Late July Game of the Month / Early July Scores

Well done, Gengsta!

A most impressive start on your first attempt at GOTM.

The Fellowship is proud to be part of this competition, Michael.

BTW, I'm now Ray the Wanderer.

And Michael, if you ever get tired of playing a minor, do consider joining the Fellowship. The Fellowship is trying to design alternative ways of playing Galciv - much akin to what you are doing with GOTMs. We would love to have your direct participation.
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Awesome idea for the late July game, Michael. This one is going to take quite a bit of diplomacy!
It also means I can't play pure evil this time.
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I tried this game too, but I made big mistakes at the beginning and soon gave up (and didn't retry- ironman and stuff). (:( I'm not good at conquering stuff, but very interessting to read the AARs, learned a bit from that.

Anyway, I'll participate in the new challenge again.
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Wow ! Michael you are on the ball this month !! I was coming into work this morning and thinking to myself, "should I post a message to Michael kinda hinting that it's the middle of the month and I'm DYING for a new game to play???" ... then BOOM !!!

here it is LOL

and what a devious little gem it is... your creative juices must be flowing !! It looks to be quite interesting !

and a little "taste" for next month too

thanks again for your hard work on this !!

Ray: Thanks for the invite. I've considered joining up in the past; I really liked the idea of an empire dedicated to building up the GalCiv community, and I think you guys have done well with the Strategy Guide document.

But... I like to root for the underdog. If I join any empire, it will probably be one that's down in the rankings and on the move. You guys are too close to the top for my taste.

YellowSign: I was wondering what happened, since you seemed to enjoy the last one. Anyway, I wish you luck on the current game. Without spoiling anything, this map isn't particularly easy either...

And thanks for the compliments, Gengsta and ImperialGuard!

No worries, Michael. Do consider other theme empires such as the Jedi Republic or the soon to be revealed Freedom Force.
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Uhmm FWIW I'm not part of Ray's crew and i edited the Guide. But it was Ray's idea that we needed such a thing. So, you are right about his vision. Something that my empire doesn't really aspire to. But I'm too evil to join any empire besides GROSSS

Sorry for another OT post.

Yes, let's give credit where its due. Though the Fellowship did give the idea, Ralegh and Gibbie99 did all the work together with some help from Robert.

Just thought I give a final shot persuading you because I feel you are really a kindred spirit in terms of the Fellowship vision. The Fellowship is an underdog IMO with the localities growing rapidly in numbers. Also, it may not be easy for you to find another empire who is as passionate as you in alternate gaming forms as the GOTMs. You could always join the Fellowship now and then leave for another empire which strikes your fancy later.

Do think about it

Yo, I finished. Although I did fairly well, it was really frustrating, and I have to say that this scenario involved a lot more luck than skill. The game mechanisms are also screwy, and my CTDs during the game were one of the biggest problems. At the end I was autosaving every two turns and hoping for the best.

I'll post my results and AAR in the discussion thread.

Sorry it didn't work out too well for you, Gengsta. I'm surprised luck would factor into it more than skill... but once I'm done with the game I'll take a look at your AAR and see what you mean.

I'm almost positive the saved game file is in good shape--do you think it was a problem with that or GalCiv itself?

Oh, and Gibbie I'm sorry to have inadvertantly slighted you. I was under the impression Ring'ers had done the guide.

Ray: okay, I am persuaded.

It's probably with my computer and GalCiv. I've been getting this problem more and more often. I better run some system maintenance procedures and see what's up.

I probably need to defrag my harddrives.

Hey, great idea for a game. I'm glad to see more variety than the usual "conquer everything as fast as possible" games.

I'll probably give it a try this weekend when I have a big block of free time.

I want to be clear on something. When you say that we may win only through alliance or military victory, do you mean that the other victory conditions are disabled? Or just that if we win that way, it doesn't count?

Hey guys don't worry about any slighting. I don't really give a rat's behind. Ray - I'll think seriouslly about your offer, it's tempting, and I am feeling somewhat out of the GROSS camp anyhow.

Started playing the GOTM last night. Without spoilers, the victory conditions specify that the most number of races surviving will be a important factor in scoring. And you can't gift planets. Okay, fine. But i can see that at least two races will probably surrender to the other majors unless I am very active.

