Recent content by TomChick

I really appreciate the discussion of the review, from folks who liked it and didn't like it, but I just want to clarify a couple of important points that people often miss, largely because of their expectations from other reviews. First, my ratings system isn't intended to be interpreted as a...

Religion spreads automatically within 10 hexes. And since Great Prophets pop automatically, of course you're going to see those. But I don't think I've seen the AI using missionaries or inquisitors. I don't know if this is because it doesn't know how -- which wouldn't surprise me -- or...

I'm not sure where this talking point got started, but I never reviewed Elemental. In fact, I was openly critical of it when it launched. I'd love to link to some of the stuff I wrote about it, but it's not online any longer. Thanks, Syfy! As for your other accusations, well, I disagree...

It does seem like increasing the cost of tech across the board would be the way to go, but I'd hesitate to do that without more data. Is this other people's experience as well, that research runs out by turn 400 for several factions when you play the game on standard settings? I've got a...

In this latest update, the Ix Spy Drone doesn't have any promotions. This means no suspensor travel and, as far as I can tell, no espionage missions. -Tom

I'm only just starting a game with the latest patch, but before that, I've only gotten two games into the late-game stages, and I wasn't able to get any sort of victory condition by then, so it just ran the clock out. Both times I was surprised at how quickly me and the dominant factions ran...

My problem with this, Ahriman, is that the game shouldn't run out of research options before it's over. To me, that's a fundamental tuning problem. So I'm wondering how best to get all nine factions on a map so that research doesn't stop being a factor 4/5s of the way into the game. Without...

So cool, Iain! You rock. Wait, no, actually you're a jerk. There are a bunch of other games I wanted to spend time with that I probably won't be playing now because I'm eager to try some of these changes. I like the sound of the revamped homeworld and the automated factory/research being an...

By the way, it seems that spice harvesters can't be nuked. I wasted a perfectly good atomic on a tile with a spice harvester, surrounded by tiles with spice harvesters. When what passed for a nuke effect had cleared, all the harvesters were still chugging along merrily. No fair! Great...

I suspect this has been discussed elsewhere, so apologies if I'm raising an issue that's already been addressed. My only full game -- where I played it out to its conclusion rather than throwing in the towel at some point -- was a custom game on a standard map size at the default game speed...

This seriously rocks. Can't wait to give it a try! -Tom

I *love* this part of Dune Wars! However, it's not clear in the Civilopedia, so I'm worried it's lost on most people learning the mod. Right now you have to sift through the espionage units' promotions to figure out the basic concept, and even then, there's no description of what the different...

I'm glad to see someone raising the issue of the AI on open desert. I just played a game in which I was entirely vulnerable out in the desert, with virtually no thopter coverage and nothing by way of suspensors. And my economy was almost solely spice driven. My spice harvesters should have...

Yeah, I can verify that interceptors loaded on suspensor carriers can't be set to intercept. I wasn't sure if that was something intentional or not, but I definitely noticed it. I haven't played nearly enough Dune Wars to be making balance recommendations, so I'm reluctant to suggest how to...

That does look nice, Deliverator! I won't miss having to mouse over contested desert to see whose side of the border gets a spice tile! And it still has that delicious look of coffee cake topping. -Tom