Spore questions thread

[SimonL]

I guess if you also have questions we can do a question thread or something. I have a few.

1) Let's say I'm in the Space Stage. Can I go back to any Stage before within the same game? I mean, I know I can start at any Stage, but if I do that, I don't have the previous Stage's "consequences of my actions". If I want to replay my Civilization Stage with the tools I had acquired in the first three Stages, can I do it? My girlfriend spent the whole morning acquiring every part and over 3000 DNA points in the Creature Age. Once she went to Tribe Age, can't she come back to fiddle with her points and parts ever again? ...

2) In Civilization Stage there's something unclear to me. In my first game I was religious. The first city, mine, was landlocked and surrounded by three warmongers and one economic. Since I was under fire so much, I thought I should rush to convert one of the military cities and keep it military. Am I wrong in thinking that if I'm constantly attacked by military vehicles I'm going to get owned? Or do they have the same power as the religious and economic? ... ... Anyway, I captured a military city and used its military vehicles to conquer other cities. This city was the only one with a port on the continent except another military city. Long story short, my only cities with sea access were military. That's when I quickly noticed that the game didn't ask me about the faith of newly captured cities once I had captured them (usually you can choose to keep them as they are, or convert them to your original alignment I think (religious for me). So... With only military cities having access to the sea, no way to convert them back to anything else, and not enough cities to create air vehicles... I was doomed to attack everybody else in the world..
Can we reconvert a city once it's been conquered?
Is it normal that once we capture a city militarily, that one stays military? I mean, it doesn't say that in the manual...

3) Can I restart a stage that I'm currently playing if it went down the drain? Like my current game I'm in Space Stage, getting owned. I want to restart with a new strategy while still being the same creature and still being a SHAMAN...

[SpurnSpore]

I am not sure(,I'm still in creature) but from what I can gather (from numerous threads) you can have multi space stage(empires)
you just start a new game.
I hope that's true cause I'im sure IF I get owned all the time I will scap it and try another game.

[Dale]

1) No. You can only proceed forwards on a planet. So you can't go back and "redo" a phase. But, you can start a new planet and use your creatures from the other planet to start from since they're in the pedia too.

2) It depends on what the city is, and how you conquered it. So, if you militarily conquer a trader city you can choose between those two. If you buy a religious city you can choose between those two. But if you take a city using the same means as the city is (eg: buy a trading city) you can't change it.

3) Not that I know of. If you haven't saved, when you come out hit "don't save". I know you can't go back to previous phases, but I'm pretty sure that's the same for restarting the level. But you can use your creature from the pedia to start a new planet from the start of the space phase.

[SimonL]

Originally Posted by Dale

1) No. You can only proceed forwards on a planet. So you can't go back and "redo" a phase. But, you can start a new planet and use your creatures from the other planet to start from since they're in the pedia too.

2) It depends on what the city is, and how you conquered it. So, if you militarily conquer a trader city you can choose between those two. If you buy a religious city you can choose between those two. But if you take a city using the same means as the city is (eg: buy a trading city) you can't change it.

3) Not that I know of. If you haven't saved, when you come out hit "don't save". I know you can't go back to previous phases, but I'm pretty sure that's the same for restarting the level. But you can use your creature from the pedia to start a new planet from the start of the space phase.

For your answers to question 1 and 3... The creatures from the pedia, do they also have in their "genes" the path that they have taken? (If I take my creature that is getting owned, and transplant it on a new planet, is it still going to be a "shaman"?).

[Dale]

I'm pretty sure that's a yes.

[Ball Lightning]

It should, yes.

[SpurnSpore]

Is creature stage supposed to be short? I have been there for near 4 hours?
yep evolving and collecting parts dying over and over, but always "find more parts" to evolve. I'm not complaining just maybe i am doing it wrong?

[Catharsis]

The manual says that in the Civ stage, you can heal your vehicles by 'simply moving them back to the city'... but how do you do that? I can't move my damaged vehicle anywhere without getting a red and white cross icon on the cursor.

