I use a swindle with the Humans, concentrating on diplomacy. You buy the galaxy, and never fire a shot. (Not until they have no chance, anyway) I didn't invent this, but I've sure mastered it on a suicidal, all abundant, medium map vs 9 opponents and 8 minors. It'll be interesting to see if I can do it on a larger map.

Looking forward to reading your strat, KP.

Very interesting, KP.  I would sort of expect to see that kind of graph on popularity, actually, but not approval.  Hmm...

So long as you're passing out writeups, I'll take one. 

I came up with a list of homeworld names for the races in the MV Empires Mod,

Homestar:      Planets (Habbital Only):

Kzintai           Kzin/Keevash

Tyranicor       Tyranis/Arakis

Diplomis        New Earth/Mars 2

Hegiris          Heges/Urdon

Sol               Earth/Mars

Gecknis        Geckonia/Ras'hik

Klingon        Qo'noS

I can't think of any for the Colonial Fleet and Gerontocracy. Any ideas

Welcome Queen of the Blades.  Your fearsome reputation precedes you.    The Zerg understand that one galactic truth is that the strong devour and dominate the weak.  Our hunting-grounds extend to nearly every corner of this galaxy, but there remain those who stubbornly resist our might.  Zerg Queen, we will feast together heartily on the bodies of our fallen foes!  Do not forget who is the dominant species though...

That was my initial thought, but there are a number of things that argue against it.

1.  Population does not seem to be fluctuating, but holding steady at current levels on all the planets I looked at.

2. If population fluctuation were the answer, it would be reasonable to think that at any given time, there would be a roughly equal number of planets in either the decline or growth stages, which would cause the graph to even out, and show a constant value.

3. This does not explain why the fluctuations of the graph of the remaining AI seems to mirror the graph of my empire.  They have one planet with a static population of 6 billion, and are definitely not experiencing any growth or population death.

4. While the graph appears to fluctuate, my empire approval rating in the lower left corner of the main screen does not change.

These things lead me to believe that it may simply be an error in the visual display of the graph, and that approval is not really fluctuating.

Caprica would work for the Colonial Fleet, and one of the other astrologically name based planets could be the secondary.  The Gerontocracy, hmmm....  Have you asked in their empire thread?

Sentient species taste better...

I might ask.

Don't you mean King of Blades?

The battle chest of it and it's expansion could be picked up for less than dirt cheap.

Not only is it 10yrs old, but it's still going strong over in Korea where they still have tournaments for that game.  As SB said, there balance between factions is hard to compare against.  Each faction has an answer to the other faction's units and buildings.  Each faction MUST be played differently than the other in order to use it to it's fullest.

What they are doing for SC2 is amazing though.  Incorperating height into the maps and having some ground units that can bypass height changes, types of attacks that are better vs units than others (like the sweeping laser of the Protoss or their slow buildup dmg beam air unit).  Strategic analysis of the enemy and the terrain will be phenominal in SC2 in order to win.

Also, I am very proud to see that the Zerg have retained the "zerg rush" capability in being able to have 100 zerglings trouncing across the screen.  If it's true that you haven't tried SC1 yet Seth, the one strat for the Zerg (think the bug things from Starship Troopers) is a massive rush of all their units at the enemy.  This term has been used in many other games whenever the strategy is to toss large numbers of mediocre units/people at the enemy in hopes to win the fight.

I would definately like to see your write up. I've only ever did one; in one of the MVL rounds. I may try one more game on my old PC. I've received most of my new PC, but UPS says the motherboard and power supply would be delivered until Monday.

Xeno Communications: 50 --> 25
Advanced Computing: 100 --> 200
Galactic Stock Exchanges: 2500 --> 3500
Medium Scale Building: 800 --> 1000
Advanced Starbase Construction: 1000 --> 500

Didn't look into weapons/defenses, and/because the previous update has shown us that Galactopedia can't read hidden modifiers to tech costs (such as weapons/defenses now have).  In any case, looks like a first turn tech capital is no longer possible in TA.

Also, for what it's worth, this is apparently a TA-only update.  DA (ZYW) games will be unaffected by these changes.

Because Brad has never gotten around to fixing the AI so that it overbuilds...

*sigh*

No offense meant, but I still feel that is a hole that should have been plugged ages ago, and would make for a much more interesting game.

On the other hand, the idiocy surrounding building a starport and decommissioning it will suffice as well.

I totally agree, its definitely a fault in the AI that should have been fixed.  Even with that being fixed though, in this case all you would need to do is station a decent ship at their planet, and every time they build a ship, destroy it.  They'll just have it sit there in orbit.  So that would be yet another flaw in the AI that needs attention.

I would say that the Swindle strategy does not make for interesting games once you've done it successfully a few times, rather the sole purpose is a high score.  The AI is not capable of dealing with the range of tactics that the strategy employs.

Sentient species taste better...

Nice going, KP.

+1. StarCraft is probably THE gold standard for real-time, space-based strategy. the story is much better than the average video game storyline... honestly one of my all-time favorite games. plus, StarCraft II is in the works. of course who knows when Blizzard will finish it, but still, now would be a great time to break your zergling cherry.

En taro Adun!

I don't like Starcraft, I prefer the Command and Conquer games. Also I am very excited for Doom 4 hope they include a gun like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ljd_hUxCfI