Icemaniaa

Reply to Proposed House Rules in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

@erischild Completely agree abundant is my preference as well, more density is far more fun, but I don't think there is much choice given the AI doesn't know how to reap the rewards. With uncommon I can take advantage of them but not to the point where it's excessive. @adam Map density I agree is a factor. I normally have 8 opponents on a Huge map which should be okay. Although maybe I should increase that to 12 or 16? I agree on t

Reply to 1.5: AI now good at best, but not great in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Good observations. The AI really struggles late game. For example I've seen it have the opportunity to rush to a Research Victory but it seems to just stall. There are far too fleets formed of maximum strength which makes it easy for a few strong fleets from the human player to steam roll them without scratching the paint. I'll also have huge ships with 60-100 moves due to the lack of stacking penalties so even AI's with 20+ moves will have no chance.

Proposed House Rules in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Hey All: As discussed in various recent threads there are various OP exploits available to defeat the AI without much trouble even on Godlike (granted I’ve played a lot of Gal Civ 3 games now). Hence it’s time to consider and test some house rules with the goal to have the most fun game possible. House rules are not unusual in 4X games (although ideally the developer considers what can be done to minimise the need for at least some of them as many represent not

Reply to Alliances Are Useless? in GalCiv III Future Ideas GalCiv3 Forums

From what I can tell the Declare War option is available in the diplomatic interactions with races that are Malevolent. I've just looked at a save game and the option is available for the Drengin, Yor and Kyrnn despite having only a Neutral relationship with them. In addition the cost to declare war seems pretty much fixed at around 3,000 credits. This leads to a system that can be easily exploited i.e, without applying house rules. In a recent game the Yor were sn

Reply to Top 5 Reasons Why I Keep Playing in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Agree the continuous improvement is a highlight. I really enjoy the ideology system, different victory types, custom factions and some of the mods available already add a huge amount to the game.

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Something I hadn't realised until now is that you can ask other races to declare war for very low costs. In my most recent game (on the Metaverse) the Yor were the power leaders, but I asked them to declare war on everybody else (cost about 25,000 credits in total) ... which helped softened them up before I declared war. This looks to be another house rule we'll need to apply i.e. don't use cash to get the AI to declare war.

Reply to 7 Reasons Why I Never Lose to the AI in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

What's interesting when winning Godlike with this victory type is observing the AI (see latest game on the Metaverse). At least some the AI are still researching a lot with it's bonuses but none of them seemed to target the technologies needed here i.e. exactly as per the scripts comment from Naselus.

Reply to Lev's Headstart Challenge in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Distant Worlds did this really well but you didn't need to wait X turns you could simply set-up the AI to be more advanced at the start of the game. One of the risks in such games is the AI just dogpiling you since you are weak. To avoid this you could also set what AI were nearby and which were distant i.e. so you can roleplay being a new kid on the bloke with some nearby friends while being surrounded by more distant empires that were more aggressive and advanced. It w

Reply to 7 Reasons Why I Never Lose to the AI in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote quoting="post"] #7. Ship Upgrades: Do you upgrades your ships? I don' upgrade my ships because it's a waste of money. I don't know if the AI upgrades their ships, but they shouldn't. If you do upgrade your ships, you are probably turning constructors into colony ships or reloading double constructors. The AI can't do this, so it will always lose to somebody who does do this. #6 Diplomacy: Do you use Diplomacy?

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

The other problem with Diplomacy as it stands today (SP) is that you can control the game completely Since I have strong relations and an Alliance with literally every race from relatively early in the game, I can choose when to break the Alliance treaty and then declare war on them i.e. one by one, just select the weakest nearby Godlike AI and then build up Empire by Empire. In short, the current diplomacy system can be used to make a military victory relatively simple (

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Deimos, I completely agree diplomacy needs an overhaul (although I haven't thought through the right type of overhaul, all I'm saying it's that it's ridiculously easy to gain massive advantages over the AI using it). However, an overhaul doesn't seem to be on the developers radar given we've just had a diplomacy patch. So short-term at least, it maybe more likely the developer will consider relatively minor changes to the existing mechanic that produce the

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Cheers Naselus, seems it's pretty limited what can be Modded. Even if it worked, the UP had no effect at Turn 53 (elected a chair only), and similarly from first contract relations start neutral (and went straight up for all races due to open borders/gifts/diplomacy bonuses). The last Mod proposed would help a little as in the Turn 53 save the Thalan and Krynn are already at war, so I'd at least have to take one empire out to get the Alliance win. However, as we can

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

As I said in the OP, I'm well aware the game is designed for the masses, not hardcore 4X players. That said, there are other games that have included the suggestions from good players to make the experience far more interesting. Distant Worlds is a specific example, the patches after Universe released are filled with our suggestions (either directly or allowed indirect changes via modding) and the game became immensely better as a result (albeit diplomacy remains a problem eve