Also, in case this doesn't work, is there any way of unlocking the Space stage without completing the Civ stage?

[Dale]

Move them next to the city walls, just outside. The health regain is in a small radius around the city.

[TyranusBonehead]

Originally Posted by SpurnSpore

Is creature stage supposed to be short? I have been there for near 4 hours?
yep evolving and collecting parts dying over and over, but always "find more parts" to evolve. I'm not complaining just maybe i am doing it wrong?

are you using the Pack feature?

this will help tremendously in the creature phase

[SimonL]

Originally Posted by Ball Lightning

It should, yes.

Maybe this is of interest here... See, when I go in "My Creations" and look at my creatures, you can see icons that show how the creature acted at each stage.



So I guess I can take that creature with these icons and transplant it and it'll keep its features that it has acquired in previous Stages.

However, when I look at YOUR creations, creatures I download on the internet, they never have these symbols. Does that mean I can't use one of your creatures, *and its acquired traits*, and transplant it to any stage of my game *with its traits* ?

[Krikkitone]

Wait... can you have multiple saves for this game?? it sounds like you can't?

[SimonL]

Originally Posted by Krikkitone

Wait... can you have multiple saves for this game?? it sounds like you can't?

Each planet is its own save. You can put any creature on any planet you want (well, one of the six random ones that the computer always frees up). This begs the question; if you put a creature on a planet and evolve it to civ stage or something, then start up another creature on another planet far away up to space age, can you travel with that latter creature and go visit the former? ...

[Dale]

No. That ones already been covered. Each slot has its own "galaxy".

[leonel]

If all the available planets to play on are filled up, how do you make more games without deleting saved games?

Also is there a way to mark a system that we can start a game on?

[Dale]

The game will create new empty planets. You will always have a minimum of 6.

[leonel]

That's cool but I wish I could just select which planet to play on. Kind of wanted to start on planet Earth.

[SimonL]

Question: In Space, does the "happy ray gun" do anything on people who are hostile to you? In my newer game I once again failed to keep peace around me at the beginning, I'm starting to hate this. I played that game on EASY too! So that I could enjoy space age. That made all the other ages WAY TOO EASY. I won Civ stage in 15 minutes.

1) I meet the guy and he tells me not to go on his territory, he's already "annoyed" with me.

2) He asks me for 168,000 dollars, I have 161,000... can't pay.

3) Some time passes, I can't go in his system to get mission or anything... Since he attacks me if I do.

4) He declares war on me.

5) I start getting attacks every 10-15 minutes, again... LET ME PLAY!

6) I buy the happy ray gun and go on their planets 10 times trying to shoot it at the ground, it doesn't do anything.

7) I gather money while fending their never ending attacks off. Once I have 700,000$ I go to their planet and sue for peace. I propose something like 600,000$. He says "that's not enough"! BUT STILL TAKES AWAY THE MONEY!?!? I'm left with like 70,000$. I checked diplomacy and my 600,000$ donation is considered "weak effort" and gives me a +4 diplo bonus with him. How is that supposed to do anything... Especially since I have a continual -100 from "you destroyed our ships" Oh did I? You're attacking me so I have to destroy them!

8) I guess I need better guns to attack him into submission, but to do that I need to... conquer stuff.... WARRRGGHHHHH

[OllyUK]

Personally I've never had other empires declare on me. I've declared war once and extinct that empire. I am classed as a "Shaman" so I get a +10 diplo bonus and have easily been able to get everyone I meet to friendly, even without paying any demands for money. Im on easy.

Originally Posted by SimonL

8) I guess I need better guns to attack him into submission, but to do that I need to... conquer stuff.... WARRRGGHHHHH

You don't need to conquer to expand, there are plenty of peaceful ways to expand, like settling unclaimed places or terraforming or getting a trade route then buying the system.

[emu]

How do you add extra joints on the arms and legs?