Everyone's getting too worked up. In short: think of each patch as a new challange. Change your way of thinking. If trade goods aren't worth trading anymore then don't build them, unless you need the bonuses. It's as simple as that. Find other ways to win. [Message Edited]
Paguma, Try playing a small or tiny map for a drastic change of pace. :)
If you want to avoid this, all you have to do is have your transports ready to invade the same turn you wipe out their defending ships. If you don't, you will almost always see them purchase ships for defense the next turn (assuming they have the money to do so).
Be happy with a 55% morale rating. It's good enough. But you'll want to continually build morale boosters to increase the populations on your planets.
I mean: establish trade. Send freighters to their systems.
Gifts alone are not enough. Trade with them...a lot.
Stardock Forums
a) give money b) establish trade with them c) give techs d) establish more trade with them e) agree to any tribute demands they come to you with f) build starbases loaded with trading modules along your trade routes with them g) give ships h) become more powerful than them i) establish even more trade with them
Seriously, this is a government issue, not Stardock's. You know all those nice social programs Sweden has? The money has to come from somewhere. To suggest that Stardock should mark a commercial sale as a "gift" to keep you from paying your government's tax is irresponsible and, if they did it, would most likely constitute fraud.
No, there is no benefit. Everything is sector-based.
But it affects everyone equally, so how is it imbalanced?
The AI seems to now build worthless starbases. I have seen this from the Drengin and Arceans: instead of upgrading existing starbases in a sector they'll build two or three starbases in the same sector with no upgrades. I'll post some screenshots tonight.
Think of these events as a challange -- they change the game and you must react appropriately. Like Brian said: sell ships to cut down on maintanence costs, scrap some high-maintanance social projects if you need to, cut back on spending. The recession only affects tax revenue, I believe, so be sure you're not too dependant upon it -- generate revenue through trade and tribute. Sell techs for tribute. There's lots of thing you can do. The Altarians were probably extorting and trading with the ot
Maybe you should describe what the problem is exactly?
I think the changes were in the way the AI uses starbases, not in how they target yours. I have noticed that the AI now builds starbases to boost production (and maybe culture as well, haven't verified yet) instead of just resource harvesting.
Stardock Forums
Open up this link: http://galciv.bsd.st/zai_h/ in a browser and alt-tab between it and the game as needed.
Forgot to add: these changes sound fantastic. Especially the slider crash on the trade screen since that hit me twice in the same game before I wised up enough to avoid it. Glad to see the starbase and battle tactics are improved. But did the AI really need to be improved in trading? It was already pretty darn good! :)
Were people really having trouble with the AI on the lower levels? My first game was Beginner on a Small galaxy and I dominated the entire game. It wasn't even close. And I was focusing on tech rather than military, attacked no one, no one attacked me, and I won a cultural victory. Bumped it up to normal and had my @$$ handed to me by the Drengin. Next game (normal) eeked out an alliance victory with the Torians and Altarians -- barely! Next game (still normal) won relatively easily via
I don't really understand your question. As far as I know, two things affect difficulty: the Intelligence of the AI races and the size of the galaxy. "Fool" is the easiest intelligence setting while "Impossible" is the hardest. The smaller galaxy sizes are easier than the larger ones.
Alignment has nothing to do with the speed of expansion, extortion, or even how willing they are to wage war. All it seems to affect is initial relations between races. That is, good races tend to like each other while they tend to dislike evil races. This makes good and evil races more likely to wage war against each other. In practice, though, everything goes out the window once races begin extorting and warring. I believe the Drengin are programmed to follow a militaristic path rega
They want diplomacy in order to be able to extort large sums of cash out of other races. They want trade because it's a printing press for money to run their war machine.
Stardock Forums
I believe the Arcean's lease colony ships and constructors early. You will notice that on some games this works, on others it doesn't. I have seen them grab worlds that form a U or L around the Torian home sector -- they nabbed systems right from under their nose! When it works you will see the Arcean's become a strong player in the galaxy. When it doesn't, they are crippled by debt for the entire game.
Stardock Forums
I disagree. I've never been to Iraq but I know that that piece of land is theirs. I also know that Baghdad is their most populous city with 5 million citizens and that Basra is their second largest city. Knowledge travels fast in high-tech societies.
You set the percentage of reseach under the "Domestic Policy" screen in the "Economics" tab. You build frieghters on your planet and send them to your opponent's planet. When you find a ship in space, it might be out of your empire's range, so you have to fly it back toward your planets. Just select the ship, scroll the map back to where your planets are and right-click there to send it back into range.
The Drengin attacking you has more to do with their strong miliary vs. your weak military than with their evilness and your goodness. If you are good, build up a strong military and no one will attack you. You can even reach an alliance with the Drengin while good if you play your cards right!
This is hearsay, but I came across someone here in the forums mentioning that they had four starbases upgraded with culture palaces and their influence in that sector was 1.5 mil.