Yep - just figured that out to about 9 hours. Ouch!

-S

I can not say much as it still sits on my harddisk, mostly unplayed. What I can say is that - to me - Dark Avatar appeared to concentrate on better combat, were as Twilight added a lot of changes to the tech tree and races, as well as the graphics.

Okay, I got it, I got it all, all of it, if it's worse than what you people say I'll have all your heads

So far I'm enjoying it though, have to see if I still do after I learn to play

I don't think you will regret it. It gets really engrossing when you have your first intergalactic war.

Tip for beginners: Don't wait too long until you start investing in your military. the other factions will check your military rating and if it is zero, will be much more inclined to attack you. So some crappy fighters can be a good investment in the beginning, later on you can start building a real fleet.

I also recommend researching technologies first that gives bonusses to research / manufacturing and trying to mine manufacturing / research resources if they are in your reach. Propulsion / speed is also very important in the beginning (resource/colony rush), then later on think about how important miniaturization is, as well as building up trade fleets.

And always make use of planetary bonusses, especially the 300%/700% ones. You know you can buy your first factory, this is definitely a good investment when you have a manufacturing bonus.

I always buy the first factory on my homeworld, then buy the first colony ship, then the next turn I buy a research lab, this gives a ncie head start early on...

It's also very important not to forget to change the spending sliders in the first turn, otherwise you'll only be spending 60% of your income on research and building...

Yes I think max out research and manufacturing early on, you will be spending money faster but you have a buffer of several thousand BC.

My spending has been maxed at 100% for as long as I can remember. Someitmes to maintain it, you need to get cash from the other races, but there is no race that will turn down new tech to save some cash. I sell them old crappy techs so that I stay well ahead of them.

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Which brings us to tech trading, a huge exploit in the original version. I think I consistently managed to become omnipotent mostly because of this.

I am not omnipotent. And I lost my dread lord killer from earlier in this thread, but I will say it takes me less ships to do the same thing!

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Well I don't know if I was omnipotent either, I was just no1 in almost everything with an astronomic lead in technology, and all the enemy spaceships went just click: poof, click: poof. I usually stopped playing at that point. I guess I have to start playing without any cheap tricks (I mentioned a lot of them in this thread) and play on hard difficulty, then it would be really challenging. The game has that potential.

I just started a game in an immense galaxy, it turned out waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...aaay too boring, remind me to never do that again

As cool as I think GalCiv 2 is, the game really is all about the initial colony rush. If you've got one more colony than your opponent you pretty much win. It would help if the developers found some way to balance others aspects of the game a little more.

Are you talking about the vanilla version of 2006 or today with all add-ons / updates?

If it's the first case I agree. But I think they had done a lot to rebalance the game in that respect? Think of the radioactive / poison worlds that are only available if you have developed the technology.

But as someone already said, the game is a bit too exploitable, that is true.

Well, I am not the first in anything but technology. That is probably why the game is more fun for me. The AI anticipates hardship to. Dread Lords show up and start blowing up my starbases. Within the first round, an AI constructor is already headed to my yellow Mineral thing! I have no way to stop him unless I go to war!

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This game is the funniest damn game ever! Someone screwed up and unleashed Peacekeeper ships across the galaxy! Everyone military is being reduced to 0, including my own!

-S