Gerakken

Reply to Stardock : Why do i have to pay tax?!?!? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Common citizens may be able to get away with the gift thing on customs forms, but businesses cannot. If a lot of companies tried that on a regular basis, then the whole Enron, Global Crossing, and Worldcom investigations combined would look like jay walking tickets compared to the international witch hunt that would follow to toughen up and enforce taxes! Trade has immense taxation potential. People find ways to cheat their internal goverment tax systems all the time, but borders can be watched

Reply to surprise! Morale improvements seem to rock in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

My simple analysis from obvservation is that increased PQ does indeed produce more BC per population amount. Three billion people at PQ 20 are worth more BC than 3 billion people at PQ 16. And increased morale means more people. More people are good for taxes no matter what the PQ (unless one totally overpopulates a planet to cause morale problems, of course). The real conundrum is which PQ starts yielding enough BC per billion people to pay for those entertainment centers or media centers?

Reply to NOTICE: Metaverse Data - Cheaters beware. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well I would think that the guys running the show would have a simple way of verifying the balance of a submitted game. Any mod allowed onto the Library had better have been run over with a fine toothed comb before being admitted. If anything gets posted into the Library too quickly without being checked out, whose fault is that? Totally preventable there. And those "official" mods should also probably have a unique ID code. Every event (or empire trait chosen) that happens in a game should writ

Reply to Cultural Victory. Does the AI recognize to stop you? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I know that on normal level they do not see it coming, so if one can be both culturally dominant and at peace with any major resistor, you win. I manipulated a cultural win in my last game by convincing the Toreans to go after the evil Yor to "soften them up a bit". (I just wanted their fleet distracted a bit so that my transports and escorts could get to the last Yor planet.) Once that last planet fell, I was a good guy with two good major empire neighbors left. They were not about to try and w

Reply to AI defends its planets *very* poorly. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

As long as stand alone patches are produced pretty consistently (as in once every 2 weeks to a month), I have no problem myself with Stardock users and Drengin subscribers getting patched far more often. In my book, it is good that the Galciv folks are supporting both camps. Of course people who pay subscription fees and/or are willing to give up more private information and be tracked easier should get more perks more often. I am more afraid of the day to come in the software biz when

Reply to Ah ha, figured out what the start-up planet is! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Sometimes it is the little details that mean the most, but those details take the most time to appreciate. The trick is to make something useful enough so those who don't want to "waste time" with the small stuff can dig right on in, while those who want to delve into the smallest details can "waste" as many hours as they so choose. I believe Galciv does this pretty well. People can jump right in and simply play the game, but can also carefully plot trends and disect the game's mechanic

Reply to Battlehammer just too powertul!! in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The movement issue is a moot point if the ship was just balanced appropriately to its cost. The Battlehammer's problem is that it does it all for such a low cost with the only real disadvantages being range and speed. Those disadvantages alone might pay for the load of extra hit points and decent maintanence cost to keep this ship cheaply priced if not for the fact that this is not like the other ships of the midgame in regard to they all have very lopsided attack vs. defense numbers. I

Reply to Does EVIL Affect Morale? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The good guys get more morale techs and more trade techs. More morale means more sustainable population, and more people mean more taxes and production from each planet. So, the good guys can get more out of each planet if all other factors are equal. More trade means more money, if you can protect the routes (or get lucky and have a UP do it for you). Some might say that the evil guys can simply take more planets militarily to offset the good civ's planetary powerhouses, but who says a

Reply to Whats the highest PQ you've obtained Legit? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Best I ever got was 42 from a Precursor device, but I do not climb the research tree far enough to get any of the really neat PQ techs. Too busy winning with culture bombs to see nice tech. Perhaps I need to turn culture win off to see the upper end of the tech tree. The best PQ I ever got without events was only 26 so far.

Reply to Umm just bought the game cant beat sub-normal difficulty in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Well, the scouts do have value beyond exploring if one is in a position to have enough ships to "wall off" a resource or planet. But, that being said, once a war starts then the little scouts are flies on the wall that are easily swatted. (I like keeping drones and scouts near every opponent planet and resource I can to watch the traffic.) To keep that war from being started, a defender or battelaxe around every colony helps. Add a trade route or two connecting to the major race that might want

Reply to What is the fastest and best way to boost your population? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

From my experience, it seems that +pop growth is the predominant factor. In one game I was fortunate enough to have an economic boom. My overall approval was a respectable 67% and my totat pop was 71.5B. I dropped taxes to 15% and approval rate soared to 100. I started counting the new tax payers every turn. I was gaining an even 2 billion new folks a turn to start, and 20 turns or so later, when the game ended (the ol' culture bomb, I love doing that), overall approval was down to about 72% but

Reply to "recession" ruined my game in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

While my experience in extortion is limited, I can testify that trade will set you free. The recession only hits taxes and not trade income. In a recent game I played, my tax income during a recession was around 450 bc per turn, but I was pulling in around 600 alone on trade routes. Not too bad, but I was not involved with any wars either. Early investment in some trading post starbases after I had snagged as many resources as possible was the key. Four trade bases packed with +trade modules did