This is my strategy, generally speaking (fwiw). It all boils down to money - follow the money as they say. If you can keep the minors alive via trade, etc, then that would be a nice thing. Also by making sure they have the latest technology, for a fee of course. They will never be in a position to do anything with it anyway. If a major starts attacking the minors, I plan to send ships to intercept or just gift them ships. I also plan on taking a few planets from each major civ, maybe even have everyone but the minors at war with me. This way I can ensure the minors will survive. Problem - trying to go for an alliance victory won't be so easy. If I stay on the good side and eliminate the Drengins and Yor, I should be able to get a 3 or 4 way alliance between the Arceans, Alterians, Torians, and I. I'll have to make sure they are all sufficiently subdued first, they tend to not ally with you if you are not stronger than they. So this will be a big challenge, so not much as the winning the game goes, but to do a 4 way alliance. Anyway my thoughts and i hope I didn't ruin anything.

Gibbie, that's exactly how you do it, but you probably don't want to do the whole trade with minors bit since you are trying to ally with majors as quickly as possible, too. I won't give away too many strategies, but I just realized I forgot quite a few important things from my AAR.

Giving starbases away is game right? Because I did quite a lot of that!
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I have to admit that I'm intrigued... I read the write-up for the late July game and it sounds exciting. I'm simply not a good enough player to pull it off! I can only win at challenging about 40-50% of the time at this point, and that's probably using a reload once or so per game. I've probably found my difficulty level niche.

Vincible: Tech and Culture victories have been turned off. It is impossible to win either of those ways.

Gengsta: Sure, starbases are fair game to give away. I just wanted to avoid the cheese of gifting planets in faraway sectors to keep races alive that shouldn't be.

Gibbie: Your strategy sounds reasonable, but do remember that speed is one-third of your score. I imagine--though I don't know, I'm not nearly as good a player as many of the people here--that it's only really practical to ally with three races and keep both minors alive.

I may be wrong, though. I'm dyin' to read Gengsta's AAR, but my game is nowhere near completion yet.

I was thinking of the alternative to the ally w/ 3 (arc, alt, tor), you could maybe possibly ally with the Drengin/Yor and play evil. Evil is much funer than playing good IMO. Never tried to do this but it would be interesting. Drengins always seem to love me (below me militarily) or hate me (above me militarily), because I am usually quite an evil guy.

Hey Yog Sloth [I won't ask about the nickname LOL ]
you can always download and try the game, see how you do !!

I am personally getting my butt kicked. I don't think I will even have a winning game this time let alone meet the victory conditions, last GOTM I was second last :notsure:

But it sure is alot of fun!

Gengsta: when did your CTDs begin?

For the life of me I can't get past October 2193 without a crash. And I don't know why, either... I'm playing the GotM with the original save, before I removed the serial number.

I haven't had CTDs like this since 1.02.

Third last, Imperial. Third last.

I was second last. :notsure: AIL.ST entered, and I have to give him credit for having the rocks to submit a losing game. I don't think too many others would've done that.

I think I had one in '85 and several in '87 when I switched over to auto-saving every other turn. I can't be sure of the exact dates. I wrote quite a bit of the AAR after the fact so exact numbers are lost.

Looks like I had a few in '92 and '95, but I only lost one turn each time. Sometimes I only had to hit the turn button to get back to where I was.
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I havn't had any GTDs in thhis game. In another game (not the GOTM) from another computer I can't even get it to load, despite using (i think) the same build. Also I can't build anti-matter missiles, so i think somewhere the computer thinks I didn't register...Maybe my copy is FUBAR again and I'll try to reinstall, after i finish the GOTM. Actually my game is going pretty boring. Almost there. I won't be able to have a decent score I don't think. Get this. I was on pretty good terms with the three good guys (alt, arc, tor). I had an alliance with the Torians, and they had one with the Alterians and Arceans. Then I got the 'your ambassedor slighted the Torian blah blah' I'm at war, next I know. I sued for peace but so far no luck trying to get the alliance again. oh well. I agree there is an element of luck.

Wow, look at that Fellowship turnout! Ever since Gibbie switched it's almost entirely the Fellowship posting.

Not trying to alienate you non-Fellowship peeps, but bump this too the top for some more advertisements!