I have so many more systems than the other guy. Nevermind that my defense is about as strong as rice paper in any one specific location and three corvettes could probably wipe out a large chunk of my planet defenses/starbases before I could muster any response.....

But the computer cowers in fear all the same.