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="Seafireliv" reply="6" id="3610362"] I often wonder whether these guys who make these claims reload until they do win, then say, `Godlike is too easy.` [/quote] I would expect Stardock have a reload figure in the save files. There may well have been some reloads because with kids and a family I'm always up and down like a yo-yo. But I guarantee none of them were material to the outcome. You'll also see in m

Reply to Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Hey Adam: The title was selected to poke fun a little at past post threads on this topic where civil discussion often wasn't possible, the text in my post had no "waaahhh" in it at all. As described in the OP simply using the Diplomacy system with targeted research towards Alliance was by far the biggest factor in the Turn 53 win. The Precursor Anomalies were only significant in the Turn 102 save i.e. at which point winning by any victory type is feasible. &nbs

Godlike Difficulty is Too Easy in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

Hey All: Yes it’s another Godlike is too easy type thread; however, I’d like to do this the right way with mutual respect and some suggestions not demands. First and foremost I’m really enjoying Gal Civ 3, far more than I expected to. I appreciate the effort of the developers and really look forward to seeing how the game will continue to evolve in coming years. The Precursor DLC is terrific making exploration far more interesting and the AI

Reply to The coming 4X Armageddon in GalCiv III Dev Journals GalCiv3 Forums

@Frogboy No doubt the fans will fracture somewhat (personally I'll play all of the games you've listed as a space/science-fiction 4X junky) but on a collective level there is also an opportunity to grow the 4X market by having a bunch of hopefully high quality games available. Whether that is enough to offset the fracture and well timed expandalone releases I have no idea. The other big game coming (no idea on dates but presumably 2017+, all we know publicly is tha

Reply to Galactic Civilization III v1.5 Metaverse Feedback in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote quoting="post"] GalCiv3 v1.5 is the first release of our overhauled design that will be shared between several of our upcoming games. -Adrian (from the Metaverse team) [/quote] Are there any plans to update the scoring system used in the Metaverse? It's great having a Metaverse feature; however, the current scoring system doesn't seem to reward good play and so ca

Reply to The Galactic Civilizations III road-map thread in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="5" id="3598353"] Quoting naselus, reply 4 So 1.5 is diplo. That's good; it's now the only real weak link left in the game. Good to see SD's priorities are in the right place. Yea, there was a lot of debate of whether AI or diplomacy should be addressed f

Reply to [MOD] Insane-Abundant Balance Mod in GalCiv III Modding GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="naselus" reply="548" id="3596025"] I suspect it might be something to do with the colony capital upgrades. Will revert them to vanilla style. [/quote] Why do colony capital upgrades mean the AI is so poor at terraforming? Naselus this terraforming issue is huge. I've been saying your Mod makes the game harder but once you really take advantage of terraforming, due to the many extra tiles, it actually becomes easier than the base game in t

Reply to [MOD] Insane-Abundant Balance Mod in GalCiv III Modding GalCiv3 Forums

Whether it's the base game or IAB Mod it seems the AI isn't great at terraforming as every time I conquer worlds I'm doing additional terraforming. However, with IAB, the terraforming technologies result in many more tiles to improve planet quality. As a result I'm finding it easier to run away from the AI than the base game. Either AI performance with terraforming needs to be massively improved (preferred) or the number of tiles made available needs to be ne

Reply to 1.4 First Impressions in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

[quote who="naselus" reply="6" id="3595313"] Diplo does desperately need looking at - but really, I don't think we can criticize here. The focus of the patch has been very much dictated by the feedback here, and our feedback was overwhelmingly 'the AI needs work'. Diplo is a separate, self-contained module, and so tweaking diplo AI etc is not the same area of the code. While it needs addressing in a patch of its own, we cannot complain that this patch only deals with

Reply to 1.4 First Impressions in Galactic Civilizations III GalCiv3 Forums

I'm 100 turns into the 1.4 patch playing on Genius difficulty on a Gigantic map. I'm about 70% higher in power score than the nearest AI, which is close to the norm previously on Incredibile difficulty with the previous version i.e. maybe about a difficulty level of improvement in AI performance as it looks like the bonuses on each level are unchanged. The AI looks a lot smarter with starbases and planet builds as hoped. With the removal of the planetary

Reply to [MOD] Insane-Abundant Balance Mod in GalCiv III Modding GalCiv3 Forums

Incredible on the latest version certainly seems a lot easier. I'm playing Very Slow Pacing & Research and at Turn 194 my power score is 6 times higher than the nearest AI. Maybe it's the lack of freebies in which case the bonuses may need to be higher but then again once 1.4 hit it might be just about right! https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ttyk5rapst2e